MEXICO MOVING MOST OF U.S. DRUGS

Albuquerque One Of 14 Cities Known As 'Staging Areas' For Traffickers,
DEA Says

WASHINGTON - Mexican drug traffickers have pushed aside their
Colombian counterparts and now dominate the U.S. market in the biggest
reorganization of the trade since the rise of the Colombian cartels in
the 1980s, U.S. officials say.

Mexican groups now are behind much of the cocaine, heroin, marijuana
and methamphetamine on U.S. streets, the officials say, with Mexican
law-enforcement agencies viewed as either too weak or too corrupt to
stop them.

Mexico's role as a drug-trafficking hub has been growing for some
time, but its grip on the $400-billion-a-year trade has strengthened
in recent years. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
in June, 92 percent of the cocaine sold in the United States in 2004
came through the U.S.-Mexico border, compared with 77 percent in 2003.

And the Key West, Fla.-based Joint Interagency Task Force South, which
coordinates federal drug interdiction efforts and intelligence, has
reported almost 90 percent of the cocaine heading to the U.S. market
goes by boat to Mexico or other countries in Central America and then
by land to the U.S. border.

The increase has sparked several recent reports by DEA and other U.S.
agencies as well as hearings in both the House and Senate. Congress
members, worried the smuggling networks could be used to sneak in
terrorists, are pressing the Bush administration to spend more money
on programs to intercept drug shipments before they reach the border.

Officials describe the Mexican cartels as business-savvy, tight-knit
family affairs that operate weblike networks of international
partnerships. The Colombian cartels control the drug trade from its
production to its wholesale distribution. The Mexicans tend to focus
more on distribution, the business' most lucrative leg.

Anthony Placido, the DEA's top intelligence official, told a
congressional panel in June that the Mexican gangs have links to
groups from Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, and "street
gangs, prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs, who conduct most of
the retail and street-level distribution throughout the country."

The Mexicans don't control the coca or opium poppy crops in South
America but are "taking ownership of (drugs) and beginning to deliver
the drug themselves to Mexican distributors in the United States,"
said David Murray, a senior adviser with the White House's Office of
National Drug Control Policy.

The DEA noted 14 cities as "staging areas:" Albuquerque; Brownsville,
Texas; Dallas; El Paso; Houston; Laredo, Texas; Los Angeles; McAllen,
Texas; Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Tulsa, Okla.; San Antonio; San Diego;
and Tucson, Ariz.

U.S. law-enforcement agencies have uncovered over 30 tunnels below the
border built by drug traffickers. One congressional aide described
them as "industry-standard tunnels that you would find in a mining
operation."

The Mexicans also offer a more varied menu of drugs than their
Colombian counterparts, who traditionally dealt in cocaine and heroin.
According to the DEA, Mexico is the second-largest supplier of heroin
in the United States after Colombia and the largest foreign supplier
of marijuana.

Mexican gangs also are becoming a major force in the burgeoning
methamphetamine trade by setting up production laboratories on both
sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. In 2004, a record 3,600 pounds of
methamphetamine was seized along the Southwest border, a 74 percent
rise since 2001, according to DEA figures.

Placido said the administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox has
had some success in undermining Mexico's traditional drug-smuggling
cartels and upped its cooperation with its U.S. counterparts. But new
traffickers and syndicates have risen in their place.

Officials blame a turf war among Mexican drug cartels for a wave of
killings and kidnappings along the Mexican side of the border that
prompted the U.S. State Department to issue three travel advisories
warning U.S. citizens to stay away, including one July 26.

Congress is taking note of the problem. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., who
oversees drug issues in the Committee on Government Reform, has warned
that the lack of effective border controls could affect "the smuggling
of people, terrorists and weapons."

Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, has introduced legislation to improve security
cooperation between Mexico, the United States and Canada.

At a recent hearing, he pointed out that 3,000 illegal migrants caught
trying to cross the border last year came from "nations that have produced
or have been associated with terrorist cells" such as Somalia, Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia.