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

Drug Threat Overview

Mexican DTOs and criminal groups based in New Mexico are closely aligned with drug cartels in Mexico, providing local DTOs and criminal groups with large quantities of illicit drugs that they smuggle into the New Mexico HIDTA region for distribution. These DTOs and criminal groups have also forged relationships with street gangs, prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) that they supply with illicit drugs for retail distribution in communities throughout the HIDTA region.

The distribution and abuse of Mexican ice methamphetamine pose the principal illicit drug threats to the New Mexico HIDTA region. Local methamphetamine production is also problematic, but the magnitude of the threat is minimal in comparison with the distribution and abuse of Mexican ice methamphetamine. The distribution and abuse of cocaine, marijuana, and Mexican black tar heroin and, to a lesser extent, Mexican brown powder heroin also pose significant law enforcement challenges. Fifteen of the 29 respondents to the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) National Drug Threat Survey (NDTS) 2009 in the New Mexico HIDTA region report that ice methamphetamine is the greatest drug threat in their jurisdictions. The remainder report that powder cocaine (4), marijuana (3), powder methamphetamine (3), heroin (2), and crack cocaine (2) are the greatest drug threats in their jurisdictions. All of these respondents indicate that other drugs, including a variety of controlled prescription drugs (CPDs), are also problematic.3

Law enforcement officers assigned to New Mexico HIDTA task force initiatives seized more marijuana (95,190 kg) than any other illicit drug each year from 2004 through 2008. (See Table 1.) The 2008 marijuana seizure totals were significantly lower than 2007 amounts--a finding consistent with law enforcement reporting in the HIDTA region that attributes much of this decrease to the ongoing DTO conflicts in Juárez, which impeded the flow of marijuana and other illicit drugs (particularly cocaine and methamphetamine) through the El Paso/Juárez plaza.

Table 1. Illicit Drugs Seized in the New Mexico HIDTA Region, in Kilograms, 2004-2008

Source: New Mexico High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Performance Management Process Database.
* In dosage units
NA--Not available

The flow of other illicit drugs into the HIDTA region, including heroin, CPDs, and MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy), was not similarly impacted by cartel violence in Mexico; the quantities of each of these drugs that were reported seized by officers assigned to HIDTA task forces increased substantially in 2008. (See Table 1.) The increase in the amount of heroin seized can be explained in part by successful infiltration of some major Mexican heroin smuggling organizations by New Mexico law enforcement officials--a significant accomplishment because most heroin trafficking operations are close-knit, multigenerational family organizations that are difficult to penetrate. Another explanation for the increase in the amount of heroin seized in the New Mexico HIDTA region, particularly in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and the Espanola Valley area, is the increasing demand for and availability of the drug in these areas. This increase occurred at the same time that the demand for controlled prescription oxycodones,4 particularly OxyContin, increased. OxyContin and other CPDs are diverted in many different ways from a variety of sources, both in the United States and Mexico. MDMA availability is typically not associated with Mexico and/or Mexican DTOs; MDMA is usually smuggled from Canada to the region, often through western and midwestern states.

To Top      To Contents

Drug Trafficking Organizations

Highly sophisticated Mexican DTOs and criminal groups pose the most formidable law enforcement challenges to the New Mexico HIDTA region. New Mexico-based Mexican DTOs and criminal groups are closely aligned with the most significant DTOs in Mexico--principally the Juárez, Sinaloa, and Gulf Cartels. They successfully exploit these relationships to maintain control of illicit drug smuggling into the HIDTA region and wholesale distribution of these drugs locally and in markets outside the region in states such as Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. For example, Mexican DTOs based in Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Durango, Mexico, that control much of the heroin smuggling into New Mexico work closely with their counterparts in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, the Four Corners area, and the Espanola Valley area to smuggle wholesale quantities of heroin into the region for transshipment and further distribution. Similarly, members of Mexican DTOs in Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico, work closely with their counterparts in New Mexico to smuggle and distribute marijuana; Mexican DTOs from the state of Michoacán and their counterparts in Las Cruces and other New Mexico cities smuggle wholesale quantities of cocaine to and through the area for distribution.

Law enforcement officials supporting New Mexico HIDTA initiatives arrested members of 231 DTOs5 in 2008, down from 316 in 2007. Most of the arrests in 2008 involved Mexican (95) or Mexican American (55) criminals who ran international (60), multistate (66), or local (105) drug trafficking operations. Many of the criminals were polydrug traffickers who distributed more than one type of drug at a time, most often methamphetamine (127), cocaine (103), marijuana (90), heroin (23), CPDs (7), and/or MDMA (1).

Mexican DTOs and criminal groups often compartmentalize duties to ensure that their operations are tightly controlled. DTO members often have a strong sense of loyalty, particularly since many are family members or close friends. This loyalty makes detection by law enforcement more difficult. Although Mexican DTOs and criminal groups typically rely on well-established smuggling routes and techniques, they readily change routes and modify techniques to adapt to law enforcement actions. Additionally, Mexican DTOs and criminal groups have a low tolerance for disobedience by their members, particularly at the highest levels, and severely punish those individuals who are disloyal or disobey instructions.

Law enforcement reporting indicates that Mexican DTOs and criminal groups are exploiting school age children, typically by using children from Mexico who attend schools in the New Mexico HIDTA region to smuggle illicit drugs. For example, in 2008 a teenage boy who had smuggled illicit drugs from Mexico into New Mexico on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel was lured by another teenage boy into a remote area of New Mexico and shot to death on orders of the DTO for which he worked; he allegedly owed the cartel money.

Mexican DTOs have also forged associations with members of street gangs, prison gangs, and OMGs to facilitate the distribution of illicit drugs in the HIDTA region. A number of street and prison gangs smuggle, transport, and/or distribute illicit drugs and commit violent crimes in the New Mexico HIDTA region; however, their drug operations generally are more limited than those of Mexican DTOs and local Mexican criminal groups. When gangs smuggle illicit drugs from Mexico into New Mexico, they often do so at the request or with the approval of Mexican DTO members. Some of the most noteworthy gangs active in New Mexico are the Barrio Azteca prison gang (most prominent in El Paso and Las Cruces), West Siders (from Sunland Park, New Mexico), Los Carnales and SNM prison gangs and Los Sureños and Juaritos street gangs (from central New Mexico), 72 Gang (from Colonia Anapra, Chihuahua), Los Demonos (from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua), Memphis Boys, Los Padillas, and Servalle Pajarito (south of Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, Mexico).

Footnotes

End of page.