PROFESSOR CONSTANTINE'S BRILLIANT ESSAY
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Law Enforcement Challenges for the Next Century by The Honorable Thomas A. Constantine Administrator United States Drug Enforcement Administration  (This article is adapted from a paper presented at the United Nations Drug
Control Program Seminar in Vienna, Austria, January, 1999.)(The author wishes to express his grateful appreciation to Terry O'Neill, J.D. of
Albany, New York for his editorial and research assistance in preparing this work for publication.)ABOUT THE AUTHOR Thomas A. Constantine was appointed by President William Jefferson Clinton
to serve as Administrator of DEA in March, 1994. Mr. Constantine began his career in law enforcement
as an Erie County, NY deputy sheriff in 1960. In 1962, he was appointed a member of the New York State
Police. Over the next thirty-four years, Mr. Constantine rose through the ranks of the state police, serving
in every rank. While working full-time and supporting a growing family, Mr. Constantine completed his
undergraduate studies at Buffalo State College. In 1971, he was among the first members of the state
police to earn a masters degree at the Graduate School of Criminal Jusice of the State University of New
York. Governor Mario M. Cuomo nominated him for the post of superintendent of state police on December
10, 1986. He was the first superintendent in over thirty years to have come up through the ranks. Mr.
Constantine served for seven years in that post until his appointment to head DEA. As superintendent,
he increased educational requirements for newly appointed troopers, established a masters degree
program for members of the state police, created the Community Narcotics Enforcement Teams, established
the Lt. Col. Henry F. Williams Homicide Investigation Seminar, and presided over an increase in state
police narcotics enforcement activity that generated enough revenue in seized criminal assets to fund
a new, state-of-the-art Forensic Investigative Center for the state police. Terry O'Neill is a graduate of Albany Law School. For the past fifteen years, he
has been involved in New York's criminal justice system in wide range of capacities. He has specialized
in the creation of statutory programs and not-for-profit entities that address issues of crime and drug abuse
prevention, crime against the elderly, missing and exploited children and the rights of crime victims. In the
early 1990's he worked alongside Mr. Constantine's state troopers in a successful effort to organize an
indigenous police force for the Mohawk Indian Nation. He is a former speechwriter to Governor Mario M.
Cuomo and his Director of Criminal Justice. Mr. O'Neill is also the author of a children's book called
Constantine's Circus inspired by the exploits of the man he refers to as "the world's greatest cop."Introduction I was greatly honored to have been asked to contribute to a journal of this caliber.
Although I have had the immense privelege of being one of the first in my profession to have been able to
do graduate work in the field of Criminal Justice, I will not represent that I have yet time for the broader
study and deeper reflection that other contributors to and readers of this respected journal have done.
Nonetheless, I believe that I can speak with some authority for all of the law enforcement professionals
in the United States and abroad who have been on the front lines in our common struggle against the
metasticizing cancer of international organized drug trafficking and violent crime. Indeed, I believe I must
speak on behalf of "practitioners" in our field to help build a bridge of commonality and cooperation
between men and women of action and men and women of reflection and insight. The contributions of
both are equally essential in developing the means of eventually controlling this terrible threat to our
society, its institutions and our families.My career as a law enforcement officer began in 1960, barely two years after
the celebrated Appalachin organized crime raid in a tiny, rural village in upstate New York exposed to
the American people for the first time the reality, scope, breadth, arrogance and frightening power of
the criminal conspiracies that had become by then well-entrenched in American society. It also began
at the very inception of the scourge of illicit drug abuse and trafficking that became established as an
enduring and endemic social pathology during that turbulent decade. For forty years, it has been my
professional duty to serve with the legions of brave and selfless law enforcement professionals on the
front lines in our struggle against these increasingly intertwined evils and it came in time to be my
privilege to serve in executive capacities where I played a role in designing and implementing the
strategies necessary to defend our communities from them.So, in this article, I am more accurately and personally "speaking memory" and
reporting what the Drug Enforcement Administration and its federal, foreign, state and local allies have
been experiencing in the field rather than making at this point in time a formal contribution to the body
of scholarship that has made our relatively young field of Criminal Justice the fastest growing field of
intellectual endeavor in contemporary Liberal Arts. I look forward to the day when I will be able to make
my own contribution to the enduring literature of our field; but for now, I offer this dispatch from the front
in hope that it will help all of us to put our challenges and our triumphs in perspective as we attend to
the task at hand.The world has been transformed during the past thirty years due to rapidly
advancing technology, transportation, communications, and political and economic shifts. All of this
became even more evident with the end of the Cold War, with the resultant dominant position of the
United States and the transformation of the former Soviet Union from a monolithic power to a congeries
of turbulent new nations that do not necessarily have control over their borders. Expanding trade and
greater economic interdependence between the United States and the other nations of North and South
America and the Caribbean have created new opportunities both for prosperity and crime, emphatically
including drug trafficking. These conditions have created an international environment in which powerful
international organized crime syndicates have flourished, establishing vast networks of production,
distribution and laundering of illicit profits. (Flynn, 1993). For law enforcement, the conditions are the
most daunting in history; but I will show, nonetheless, that there is ample precedent to support the
argument that vigorous, sustained and well-coordinated law enforcement can have a major impact
on international organized crime and drug trafficking, no matter how sophisticated, lavishly equipped
and well-insulated it becomes, particularly when the top leadership of these syndicates is identified,
isolated and neutralized. In fact, I will demonstrate that law enforcement has been empirically proven
in very recent history to have had a major impact on controlling and reducing the communal violence
that has become so closely associated with international organized crime and drug trafficking.The American Mafia and Drugs Before 1970 Well before the advent of today's drug pandemic and the attendant infiltration
of organized criminal enterprises into almost every American community, our policy-makers were
deeply concerned about the impact that organized crime was having on our nation. Over the past
eighty-five years, the United States government repeatedly initiated major studies or reviews to identify
major organized crime groups and gain insight into how these organizations operated. The fact that
organized crime controls the distribution of drugs has been substantiated repeatedly in the findings of
U.S. Government inquiries over the past five decades. During the 1950's, organized crime burst upon the scene in a historic series of
Congressional hearings. United States Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee convened a Congressional
committee in 1950 to investigate the links between interstate commerce and organized crime. (Moore, 1974).
