Mexican Cartels Use Migrants As DEA Decoys

Drug Smuggling Rings Take Over Human Trafficking Routes, Migrants Used To Distract Agents

(AP)  Mexican druglords are taking over the business of smuggling migrants into the United States, using them as human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in cocaine shipments across the same border.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that drug traffickers, in response to a U.S. border crackdown, have seized control of the routes they once shared with human smugglers and in the process are transforming themselves into more diversified crime syndicates.

The drug gangs get protection money from the migrants and then effectively use them to clear the trail for the flow of drugs.

Undocumented aliens are used "to maneuver where they want us or don't want us to be," said Alonzo Pena, chief of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona.

Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in Tucson, Arizona, said smugglers are carrying drugs along paths once used primarily by migrants. New fences and National Guard troops have helped seal the usual drug routes, and vehicle barriers are forcing traffickers to send more drugs north on the backs of cartel foot soldiers, he said.

"We have been able to seal many of the drug routes by adding technology and more agents," Soto said. "We're seeing a tremendous amount of drugs being seized."

The advent of drug-trafficking extortionists along the border may also be responsible for much of the drop in illegal immigration that U.S. officials have attributed more directly to better enforcement, Mexican officials and analysts say.

The new order became clear in December when heavily armed men stopped 12 vans packed with 200 migrants on a desolate desert road just south of the border. Local officials say they ordered everyone out, doused the vehicles with gasoline and set them ablaze.

Nobody was hurt, but the charred carcasses of the vehicles remain an unmistakable message to the thousands of migrants traveling north on the border's top people-smuggling route.

Since then, members of the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel have consolidated control of most of the main routes into Arizona, using teams of gunmen to set up the haggard border-crossers as decoys for U.S. security, U.S. and Mexican officials said.

Just south of the Arizona border, near the key people-smuggling waystation of Sasabe, armed men at a gas station stop vans full of migrants heading north, charging them $90 each and dictating when and where they can cross, migrants and local officials told the AP.

At times, the migrants are pooled and sent across in large numbers at one time of the day, clearing the route for a drug shipment a short time later. Smugglers also direct migrants away from successful drug routes in hopes of minimizing the manpower U.S. authorities assign to the area.

"The drug traffickers won't allow migrants to enter because the area will 'heat up' and the U.S. Border Patrol will be on alert," one local Mexican official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. "They want control so they can 'cool off' the area and go in with their cargo."

[roblin2005]

So we spend billions to fight narco-terrorists in Afghanistan, but collaborators right on our border are free to go?

[roblin2005]

Guilty by association. Collaborators with narco-terrorists - groups of heavily armed men just south of the U.S. border, need a visit to Guantanamo interrogation rooms for debriefings.

[tucano2]

How better to distribute drugs and prostitutes than to capitalize on the millions of illegal aliens already in the USA about which G.W. Bush does nothing but surrender? We need armed troops on OUR southern border,not on Iraq's eastern border. The terrorists are already here, taking to the streets demanding they not be called the criminals that they are and wanting a citizenship to which they and their progeny have absolutely no right. They are not immigrants. They are criminal illegal aliens bent on destroying the USA

[nottellin1]

Oh yeah. I do not fear anyone with a gun, because I have one too.

[nottellin1]

andrew_693

I'm sorry that your understanding of my country is so poor. You must have gone to school in one of those 'other' countries.

[andrew_693]

you should fear more the nuts that live next door to you because they probably consume the dope these illegals bring to the US (or maybe they consume meth produced in the US) and they have guns in their house. The reason why there are illegals in your country is because you are giving them jobs, the same reason there are drugs in the US, they are there because you are unhappy people that need that *** in order to escape from your sad existence. One time I saw a mexican no more than 5 foot 5 carrying a queen sized mattress 3 stories down, find me an american that can do that. Sorry, that mexican gets the job, capitalism at it's best, survival of the fittest. Wait till all the scientists and intellectuals from abroad come to compete for your jobs, their schools are a million times better than your "no child left behind, proud to be loud and stupid" philosophy.

[nottellin1]

I fear for the day that all the illegal Mexicans jump up with their illegal firearms and take California back for Mexico.

[jairod]

this is all just a smoke screen for the republican agenda. They will bring up immigration, and if that doesn't divide the democrats, they will then bring in the heavy guns on social secutity reform, wellfare reform, health care reform, and the olist goes on. The real terror behind all this is their plan to run chaney and rove on the slate for the elections. The fact that the idiot son of a former pres is sitting in the chair assures the american populace that no less more of the same in the name of american security (where no threat had ever existed, now is assured that over one billion people want our total destruction - thank you dubya) will be instore for another eight years. Those other eight years will bring more money for the backers of the last eight years. Immigration? It's just a smoke screen. Hate your neighbor here at home and internationally. That is the American way, according to the plans laid by that idiot son and his cronies.

[djconklin]

"If they want to make a postive contribution to society, why are they crossing our borders illegally?"

Because they can't get in if they don't?

They want a better life, free from the corruption and violence they find at home.

"Love the Liberal spin"

There was no political spin in the article till your response.

[mikealford3]

I am amazed at the people of America. We will support sending our military half way around to globe to fight in Iraq because of a "potential" threat. We are willing to "FIGHT" for the freedom of the iraqi people yet we are willing to "GIVE" our freedom at home to a bunch of illegal Mexicans. Makes no sense.

Is the threat of a terrorist attack from the Middle East any greater than the threat of giving our nation to millions of Mexicans and Haitians who are here illegally.

WAKE UP AMERICA AND REALIZE WE ARE GIVING AWAY THE VERY FREEDOM AND THE WONDERFUL NATION OUR FORFATHERS GAVE US.

[mcvet]

These border Jumping Illegal Aliens are costing us billions.
Posted by didntinhale at 07:36 AM : May 01, 2007

Now Swastika Breath you Nazi's could have stopped that with ONE law AND you had control of Congress for SIX years. You put a stiff PRISON sentence on anyone hiring an Illegal and POOF no problem. Don't go blaming others, especially your catch all "Liberal" brand for YOU own Incompetence and Failure. ROFLMAO SIEG HEIL

[formrusmcsgt]

If they want to make a postive contribution to society, why are they crossing our borders illegally?
Posted by crater7 at 06:39 AM : May 01, 2007

Short answer? INCOME.

If you could only make $4 a day here, that is assuming that there was a job for you but could make $100 a day crossing into Canada, I think you might consider making the trip.

[olebd]

Yep, they just want the jobs that legal citizens don't want to do....LIKE DRUG SMUGGLING!!!

Wake up!

[crater7]

postive contributions to society;

If they want to make a postive contribution to society, why are they crossing our borders illegally?

[bogblogs]

this really aggrivates me...because obviously ya know they all just want to make positive contributions to society. our immigration policies are garbage!

www.bogblogs.com