Drugs 'n' youths

Drug Trafficking in the United States

The illegal drug market in the United States is one of the most profitable in the world. As such, it attracts the most ruthless, sophisticated, and aggressive drug traffickers. Drug law enforcement agencies face an enormous challenge in protecting the country's borders. Each year, according to the U.S. Customs Service, 60 million people enter the United States on more than 675,000 commercial and private flights. Another 6 million come by sea and 370 million by land. In addition, 116 million vehicles cross the land borders with Canada and Mexico. More than 90,000 merchant and passenger ships dock at U.S. ports. These ships carry more than 9 million shipping containers and 400 million tons of cargo. Another 157,000 smaller vessels visit our many coastal towns. Amid this voluminous trade, drug traffickers conceal cocaine, heroin, marijuana, MDMA, and methamphetamine shipments for distribution in U.S. neighborhoods.

Diverse groups traffic and distribute illegal drugs. Criminal groups operating from South America smuggle cocaine and heroin into the United States via a variety of routes, including land routes through Mexico, maritime routes along Mexico's east and west coasts, sea routes through the Caribbean, and international air corridors. Furthermore, criminal groups operating from neighboring Mexico smuggle cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, amphetamine, and marijuana into the United States. These criminal groups have smuggled heroin and marijuana across the Southwest Border and distributed them throughout the United States since the 1970s. In addition to distributing cocaine and methamphetamine in the West and Midwest, these Mexico-based groups now are attempting to expand the distribution of those drugs into eastern U.S. markets.

Likewise, the use of the drug 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), also known on the street as "Ecstasy," has increased at an alarming rate in the United States over the last several years. Israeli and Russian drug trafficking syndicates and Western Europe-based drug traffickers are the principal traffickers of MDMA worldwide. MDMA, primarily manufactured clandestinely in Western Europe, is smuggled into the United States by couriers via commercial airlines, as well as through the use of express package carriers. Finally, criminal groups based in Southeast and Southwest Asia smuggle heroin into the United States. Using New York City as a major distribution hub, these criminal groups move heroin up and down the eastern seaboard and into the Midwest.

Besides these criminal groups based abroad, domestic organizations cultivate, produce, manufacture, or distribute illegal drugs such as marijuana, methamphetamine, phencyclidine (PCP), and lysergic acid diethyamide (LSD). By growing high-potency sinsemilla, domestic cannabis growers provide marijuana that easily competes with other illegal drugs. With demand for methamphetamine remaining high, especially in the West and Midwest, so, too, does the number of illicit laboratories that supply methamphetamine to a growing number of addicts. Additionally, a small number of chemists manufacture LSD that is subsequently distributed primarily to high school and college students throughout the United States.

COCAINE

Cocaine trafficking and abuse continue to threaten the health and safety of American citizens. According to drug abuse indicators, the use of both powder and crack cocaine have stabilized, albeit at high levels. The trafficking, distribution, and abuse of cocaine and crack cocaine have spread from urban environments to smaller cities and suburban areas of the country, bringing a commensurate increase in violence and criminal activity. The level of violence associated with cocaine trafficking today, however, does not compare to the rampant violence of the 1980s when the crack epidemic was at its worst.

Trafficking by Colombian and Mexican Organizations

The U.S./Mexico border is the primary point of entry for cocaine shipments being smuggled into the United States. According to a recent interagency intelligence assessment, approximately 65 percent of the cocaine smuggled into the United States crosses the Southwest border. Cocaine is readily available in nearly all major cities in the United States. Organized crime groups operating in Colombia control the worldwide supply of cocaine. These organizations use a sophisticated infrastructure to move cocaine by land, sea, and air into the United States. In the United States, these Colombia-based groups operate cocaine distribution and drug money laundering networks comprising a vast infrastructure of multiple cells functioning in many major metropolitan areas. Each cell performs a specific function within the organization, e.g., transportation, local distribution, or money movement. Key managers in Colombia continue to oversee the overall operation.