These hearings, at which the star witness was mobster Frank Costello, boss of the Luciano/Genovese
organization, reached the American people through the new medium of television. For the first time,
organized crime was graphically exposed. Television beamed into American homes the lurid spectacle
of its involvement in prostitution, drug trafficking, extortion and public corruption.In 1957, a starker and more chilling portrait of organized crime emerged in hearings
sponsored by the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field,
chaired by Arkansas Senator John McClellan. Even as this committee was in the initial stages of its
inquiry, the existence of organized crime, or the mafia, was most spectaculary confirmed by an investigation
initiated by a New York state trooper, Edgar Croswell. Trooper Croswell uncovered a meeting of mafia
leaders in the upstate New York village of Appalachin where mob leaders had met to carve up a variety
of illicit enterprises, including the drug trade, and end a period of violent conflict among mafia families.
(Tyler, 1962; State of New York, 1992).During 1963, Senator McClellan sponsored a series of hearings which clearly
exposed the vitality of the American mafia and documented its highly organized hierarchical structure
and strict code of organizational conduct, violations of which were punished with extreme brutality
and murder. (Hess, 1973). Joseph Valachi, a federal convict and an admitted low-level member of
the Genovese crime family, testified in vivid and minute detail on his day-to-day life in organized crime
in a first-time-ever public account of life as a soldier of La Cosa Nostra, including its rites of initiation.
(Maas, 1968). These televised hearings brought home to average Americans the savage violence and
intimidation routinely used by the mafia to further and protect its criminal enterprises.The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Justice, established in
1967, arrived at a definition of organized crime as "a society in itself that seeks to operate outside the
control of the American people and their Government. It involves thousands of criminals working within
structures as large and complex as those of any business corporation." Despite the facts that this
definition was written over thirty years ago and that the organizations then under investigation are
today largely dead and gone, it still accurately describes the essential nature of the new organized
crime enterprises that we face today. (Blumenthal, 1988).As Government commissions delved into the inner workings of the American
mafia, millions of average people learned how it was structured and how it operated. Critical to the
success of the mafia was its tight hierarchical structure, held together by loyalty, fear and profit. At
the top level was a boss, or head of the family; next, an underboss;
then a consigliere, or an advisor;
then a capo who oversaw the day to day work of the organization; and then an army
of soldiers, who
executed the commands of the bosses and carried out the criminal activities of the group.
(Cressey, 1969). The American mafia was controlled by twenty-four families, all of whom lived and
operated within the United States. Their day-to-day activities included racketeering, prostitution,
gambling, drugs, murders for hire, intimidation and protection rackets. (Anderson, 1979).To understand the scale of organized crime during the 1960's and 1970's,
consider that New York's Genovese family alone employed as many as twenty capos and 450 soldiers.
Violence and intimidation were a routine part of the mafia's inner workings, including the routine use
of murder to protect the organization and assassination to cow and intimidate public officials. The
role of violence and intimidation was well-illustrated at the 1963 McClellan hearings and amplified
twenty-three years later by the 1986 President's Commission on Organized Crime. In its final report,
the commission wrote: "Violence and the threat of violence are an integral part of the criminal group.
Both are used as means of control and protection against both members of the group who violate their
commitment and those outside the group to protect it and maximize its power. Members are expected
to commit, condone or authorize violent acts."The Commission also noted the propensity for organized crime to breed corruption
and flourish in an environment of corrupt officials. "Corruption is the central tool of the criminal protectors.
The criminal group relies on a network of corrupt officials to protect the group from the criminal justice
system. The success of organized crime is dependent upon this buffer, which helps to protect the criminal
group from both civil and criminal government action." Violence, intimidation and corruption continue today
to be essential tools used by international organized crime ---particularly the powerful drug syndicates
operating from Colombia and Mexico---to secure and maintain their dominant positions in the world today.Organized Crime Involvement in Drug Trafficking There came a time when organized crime and the pathology of abuse of illicit drugs
converged with historic consequences. To fully grasp the nature and scale of this phenomenon, a brief
overview of the history of America's drug problem is necessary. The United States began its efforts to
control the abuse of narcotics and other drugs very early in the Twentieth Century in response to society's
realization that addiction was a growing problem with serious social and criminal consequences. (Musto,
1973). At that point, no one knew its size. With government controls established, reporting began. Early on
drug addiction was assigned at the federal, state and local levels to social service agencies. Gradually, as
the nexus between drug abuse and criminal activity began to be recognized, federal law enforcement
agencies became involved in compiling and reporting statistics on addiction levels. The Federal Bureau
of Narcotics (FBN), a predecessor agency of the Drug Enforcement Administration, gathered statistics
on drug addiction during the mid 1950's. By 1957, the FBN estimated that there were over 44,000 addicts
in the United States, although many experts believed the number was closer to 100,000.In 1957, most addicts were African-Americans between the ages of 21 and 30. By
1966, the demographics of drug use had changed. Of nearly 60,000 addicts reported by FBN, half were white.
