Saturday, June 24, 2023

JOE BIDEN'S MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS - THEY CONVEY JOE'S UNREGISTERED DEM VOTERS OVER THE BORDER! - VIDEO: Mexican Cartel Threatens to Kill Sex Workers Who Won’t Pay Protection

 THERE'S A REASON WHY THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS VOTED FOR LA RAZA JOE


 FUK MEXICO!

Massive fentanyl drug bust uncovers enough to kill five-million people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJcCGQYbIJc

 

As Breitbart News reported, the latest projections estimate that Biden will set another illegal immigration record this year with 2.6 million border crossers and illegal aliens being apprehended. This figure does not include any of the known and unknown got-away illegal aliens who successfully made their way into the U.S. interior.

 

Exclusive: Official Says Biden’s CBP One Program Benefits Drug Cartels

People waiting to apply for asylum sleep in front or a sign for the CBP One app as they camp near the pedestrian entrance to the San Isidro Port of Entry, linking Tijuana, Mexico with San Diego, Thursday, June 1, 2023, in Tijuana, Mexico. U.S. authorities raised the number of …
AP Photo/Gregory Bull

Frontline employees being pulled from normal inspection duties are reducing the number of labor hours dedicated to finding hidden narcotics, according to a source within Customs and Border Protection. Hundreds of hours daily are spent processing more than one thousand migrants using the CBP One application to schedule appointments to secure their release into the United States.

In May 2023, CBP announced the agency would increase the daily number of appointments for migrants wishing to claim asylum to 1,000 per day and that appointments would be prioritized through an algorithm for those who have the longest wait times using the application. In the announcement, the DHS officials said the latter change would “Cut out smugglers who are preying on noncitizens by prioritizing appointments for those who have been waiting the longest. A percentage of daily available appointments will be allocated to the earliest registered CBP One™ profiles, so noncitizens who have been trying to obtain appointments for the longest time will be prioritized.”

CBP Migrant App (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

CBP Migrant App (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

Despite the claims that the new “lawful pathway” program would cut out smuggling activities by the cartels, the source, who is not authorized to speak to the media, says the impacts are to the contrary. “Any way you look at it, the border is a dangerous place,” the source stated. “The cartels don’t just profit off of the migrants, they survive and thrive by smuggling narcotics.”

“One worry is by redirecting personnel from inspections to asylum processing we are missing the deadliest drug we have seen in modern times, fentanyl,” the source told Breitbart Texas.

After another increase in available appointments announced in May, some 1,250 migrants began to use the CBP One application daily to schedule appointments to have their asylum claims processed at several southwest border ports of entry. Those ports are located in California, Arizona, and Texas. Some of the designated ports of entry are the busiest in the nation. One is the busiest on a more global scale. At the San Ysidro border crossing near the heart of downtown San Diego, more than 70,000 vehicles enter the country each day. In addition, 20,000 pedestrians are inspected for admission each day at the busiest port of entry in the Western Hemisphere.

At the smaller ports of entry, fewer migrants are allowed appointments. However, due to reduced staffing, the effects on the inspection process just as significant. Several times per day, groups of migrants appear for processing in Eagle Pass, Texas, and are released into the United States. Less than one hundred are processed at this port of entry daily. That port of entry may be forced to receive additional migrants due to a recent cancellation of the program in Laredo, Texas. The pause in the processing of CBP One appointments in Laredo is due to reports of migrants being extorted by authorities in Mexico.

The source tells Breitbart, each day 1,250 migrants from a variety of countries, including Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, Mexico, and others across Central America require hours of administrative processing that is converting some frontline CBP Officers into asylum petition clerks.

Screenshot from Venezuelan migrant's cell phone. (Used with Permission)

Screenshot from Venezuelan migrant’s cell phone. (Used with Permission)

The source says the officers tasked with processing the migrants are redirected from pedestrian screening and vehicle inspection stations. “The cartels use humans to serve as body carriers and have become quite creative when concealing narcotics in the thousands of vehicles that cross daily,” the source explained. “Finding the drugs is a time-consuming process that should not suffer as a result of the CBP One program.”

