Getting Tough on Drug Gangs In North America

When it comes to hard crimes, executions work. Gang leaders and members of drug cartels should be killed on the spot. Unfortunately in North America the opposite approach has been taken. As a result, lawlessness prevails. Drug use has grown. And successive governments have looked the other way because drug profits are bolstering banks, real estate, and the economy.

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An excerpt from, “The War on Drugs in El Salvador: A Success Story?” By Jonathan Alpeyrie, Geopolitical Monitor, August 10, 2023:

Today, El Salvador is a different country. With the coming into power of the current president Nayib Bukele and his hard-right government, El Salvador is the safest country in Central America. Over the past year and a half, the Bukele government has launched a merciless offensive against the various Maras criminal gangs which were in control of a large swath of the country. Indeed, the 75,000-strong criminal gangs which had been paralyzing El Salvador via their criminal activities were devastated by the use of military operations designed to surprise in both their efficiencies and brutal tactics. No one truly knows how many gang members were killed during these clean-up operations; however, it is safe to say that the number lies in the thousands. The rest, the ones who survived and surrendered to the authorities, were promptly sent to the new supermax prison built by the government specifically designed to house tens of thousands of these hardened criminals. The prison, better known officially as “the terrorism confinement center,” holds today around 60,000 inmates. All will receive at some point a lifelong sentence, meant to permanently get rid of all gang members within El Salvador. In fact, the Bukele government has just passed a law which allows the judicial system to convict 900 criminals at once, hence facilitating the process to keep these inmates behind bars until their natural death.

An excerpt from, “Lethal Exports: B.C. gangsters at the centre of a global drug trade” By Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun, January 22, 2024:

Postmedia recently travelled to Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia to investigate the international links of B.C. criminal organizations and their role in smuggling tonnes of methamphetamine and other drugs into this region through the Port of Vancouver.

The investigation found Canadians at the top of the transnational smuggling chain, basing themselves in places like Vietnam and Taiwan to avoid arrest back home. And their illegal enterprises are having a devastating impact in poorer Pacific countries like Fiji.

Commander Clint Sims of the Australian Border Force said transnational organized crime groups “tend to use some of the more trusted countries, if you like, that have good reputations around the world and also have a high volume of legitimate cargo coming out to transship illicit goods.”

“We see cartels, particularly from Mexico, moving drugs to countries like Canada for that reason,” he said. “And then they exploit it through all streams and not just parasitic attachments.”

They use “roll-on, roll-off” freight like new vehicles and heavy equipment transported by bulk carrier. And they send drugs by air cargo and even through international mail, sending hundreds of packages in what is known as shotgunning.

. . .More than 20 Canadians have been convicted and sentenced in drug smuggling cases in Australia over the last decade. The highest-profile Canadian charged, Tse Chi Lop, the alleged kingpin of the Sam Gor network, is in custody here awaiting trial.

Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram explained why Canadians work with other transnational criminals to get drugs here.

“Our per capita drug-consumption rate is amongst the highest in the world. And we also pay very high prices in Australia compared to a lot of other countries. So that makes, unfortunately, the illicit drug market in Australia very lucrative for organized crime and transnational organized crime,” he said. “We’ve seen some high numbers of detections and seizures at the border.”

Assistant Commissioner Mike Pannett of the Australian Federal Police told Postmedia that “Vancouver port is a significant location for us as far as importation of drugs and transshipment of drugs.

An excerpt from, “Narco-Dollars For Dummies: How The Money Works In The Illicit Drug Trade” By Catherine Austin Fitts, February 2002:

OK. Now. What are the four states with the biggest business in money laundering of narco profits and other profits of organized crime?

Not surprising? Same four states.

They are all known as banking power places.

New York, California, Texas and Florida.

What’s next? What are the four states with the biggest business in taking the laundered narco profits and using them to deposit money in a bank, or to buy another company, or to start a new company, or just buy stock in the stock market? That’s what I call the reinvestment business.

Same four, right? New York, California, Texas and Florida.

Who were the governors of these four states in 1996?

Well, let’s see. Jeb Bush was the governor of Florida. Governor Jeb was the son of George H. W. Bush, the former head of an oil company in Texas and Mexico and the former head of the CIA and the former head of the various drug enforcement efforts as Vice President and President. Then George W. Bush, also the son of George H. W. Bush, was the governor of Texas. So the governors of two of the largest narco dollar market share states just happen to be the sons of the former chief of the secret police.

An excerpt from, “Public Enemy Number One: A Pragmatic Approach to America’s Drug Problem” Nixon Foundation, June 19, 2026:

At a press conference on June 17, 1971, President Nixon, with his newly appointed Drug authority at his side, declared drug abuse “public enemy number one.” “In order to fight and defeat this enemy,” he continued, “ it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” With that statement, the “war on drugs” began.

Caution must be heeded when confronted with the popular perception of Nixon’s “war on drugs.” It has been blamed, rather unfairly, for steering national drug policy to the law enforcement modality most familiar to the nation today. A second look reveals the complete opposite.