Outlook

Mexican DTOs' influence over the North Florida HIDTA drug market will most likely increase during the next year as they expand their trafficking operations into additional markets within the HIDTA region. Over the past several years, Mexican DTOs have been expanding and strengthening their networks throughout the region. This expansion can be expected to continue as these organizations search for new or previously underdeveloped markets to exploit.

Mexican DTOs in the region will increasingly obtain drug supplies from other Mexican DTOs operating in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Atlanta-based Mexican DTOs have been supplying an increasing amount of drugs to wholesale and retail distributors in the southeastern United States, including those in northern Florida; these distributors previously received most of their drug supplies directly from Mexican DTOs along the Southwest Border or from non-Mexican traffickers in South Florida. The Atlanta-based DTOs have "pushed out" other suppliers and are now well-positioned to supply increased quantities of illicit drugs in support of Mexican DTO expansion within the HIDTA region.

The distribution of powder and crack cocaine will remain the primary drug threat in the foreseeable future. However, if a significant disruption were to occur in the cocaine supply to Jacksonville or if a significant relocation of existing methamphetamine distributors or abusers to the region from adjacent areas were to occur, ice methamphetamine distribution and abuse would inevitably increase.

In the near term, the North Florida HIDTA region will most likely realize an overall increase in the production and distribution of high-potency marijuana produced at local indoor grow sites. Marijuana abuse is widespread in the HIDTA region, and now that this established market of abusers has been exposed to a high-potency, preferable product, the drug's popularity will certainly climb.

Since traffickers are beginning to launder illicit proceeds through real estate ventures, it is likely that real estate money laundering schemes encountered by law enforcement officials in other HIDTA regions may eventually be used in the North Florida HIDTA region. One such scheme involves the purchase of residential dwellings and their use as rental properties. Under this scheme, traffickers report drug proceeds as rent in addition to rent that they receive from legitimate tenants. Another scheme involves traffickers' purchases of property that is immediately sold, or "flipped," at substantially increased prices to associates, who obtain mortgages to purchase the property. In this scenario, the dealers receive the profit from the property sale, seemingly legitimizing drug proceeds as income from real estate investments, while the associates typically default on the loan, leaving banks with properties worth much less than the amounts borrowed against them.

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