Recent fentanyl seizures made by authorities at the border crossing points and in communities farther away from the border highlight the volume of fentanyl that Mexican cartels move every day.

As the result of a recent two-month DHS coordinated surge of resources to combat the smuggling of fentanyl in California and Arizona — Operation Blue Lotus — authorities in San Diego County noted a 300 percent increase in fentanyl seizures versus the same period last year – from 732 pounds in 2022 to 2,931 pounds in 2023. The operation involved the augmentation of 35 Customs and Border Protection officers and 85 Homeland Security Investigations special agents along the southwest border from March 13 to May 10, 2023.

The two-month fentanyl-enforcement surge along the southwest border resulted in the seizure of about 4,721 pounds of fentanyl and 1,700 pounds of fentanyl precursors, according to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California.

On May 30, one of the largest seizures of fentanyl by the Border Patrol was reported at a Yuma highway checkpoint. As reported by Breitbart Texas, Border Patrol agents seized more than 190 pounds of fentanyl discovered meticulously concealed in a passenger vehicle. That seizure, according to the Border Patrol, contained enough lethal doses of the drug to kill 40 million people and had a street value estimated at over $2 million.

This single seizure was more than the entire amount of fentanyl seized by the Border Patrol in the month of April according to CBP. In most cases involving intricate concealed compartment smuggling detected in Border Patrol cases, the narcotics are loaded in Mexico and driven through a port of entry according to the source.

The source worries that future increases in the number of migrants allowed to seek asylum appointments at ports of entry through the CBP One application will further detract from the agency’s ability to adequately inspect pedestrians and vehicles entering the United States.

Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol.  Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on Twitter @RandyClarkBBTX.!


VIDEO: Mexican Cartel Threatens to Kill Sex Workers Who Won’t Pay Protection

Sex workers take a break from waiting for clients to line up to receive a monthly donated hot lunch, in central Mexico City, Friday, March 5, 2021. Hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic have forced former sex workers in Mexico back into the trade years after they left, made it …
AP File Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

One of Mexico’s most violent cartels sparked a new controversy by threatening to kill all escorts and other sex workers who don’t pay protection to them. The threats come at a time when Mexican politicians continuously claim a decrease in crime.

This week, Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) recorded a video and sent it out to social media showing five cartel hitmen holding five kneeling women at gunpoint. During the video, the cartel gunmen issued their threats.

In the video, the gunmen claimed that any sex work in the region belonged to them, They said they would issue bracelets to all escorts and sex workers to ensure they were working with CJNG. Any who refused would be killed, the gunmen threatened. The fate of the women remains unknown.

The video is believed to have been taken in the Mexican state of Guanajuato, where Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) has been able to carry out numerous mass killings without any real response from Mexico’s government. As Breitbart Texas reported, CJNG gunmen killed dozens of innocent victims in bars and other entertainment venues. They even threatened to kill any innocent civilian or bystander seen entering a bar that was paying protection to CJNG.

The new video threat comes at a time when Mexico’s government has constantly claimed that impunity and violence have ended in the country due to the current president’s policies. However, during the term of sitting President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, cartels have seen much growth while the country has seen a large-scale spread in violence to once peaceful areas.

The rise of cartels has been noted by various U.S. politicians who have loudly criticized both the Biden administration and Lopez Obrador for allowing the spread of cartel influence, which they blame for the current fentanyl epidemic in America.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.     


Texas Teen Reported Missing in Mexico While Visiting Border State

Tamaulipas FGJE
FGJE Tamaulipas

Authorities in Mexico are searching for a teenager from Texas who went missing while visiting relatives in the border state of Tamaulipas. The disappearance comes at a time when Tamaulipas has become one of the most violent states in Mexico due to raging cartel violence and the perceived failure of state and federal officials to address it.

