D.E.A. Launders Mexican Drug Cartel Money (N.Y.Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/world/americas/us-drug-agents-launder-profits-of-mexican-cartels.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

(Dec. 2011)

The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders...officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.

...The officials said that while the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests.

This operation has expanded into Mexico in spite of the recent reports from the summer of 2011 from the Global Commission on Drugs and a Senate subcommittee that indicated the WoD was a failure after 40 years and untold billions. As Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, said in a media advisory. "Without adequate oversight and management we are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a problem without even knowing what we're getting in return."

The former officials said that the drug agency tried to seize as much money as it laundered — partly in the fees the operatives charged traffickers for their services and another part in carefully choreographed arrests at pickup points identified by their undercover operatives.

And the former officials said that federal law enforcement agencies had to seek Justice Department approval to launder amounts greater than $10 million in any single operation. But they said that the cap was treated more as a guideline than a rule, and that it had been waived on many occasions to attract the interest of high-value targets.

Contractors in the Middle East cannot wait to be able to move their operations out of that part of the world and into Mexico. With military equipment now going to local police depts in the U.S., no doubt it would benefit some to be able to sell equipment to Mexico, as well.

Rather than recognize that the war on drugs is a failure, it seems the U.S. is gearing up to reek havoc in our neighbor's house. Few at the centers of power are willing to consider the damage the failure of the drug warriors have created - but, when the top beneficiaries of the war on drugs are military contractors, this reality is no surprise.

If conservatives are concerned about immigration now, just wait until the military contractors ramp up the WoD in Mexico. They'll have no one to blame but themselves.

Personally, I would rather have that 10 million in illegal profits going to the states and nations in which they are laundered, rather than going to criminals and military contractors. But that's just me. Obviously there are bigger issues than health and safety at $take here.