Month: March 2024

CRIMINAL GANGS AND CARTELS ARE COMING TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU. FIX IT

PART 1, WHERE WE ARE TODAY

THE PROBLEM AS DEFINED IN SOME RECENT HEADLINES:

HONDURAS DECLARES NATIONAL EMERGENCY OVER GANG EXTORTIONS

EL SALVADOR: THOUSANDS OF TROOPS SURROUND CITY IN GANG CRACKDOWN

COLOMBIA’S ‘CAPITAL OF HORROR’ DESPAIRS AMID NEW WAVE OF GANG VIOLENCE

GUATEMALA BATTLES WAVE OF MEXICAN DRUG GANGS

MEXICO’S GANGS ARE BECOMING CRIMINAL CONGLOMERATES

OVER 200 GANGS ACTIVE IN PANAMA

THE VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT IS LOSING GROUND AS GANGS TAKE TERRITORY

GANGS RULE HAITI’S CAPITAL, KIDNAPPING AND KILLING THOUSANDS

As we move through this discussion, keep in mind that there are three crisis issues inexorably linked together facing Americans every day; gangs, cartels and drugs.

CRIMINAL GANGS IN THE U.S.

Some of the largest gangs in the US include the Latin Kings, 18th Street, MS13, Bloods, and Crips.

TRANSNATIONAL GANGS:

Transitional gangs move us forward from the urban neighborhood street gang that controls a few city blocks and pushes a little dope, to something larger, more violent, and linked and aligned to more advanced and sophisticated crime organizations in Latin America.

 MS13, for example, has become a transnational organization in that leaders in El Salvadore have been sending representatives into the U.S. illegally, to gain control of local MS13 gangs. The representatives then connect the local MS13 gangs to leaders in El Salvador. This transnational alliance, called “The Program”, or “La Programma,” in which the leaders direct the American MS13 gangs to become more violent and to control territory. The gangs accomplish this by killing rivals and extorting legitimate businesses run by legal Central American immigrants and illegal businesses such as prostitution and gambling. The local, U.S.-based MS13 gangs then send a portion of their profits to the leadership in El Salvador.

MS13 is the current leading transnational gang example. It is the largest street gang in Latin America and one of the world’s largest and most violent gangs. The gang began in Los Angeles during the 1980s, formed by immigrants from El Salvador. The MS stands for Mara Salvatrucha, said to be a combination of Mara, meaning gang, Salva, for Salvador, and trucha, which translates roughly into street smarts. The 13 represents the position of M in the alphabet. MS13’s motto is, “kill, rape, control.”

MS13 is a transnational criminal organization with more than 10,000 members in the United States. They regularly conduct gang activities in at least 40 states and the District of Columbia.

It is important to point out that MS13 is not the only transnational gang organization in the U.S., the 18th Street gangs also continue to expand their influence in the United States. FBI investigations reveal these transnational gangs are present in almost every state and continue to grow their memberships

GANGS vs SOCIETY:     American gangs are responsible for 48.9% of violent crimes, 42.9% of property crime,39.9% of drug sales and 13% of all homicides.  Gangs are responsible for close to 40% of homicides in most Latin American countries.  A Portland study found that 49.1% of human trafficking victims were connected to a gang; 96.4% of the victims were female.

LAW ENFORCEMENT vs GANGS:

MS13 gang member apprehensions in the U.S. in FY 2023 were a trivial 178. In 2019 the FBI dismantled 217 of the existing 33,000 gangs; .0065%.

In 2020, 71% of gang members actively used social media for mobilizing and attracting vulnerable teenagers, video posting, bragging, and celebrating the life of a gang member.

WHO IS WORKING THE CRIMINAL GANG PROBLEM?

The National Gang Center (NGC) is a project funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The NGC is an integral component of the Justice Department’s mission to provide innovative leadership in coordination with federal, state, local, and tribal justice systems to prevent and reduce crime. The NGC disseminates information, knowledge, and outcome‐driven practices that engage and empower those in local communities with chronic and emerging gang problems to create comprehensive solutions to prevent gang violence, reduce gang involvement, and suppress gang‐related crime.