A government spokesman confirmed to Breitbart Texas that the Tamaulipas Attorney General’s Office is investigating the disappearance of 18-year-old Jose Rodolfo Najera Olvera from Brownsville, Texas.

The teenager is a U.S. citizen who was in Ciudad Victoria visiting relatives when he went missing on June 10. According to information provided to authorities by relatives, the teen and another friend were driving a Volkswagen Passat to a rural community called El Roble, just East of Ciudad Victoria when they went missing.

The disappearance comes just days after, as Breitbart Texas reported, a group of Gulf Cartel gunmen kidnapped five men from the Dominican Republic who were legal U.S. residents and were traveling by car to the state of Veracruz.

In March, the Gulf Cartel kidnapped four U.S. citizens in the border city of Matamoros. In that case, two of the victims died during the ordeal. As Breitbart Texas reported, the Gulf Cartel used an ambulance from the city of Matamoros to move the victims and took them to a clinic used by the cartel to treat their gunmen. Days later the Gulf Cartel left the victims and a caretaker in a stash house and also surrendered five cartel gunmen. Since then, the six cartel members are the only ones that have been arrested and charged in connection with the case.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.     

Four Migrants Found Dead in 24 Hours in One Texas Border Sector

Border Patrol Agents and Brooks County Sheriff's Office Deputies recover the body of an illegal immigrant in Brooks County. (File Photo: Bob Price/Breitbart Texas)
File Photo: Bob Price/Breitbart Texas

The blistering heat along the Texas border in the Del Rio Sector claimed the lives of at least four migrants during a 24-hour period this week. The weather forecast calls for high temperatures above 105° Fahrenheit for at least the next week.

Del Rio Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Juan Bernal tweeted a report on Friday stating, “Over the last 24 hours, our agents have encountered four deceased individuals in the Del Rio Sector’s area of responsibility.”

Chief Bernal blamed the record-breaking high temperatures for the sudden surge in migrant deaths. Weather.com predicts temperatures during the coming week to reach as high 110° Fahrenheit.

Earlier this week, a CBP source not authorized to speak to the media told Breitbart Texas’s Randy Clark that agents recovered the remains of two more migrant bodies near Eagle Pass, Texas.

“One of the deceased migrants was preliminarily identified as a 25-year-old Mexican national,” Clark wrote. “The other, according to the source, remains unidentified.”

Earlier this month, Brooks County Sheriff’s Office officials in the Rio Grande Valley Sector told Breitbart Texas their deputies recovered the body of one deceased migrant and the skeletal remains of two others.

Brooks County officials reported that they had recovered the bodies or skeletal remains of at least 21 migrants so far this calendar year.

Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.

Ten Migrant Children Found Abandoned in 115-Degree Heat near Border in Texas

Texas DPS troopers find ten migrant children abandoned by Rio Grande in Eagle Pass. (Texas Department of Public Safety)
Texas Department of Public Safety

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers found ten unaccompanied migrant children left on the bank of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. Temperatures in the area were exceeding 115 degrees Fahrenheit at the time.

Texas DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez tweeted a video showing troopers assigned to Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security mission bringing a group of unaccompanied migrant children out of the brush near the Rio Grande. Olivarez said human smugglers left the children at the edge of the river that separates Texas and Mexico in heat exceeding 115 degrees.

Troopers held the children in Eagle Pass’ Shelby Park for the arrival of Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents.

Just last week, DPS troopers found three other unaccompanied migrant children in the same area, Breitbart Texas reported.

Olivarez tweeted photos of three migrant children found abandoned by human smugglers near the Rio Grande that separates Texas and Mexico. The troopers, working the border region near Eagle Pass under Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, identified the children as Honduran nationals — a 16-year-old girl and two boys, ages 13, 11, and six.

