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

Strategic Drug Threat Developments

• 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.
   
• Some New Mexico-based drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are rerouting some drug shipments that they traditionally shipped from Mexico through Texas to new smuggling routes through Arizona and, to a lesser extent, California because of intense law enforcement pressure and high levels of violence in the El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Mexico, plaza.1
   
• Mexican DTOs and criminal groups are using children from Mexico who attend school in the New Mexico HIDTA region to smuggle drugs from Mexico into New Mexico.
   
• More methamphetamine laboratories were seized in New Mexico HIDTA counties in 2008 than in 2007, quite likely the result of decreased availability of ice methamphetamine produced in Mexico.
   
• Mexican DTOs use any means to smuggle illicit drugs into the region from Mexico; recently they have begun to use low-flying aircraft, such as ultralights, to transport illicit drugs into New Mexico.

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HIDTA Overview

The New Mexico HIDTA region is composed of 16 counties--seven in northern New Mexico and nine in southern New Mexico (see Figure 1 in Preface)--and has a population of more than 1.6 million. U.S. Census data indicate that nearly 50 percent of the population resides in either Bernalillo County (615,099 residents) or Dona Ana County (193,888); other significant population centers are the counties of Santa Fe (142,407), San Juan (126,473), and Sandoval (113,772). Albuquerque is New Mexico's largest city, with approximately 504,949 residents; other major cities are Farmington, Las Cruces, Roswell, and Santa Fe. (See Figure 2.) Although the population in New Mexico, and in the HIDTA region specifically, is relatively small, the region's proximity to Mexico and transportation infrastructure, as well as the presence of well-established DTOs with direct links to Mexican cartels, ensure its role as a principal drug smuggling area and transshipment and distribution center for illicit drugs available in the HIDTA region and many other U.S. drug markets. For example, New Mexico-based Mexican traffickers supply drug markets in Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.

Figure 2. New Mexico HIDTA Region Transportation Infrastructure

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Note: Populations are from U.S. Census Bureau Census 2000 data.

Southwestern New Mexico--specifically Hidalgo, Luna, and Dona Ana Counties--shares a 180-mile border with Mexico. More than half the length of this border is desolate public land that contains innumerable footpaths, roads, and trails. Additionally, many ranches are located along the border. These factors and minimal law enforcement coverage make the area an ideal smuggling corridor for drugs and other illicit goods and services--primarily alien smuggling into the United States and weapons and bulk cash smuggling into Mexico. Mexican DTOs smuggle multihundred-kilogram quantities of illicit drugs through this portion of the HIDTA region annually. Smaller quantities of illicit drugs are smuggled from Mexico through Texas into the HIDTA region, a significant change from the last 2 years, when Texas was the preferred route for illicit drug smuggling into New Mexico. Intense law enforcement pressure and high levels of violence over the last 2 years, principally in the El Paso/Juárez plaza, have resulted in many New Mexico-based DTOs' rerouting some of their drug shipments through Arizona and, to a lesser extent, California for further transport to Albuquerque and Las Cruces as well as to the Four Corners, Espanola Valley, and southeastern regions of the HIDTA region. (See Figure 2.) For example, U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers seized significantly more heroin at the Nogales port of entry (POE) in 2008 than they had in previous years, a development they attribute to a shift in heroin smuggling routes away from Juárez in favor of the Sonora corridor, where levels of violence and law enforcement presence are comparatively minimal.2 Once the drugs reach New Mexico areas, shipments typically are divided into smaller quantities and transshipped and/or distributed throughout New Mexico and to other locations throughout the United States.

Interstates 10, 25, and 40; many major U.S. highways; and secondary and tertiary roadways traverse New Mexico, connecting it to major drug markets throughout the country. For example, I-25 extends from the U.S.-Mexico border in New Mexico to Colorado, while Interstates 10 and 40 connect the HIDTA region to drug markets in Arizona, California, Oklahoma, and Texas, and as far east as Florida. The highway infrastructure is conducive to private and commercial transit, which plays a significant role in the New Mexico economy. (See Figure 2.) As a result, the flow of illicit drugs to and through the HIDTA region is significant. The New Mexico Motor Transportation Division (MTD) alone seized 19,187 kilograms of illicit drugs in 2008--an amount that does not account for the significant quantities of illicit drugs seized by other law enforcement entities in the HIDTA region or the amount that is successfully transported to and through the area. Commercial motor vehicle carriers, buses, trains, commercial and private aircraft, package delivery services, and mail services also are used by traffickers to smuggle illicit drugs to and through the area, to varying degrees.

Footnotes

1. Plazas are specific cities or geographic locations along the U.S.-Mexico border that are used to smuggle illicit drugs from Mexico into the United States.
2. The state of Sonora, Mexico, is just south of the Nogales port of entry (POE) in Arizona, through which increasing quantities of heroin are smuggled and appear to be destined for stash houses in the Phoenix, Arizona, area--an active staging area for Mexican black tar and brown powder heroin, much of which is transshipped to New Mexico.

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