MEXICAN CARTELS: 

The current criminal landscape in Mexico is driven largely by the battle between the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS), though three other major transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), Los Zetas, Gulf Cartel, and Juarez Cartel, all contribute to high levels of violence.

  • Mexican drug cartels are leading suppliers of fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and other illicit narcotics to the United States.
  • The cartels and the drug trade fuel rampant corruption and violence in Mexico, contributing to tens of thousands of homicides in the country each year.
  • Since Mexico launched a war on the cartels in 2006, the United States has provided billions of dollars in security and counternarcotics assistance with limited success.

RECENT EVENTS:

Rising violence in 2018 helped propel President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, into office, with Mexicans’ desperation for basic safety a key driver of the vote for change. He promised a seismic shift, ending the war on drugs with a concept of operations he calls, “hugs not bullets.” It has been and continues to be a complete failure.

Reported in 2019: “The streets of Culiacan, the capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, became a battlefield, with the Sinaloa cartel directly confronting the government and winning. The week before, thirteen police officers were killed in an ambush in Michoacan, likely by the Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel. Overall, murders and kidnappings are at record levels and spreading through Mexico’s once-safer industrial heartland. Talk of Mexico becoming a failed state is again on the rise.”

Criminal gangs and cartels in Mexico, under AMLO rule are experiencing accelerated growth in seized territory, taking over elected and appointed positions in local governments, the murder of political rivals and extortion of local businesses.  Killing of government officials, candidates and political party members increased from 94 in 2018 to 355 in 2020.  Good, competent people are reluctant to run for office, fearing for their lives and the safety of their families. The situation is driving Mexican families to the U.S. in record numbers; about 30,000 in December, 2023. Ironically, by diversifying into migrant smuggling, cartels are profiting from the locals who are attempting to flee from cartel control.

Mexico is disappearing one village and town at a time.  The common scenario: Armed criminal gangs and/or cartel operatives will enter a town in force, start threating, extorting, torturing and killing locals until they relinquish all control. For example, organized crime groups operated in 16% of Mexico’s municipalities in 2017. Three years later in 2020 that number had increased to 29%.  Some of these facts from an exhaustive Wall Street Journal article 26 February, last month.

Cartels vs criminal gangs; criminal gangs vs cartels; cartel/criminal gang partnerships, etc. “Who’s on first?”

As the cartels continue at war against each other, Mexico’s criminal landscape has shifted over the past decade, with splinter groups and more that 400 criminal gangs emerging. Those groups partner with and fight against the remaining major cartels that control much of the drug trade. That proliferation has been both a challenge and asset for major cartels, but it has overwhelmed Mexican law enforcement.  The worse news is that most of these criminal organizations have ties inside the U.S.

The “splintering” is in some cases intentional and operationally advantageous to reinforce a well-known and successful operational concept, “maximum centralized planning, maximum decentralized execution.” The Sinaloa Cartel, for example, has split into more than 37 “small and medium sized cells.”  The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion operates with more than 36 cells around the country.

The proliferation of small gangs and the presence of powerful criminal organizations have overwhelmed Mexican law enforcement.

The criminal organizations in Mexico are extremely empowered by the fact that they believe there is no threat to them by the Mexican state.

It is generally held that by threats to individuals and/or their families or by choice many of Mexico’slaw-enforcementauthorities are actively and sometimes willingly participating in organized crime.

CARTELS IN THE U.S.

There are at least 13 U.S. cities that are used as distribution hubs by the Mexican drug cartels. These cartels primarily employ Mexican nationals to oversee their distribution operations in the U.S. Their second choice for leadership positions are U.S. citizens who are of Mexican origin.

 This is where the transnational gangs in the U.S. come into play. They are the in-place foot soldiers for the distribution and sale of cartel-supplied drugs.

THE IMPORTATION OF FENTENYL:

The availability of massive amounts of fentanyl changed everything. Since it is so profitable and it can be moved in such small quantities, fentanyl has made the cartels much more empowered, controlling and rich, thereby overwhelming all levels of authority.


