The ports of entry are a big part of the picture. First are the organized—the transnational criminal organizations, largely drug trafficking.
They are professional criminals, and their objectives are economic in nature. The second are the criminal gangs. These transshipment groups can have a relationship with gangs like MS, sometimes hiring gang members as hitmen and providing them with the drugs they sell in the neighborhoods they control. But while the gangs may desire to participate more in large-scale international drug transshipment, they rarely get to do so. Inside the United States, when Central American gangs sell drugs on the streets, they are not selling drugs that they have brought from the region on their own.
With so much Andean cocaine flowing through the Mexico-Central America vector, one might expect Mexico to be finding and stopping a large amount of the drug. Seizure data, in fact, indicates otherwise: once smugglers reach Mexico, their probability of losing control of their cocaine drops.
First, Mexico and Honduras—two countries closely aligned with U. Second, these two countries, plus Venezuela, lack reliable current public reporting on cocaine flows and seizures. Wire transfer businesses and money transmitters offer these traffickers a quick, electronic, and often anonymous means of laundering their drug proceeds.
Traffickers conceal their illegitimate transactions among the large volume of legitimate transfers that take place daily. Money transmitters are located throughout the United States and enable drug traffickers in most drug markets to wire drug proceeds to the South Texas border area or directly to Mexico.
When funds are transferred to this area, they are often collected and then transported in bulk to Mexico. The city is home to approximately 1. The economic and transportation systems that support the city create an environment conducive to drug trafficking. Mexican drug traffickers conceal their operations among the city's large Hispanic population, use the extensive highway system to receive and transport illicit drug shipments, and exploit commercial businesses and financial institutions to launder illicit proceeds.
Many Mexican DTOs place cells in San Antonio to facilitate the transportation and distribution of illicit drugs from Mexico, the South Texas border area, and San Antonio to drug markets across the country. Bexar County--specifically, San Antonio--is the principal drug production center in the South Texas HIDTA region; considerably more illicit drug production takes place in the metropolitan area than any other locale in South Texas.
However, because of an abundant supply of Mexican ice methamphetamine, production is at a relatively low level. In six methamphetamine laboratories were seized, compared with 15 in See Table 4. Despite the slight decrease in laboratory seizures from to , some local law enforcement officials believe that local production levels may be trending upward again.
Some local methamphetamine abusers still prefer to produce and abuse locally produced powder methamphetamine despite the prevalence of Mexican ice methamphetamine. The recent seizure of 58 kilograms of pseudoephedrine is an indication that precursor chemical smuggling from Mexico is supplying some local methamphetamine producers.
Additionally, local methamphetamine producers circumvent restrictions on the purchase of large quantities of cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine by purchasing these products at numerous locations throughout San Antonio and in surrounding states. Table 4. Marijuana is produced in San Antonio and Bexar County, but its availability pales in comparison with that of Mexican marijuana. Limited quantities of marijuana are produced from outdoor and indoor cannabis grow sites throughout Bexar County.
In recent months the San Antonio Police Department and Bexar County Sheriff's Office have reported an increase in local indoor cannabis cultivation, including the use of hydroponic growing techniques. According to officials from both agencies, indoor cultivation operations in the area are relatively small and lack the sophistication of indoor operations documented in other areas of the country. Moreover, these indoor grow sites produce personal use quantities of marijuana insufficient for distribution.
San Antonio serves as a transshipment center for Mexican DTOs as a result of its proximity to Mexico and its extensive transportation network.
San Antonio is located approximately miles from the U. As a result, many Mexican DTOs are establishing cells in the city that specialize in drug transportation to other transportation and distribution centers in Texas and to drug markets in other regions of the United States.
The highway network that supports San Antonio facilitates the movement of illicit drug shipments into and through the city. Most of the major roadways serving the area originate at the U. See Figure 2. This transportation network also provides drug traffickers with various routes to transport bulk quantities of illicit drug proceeds to the South Texas border area and eventually into Mexico. Figure 2. Mexican DTOs use San Antonio as a national-level distribution center for wholesale quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine.
San Antonio's role in drug distribution is evident in the quantity of illicit drugs seized. Although cocaine and heroin seizures by the San Antonio Police Department declined from to , the overall quantity of drugs seized is large, as evidenced by the percent increase in marijuana seized from to See Table 5. The larger population in San Antonio, as compared with that in the South Texas border area, enables drug traffickers to better conceal their operations.
As a result, the city is an ideal location for Mexican DTOs to base distribution operations and maintain drug and money stash houses. Table 5. Midlevel and retail drug distribution takes place in all areas of San Antonio, resulting in varying degrees of abuse and crime throughout the city.
In low-income areas, dealers distribute crack cocaine and heroin on neighborhood streets; in middle-class and high-income neighborhoods, drugs are often sold in bars or private residences. San Antonio also has a sizeable street and prison gang population. Many gangs, including Mexikanemi and HPL, rely on drug distribution as their primary income source, but they also commit crimes in the course of their drug distribution activities.
Drug trafficking and abuse contribute significantly to crime in San Antonio and throughout Bexar County. Distributors and abusers of all illicit drugs commit property crimes and violent crimes to varying degrees.
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