Replies to post #298478 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

El Chapo trial shows why a wall won’t stop drugs from crossing the US-Mexico border

"El Chapo v El Vicentillo: son of cartel's co-founder testifies against drug lord"

January 16, 2019 6.23pm EST

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American demand

The Sinaloa cartel didn’t become the world’s biggest supplier of illicit drugs by coincidence. It has flourished because the United States is the world’s biggest consumer .. https://www.unodc.org/wdr2016/interactive-map.html .. of illicit drugs.

Mexican cartels serve Americans’ “insatiable demand for illegal drugs,” as Hillary Clinton once said .. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/world/americas/26mexico.html .

Despite President Donald Trump’s focus on Mexican drug traffickers, his former chief of staff, John Kelly, has admitted .. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/kelly-us-must-get-business-drug-demand-reduction .. that the U.S. is part of the problem.

“We’re not even trying,” he told Congress in 2017, calling for more drug-demand reduction programs.

Kelly added that Latin American countries chide American authorities for “lecturing [them] about not doing enough to stop the drug flow” while the U.S. does nothing to “stop the demand.”

Trump’s wall

Trump’s continued insistence on securing the southern border with a wall seems to disregard the economic forces driving the drug trade and diminish Mexican cartels’ innovative distribution strategies .. https://theconversation.com/the-wall-and-the-beast-trumps-triumph-from-the-mexican-side-of-the-border-68559 .

A high-tech border fence constructed in Arizona long before Trump’s inauguration has proven virtually useless in stopping drugs from crossing into the U.S.: Mexican smugglers just use a catapult to fling hundred-pound bales of marijuana over to the American side.

“We’ve got the best fence money can buy,” former DEA chief Michael Brown said to The New York Times in 2012, “and they counter us with a 2,500-year-old technology.”

Then there’s the other ancient technology perfected by Guzmán: the tunnel .. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/03/underworld-monte-reel .

Officials have discovered about 180 cleverly disguised illicit passages under the U.S.-Mexico border. Many, like the one Guzmán used to escape prison, are equipped with electricity, ventilation and elevators.

Trump has admitted that anyone could use “a rope” to climb over his wall, but believes that more border guards and drone technology would prevent infiltration.


A Sinaloa cartel tunnel used for smuggling drugs from Tijuana to California. Reuters/Mexican Federal Police

Corruption in the US

Corruption is not an exclusively Mexican trait ..
https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/2019/01/16/naranjo-en-la-nomina-de-narcos-de-colombia-antes-de-ser-asesor-de-epn-5221.html .

Over the past decade some 200 employees and contractors from the Department of Homeland Security have accepted nearly $15 million in bribes to look the other way as drugs were smuggled across the border into the United States, The New York Times .. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/us/homeland-security-border-bribes.html?_r=0 .. has reported.

Some U.S. officials have also given sensitive law enforcement information to cartels members, according to the Times.

“Almost no evidence about corrupt American officials has been allowed at [El Chapo’s] trial,” New York Times reporter Alan Feuer said recently on Twitter ..

Almost no evidence about corrupt American officials has been allowed at the trial.
Alex's information is allegedly second-hand but if it gets in, it would be the first time the jury heard that US law enforcement and intelligence operatives were complicit in the drug trade.

— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) January 9, 2019

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With all links - https://theconversation.com/el-chapo-trial-shows-why-a-wall-wont-stop-drugs-from-crossing-the-us-mexico-border-110001

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The “smarter” wall: how drones, sensors, and AI are patrolling the border

Here’s what a so-called “smart wall” of technology at the US-Mexico border looks like.

By Shirin Ghaffary May 16, 2019, 7:00am EDT
Graphics by Javier Zarracina/Vox

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/16/18511583/smart-border-wall-drones-sensors-ai

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U.S. DEA: Border Wall or No, Drone Drug Smuggling Likely to Increase

By Frank Wolfe | January 10, 2019
Send Feedback | @fwolfe18

https://www.rotorandwing.com/2019/01/10/u-s-dea-border-wall-no-drone-drug-smuggling-likely-increase/

Both sides have a double-D fix. Drugs. And Drones.