The troopers saw the children after they crossed the border into Shelby Park in Eagle Pass on Sunday, June 18, Olivarez told Breitbart Texas. The agents helped the three children around the razor wire barriers and turned them over to Eagle Pass Station Border Patrol agents.

So far this fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2022, Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents found nearly 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children, according to an official CBP report. This represents an increase of 38.3 percent over the approximately 7,000 unaccompanied migrant children apprehended during the same period in FY22.

Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.

Gulf Cartel Human Smuggler Busted near Border, Say Texas Troopers

Texas DPS troopers arrested Jose Juan Eufracio Medina for allegedly smuggling five migrants near Mission, Texas. (Texas Department of Public Safety)
Texas Department of Public Safety

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers arrested a man they say is a Gulf Cartel operative near the border town of Mission. The troopers report the Mexican national, illegally present in the U.S., helped five migrants cross the Rio Grande and scale a border wall.

Texas DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez tweeted photos and a video showing the arrest of Jose Juan Eufracio Medina, a Mexican national illegally present in the United States. Troopers, assigned to the border under Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, say Mecina guided a group of migrants across the Rio Grande.

After crossing the border river that separates Texas and Mexico, Medina allegedly used a makeshift ladder to help the migrants cross a border barrier.

Troopers arrested Media after the crossing and say he admitted being paying $1,000 to cross over the river and border barrier. He said he was headed to Houston and admitted to working for the Gulf Cartel, troopers reported.

Authorities identified the five migrants as citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico.

In the video interview with Medina, he admitted being on the phone with a cartel “guide” who directed him on where to go with the migrant group. He claimed to be independent in the video.

Troopers arrested Medina and charged him with a state crime of smuggling persons, Olivarez reported.

Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.

 

 FUK MEXICO!

Massive fentanyl drug bust uncovers enough to kill five-million people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJcCGQYbIJc

 

As Breitbart News reported, the latest projections estimate that Biden will set another illegal immigration record this year with 2.6 million border crossers and illegal aliens being apprehended. This figure does not include any of the known and unknown got-away illegal aliens who successfully made their way into the U.S. interior.

 

Mexican President Lopez Obrador: Don’t Vote Republican

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

ILDEFONSO ORTIZ and BRANDON DARBY

10 Mar 202323

2:04

Mexico’s president said he would call for all Hispanics to not vote for Republicans, because they are members of a “corrupt, inhumane, and hypocritical” party. The harsh words come as U.S. politicians call for a stronger response to Mexican cartels, particularly after the recent fatal kidnappings of four Americans.

“If they don’t change their attitude and think they are going to use Mexico for their purposes with propaganda, elections, and politicking, we are going to call for [people] to not vote for that party, for being interventionist, inhumane, hypocrite and corrupt,” said Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO).

Lopez Obrador also blamed the U.S. for the fentanyl crisis, claiming Mexico does not produce or consume the deadly drug.

The Mexican president claimed the Republican Party stood silent after U.S. health authorities approved the use of opioids “supposedly for pain relief.”

Lopez Obrador also criticized the gun lobby for funding Republican candidates amid cartel violence. “Eighty percent of the high-powered weapons used by the delinquency in Mexico are sold in the U.S. and they don’t even have a registry of that,” he said. “Even more, some of the legislators of the Republican Party are financed by the companies that produce the weapons.”

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.     


Mexican president to US: Fentanyl is your problem

 

MARK STEVENSON

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Thursday that his country does not produce or consume fentanyl, despite enormous evidence to the contrary.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appeared to depict the synthetic opioid epidemic largely as a U.S. problem, and said the United States should use family values to fight drug addiction.

His statement came during a visit to Mexico by Liz Sherwood-Randall, the White House homeland security adviser, to discuss the fentanyl crisis. It also comes amid calls by some U.S. Republicans to use the U.S. military to attack drug labs in Mexico.