Over the past decade, the Colombia-based drug groups have allowed Mexico-based trafficking organizations to play an increasing role in the U.S. cocaine trade. Throughout most of the 1980s, the criminals in Colombia used the drug smugglers in Mexico to transport cocaine shipments across the Southwest border into the United States. After successfully smuggling the drugs across the border, the Mexican transporters transferred the drugs back to the Colombian groups operating in the United States. However, the seizure of nearly 21 metric tons of cocaine in 1989 led to a new arrangement between transportation organizations operating from Mexico and the organized crime groups operating from Colombia. This new arrangement radically changed the role and sphere of influence of the Mexico-based trafficking organizations in the U.S. cocaine trade. By the mid-1990s, Mexico-based transportation groups were receiving up to half the cocaine shipment they smuggled for the Colombia-based groups in exchange for their services. Both sides realized that this strategy eliminated the vulnerabilities and complex logistics associated with large cash transactions. The Colombia-based groups also realized that relinquishing part of each cocaine shipment to their associates operating from Mexico ceded a share of the wholesale cocaine market in the United States.

Today, traffickers operating from Colombia continue to control wholesale-level cocaine distribution throughout the heavily populated northeastern United States and along the eastern seaboard in cities such as Boston, Miami, Newark, New York, and Philadelphia. There are indications, however, that other drug trafficking organizations are playing a larger role in the distribution of cocaine in conjunction with the Colombian organizations. Dominican drug trafficking organizations have traditionally been responsible for the street-level distribution of cocaine. The DEA Philadelphia Field Division reports that the primary sources of supply for cocaine in the city are Colombian and Dominican organizations, which are capable of moving multikilogram quantities. The DEA Boston Field Division reports that Dominican traffickers are expanding their roles in cocaine distribution, and have been instrumental in obtaining multikilogram quantities of cocaine for distribution in New England. In New York City, Colombian, Dominican, and Mexican drug trafficking organizations distribute multikilogram quantities of cocaine. Furthermore, Mexican drug trafficking organizations are increasingly responsible for the transportation of cocaine from the Southwest border to the New York market.

Traffickers operating from Mexico now control wholesale cocaine distribution throughout the western and midwestern United States. Mexico-based trafficking groups in cities such as Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle control the distribution of multiton quantities of cocaine, once dominated by the Colombia-based drug groups. In the early 1990s, when the organized crime groups from Mexico were expanding their roles as cocaine transporters and wholesale-level distributors, most of their U.S.-based command and control operations were in southern California. Today, Chicago is also a key command and control center for their cocaine operations, and Atlanta is increasingly important as a trafficking hub for cocaine movement. Currently, these traffickers control cocaine shipments from the time they are smuggled across the border until they are distributed to markets across the country.

The role of Mexico-based trafficking organizations is continuing to evolve. Recent reports suggest that some major international criminals in Colombia are further distancing themselves from day-to-day wholesale-level cocaine distribution in the United States by turning this task over, at least occasionally, to the organizations operating from Mexico. A likely motivation for this change is the non-retroactive extradition law enacted by the Colombian National Assembly in December 1997. Accordingly, Colombian traffickers now face the prospect of extradition for overt acts committed on or after the date (December 17, 1997) that the extradition amendment went into effect. By distancing themselves from overt acts in the United States, Colombian drug lords hope to minimize the threat that the United States will gather sufficient evidence to support an extradition request. This shift does not mean to suggest that traffickers operating from Colombia will abandon the U.S. cocaine market en masse. Emerging drug lords-who do not face the difficulties in micro-managing operations as do the jailed Cali criminal leaders-have little reason to forego the profits generated by the wholesale U.S. cocaine market.

