National Drug Intelligence Center   New Mexico High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2009   April 2009

Distribution

Mexican DTOs and criminal groups control the wholesale distribution of illicit drugs in the New Mexico HIDTA region. (See Table 3.) They supply illicit drugs to distributors within the region and in many other drug markets throughout the country, including Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago; Cleveland, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Las Vegas, Nevada; Memphis, Tennessee; Miami, Florida; New York, New York; Omaha, Nebraska; Phoenix; Salt Lake City, Utah; Seattle, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Yakima, Washington; and Washington, D.C. These transactions are facilitated through well-established relationships with close friends and family members and associations with other traffickers in these markets.

Table 3. Wholesale-Level Drug Distributors in the New Mexico HIDTA Region

Source: New Mexico High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Drug traffickers often prearrange their drug transactions--with both suppliers and customers--using standard phones, multiple cell phones, direct-connect devices, mobile phones, prepaid telephones, push-to-talk telephones, satellite phones, the Internet, and two-way radios. They frequently discontinue service for their cell phones and replace them (sometimes every few weeks) to avoid law enforcement interdiction. Traffickers typically use several communication methods when coordinating individual aspects of the same drug transactions. For example, they may text-message a picture of a meeting place, use the Internet to identify a date and/or time for the transaction, and use a cell phone to describe the color/make/model of a transport vehicle. The text-messaging of photographs is extremely challenging for law enforcement officers, who have historically traced only verbal communications between traffickers. Traffickers are fully aware of law enforcement intercept capabilities and usually make out-of-country calls on digitally encrypted phones. Although DTOs and street gang members have coordinated drug transactions using cell phones for years, this communication method reportedly has recently gained popularity among prison gang members who are smuggling cell phones into prisons to further their criminal enterprises. In addition, gang members are "netbagging" (using the Internet and social web sites) to promote their gang cultures and attract new members for drug trafficking and other illicit purposes.

Local Mexican traffickers and African American and Hispanic street gangs are the primary retail distributors of powder and crack cocaine, Mexican black tar and brown powder heroin, marijuana, and ice methamphetamine in the New Mexico HIDTA region. Caucasian criminal groups and independent dealers, prison gangs, OMGs, and other criminal groups and independent dealers also distribute illicit drugs at the retail level in the region, albeit on a smaller scale. (See Table 4.)

Table 4. Retail-Level Drug Distributors in the New Mexico HIDTA Region

Source: New Mexico High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Drug-Related Crime

Many DTOs in the New Mexico HIDTA region also engage in other crimes, including alien smuggling, auto theft, kidnapping, murder, and weapons smuggling to further their criminal enterprises and generate illicit proceeds. DTOs assault and murder rival traffickers and individuals who cannot pay their drug debts. A significant portion of this violence occurs in Mexico; however, some of the violence has already spread into New Mexico. For example, in January 2009, members of a rival DTO shot and killed a drug trafficker in a remote area of Silver City, New Mexico, for failure to pay a drug debt. The wife of another drug trafficker who owed a drug debt was also murdered; her body was discovered a week later near that same location. Many of these violent traffickers obtain firearms by burglarizing businesses, private homes, and vehicles in the New Mexico HIDTA region. Additionally, some Mexican DTOs are generating extra income through home invasion robberies in New Mexico communities. In the summer of 2008, central New Mexico experienced a spike in home invasions (six home invasions in a 2-month period) targeting Mexican households with suspected drug trafficking ties.

Street and prison gang members also commit high levels of violent crime in the New Mexico HIDTA region, including assault, murder, robbery, theft, and witness intimidation. Most of these crimes are attributed to turf battles over drug distribution territories. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the New Mexico Gang Task Force, much of the violence committed in New Mexico is attributed primarily to drug-related activities involving gangs. However, no agency collects gang-related crime statistics by county in the HIDTA region.

Many drug abusers in the New Mexico HIDTA region--particularly methamphetamine abusers--commit property crimes and identity theft to acquire money to purchase their illicit drug supplies. According to statistics from the Federal Trade Commission, in 2007 (the latest year for which data are available), New Mexico ranked ninth in the number of identity theft victims--with 1,732 victims, or 87.5 victims per 100,000 residents. Approximately 75 percent of victims' complaints involved employment-related fraud, credit card fraud, bank fraud (checking and savings accounts and electronic funds), phone or utility fraud, and government documents or benefits fraud.

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