The Mexican government has acknowledged in the past that fentanyl is produced at labs in Mexico using precursor chemicals imported from China. Fentanyl has been blamed for about 70,000 opioid deaths per year in the United States.

“Here, we do not produce fentanyl, and we do not have consumption of fentanyl,” LĂłpez Obrador said. “Why don't they (the United States) take care of their problem of social decay?"

 He went on to recite a list of reasons why Americans might be turning to fentanyl, including single-parent families, parents who kick grown children out of their houses and people who put elderly relatives in old-age homes “and visit them once a year.”

His statement contrasted sharply with a Thursday tweet from U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar saying a meeting between Sherwood-Randall and Mexico's attorney general was meant “to enhance security cooperation and fight against the scourge of fentanyl to better protect our two nations.”

There is little debate among U.S. and even Mexican officials that almost all the fentanyl consumed in the United States is produced and processed in Mexico.

 In February, the Mexican army announced it seized more than a half million fentanyl pills in what it called the largest synthetic drug lab found to date. The army said the outdoor lab was discovered in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state.

In the same city in 2021, the army raided a lab that it said probably made about 70 million of the blue fentanyl pills every month for the Sinaloa cartel.

“The president is lying,” said Mexican security analyst David Saucedo. “The Mexican cartels, above all the CJNG ( Jalisco New Generation Cartel) and the Sinaloa Cartel have learned to manufacture it.”

 “They themselves buy the precursor chemicals, set up laboratories to produce fentanyl and distribute it to cities in the United States and sell it,” Saucedo said. “Little by little they have begun to build a monopoly on fentanyl, because the Mexican cartels are present along the whole chain of production and sales.”

While it is true that fentanyl consumption appears to remain low in Mexico and largely confined to northern border areas, that may be because the Mexican government is so bad at detecting it. A 2019 study in the border city of Tijuana showed that 93% of samples of methamphetamines and heroin there contained some fentanyl.

Saucedo said fentanyl exports to the U.S. are so lucrative for Mexican cartels that they previously had not seen a need to develop a domestic market for the drug.

 “It is true that fentanyl consumption in Mexico is marginal, but some mid-level cartels have begun selling it in border cities and in big cities like Leon, Mexico City and Monterrey,” Saucedo said.

On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham held a news conference, saying he wanted “to unleash the fury and might of the U.S. against these cartels."

“The second step that we will be engaging in is give the military the authority to go after these organizations wherever they exist,” Graham said. "Not to invade Mexico. Not to shoot Mexican airplanes down. But to destroy drug labs that are poisoning Americans.”

LĂłpez Obrador said Mexico would not accept such threats, calling them “an insult to Mexico and a lack of respect for our independence and sovereignty.”

LĂłpez threatened to start a campaign in the United States asking Mexicans and Hispanics who live there not to vote for Republicans.

 “We are going to issue a call not to vote for that party, because they are inhuman and interventionist,” LĂłpez Obrador said.

Security analyst Alejandro Hope said LĂłpez Obrador appeared trapped between his own “hugs, not bullets” strategy of not confronting cartels — which plays well among his supporters — and increasing U.S. pressure, especially from Republicans. Portraying himself as the defender of Mexico's sovereignty has been an easy out for LĂłpez Obrador in the past.

Hope said the Mexican president may not realize how much the issue of declaring Mexican cartels terrorist organizations could become a conservative rallying cry in 2024, just as former President Donald Trump's call for a border wall was in 2016.

“It's the wall, version 2024,” said Hope. “He (LĂłpez Obrador) believes everybody is as willing to make deals as Trump, but many of these (Republicans) are much more ideological.”

 “The problem is that it puts the Biden administration in a terrible position, it puts it between the Republicans' intransigence and LĂłpez Obrador's intransigence,” Hope said.

Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico's top diplomat, wrote in his Twitter account Thursday that proposals like Graham's would be “catastrophic for bilateral anti-drug cooperation.”

