Strategic Drug Threat Developments

• Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are now expanding their transportation and distribution networks in eastern Missouri, particularly in the St. Louis metropolitan area, an area within the HIDTA where they had previously maintained minimal presence.
• An increasing Mexican population within the area has facilitated the control that Mexican DTOs maintain over drug trafficking and has enabled them to use small communities in the Midwest HIDTA region with large Hispanic populations--such as Dodge City, Garden City, Great Bend, and Liberal, Kansas; Joplin, Monett, and southwestern Missouri; and Fremont, Grand Island, Lexington, and Norfolk, Nebraska--as transit hubs for larger markets.
• State pseudoephedrine control laws together with law enforcement and public awareness programs have contributed to reduced domestic methamphetamine production since mid-2005. Some local methamphetamine production continues, however, placing citizens and law enforcement at risk.
• Local methamphetamine producers are exploiting the region's lack of centralized reporting on pseudoephedrine purchases by buying pseudoephedrine in quantities at or below state thresholds from multiple pharmacies until they obtain enough to produce methamphetamine.
• Powder cocaine is becoming increasingly available in several Midwest HIDTA markets. Traditional crack cocaine distributors in some areas are now selling powder cocaine to users with instructions on how users can convert the powder into crack. The distributor can therefore avoid stiffer penalties associated with crack distribution. Also, several local law enforcement agencies report that teenagers and young adults are increasingly abusing powder cocaine.
• The distribution of white heroin in St. Louis is increasing; the level of white heroin distribution in the city is now equivalent to that of Mexican black tar heroin. Most white heroin samples have tested as South American heroin; some have tested as Southwest Asian.
• Kansas City and St. Louis have emerged as significant transshipment centers for cocaine, Mexican ice methamphetamine, and marijuana smuggled by Mexican DTOs to primary drug markets in the Northeast Region, including New York.

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HIDTA Overview

The Midwest HIDTA region consists of 74 counties spread across six states.¹ (See Figure 1 in Preface.) The Midwest HIDTA counties are located in the central United States between western and eastern drug markets; they are connected by an extensive transportation infrastructure that renders the HIDTA a significant transshipment area for drug traffickers. Most major interstate highways in the northern United States pass through and intersect in the Midwest HIDTA region, facilitating the transportation of illicit drugs from the U.S.-Mexico (Southwest) border and, to a lesser extent, from the U.S.-Canada (Northern) border to drug markets throughout the United States. The region's primary markets² (Kansas City, Omaha, and St. Louis) and secondary markets (Cedar Rapids and Des Moines, Iowa; Fargo/Grand Forks, North Dakota; Sioux City, Iowa/Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Springfield, Missouri; and Wichita, Kansas) serve as distribution centers for major U.S. drug markets as well as smaller rural counties in the HIDTA. The increasing distribution of Mexican ice methamphetamine and the widespread abuse of crack cocaine and associated violence are the primary drug threats in these market areas.

Most illicit drugs used in and transported through the Midwest HIDTA region enter the United States from the Southwest Border. Mexican DTOs transport substantial quantities of ice methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and heroin across the Southwest Border to distribution hubs in Arizona (Tucson and Phoenix), California (Los Angeles), and Texas (Dallas, McAllen, and El Paso). The drug shipments are usually commingled with legitimate goods in tractor-trailers and transported along interstate highways to and through the Midwest HIDTA region. Mexican traffickers also use private and rental vehicles and virtually all U.S. highways, state highways, and local roads to transport drugs from the Southwest Border into and through the HIDTA region.

The Midwest HIDTA region's border with Canada is also an entry point for drugs available in the area. North Dakota and Canada share a 300-mile-long border with 18 official land ports of entry (POEs). (See Figure 2 in Transportation section.) These POEs, along with a number of unofficial crossing points in the rural and isolated areas between POEs, provide drug smugglers with the opportunity to transport Canadian marijuana, MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy), and methamphetamine precursors such as pseudoephedrine into and through the HIDTA region.

Mexican DTOs and criminal groups control the transportation and wholesale distribution of methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana in the area. Members of Mexican DTOs and criminal groups have hidden themselves within growing Mexican communities in suburban and urban areas in an attempt to avoid law enforcement detection and to expand their drug distribution networks. African American and, to a lesser extent, Hispanic street gangs control retail drug distribution in the Midwest HIDTA metropolitan areas and contribute to violent crime in those areas (see Table 1 in Outlook section). Local independent dealers are the principal retail distributors in the Midwest HIDTA rural areas.

End Notes

1. The six states are Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota.
2. Primary markets serve as significant transshipment and distribution centers for illicit drugs supplied to markets in multiple regions of the country. Secondary markets supply illicit drugs to smaller markets within a state or neighboring states.

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