It’s encouraging to hear about U.S. authorities intercepting hundreds or even thousands of pounds of fentanyl at the Mexican border. That is, until we also hear the Border Patrol authorities tell us they estimate that the recovery is only about 5% of what gets successfully into the U.S. and distributed throughout the country.

On average in 2023, 307 young Americans died EVERY DAY from drug overdose, the majority from fentanyl.  Has your president ever mentioned this?

WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT THE INVASION OF CRIMINAL GANGS, CARTELS and DRUGS? Let’s start at the top….

  • The President: President Biden is so fond of warning us about “emerging existential threats”, shouldn’t criminal gangs and cartel operatives make the list and  at least rank up there with “MAGA extremists”?
  • The Vice President: Isn’t this invasion related to the 3 million Biden illegal “got aways” at our nonexistent southern border? Should we expect something from VP Kamala, our border czar?  Dream on.
  • Homeland Security: Isn’t this all about national security of our homeland or the lack thereof?  Where is Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas?  Still AWOL?
  • The Attorney General: At its roots, isn’t this all about law and order?  What have we heard from the nation’s “top cop” the Attorney General?
  • The FBI: In a couple Congressional hearings this year, the FBI Director has mentioned gangs but only in the context of them as a growing threat, with no mention of a solution to the problem.
  • Drug Enforcement Administration: The mission of the DEA is to enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations of the United States and bring to the criminal and civil justice system of the United States, or any other competent jurisdiction, those organizations and principal members of organizations, involved in the growing, manufacture, or distribution of controlled substances appearing in or destined for illicit traffic in the United States. How are they doing?  307 Americans overdosed per day.
  • Congress: How about some specific focused Congressional hearing to get the above players activated?
  • The Drug Czar: Dr. Rahul Gupta, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, ONDCP will have a $46.1 billion FY24 budget to advise the president, evaluate, coordinate, and oversee the international and domestic anti-drug efforts. of executive branch agencies. and ensures that such efforts sustain and complement State and local anti-drug activities. Ever heard from them?
  • Transnational anti-gang (TAG) task forces:  These FBI TAGs continue to work with international partners to eradicate transnational gangs.  Success rate is about nonexistent.
  • The National Gang Center: NGC is a project funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The NGC is an integral component of the Justice Department’s mission to provide innovative leadership in coordination with federal, state, local, and tribal justice systems to prevent and reduce crime.

The alphabet soup issue: POTUS, VPOTUS, HLS, DOJ, FBI, NGIC, DEA, ONDCP, TAG, OJP, NGC, OJJDP, etc. collectively equals tens of billions of annual tax dollars, thousands of bureaucrats and untold laws and regulations. The problems get studied to death year after year with little or no action at the point of execution which is every community in America. Case in point, with all that wasted money and manpower we apprehended a grand total of 178 MS13 members in the U.S. in FY 2023, while we lost, to drug overdose, on average, 307 young Americans EVERY DAY. 

The drug policy experts tell us, “The magnitude of this calamity now eclipses every previous drug epidemic, from the 1980s to the prescription opioid crisis of the 2000s. “

FYI, AN ONGOING ACTION BY EL SALVADOR’S NEW PRESIDENT:

President Nayib Bukele has declared a state of emergency and constructed a huge new mega-prison, the largest in the Americas, as the centerpiece. The prison will eventually house up to 40,000 inmates. Tens of thousands of gang members have been rounded up and the first group of 2,000 have been moved to the prison. President Bukele tweeted “This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, unable to do any further harm to the population.