Over 50% of these addicts lived in New York, 12% in California, 11% in Illinois and the remainder spread
around the country.A snapshot of the drug situation in Baltimore, Maryland in 1950 compared with
1997 illustrates how the drug addiction problem has exploded over the years. In 1950, Baltimore had 300
addicts out of a municipal population of 949,708; that is to say that one in 3166 individuals residing in
Baltimore was a heroin addict. In 1997, 38,985 heroin addicts were reported in Baltimore -- one heroin addict
for every 17 residents of the city.While the type of drug used by these addicts was not specified in FBN reporting, the
predominant drug of choice at the time was heroin. (Courtwright, 1982). Since the majority of documented
addicts was in the New York City area, it is no surprise that the five mafia families of New York controlled
the heroin market. In fact, their control included 20 major cities around the nation. Reporting on the heroin
situation during the 1950's-1970's, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement in 1986 stated: "The
LCN (La Cosa Nostra) controlled an estimated 95% of all of the heroin entering New York City, as well as
most of the heroin distributed throughout the United States."During the heyday of their control of heroin trafficking, New York's crime families
obtained heroin from Corsican sources who conspired with French seamen to bring the heroin to the United
States. Once imported, it was distributed by the organized crime families to dealers working in low-income,
minority communities. At the time, that was the market. During the 1950's, heroin sold for $100-$250 per
ounce in New York City. In those days, heroin was typically pure but diluted or "cut" with inert agents to
increase the amount that could be sold on the street. The New York mafia paid their Corsican sources
$3,000-$6000 per kilogram which then sold on the New York wholesale market for $12,000-$22,000. Today,
high purity Colombian heroin sells for $75,000 to $125,000 per kilogram on the wholesale market and $6000
per ounce at the retail level. (Lamour, 1974).Changes in the heroin trade between the 1950's and the late 1970's resulted in new
sources of heroin available on the streets of the United States and paved the way for the introduction of
cocaine during the seventies. After the French Connection was broken up and the American mob's source
of supply diminished, New York was no longer the focus of drug trafficking activities. (Moore, 1969). In 1986,
the President's Commission on Organized Crime reported that the mafia's monopoly on heroin distribution
effectively ended in 1972 when, under intense diplomatic pressure from the United States, Turkey banned
opium production and the Marseilles-based French Connection collapsed. Amsterdam replaced Marseilles
as the center of European heroin traffic, and Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami joined New York City as major
U.S. distribution centers. Other trafficking groups rose to compete with the LCN for heroin dollars not only in
New York City, but now, increasingly throughout the entire United States. The new patterns of distribution
reflected a corresponding rise in demand in places that had seen little drug activity before. At the time,
that demand was for heroin. But having established a distribution network for that commodity, the conduits
were in place for other illicit drugs that would shortly appear.The Rise of Cocaine When cocaine emerged on the American drug scene in the 1970's, no one could
have predicted how radically this drug would change the nature and scope of the international drug trade.
Social change in America during the 1960's prepared the way for this new drug epidemic. Within a very
few years, the prevalence of illicit drug use in the United States increased dramatically. During the 1960's,
less than five percent of the population had had an experience with illicit drugs. By the early 1970's, that
percentage had doubled to over 10%, and by 1979, when drug use in America peaked with almost a third
of the population having tried drugs during a lifetime, it was clear that millions of Americans viewed drug
use as, if not normal, certainly not shockingly exceptional behavior.Prior to the 1960's American drug abuse was limited to specific segments of
American society ---artists, underworld elites, and individuals living on the fringe of society. When cocaine
acquired the cachet of a chic and benign drug, many became convinced that it could be used recreationally
without long-term serious consequences. Few people fully understood the addictive nature of cocaine and
it was not until the crack epidemic in the 1980's erupted that American society appreciated how dangerous
and destructive cocaine really was.Cocaine alkaloyd or "crack," as it became widely known, a potent, cheap, smokeable
form of cocaine, was first reported in California and Texas. Its abuse was considered a local problem until
1985 when it appeared almost simultaneously in virtually every state and created a national medical emergency
and a crisis in law enforcement. (Massing, 1989). Crack was far more addictive than powder cocaine and was
marketed as its low-price alternative, making it readily available to poor people in urban and rural areas.
(Ansley, 1994). The intense competition that characterized its street-level distribution and the behavioral
effect of the drug itself on many users generated a tremendous level of violence and contributed significantly
to the escalating crime rates and social problems which plagued America during the 1980's and early 1990's.
Between 1984 and 1993, when the crack epidemic raged, violent crime in the United States increased over 50%
and murders increased by 31%.But the most dramatic change wrought by the introduction of cocaine to America in
the last twenty five years was the rise of the international organized criminal syndicates based in the nation
of Colombia.Organized Crime in the 1980's: Cocaine and the Colombian Mafias At the epicenter of the modern drug trade, Colombian drug mafias grew and thrived in
an atmosphere of violence, intimidation and corruption. (Bagley, 1986). They took advantage of their country's
geography to build an empire of unprecedented proportions. Close to Bolivia and Peru, where the native coca
plant had been cultivated for many centuries, Colombia had coastlines on both the Pacific Ocean and the
Caribbean Sea, giving traffickers ample routes to send their product to the United States and elsewhere.
The first major cocaine organization to dominate the trade was based in the inland city of Medellin. The
Medellin cartel, led by Pablo Escobar, Carlos Lehder, the Ochoa brothers and Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha,
was organized along the model of a multi-national corporation with regional cocaine manufacturing and
distribution networks controlled by mid-level managers who transported cocaine to the United States and
Europe by air, land and sea. This organization also established complex international financial networks to
launder its illicit profits.In addition to their business acumen, some Medellin cartel members viewed themselves
as revolutionaries who used cocaine as a powerful weapon to oppose the interests of the United States.