“They (Republicans) know that the fentanyl epidemic did not originate in Mexico, but in the United States,” Ebrard wrote. “They know that more work is being done against fentanyl now than ever.”

 Mexicans, both in government and outside it, are clearly afraid of fentanyl use increasing in Mexico. A civic group has launched a campaign of painting walls with the slogan “Mxsinfentanilo” — “Mexico without fentanyl” — and LĂłpez Obrador has launched a series of anti-drug TV ads.

But once again, LĂłpez Obrador's government appears to view fentanyl as a U.S. problem.

In the ads launched in November, the Mexican government used videos of homeless people and open-air drug users in Philadelphia’s embattled Kensington neighborhood to try to scare young people away from drugs.

 


  

China’s Role in Black-Market Money Laundering

By John A. Cassara

 

Illicit proceeds are the catalyst driving the tragedies surrounding the open U.S. border. Yet few realize the quiet ascendency of Chinese money launderers. They are displacing Colombians and Mexicans.

Their preferred methodology is the Black-Market Peso Exchange (BMPE). It is arguably the largest and most effective money laundering methodology in the Western Hemisphere. The evolution of the BMPE is an excellent case study of how international criminal networks adapt and how China is taking over.

Ironically, the BMPE was not created to launder drug money.  In 1967, Colombia enacted regulations that strictly prohibited citizens’ access to foreign exchange. Colombian merchants who wanted to import U.S. trade goods -- for example, John Deer tractors, Bell helicopters, or Marlboro cigarettes -- through legitimate banking channels had to pay stiff surcharges above the official exchange rate. To avoid these steep add-on costs, importers often turned to Colombian underground peso brokers, from whom they could buy U.S. dollars on the black market for less than the official exchange rate to finance their legitimate trade.

By the 1980s, the underground peso situation was taking on a new dimension. As U.S. cities found themselves awash in Colombian cocaine, narco-traffickers and cartels were faced with a logistical problem. They had to devise ways to launder and repatriate approximately 20 million pounds of U.S. currency they annually accumulate in North America.

The criminal organizations found a partial solution in the first law of economicsSupply met demand in the form of the BMPE.

For example, consider a Colombian drug cartel that has sold $3 million worth of cocaine in the United States. A representative of the cartel sells these accumulated dollars to a Colombian peso broker at a discount. The cartel is now out of the picture, having successfully sold its drug dollars in the United States and, in return, obtains pesos back in Colombia.

To complete the BMPE cycle, the peso broker must take two more steps. First, he directs his representatives in the United States to “place” the purchased drug dollars into U.S. financial institutions, using a variety of techniques designed to avoid arousing suspicion or triggering financial intelligence reporting.

Second, he takes orders from Colombian businesses for U.S. trade goods, arranging for their purchase using the laundered drug money he owns in the United States. Some businesses should know better. Via “willful blindness,” they don’t ask the questions they should. The broker has laundered the $3 million in drug money he purchased from the drug cartel.

This money laundering methodology was so successful that the Colombian BMPE became the premier money laundering methodology in the Western Hemisphere in the 1980s, 1990s, and the first decade of the 2000s.

In 2014 there was a turning point. A large law enforcement investigation called Operation Fashion Police showed how Los Angeles-based garment dealers took U.S. drug money and exported their product not to Colombia but to Mexico.

In addition, some of the clothing exporters mixed customs fraud into the BMPE conspiracy. “Made in China” labels were removed from thousands of imported garments. The fraud saved the co-conspirators from paying taxes on the “Made in China” imports because on paper they appeared to be “Made in the USA,” and exempt from customs duties under the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA).

Once again, with the Mexican BMPE, the proceeds from narcotics trafficking stay on the U.S. side of the border. The same is now true with the cartels’ U.S. involvement in human trafficking, trade in opioids, kidnapping, stolen cars, and other illegal activities. In return, trade goods are shipped to Mexico.