Dramatic photos on line of “President Nayib Bukele’s gang prison” shows hundreds of inmates in tight formations completely helpless and totally compliant.  It is obvious that this is a prison where the inmates are neither running the show nor conducting gang operations from inside. Interesting

SOME CONCLUSIONS:

  • All of this is sad news, bad news, going south rapidly and a true threat to our safety and security.
  • As usual we are trying to solve a serious problem with a massive federal bureaucracy and by throwing billions of dollars at the problem repeatedly and getting the same failed annual results; the true definition of insanity.
  • Our most senior leaders in the executive and congressional branches have, are currently and will in the near-term fail to lead.
  • No society can survive without law and order at the local level; that must therefore be the point of execution. At the local level investigate, find the gang members, arrest them, try them and send them to prison. All the planning and funding must focus on that formula.
  • We should probably begin to build more prisons.  
  • Lack of law and order is consistently destroying our cities and their economy’s.
  • Arresting criminals with long rap-sheets of 10, 20 some times more prior arrests flies in the face of the simple philosophy that if the criminals are off the streets and in jail, crime will go down.

The U.S. may have to consider using force in Mexico to take down the cartels.  I absolutely believe it can be done.  See the concept of operations at    THE U.S. IS UNDER ATTACK www.WeThePeopleSpeaking.com Sep 4, 2023

HOW TO MOVE FORWARD.

The current problem is our president: First, he will not admit he has a problem that exists in his administration.  If forced to address a crisis he will do so with the blame game.  Most of the time it begins with, “My predecessor…..” as he did 13 times during his recent State of the Union address. Cardinal rule, “Blame” is the first fallback position of a failed leader. Then he will let the issue die out of focus and then hope the left media comes to his rescue by dropping it from public view.

BOTTOM LINE:  this cannot be allowed to endure.

PART 2, LET’S CLEAN UP THIS MESS

We should recognize that the alphabet soup government agencies have proven they are, collectively, incapable of solving this problem with their current agenda.  Every year, within the local, state and federal governments we probably produce thousands of studies, have countless meetings spend billions of dollars and watch the problem get progressively worse every year because no ONE is in charge.  There is no specificity, no focus associated with the day-to-day efforts.  There are no identifiable positive results.  There are no best practices being shared from community to community. 

Here is what we need to do:

PHASE ONE, 2024: Elect a president who can lead, who can plan, who can act and will kick ass and take names.

PHASE TWO, 20 January, 2025. About 4 pm:

Begin the process of focusing we-the-people on criminal gangs. Begin the process of changing the culture of law enforcement in America. Criminals, once arrested, should not be intentionally and immediately put back on the streets to create another crime.  

The new president’s first Executive Order should specify his or her intent and look something like this (para 1-11:

  1. The level of lawlessness and drug abuse in this country is unacceptable and a growing threat to our national security. Therefore, my intent is to rid our country of criminal gangs, cartel operatives and drug dealers by focusing our efforts on identifying every one of them, arrest them, give them a speedy trial and if convicted put them in jail, thereby dramatically reducing crimes of all types at all levels and simultaneously reducing the import, distribution and sale of illegal drugs.

2. To accomplish this, I am hereby declaring a narrowly focused national state of emergency to curb rampant lawlessness across the country.  It will NOT infringe on your day-to-day rights and privileges. It will NOT restrict your actions and activities.  It will NOT raise your taxes. But it will require you to be a willing participant and to respect and support all of our first-responders, law enforcement officers and those prosecutors and judges administering the judicial system.

3.This will be a focused effort with all actions from families, leaders and administrators at the local level to the Office of the President, seeking to take down criminal gangs, Mexican Cartel operatives and anyone associated with the transport, warehousing, production, distribution and sale of illegal drugs.

4. Upon publication of this Executive Order, every gang member is hereby designated a criminal guilty of a felony offense simply be being a gang member.

5. What is a “gang”?

  • A group whose members share an identity, typically linked to a name, and often some other symbols.
  • Members view themselves as a gang, and they are recognized by others as a gang.
  • The group has some permanence and a degree of organization and leadership.
  • The group is involved in some level of criminal activity.

This becomes the national definition.  No ambiguity, no soft-on-crime individual states, cities or communities.

6. The law:  it is illegal to be a member of an organization, whatever size, that is engaged in criminal activity. One does not have to physically engage in committing a crime (for example, selling illegal drugs), simply being a member of a gang that does it is, in and of itself, a crime. Being a gang member is a felony offence. If convicted, jail-time is hereby a mandatory sentence. We have to get specific about the law and its consistency among all the states.