Violence and intimidation were essential to the conduct of their criminal enterprises. The Medellin cartel
employed an army of security forces to carry out acts of terror and assassinations. These private armies
murdered hundreds of Colombian police officials, judges, journalists, and innocent people, including a
Justice Minister and Presidential candidate. (Barr, 1990). One terrorist act carried out by the Medellin
group included the bombing of an Avianca airliner in 1989, which killed 110 people and the bombing of the
Department of Administrative Security (DAS) headquarters in December, 1989, which killed 50 people and
wounded 200. In a truly spectacular demonstration of its determination to intimidate Colombian society, cartel
boss Pablo Escobar in 1990 engineered the kidnapping of ten prominent individuals, nine of them well-known
journalists, in an effort to extort from the government its assurance that he and other traffickers would not be
extradited to the United States. (Garcia Marquez, 1997).The government of Colombia fought back valiantly and eventually, the Medellin cartel
fell on hard times as its leaders were arrested or killed. (Sen, 1990). Carlos Lehder was extradited to the
United States in 1987 and Rodriguez Gacha was killed in a shootout with Colombian authorities in 1989.
Extradition, however, was outlawed by the Colombian Government in 1991. While this prompted the Ochoa
brothers and Pablo Escobar to surrender to the Government to take advantage of the lenient sentences and
prison conditions available to them, it removed the specter of the far harsher santions under American justice.
As a result, in Envigado Prison on the outskirts of his home town and relieved of the deterrent threat of extradition,
Escobar continued to run his lucrative cocaine business. After ordering the killing of a score of his own associates
suspected of disloyalty, Escobar escaped from prison. After a lengthy manhunt by Colombian police officials,
he was killed by police in December, 1993.As the Medellin cartel's leadership was neutralized and its capabilities significantly
degraded, the Cali mafia quietly coalesced and assumed power equal to its predecessor. Beginning as a loose
association of five independent drug trafficking organizations, the Cali mafia employed many of the principles
used by the traditional Italian mafia. Led by the Rodriguez-Orejuela brothers, Jose Santa Cruz Londono and
Pacho Herrera, the Cali mafia was far more sophisticated than the Medellin cartel and eventually established
its control over all aspects of the cocaine trade. It evolved into a horizontally-organized enterprise that controlled
production, transportation, wholesale distribution and money laundering. Whereas the Medellin cartel seemed
to revel in the terror and violence that became its trademark---and ultimately contributed to its downfall ---
the Cali leadership eschewed indiscriminate violence, further contributing to their image as legitimate
businessmen. However, when the Cali mafia employed violence to attain its goals---and it frequently did---it
was precise and exacting. In the aftermath of the arrests of the Cali drug mafia leaders by the Colombian
National Police in 1995, Cali assassins killed more than a dozen suspected government informants. They also
used violence within the United States when necessary, as evidenced in the murder of the journalist Manuel
de Dios Unanue, an outspoken critic of the Cali mafia who was murdered in Queens, New York in 1992. In May,
1996, John Harold Mena, who was in charge of the Cali mafia's New York operations testified in court that
Jose Santacruz Londono had himself ordered de Dios' murder.As with La Cosa Nostra, a key to the Cali mafia's success was its tight organizational
structure. (Anti-Drug Effort in the Americas, 1999). Their vast responsibilities and their intricate distribution
networks in the United States necessitated that the Cali mafia rely on a sophisticated system which ensured
maximum efficiency and minimal risk. Drug trafficking organizations from Colombia had always controlled the
cocaine trade from top to bottom. Within South America, the Cali mafia, and before it, the Medellin cartel,
depended upon the acquisition of tons of coca products from Bolivia and Peru which was then converted
into cocaine hydrochloride, generally in Colombia. These laboratories in Colombia ranged from primitive labs
in sheds and apartments to lavishly equipped compounds capable of producing up to one metric ton of pure
cocaine per week.The traffickers also devised ingenious ways to deliver tons of cocaine to the United
States and Europe over the years. Routes have changed and techniques have been refined over the past
several decades. Today over half of the cocaine entering the United States is shipped from Colombia through
Mexico. Maritime vessels are the primary means used by traffickers to smuggle cocaine from South America
to Mexico, using the Pacific or Caribbean routes. Traffickers are also using the highways of Central America
to transport tons of cocaine from Colombia into Mexico. For a period of time, it was customary for traffickers
from Colombia to ship metric ton quantities of cocaine into Mexico by plane. The notorious trafficker Amado
Carillo Fuentes grew so famous for his use of this method that he was known by the sobriquet Lord of the
Skies. This method of transport has, however, grown less common in recent years. Whatever way the drug
arrives in Mexico, once it is safely delivered to the traffickers, independent Mexico-based transportation
groups subcontracted by the Colombian trafficking organizations arrange for the delivery of the cocaine
to contacts within the United States.Colombian Mafia Structure Within the United States During its heyday, the Cali mafia relied on a complex distribution network within the
United States. The system it set in place is still being used on a daily basis in many major U.S. cities. Using
an intricate system of "cells" within the United States, the Colombian trafficking groups set up a presence
in a number of geographic areas. Using the cell model employed by international terrorist organizations, the
Colombian mafias carry out specialized functions such as the storage of cocaine, transportation,
communications, money laundering, wholesale distribution, personnel and inventory which are all handled
by employees of the cell. Each cell employs between 10-25 individuals who operate with little or no knowledge
about the membership or responsibilities of other cells operating within the same or other cities. (International
Organized Crime Syndicates, 1998).Typically, the head of each cell reports to a regional director who manages several
cells. This regional director, in turn, reports directly to one of the major drug lords of a particular organization
or his designee, based in Colombia. Characterizing the way these groups operate is a rigid, top-down command
and control structure where trusted lieutenants have day-to-day operating responsibilities, with the ultimate
power residing in those leaders in Colombia. Upper echelon members of these cells are generally family
members or long time associates who have gained the trust of the handful of mafia leaders running the
empire. The cell heads are typically recruited for the mafia's overseas assignments from the criminal
