by Mark Stevenson, Associated Press
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico’s recent drug busts have surpassed America’s anti-drug efforts and contributed to a drop in cocaine purity, a potential increase in drug prices and cash problems for traffickers, U.S. drug czar John Walters said Thursday.
The arrests this year of suspected drug lords Benjamin Arellano Felix and Jesus Albino Quintero, among others, set “a tempo and magnitude of disruption, arrests of organizations that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before in any country,” Walters said after meeting with President Vicente Fox.
“They’re ahead of us in attacking the problem,” he said, suggesting that Mexico achieved more success by disrupting many drug gangs at once rather than by tracking down dealers one group at a time like U.S. police.
The Mexican police crackdown has caused cartels here to downsize and given them such cash-flow problems that their Colombian suppliers no longer extend credit for drug shipments, but now demand cash up front.
To raise that cash, Mexican traffickers have focused on moving quicker and larger shipments of marijuana into the United States and apparently selling drugs on Mexican streets.
Walters compared the “historic” Mexican crackdown to the four-year Colombian manhunt that ended in drug lord Pablo Escobar’s 1993 killing by Colombian police supported by U.S. intelligence services and - reportedly - U.S. special forces.
Walters argued for widening the U.S. drug battle, calling Colombian rebels and paramilitaries “criminal gangs” and advocating a joint U.S.-Colombia battle against them, similar to the campaign that killed Escobar.
Walters also wants rebel groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and paramilitaries like the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, treated like Escobar was.
He said the distinction between the groups’ dual designations as drug trafficking organizations and terrorist groups was “silly.”
Congress has approved aid to Colombia for anti-drug operations, but tried to avoid U.S. involvement in the country’s guerrilla conflict.
Walters advocated treating the groups the same way as the Medellin and Cali cartels were treated.
“Once they’re a drug trafficking organization we can cooperate in attacking this because it’s a threat against both Colombia and the United States - appropriate bounds for U.S. aid,” he said.
Walters said U.S. precautions against terrorism have helped in the fight against drugs, even with something as simple as increased surveillance of mail.
“There are signs that there has been a disruption in some parts of the United States of heroin shipments, keyed to the mail,” he said. “They had probably been coming in through packages and mail.”