Colombian drug trafficking organizations increasingly rely upon the eastern Pacific Ocean as a trafficking route to move cocaine to the United States. Law enforcement and intelligence community sources estimate 65 percent of the cocaine shipped to the United States moves through the Central America-Mexico corridor, primarily by vessels operating in the eastern Pacific. Colombian traffickers utilize fishing vessels to transport bulk shipments of cocaine from Colombia to the west coast of Mexico and, to a lesser extent, the Yucatan Peninsula. The cocaine is off-loaded to go-fast vessels for the final shipment to the Mexican coast. The loads are subsequently broken down into smaller quantities to be moved across the Southwest border.

However, cocaine continues to be transported through the Caribbean; Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti are the predominant transshipment points for Colombian cocaine transiting the Caribbean. Because of lawlessness and deteriorating economic conditions, Haiti is a growing transshipment point for Colombian cocaine destined for eastern U.S. markets. Haitian drug traffickers, utilizing maritime shipments to transport cocaine to South Florida, are becoming a major threat. Law enforcement reporting indicates that Jamaica is an increasingly significant transshipment point for cocaine destined for the United States since it is located midway between South America and the United States. Cocaine is primarily smuggled into Jamaica by maritime methods, and the cocaine transshipped through Jamaica often is destined for the Canadian, European, and U.S. markets. Cocaine destined for the United States is usually smuggled from Jamaica to the Bahamas aboard go-fast boats. The cocaine is subsequently smuggled to the Florida coast using go-fast boats, pleasure craft, and fishing vessels.

Crack Cocaine Trafficking

Crack, the inexpensive, smokable form of cocaine, continues to be distributed and used in most major cities. While cocaine use in the United States has declined over the past decade, the rate of use in recent years has stabilized at high levels. Crack cocaine usage, which initially drove these rates, has similarly stabilized, and shows some indications of declining although it also remains at a high level. Street gangs, such as the Crips and the Bloods, and criminal groups of ethnic Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Jamaicans dominate the retail market for crack cocaine nationwide. The directed expansion of these gangs to smaller U.S. cities and rural areas, as well as a growth in street gangs that imitate their urban counterparts, results in an increase in homicides, armed robberies, and assaults as gang members use physical violence to maintain their drug distribution monopolies.

Prices and Purity

Cocaine prices in 2001 remained low and stable, suggesting a steady supply to the United States. Nationwide, wholesale cocaine prices ranged from $12,000 to $35,000 per kilogram. In most major metropolitan areas, however, the price of a kilogram of cocaine ranged from $13,000 to $25,000. Average purity for cocaine at the gram, ounce, and kilogram levels remained stable at high levels. In 2001, the average purity of a kilogram of cocaine was 73 percent. Typically, cocaine HCl is converted into crack cocaine, or "rock," within the United States by the secondary wholesaler or retailer. Crack cocaine is often packaged in vials, glassine bags, and film canisters. The size of a crack rock can vary, but generally ranges from 1/10 to 1/2 gram. Rocks can sell for as low as $3 to as high as $50, but prices generally range from $10 to $20.

Seizures

According to the Federal-wide Drug Seizure System (FDSS), U.S. federal authorities seized over 111 metric tons of cocaine in Calendar Year 2001. This moderate increase over the nearly 107 metric tons seized in 2000 is due in part to an increase in maritime seizures in the Southwest Pacific. Maritime seizures in this region increased by 9 metric tons between CY 2000 and CY 2001. Two of the more notable seizures in the Eastern Pacific corridor in CY 2001 reflect the importance of the region in cocaine movement to the United States. In February 2001, the fishing vessel Forever My Friend was intercepted with over 17 metric tons of cocaine. In May 2001, the fishing vessel Svesda Maru was seized with another 17 metric tons of cocaine on board.