"talent pool" in the syndicate stronghold cities of Cali, Medellin or Bogota. Cells may also comprise other
trustworthy individuals from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and other places.Because the mafia bosses are headquartered overseas, they must maintain a highly
capable communications system which protects the content of their communications and provides operatives
with enough information to accomplish specific tasks. The cell members report on a daily basis to their bosses
in Colombia using cellular phones, faxes, pagers and other communications methods. Additionally, the drug
lords have employed an aggressive counter-surveillance system to thwart law enforcement, including the use
of staged drug transactions on communications devices they believe are monitored; limited-time use of cell
phones and pagers (generally 2-4 weeks); calling cards used at public telephones and encrypted communications
devices. (Anti-Drug Effort in the Americasl, 1999).The Colombian trafficking groups have traditionally concentrated their activities on the
wholesale drug distribution level and have relied on an army of indigenous operatives within the United States
to distribute drugs on a retail basis. Criminals from diverse ethnic groups including Dominicans, Mexicans,
Cubans, Jamaicans, as well as African-Americans, are used by Colombian drug bosses to distribute cocaine,
crack, and now heroin. The groups involved in drug retailing---including established gangs such as the Crips,
the Bloods and Jamaican "posses"---are those groups predominantly responsible for the violence and murder
that characterize the crack trade within the United States.The Rise of Organized Crime Groups from Mexico in the 1990's The influence and power of organized crime groups in Mexico, fueled by the enormous
profits of the drug trade, has increased exponentially over the past several decades and shifted rapidly into
high gear when they became involved in the cocaine distribution business during the late 1980's and early
1990's. When interdiction and enforcement activity surged in the Caribbean and South Florida area during
the 1980's, cocaine traffickers turned to Mexico as a conduit for U.S.-based cocaine shipments. Because
traffickers from Mexico had established themselves as capable poly-drug smugglers over the years, Colombian
trafficking organizations found a solid, well-organized transhipment infrastructure and ample expertise to
assist them in getting their drugs to market. (Organized Criminal Drug Trafficking Syndicates, 1999).By the late 1980's, an estimated 50-70% of the cocaine available in the United States
entered through Mexico. Today, Mexico remains the primary corridor for cocaine, as well as methamphetamine,
a synthetic drug with effects similar to cocaine, that was being manufactured in Mexico. Beginning in the late
eighties and evolving into the 1990's, the role of traffickers from Mexico began to change dramatically as
traffickers from Colombia began to pay Mexico-based transporters in cocaine---sometimes as much as
half of the load---rather than cash as compensation for their transportation services. Organized crime figures
from Mexico began using their long-established contacts to emerge as major cocaine traffickers in their own
right, especially after the arrest of the Cali mafia leaders in 1995. Today, the U.S. cocaine market is divided,
with traffickers from Mexico dominating cocaine markets in the West, and increasingly, in the Midwest. Groups
from Colombia and the Dominican Republic still control cocaine trafficking along the East Coast of the United
States, although there are recent indications that traffickers from Mexico are becoming deeply involved in cocaine
trafficking to places like New York. In the last two years, Mexican cells within the United States have grown in
size and influence and are expanding their power in cocaine markets long dominated by Colombians, such as
New York and Chicago.In addition to seizing a prominent role in cocaine trafficking during the early 1990's,
traffickers from Mexico, who had always been skilled in the production and trafficking of numerous drugs,
committed themselves to large-scale methamphetamine production and trafficking during this same period.
Methamphetamine, which had appealed to a relatively small number of American users, emerged as a major
drug of choice during the mid-1990's. Traditionally controlled by outlaw motorcycle gangs, methamphetamine
production and trafficking was now being entirely controlled by organized crime drug groups from Mexico,
operating in that country and in California.Statistics demonstrated that methamphetamine use and availability had dramatically
increased in a short period of time. The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) indicated that emergency
room episodes involving methamphetamine increased from 4,900 in 1991 to 17,400 in 1997, an increase of
280%. The areas hardest hit by the meth epidemic were Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Phoenix,
San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. Concurrently, law enforcement seizures of methamphetamine and
methamphetamine laboratories were also increasing. Seizures along the Southwest Border, the epicenter
of the trafficking activities of organizations from Mexico, increased from 7 kilograms in 1992 to almost 1400
kilograms in 1998. During the same period of time, seizures of methamphetamine transported by Mexican
nationals on U.S. highways increased from 1 kilogram in 1993 to 383 in 1998.At the present time, methamphetamine trafficking and abuse are spreading across
the United States at a frightening pace. With their primary methamphetamine production headquartered in
remote areas of California, the surrogates of Mexican organized crime groups are also establishing a presence
in cities in the Midwest, the Deep South and the East Coast in order to further their business interests.Organized criminal groups from Mexico have not yet joined together and evolved into
a monolithic entity like the Medellin cartel or the Cali mafia. Several powerful independent organizations
exist and operate today from headquarters in a number of Mexican cities. The Carillo Fuentes organization
out of Juarez remains one of the most powerful of the Mexican organized crime families despite the death
of its leader, Amado in 1997. The Tijuana Cartel, also known as the Arellano Felix organization, operates in
Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacan, Chiapas and Baja California. This group orchestrates the shipment of multi-ton
quantities of cocaine and marijuana to the United States, and is also responsible for heroin and
methamphetamine production and trafficking. Assassins on the payroll of this organization operate on the
streets of San Diego and are responsible for many violent acts in Mexico and the United States. (International
Organized Crime Syndicates, 1998).The Amezcua-Contreras brothers, operating out of Guadalajara, are major
methamphetamine producers and traffickers, relying on their expert smuggling skills to obtain vast quantities
of the precursor chemicals necessary for large-scale methamphetamine production. The other major
narcotics organized crime family operating in Mexico today is the Caro Quintero organization out of Sonora,
Mexico. It is responsible for marijuana production and smuggling, as well as heroin and cocaine trafficking.