About five years ago, the BMPE shifted focus once again. Now, investigators are finding that Chinese manufactured goods are becoming favored instruments in the BMPE and that similar BMPE financial systems are found around the world.

In 2000 bilateral trade between China and Mexico was about 1 billion dollars. By 2021, trade between China and Mexico topped 100 billion dollars. Mexican authorities have said that the surge has allowed drug cartels and their money launderers to piggyback on this burgeoning trade relationship.

Fronts for Mexican drug trafficking organizations use illicit proceeds to buy container loads of cheaply made Chinese goods. Using the trade-based money laundering (TBML) technique of over-invoicing, low-quality Chinese manufactured items are made to appear on paper as being worth significantly more. Payment for the goods is sent out of the country. That’s the wash.

We see the result of this in our cities and towns but we don’t recognize or understand what is going on. Massive quantities of cheaply manufactured Chinese goods including counterfeits are found in black markets as well as souks, bazaars, marketplaces, dollar stores, Mom and Pop shops, swap meets, street kiosks, “China shops,” and warehouse stores around the world.

In some cases, brokers under-invoice Chinese product. A variety of goods including electronics, garments, small household appliances, are purchased, imported, and sold in many “China shops” and on the black market in countries around the world. Via this form of value transfer, funds are used to buy contraband including drugs, ivory, endangered and illegal wildlife and their parts, and heavily regulated flora and food items that are later shipped to China.

The BMPE has evolved further as Mexican and other foreign national buyers and brokers travel directly to China to place orders for the goods or they avail themselves of e-commerce brokers to purchase consumer products that are made in China.

Chinese organized crime has entered the mix. Chinese actors working with the Mexican cartels pioneered the growing use of “mirror accounts” or “mirror swaps” to launder the proceeds of crime.

With “swaps,” Chinese brokers often working with Chinese organized crime groups and the cartels identify Chinese/American cash intensive businesses that are willing to cooperate.

How do the swaps work?  The Chinese/American businessman receives the drug cash from the Chinese broker working with the cartels. The business later “places” the proceeds of crime into its revenue flow and represents the drug cash as legitimate proceeds from the business. Or, the Chinese use the cash to assist other Chinese that want to circumvent Chinese capital flight restrictions and, for example, purchase U.S. property, housing, or other high-ticket goods.  

Meanwhile, these complicit businesses are asked to transfer a designated amount of money through Chinese phone apps to accounts based in China. Using a currency converter app on a smartphone, the participants agree on the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Chinese yuan. Once the money is offshore in China, the value can be further rerouted to Mexico or elsewhere per the instructions of the cartels.

It's called a “swap” because the participating businessperson takes possession of the drug cash, while simultaneously transferring the equivalent in Chinese yuan from his/her account in China to the account provided by the broker. Of course, the Chinese/American businessperson also receives a commission.

During the original Colombian BMPE, the average commission for the black-market peso broker was about 15%. The Chinese are doing it for 1 to 2% on average. And the speed is almost instantaneous. For the traffickers, the big plus is that the Chinese organized crime groups involved absorb all the risk. The cartels know they will get paid.  

Communications are generally accomplished via Chinese apps such as WeChat. Law enforcement is reportedly challenged to monitor the communications and monetary transactions. Yet the same transactions are easily monitored by the platforms involved as well as Chinese intelligence entities. Mirror swaps also avoid U.S. financial intelligence reporting requirements -- our primary anti-money laundering countermeasure.

Never before in the history of organized crime has such a large revenue stream been taken over without resorting to violence.

The BMPE is just one example of how communist China and its actors have become the world’s most dominant ongoing transnational criminal and money laundering enterprise.

John A. Cassara is a retired Treasury Special Agent. His most recent book is China -- Specified Unlawful Activities: CCP Inc., Transnational Crime and Money Laundering. For additional information or for contact see www.JohnCassara.com

 

 

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