HEROIN

Heroin is readily available in many U.S. cities as evidenced by the unprecedented high level of average retail, or street-level, purity. Criminals in four foreign source areas produce the heroin available in the United States: South America (Colombia), Southeast Asia (principally Burma), Mexico, and Southwest Asia/Middle East (principally Afghanistan). While virtually all heroin produced in Mexico and South America is destined for the U.S. market, each of the four source areas has dominated the U.S. market at some point over the past 30 years. Over the past decade, the United States has experienced a dramatic shift in the heroin market from the domination of Southeast Asian heroin to a dominance of the wholesale and retail markets by South American heroin, especially in the East. In the West, by contrast, "black tar" and, to a lesser extent, brown powdered heroin from Mexico have been, and continue to be, the predominant available form.

The increased availability of high-purity heroin, which can effectively be snorted, has given rise to a new, younger user population. While avoiding the stigma of needle use, this user group is ingesting larger quantities of the drug and, according to drug treatment specialists, progressing more quickly toward addiction.

South American Heroin

The availability of South American (SA) heroin, produced in Colombia, has increased dramatically in the United States since 1993. SA heroin is available in the metropolitan areas of the Northeast and along the East Coast. Independent traffickers typically smuggle SA heroin into the United States via couriers traveling aboard commercial airlines, with each courier usually carrying from 500 grams to 1 kilogram of heroin per trip. These traffickers increased their influence in the lucrative northeastern heroin market, which has the largest demand in the United States, by pursuing an aggressive marketing strategy. They distributed high-quality heroin (of purity frequently above 90 percent), undercut the price of their competition, and used their long-standing, effective drug distribution networks. Investigations also indicate the spread of SA heroin to smaller U.S. cities.

Since the mid-1990s, Colombian heroin traffickers have diversified their methods of operation. Couriers still come into Miami, New York City, San Juan, and other U.S. cities on direct commercial flights from Colombia. Increasingly, however, Colombian traffickers are smuggling heroin from Colombia into the United States through such countries as Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela.

In response to increased drug law enforcement presence at eastern ports of entry, some SA heroin traffickers have sought alternative routes. They transship heroin through the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport before it reaches its final destination of New York City's LaGuardia Airport. Their couriers often transport heroin impregnated within clothing. Couriers with other destinations also smuggle the drug using this same method of concealment. In January 2002, USCS agents at the Miami International Airport arrested a courier who had arrived from Venezuela with 14 kilograms of heroin-saturated clothing. The following month, 18 kilograms of clothing saturated with heroin were seized in New York. Another increasingly used method is to smuggle heroin by sewing it into clothing. In New York in March 2002, two couriers were arrested at a hotel with approximately 8 to 10 kilograms of heroin sewn into 24 pieces of clothing. Also in New York that month, a married couple, Venezuelan nationals, who had arrived at JFK International Airport on a flight from Caracas, had in their luggage jackets that had a combined total of 6 kilograms of heroin sewn into them.

Colombian heroin traffickers have also used commercial maritime methods to move larger amounts of their drug into the United States. Some of the past maritime heroin shipments have been intermixed with larger shipments of cocaine, and some have been transported via cruise ships. Larger shipments of heroin have also been smuggled via containerized cargo, as evidenced by the May 16, 2001, seizure of 54 kilograms of SA heroin in New York. The heroin, packaged in 1.5 pound bricks, was secreted in false bottoms of 1,400 25-pound boxes of frozen plantains. This seizure represents the largest seizure of SA heroin to date in the United States.

Within the United States, ethnic Dominican criminal groups have played a significant role in retail-level heroin distribution in northeastern markets for at least the past two decades. During the 1990s, Dominican groups secured their role in the heroin trade by selling high-purity SA heroin. Currently, Dominican groups dominate retail heroin markets in northeastern cities such as New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia. New York City is the primary base of operation for ethnic Dominican groups. Colombian distribution networks at the wholesale level deal directly with Dominican trafficking groups responsible for retail sales.