Most of the major organized crime narcotics traffickers in Mexico today have been indicted within the United
States for their involvement in crimes or seizures in the U.S.Like the mafia groups from the United States and Colombia that preceded them,
organized crime syndicates from Mexico are extremely violent and routinely employ intimidation and the
corruption of public officials to achieve their objectives. There have been numerous incidents which illustrate
the ruthlessness of these organizations, including the recent gangland-style massacre of 22 people -- including
eight children -- in Baja California Norte carried out by rival drug traffickers in September, 1998.Heroin's Resurgence in the United States Heroin did not disappear from America when the mafia's Corsican supply of heroin
was eliminated in 1972. Over time, other sources of supply emerged from Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia
and the Middle East and the American mafia continued to distribute heroin to a market of users concentrated
in major cities. Through the 70's, 80's and 90's the number of heroin users continued to grow. (Inciardi and
Harrison, 1998). However, the appeal of heroin was largely held in check over those decades in part because
of its low quality, which made injection the only effectivemeans of ingestion, and in part because intravenous
drug use became widely known to be a major vector for the transmission of the deadly AIDS virus. (Chaisson,
Bacchetti & Osmond, 1989) The abundance of cocaine provided drug abusers with a ready and very attractive
alternative.The heroin problem that exists in the United States today is controlled not by American
organized crime, but by a new group of international organized crime figures, again, from Colombia. In much
the same way that their Medellin and Cali predecessors ensured their dominance over the cocaine trade in the
1980's, heroin traffickers from Colombia are employing savvy marketing concepts to successfully rebuild
American users' interest in heroin. (Colombian Heroin Crisis, 1998).Beginning in the early 1990's, independent traffickers from Colombia began to supply
retail level outlets primarily in the Northeast United States with high quality, pure heroin. Colombian traffickers
had spent several years cultivating opium and refining their heroin production capabilities, positioning themselves
to take advantage of a gradually diminishing crack market. By supplying dealers with high purity heroin to give
away as free samples, and by establishing "brand names" to garner customer loyalty, Colombian traffickers
quickly gained a foothold in the burgeoning heroin market in cities such as New York, Boston and Philadelphia.
They also began using Puerto Rico as a major transit area to distribute their product to ports of entry such as
Florida and New Orleans.The Colombians were bringing something new and fatally seductive to the market. Their
heroin was more attractive than competitors' supplies because of its low price---$75,000 per kilo in New York City.
The new Colombian heroin was also of an unprecedentedly high purity. In the 1970's the purity of retail heroin
averaged between 2% and 7%. According to the Domestic Monitor Program, the average purity for retail heroin
in 1997 was 38.4%, over 5 times higher than it was only a decade ago. Because heroin of this purity can be
smoked like crack or snorted like powder cocaine, it is appealing to a steadily growing market of new users.Through a variety of monitoring programs DEA has put in place over the years, including
the Heroin Signature Program (HSP), the dominance of Colombian heroin was confirmed. In 1997, HSP figures
confirm that 75% of the heroin seized and analyzed by federal law enforcement that year came from South America.
In contrast, as recently as 1989, 88% of the heroin analyzed was of Southeast Asian origin. (Colombian Heroin
Crisis, 1998).The Law Enforcement Response America's long experience with organized crime over the decades necessitated the
development and execution of an aggressive strategy to identify, target and incapacitate the leadership of
these organizations. During the 1960's, United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy intensified law
enforcement efforts aimed at the mafia. (Goldfarb, 1995). The successful result of this approach is evident
in the current diminished state of the American mafia today. By establishing a program of nation-wide strike
forces and sophisticated investigative strategies that ultimately broke the "code of silence" which protected
the traditional mafias for so long, and by attacking and dismantling the command and control echelons of
mafia organizations, U.S. law enforcement since the 1960's has successfully addressed the organized
crime problem which had bedeviled America for decades. (Blumenthal, 1988).DEA employs a similar, aggressive strategy against the leaders of international
organized crime groups who are responsible for the distribution of narcotics into and within the United
States. One key difference between this strategy and the one that guided law enforcement's efforts to
dismantle the American mafia is a recognition that the leadership of today's international drug syndicates
reside and operate in foreign countries. The American mafia leaders carried out all of their operations on
U.S. soil and lived in American cities and communities, physically and jurisdictionally within our reach, so
that U.S. law enforcement was ultimately able to apprehend them and bring them to justice.DEA's approach is threefold. First, though they operate outside of our geographical
boundaries, DEA targets the top leadership of these international organized crime syndicates by building
solid cases against them and indicting them, often repetitively, in U.S. jurisdictions. Second, DEA attacks
the surrogates of these international drug lords who operate on U.S. soil, represent the highest levels of
the command and control structure of these organizations and are responsible for carrying out the orders
of their bosses. Third, DEA goes after the leaders of the domestic criminal conspiracies that distribute
drugs in local communities and are responsible for the vast majority of the violent crimes that are associated
with their drug activities.Accomplishing these goals is possible when a variety of investigative tools are used
and when U.S. law enforcement officials have a sound and productive working relationship with their foreign
counterparts. Within the United States, DEA employs complex wiretap and other communication intercept
investigations to identify these organizations at all levels, and to obtain actionable information which can
lead to the dismantling of these organizations. Drug seizures are also exploited to their fullest potential by
gathering information gleaned during controlled deliveries that further identify important cell members and
their modes of operation. Additionally, complex long-term conspiracy investigations are conducted to gain
critical information on the way these organizations operate and to build solid cases against the leaders of
these syndicates who presume they are"untouchable." Close coordination with other law enforcement entities
within the United States and with foreign law enforcement counterparts also greatly enhances the potential
and actual success of these investigations.By employing the strategy set forth above, DEA and its numerous law enforcement
partners around the world have achieved many notable successes. One recent example is the successful
cooperative working relationship between DEA and the Colombian National Police (CNP) which led to the
arrest and incarceration of the top leadership of the Cali mafia in 1995 and 1996. As has always been the
case with organized crime, the Cali mafia members attempted to repeatedly thwart law enforcement's efforts
to apprehend them through intimidation and corruption. Key workers within Cali cells in the United States faced
violence and death if they were even suspected of cooperating with law enforcement in any way, a point that
was illustrated by a Colombian job application that was seized by DEA during a raid in New York. The application
specified the need for the applicant to list relatives living in Colombia in a clear attempt by the Cali mafia to gain
human collateral to guarantee the loyalty and silence of their workers in the United States.While the difficulties faced by law enforcement to dismantle the mafias in the United
States and Colombia seemed almost insurmountable at times, they pale in comparison to those posed by
current efforts to bring the leaders of Mexican organized crime groups to justice. The international organized
crime groups based today in Mexico are extremely powerful, involved in a variety of diverse drug trafficking
activities, and have closer geographic proximity to the United States than did their Cali mafia counterparts.
The infiltration of criminals from Mexico into numerous U.S. communities including areas where organized
crime does not usually operate further complicates the problem.The criminal organizations in Mexico have become increasingly more powerful over
the past five years. The Government of Mexico, after having determined that trafficking organizations had
compromised virtually all of that nation's civilian law enforcement organizations, directed that the Mexican
military would assume responsibility for targeting drug trafficking organizations until critical improvements
in the law enforcement organizations could be made. Government of Mexico officials have stated that it will
take years for Mexican institutions to gain the professionalism and integrity necessary to mount an all-out
assault on organized crime and drug trafficking organizations operating in that nation. (Toro, 1995). The
obstacles facing law enforcement are enormous in Mexico. Traffickers are used to operating in an environment
where criminals routinely intimidate, bribe and corrupt officials, making it very difficult for law enforcement in
the United States to share sensitive information without fear of its compromise-- with potentially deadly results.
(International Organized Crime Syndicates, 1998).There have been intensified attempts to improve the present situation facing U.S. and
Mexican law enforcement, including the formation of specially trained and well equipped teams that have been
screened to ensure the highest degree of integrity. However, to date, these initiatives have resulted in limited
success and progress has been disappointingly slow.Despite these obstacles, DEA believes that the consistent and determined application
of aggressive law enforcement principles and techniques is the most promising way to dismantle international
organized crime syndicates. We have seen the results. The dismantling of the traditional organized crime
families in the United States stands as a powerful precedent. More recently, dramatically falling rates of
violent crime in the United States over the past six years ---to levels not seen since the 1960's --- are, we are
convinced, overwhelmingly attributable to this kind of aggressive law enforcement at all levels.The New York City example is perhaps the most compelling illustration of this point.
In the early 1990's, after three decades of rapidly increasing levels of violent crime which were exacerbated
by the crack epidemic, the City of New York embarked upon an ambitious program to enhance its law enforcement
capabilities. A massive infusion of resources mandated by the Safe Streets/Safe Cities Act enacted by the
State Legislature enabled city leaders to increase police department manpower by 30%, adding 8,000 officers.
Arrests for all crimes, including drug dealing, drug gang activity and quality of life violations which had been
tolerated for many years, increased by 50%. The capacity of New York's state prison system was also steadily
increased to accommodate the influx of criminals convicted of drug crimes that now carried newly enhanced
penalties. The results of these measures were dramatic: the total number of New York City homicides in
1998---606---was less than the number of murders recorded in all of 1964. Over an eight year period the number
of homicides was reduced from 2,262 to 606--a reduction of 70%.DEA has also been aggressive in developing and implementing innovative tactical
programs to reduce violent, narcotics-related crime. One enforcement program, the Mobile Enforcement
Teams (MET), is DEA's conrtribution to community-based policing. MET lends support to local and state
law enforcement agencies that are experiencing problems arising from violent drug related crime in their
communities. The MET strategy capitalizes on the different capabilities of different levels of law enforcement,
putting them together in flexible combinations that yield in results far more that the sum of their parts. The
results of this program over the past four years indicate that cooperative and coordinated multiagency
enforcement of drug laws does have a lasting impact on reducing crime and improving the quality of life for
residents of communities across the nation. Statistics compiled by DEA indicate that in areas where DEA has
deployed METs, assaults have been reduced by 5%, homicides by 11% and robberies by 13%.Aggressive law enforcement that targets the command and control of organized crime
groups and neutralizes mafias' abilities to intimidate and corrupt has worked in the United States and in
Colombia, as was mentioned previously. There are other countries where this is also true. In Italy, experts
proved that aggressive law enforcement was the most effective tool in that nation's efforts to eliminate the
mafia -- an entity that had been entrenched in Italian society for many generations. The Government of Thailand
also demonstrated the value of sustained law enforcement efforts when the top leadership of the Shan United
Army, Opium Lord Khun Sa's powerful and until then "untouchable" heroin trafficking organization was arrested
in 1994. Several members of this leadership were extradited to the United States where they faced justice for
their crimes. (Lintner, 1994).Conclusion No government or society in the world today is untouched by the problem of narcotics
trafficking by organized criminal enterprises. Wherever they may be headquartered, their tentacles reach into
every part of the globe. In the forests of Bolivia, Indians who lived off the land for thousands of generations have
been swept up into the cocaine economy as forced plantation labor. (Weil, 1995). Dirt farmers in the remotest
regions of Mexico are being driven from their land by narco-traffickers who don't want them to see what goes
on at their clandestine airstrips. The turbulence in Central Asia has created a gold rush atmosphere that has
opened whole new channels of commerce for heroin. Drug profits are financing vicious civil wars, undermining
