Hit Hard by the Pandemic, Mexico’s Drug Cartels Tweaked Their Playbook
The brutal cartels, like legitimate companies, struggled as governments imposed border closures and lockdowns, and had to get creative.
In October, federal agents in Arizona uncovered a tunnel that they said was built by Mexican cartels.
In October, federal agents in Arizona uncovered a tunnel that they said was built by Mexican cartels.Credit…Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times
By Steve Fisher and Kirk Semple
Dec. 29, 2020
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CULIACÁN, Mexico — Like a lot of businesses, the Sinaloa Cartel was knocked back on its heels as the coronavirus swept the globe and travel ground to a near halt.
Government measures to contain the virus had fouled up its operations, interrupting the supply of chemicals for manufacturing synthetic drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine and cutting off trafficking routes across international borders.
But the cartel is not just any business. It established itself as one of the world’s most powerful drug trafficking groups with a trademark mix of business acumen, ingenuity and lawlessness.
And so while many legitimate industries remain staggered by the pandemic, the cartel has quickly adapted, as have other organizations that dominate trafficking throughout the Americas, the source of nearly all of the world’s cocaine and most of the heroin consumed in the United States.
“The cartels have long demonstrated their resiliency,” said Scott Brown, the head of the Homeland Security Investigations office in Arizona. “They are going to continue to find new and innovative ways to try to move their product.”
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The drug trafficking organizations have slashed payrolls and devised workarounds to traffic drugs and get them into the hands of consumers, according to interviews with sources close to the Sinaloa Cartel, law enforcement officials in the United States and Latin America and security analysts.
During the year, some traffickers have increasingly relied on newer tools like drones and cryptocurrency and on creative uses of older approaches like underground tunnels and sea routes.
American officials have also detected a growing emphasis on the recruitment of impoverished or drug-addicted Americans to smuggle drugs in their body cavities.
The changes, sources said, have allowed the Sinaloa Cartel and the region’s other major drug trafficking groups to rebound quickly even as the pandemic continues to devastate economies.
ImageMexico’s Navy seized drugs from a small boat along the Pacific coast.
Mexico’s Navy seized drugs from a small boat along the Pacific coast.Credit…Mexico’s Secretariat of the Navy, via Reuters
The nimbleness of the trafficking groups has forced the authorities throughout the region to adjust their tactics accordingly, even as some law enforcement agencies in Latin America and elsewhere have been stretched thin by pandemic-related duties, which have drawn resources that would otherwise have been devoted to fighting drug trafficking.
Even before the pandemic, officials said, the cat-and-mouse contest between drug traffickers and law enforcement agents was anything but static.
“It’s fluid,” said Matthew Donahue, deputy chief of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. “You can’t have one answer and live by it. It could change tomorrow.”
As the first wave of the pandemic swept from continent to continent in the late winter and early spring, government measures to respond to the emergency caused disruptions throughout the drug trade.
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In the Americas, the shutdowns hit drug traffickers hard, in some places bringing operations to a near halt.
“When it first hit,” Mr. Donahue said of the pandemic, “it kind of put everything at a standstill.”
Facing travel restrictions, operatives from Mexican trafficking organizations had trouble getting to Central America to coordinate maritime shipments of drugs. As operations slowed, some criminal groups were forced to stockpile their product in Latin America, Mr. Donahue said.
The slowdown was felt throughout the sprawling networks of the Sinaloa Cartel, from the coca fields of South America to drug-packing facilities in Mexico and all along its international trafficking routes, said a bookkeeper for the organization who monitors its drug shipments throughout the region.
Image
The San Ysidro border crossing between Mexico and the United States. President Trump barred entry to nonessential travelers in March.
The San Ysidro border crossing between Mexico and the United States. President Trump barred entry to nonessential travelers in March.Credit…Christian Monterrosa/EPA, via Shutterstock
Like many legal businesses trying to counter the impacts of the pandemic, the group reorganized, furloughing many low-level employees, including truck drivers, warehouse workers and security personnel, said the bookkeeper and two other cartel associates in interviews. The sources requested anonymity because they were speaking without authorization, and were afraid for their safety.
The New York Times