7. Family involvement:  Across this country, tonight every family, particularly those with teenage youngsters, should have this conversation: Jimmy/Susan, if you are a member of a gang, as of today you are a criminal committing a federal felony offense and you are subject to being arrested, tried and sentenced to prison. The point being that at the dinner table within a few hours of signing this Executive Order there is focused initiative in tens of millions of homes across the entire nation and the 33,000 gang structures are under siege.

8. Human intelligence, Humint, will be the center of gravity for this campaign.  Definition: Center of Gravity can be a person, thing, circumstance or situation that is central to success of an operation or can cause it to fail.  There are an estimated 33,000 gangs in the U.S.  In order to take them down law enforcement must know who the members are, where they live and what criminal activities they are involved with. Certainly, there can and will be some surveillance involved in fact gathering.  But the bulk of the information will come from within the community.  People know who the gang members are and will be encouraged to share their knowledge.  But the bulk of the Humint will come from the members themselves. 

9. Amnesty: Every community will immediately set up and announce a short-term (weeks not months) amnesty program in which every gang member, cartel operative and drug dealer is offered the opportunity to make an appointment with law enforcement officials and in a confidentially recorded conversation denounce their membership, disclose the who/what/when/where facts about their organization and in exchange be offered amnesty from prosecution relative to past crimes in which they participated, with the exception of murder. The main objective of the interview is to gather all possible information about the gang’s leaders.  Acting on that information, the police should then arrest the leaders which will prompt the remaining members to apply for amnesty and effectively shut down the gang within days of activating this campaign.

At the end of the amnesty period, across the country the mass roundup of active gang members, cartel operatives and drug dealers will begin.

 10, Prosecutors and judges serve at the will of we-the-people they swore to protect.  They will use their power to the full extent of the law and if they choose to function outside the intent of this Executive Order, they should be removed and replaced.

11. Outside the bounds of this Executive Order, but still key to reestablishing law and order across the nation are two additional directives:

First, a too-often occurrence today when arresting an alleged criminal, is to discover they have a ridiculously lengthy “rap sheet” with a dozen or even dozens of prior arrests. Therefore, it is hereby directed that a third misdemeanor arrest will automatically be recorded and prosecuted as a felony crime. 

The second point has to do with minimum sentencing. If a gang member has been convicted of committing a crime and is sentenced, the minimum sentence will be two years in jail without parole just for being a gang member.  A gang member arrested with a gun will receive a minimum sentence of 4 years in jail without parole.

As the numbers of gangs and gang members diminish, there will be an impact on illegal drug distribution. The FBI and DEA must go with the flow, adjust plans and actions to take advantage of reduced foot soldiers to defeat drug importation, distribution and sale.

Sanctuary states and cities are not excluded from any of the above directives.

The objective of publishing this Executive Order is to dramatically and simultaneously launch the law-and-order campaign in millions of homes and in every community today. Tomorrow, actions should begin and will continue until the 33,000 gangs are gone from our communities.

Currently, the estimated 1.4 million American gang members are responsible for 48.9% of violent crimes, 42.9% of property crime,39.9% of drug sales and 13% of all homicides.  If we can get perhaps a million of them to accept amnesty in the next few weeks, the crime rates may be reduced to the point that our diminished police forces can effectively handle the remaining crime load.

The overall intent of this campaign is to create an enduring overarching culture of deterrence when it is time for teens to choose between law and order or a criminal street gang, they will think hard about the possibility of landing in jail for two years.

This must become the law-of-the-land.  No separate versions for the soft-on-crime individual states, cities or communities are authorized.

Logically, the Attorney General, Department of Justice, should take the lead for the following reasons: First of all, he/she is the existing senior cop in the country; no reason to create a new organization to do this. Additionally, two of the critical subordinate action organizations are already direct-reports to the Attorney General; they are, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

I request that every newspaper and news magazine publish this entire Executive Order at their earlies convenience. I want a couple hundred million Americans to have access to their own personal copy.

If this Executive Order, for any reason, becomes a partisan issue, we will be doing the American public a terrible disservice.

End of Executive Order.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.