democratic governments, and corrupting businesses and financial institutions in every nation. Addiction and
diseases transmitted through behaviors related to drug use are creating a world public health disaster. From
the slums of Karachi to the affluent suburbs of prosperous American cities, lives are being twisted and often
snuffed out as a consequence of the worldwide commerce in dangerous drugs.The international criminal organizations operating on a global basis today represent the
gravest criminal threat that our nations have ever faced at any time in our collective history. But history has also
taught us that consistent, aggressive law enforcement can and does work when resources and will are focused
on eliminating the command and control structure of these organizations and eliminating the environments of
intimidation, corruption and violence which allow them to flourish. The American mafia, the Medellin cartel and
the Cali mafia each rose to immense power and then withered before the onslaught of governments determined
to root them out and destroy them.In the coming decades, it will be critical for all nations to make the strongest commitment
to use every means at our disposal to fight international criminal organizations as they become more deeply
involved in the global narcotics trade. We are facing an enemy who has great resources and even greater
resourcefulness, an enemy who is wily and adaptable, an enemy who will unhesitatingly resort to violence
and intimidation, who is constrained by neither constitution nor conscience, who will murder and corrupt, and
who knows no remorse. As we craft our response to that enemy, we must resolve to match the traffickers'
flexibility and resources. All of our governments must work together and apply the expertise of diplomats,
political leaders and opinion makers in our mutual efforts to rid our nations of the evil influences of these
criminal syndicates. As we have seen, they can be beaten and if we take inspiration from these precedents,
their successors will surely meet the same fate.REFERENCES America's Habit: Drug Abuse, Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime: Report to the President and the Attorney General. The President's Commission on Organized Crime. Washington, DC: United States Printing Office. 1986. Anderson, Annelise G. 1979. The Business of Organized Crime: A Cosa Nostra Family. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. Anti-Drug Efforts in the Americas and Implementation of the Drug Elimination Act: Hearing before the Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. House of Representatives. March 3, 1999. Bagley, Bruce. 1988. "Colombia and the War on Drugs." Foreign Affairs. 67:1. Barr, Cameron. 1990. "Colombia's Blodied Bench." The American Lawyer 12:2. Blumenthal, Ralph. 1988. The Last Days of the Sicilians: At War with the Mafia: The FBI Assault on the Pizza Connection. New York: Times Books.. Chaisson, R.E., Bacchetti, P, and Osmond, D. 1989. " Cocaine Use and HIV Infection in Intravenous Drug Use in San Francisco." Journal of the American Medical Association 261:4:561. Colombian Heroin Crisis: Hearing before the Commmittee on International Relations. House of Representatives. June 24, 1998. Courtwright, 1982. David. Dark Paradise: Opiate Addiction in the United States before 1940. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cressey, Donald. 1969. Theft of a Nation: The Structure of Organized Crime in America. New York: Harper and Row. Drug Trafficking: A Report to the President of the United States. United States. Department of Justice. Washington, DC: United States Printing Office. 1989. Flynn, Stephen. 1993. "Worldwide Drug Scourge: The Expanding Trade in Illegal Drugs." Brookings Review: 11: Winter: 6-11. Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. 1997. News of a Kidnapping. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Hess, Henner. 1973. Mafia and Mafiosi: The Structure of Power. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath. Inciardi, James A. and Lana D. Harrison, eds. 1998. Heroin in the Age of Crack Cocaine. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. International Organized Crime Syndicates and their Impact on the United States: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, Narcotics and Terrorism. Senate. February 26, 1998. Lamour, Catherine. 1974. The International Commerce: Opium from Growers and Pushers. New York: Pantheon Books. Maas, Peter. 1968. The Valachi Papers. New York: Putnam's. Massing, Michael. October 1, 1989. "Crack's Destructive Sprint Across America." The New York Times Magazine. Moore, Robert Lowell. 1969. The French Connection: The World's Most Crucial Narcotics Investigation. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Moore, William H. 1974. The Kefauver Committee and the Politics of Crime. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. Musto, David F. 1973. The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control. New Haven CT: Yale University Press. Organized Criminal Drug Trafficking Syndicates Based in Mexico: Hearing before the Committee on Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice. House of Representatives. March 4, 1999. Sen, Sankar, 1990. "Drug War in Colombia." Police Journal 63:2 . State of New York. Executive Department. Division of State Police. 1992. "The New York State Police: 1917-1992." Albany, New York. Surrett, W.R. 1988. The International Narcotics Trade: An Overview of its Dimensions, Production Sources, and Organizations. Congressional Research Service Report No. 88-643-F. Washington, DC, Library of Congress. Toro, Maria Celia. 1995. Mexico's "War" on Drugs: Causes and Consequences. Studies on the Impact of the Illegal Drug Trade. Boulder, CO: L. Rienner Publishers. Tyler, Gus. 1962. Organized Crime in America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.  Questions? E-mail Us! CONSTANTINE'S CIRCUS, INC. PO Box 7223 Capitol Station Albany, NY 12224-0223 518-465-4413 518-465-3200 FAX |