Mexican Heroin

Mexican heroin has been a threat to the United States for decades. It is produced, smuggled, and distributed by polydrug trafficking groups, many of which have been in operation for more than 20 years. Nearly all of the heroin produced in Mexico is destined for distribution in the United States. Organized crime groups operating from Mexico produce, smuggle, and distribute the black tar heroin sold in the western United States. Traditionally, trafficking groups operating from Mexico evaded interdiction efforts by smuggling heroin to the U.S. market as they received orders from customers. By keeping quantities small, traffickers hoped to minimize the risk of losing a significant quantity of heroin in a single seizure. Even large polydrug Mexican organizations, which smuggle multiton quantities of cocaine and marijuana, generally limited smuggling of Mexican heroin into the United States to kilogram and smaller amounts. Nevertheless, trafficking organizations were capable of regularly smuggling significant quantities of heroin into the United States.

Although illegal immigrants and migrant workers frequently smuggle heroin across the U.S./Mexico border in 1- to 3- kilogram amounts for the major trafficking groups, seizures indicate that larger loads are being moved across the border, primarily in privately owned vehicles. Once the heroin reaches the United States, traffickers rely upon well-entrenched polydrug smuggling and distribution networks to deliver their product to the market, principally in the metropolitan areas of the midwestern, southwestern, and western United States with sizable Mexican immigrant populations.

Indicative of larger shipments of Mexican heroin being smuggled into the United States are several seizures that occurred in the Southwest in recent years. Following a traffic stop in April 2002 near Pleasanton, Texas - about 25 miles south of San Antonio - Department of Public Safety troopers seized 34 kilograms of brown powder heroin. The heroin bundles, placed inside metal boxes, were found in all four tires of a pickup truck which was headed for San Antonio. In January 2001, the USCS in Del Rio, Texas, seized 42 kilograms of black tar heroin and in December 2000, they seized 27 kilograms of black tar heroin at the Laredo port of entry. Texas has not been the only border state where large amounts of black tar heroin have been seized. In October 2000, 46 kilograms of black tar heroin were seized in Arizona at the San Luis port of entry. This seizure ranks as one of the largest ever made along the Southwest border.

Although recent DEA cases have involved Mexican black tar heroin trafficking groups east of the Mississippi River, there has been no successful, long-term penetration of the East Coast markets by organizations selling Mexico-produced heroin.

Southeast Asian Heroin

High-purity Southeast Asian (SEA) heroin dominated the market in the United States during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Over the past few years, however, all indicators point to a decrease in SEA heroin available domestically. Significant investigations led to the incarceration in Thailand and extradition to the United States of more than a dozen high-level violators who played key roles in moving SEA heroin shipments to the United States. SEA heroin trafficking links run from independent brokers and shippers in Asia through overseas Chinese criminal populations to ethnic Chinese criminal wholesale distributors in the United States. In the United States, ethnic Chinese criminals rely upon local criminal organizations for the distribution of SEA heroin. Despite the recent decline in the trafficking of SEA heroin in the United States, Chinese criminal groups remain the most sophisticated heroin trafficking organizations in the world.

SEA heroin shipments destined for U.S. markets may transit through China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, or South Korea. Largely independent U.S.-based ethnic Chinese traffickers control distribution within the United States, principally in the Northeast and along the East Coast. During the late 1990s, Vancouver, British Columbia, emerged as a key operational headquarters for ethnic Chinese criminal elements. These criminal groups were enmeshed with North American gangs of Asian descent in transporting SEA heroin to the United States, mainly to the East Coast. A DEA New York Field Division investigation led to the seizure, in January 2001, of 57 kilograms of SEA heroin from a container ship docked at the port in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The largest seizure of SEA heroin in recent years.

Trafficking groups composed of West African criminals also smuggle SEA heroin to the United States. Nigerian criminals have been most active in U.S. cities and areas with well-established Nigerian populations, such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, New York City, Newark, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Over the past several years, Chicago has become a hub for heroin trafficking controlled by Nigerian criminals who primarily deal in SEA heroin.