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Taking out Medina is a bold move guaranteed to grab headlines. What’s lost in the clamor is a recent government report that Mexican drug gangs have doubled their heroin production RIGHT HERE in the United States.
This is not a case of cutting off the head to kill the monster. It would be the same as saying the capture of Bin Laden would stomp out radical Islamic terrorism.
Federal authorities gave their Mexican counterparts a warrant for Medina’s arrest a year ago. They say his network is responsible for smuggling 440 pounds of heroin a month across the border into California alone — often stashed in cars crossing in from Tijuana. Estimates are that Medina’s organization took in nearly $150 million a year.
But they were by no means a monopoly.
We’ve placed so much attention on what needs to be done in Mexico to beat back the drug trade. However, over the course of a single year, the Justice Department found, Mexican gangs already here moved $40 billion in cash back across the border.
And it wasn’t all from California: The gangs stretch across the entire U.S.
Heroin smuggled in from South America has long been king here, followed by Asian heroin. But the explosion in Mexican smack means lower prices, higher crime rates — and more ODs.
Once again, we’re fighting a war with an elusive enemy — and we’re expecting already-overburdened local police departments to handle it, on top of everything else they do.
So what’s the answer? Turn up the heat on the local gangs now.
Leave pot alone for now. High time, low value.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano — recently promised Mexico aid for improving living conditions in its cities.
As if the Mexican government’s sudden willingness to take our money and work with us will curb the need for the drug and quell the violence that surrounds the business.
Enough of that nonsense.
Sure, it helps to develop cross-border cooperation with Mexico’s federal police whenever it looks like there’s a spillover onto our soil. Keep using “mirror coverage,“ targeting specific spots and then hitting them from both sides at once.
For the most part, though, let Mexico and its corrupt troops fight the cartels on their own, instead of making them the latest bailout recipients. Otherwise, you know where that could lead.
Put more focus here, in our cities — including Union City, Elizabeth, Passaic, Perth Amboy — with local task forces assigned strictly to bombard the heroin trade.
Find the best crime fighters at all levels, from local on up to federal. Then have at it.
Work the ports. Work the streets. Cross-reference all information in a database accessible by the task forces. Keep them all in communication, sharing successes and failures, ideas and suggestions.
Don’t overdo buy and busts. Keep the small-size seizures quiet, and use those arrests to begin building a map leading to the key players. Offer reward money to help cut those paths.
Keep the larger goal in mind — don’t play to the public or the politicians. Be willing to invest the time and the effort. Set out a reasonable timetable, keep track of all you do, then produce results.
“Rebuilding” Mexico is exactly what the local thugs want us to focus on. That diverts precious money and resources from crushing the cockroaches who live right here — the ones who are hurting OUR quality of life.
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