[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TRANSNATIONAL CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS: THE MENACING THREAT TO THE U.S.
HOMELAND
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COUNTERTERRORISM,
LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND
INTELLIGENCE
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 7, 2023
__________
Serial No. 118-16
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
53-960 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee, Chairman
Michael T. McCaul, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi,
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Ranking Member
Michael Guest, Mississippi Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Dan Bishop, North Carolina Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Carlos A. Gimenez, Florida Eric Swalwell, California
August Pfluger, Texas J. Luis Correa, California
Andrew R. Garbarino, New York Troy A. Carter, Louisiana
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Shri Thanedar, Michigan
Tony Gonzales, Texas Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island
Nick LaLota, New York Glenn Ivey, Maryland
Mike Ezell, Mississippi Daniel S. Goldman, New York
Anthony D'Esposito, New York Robert Garcia, California
Laurel M. Lee, Florida Delia C. Ramirez, Illinois
Morgan Luttrell, Texas Robert Menendez, New Jersey
Dale W. Strong, Alabama Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma Dina Titus, Nevada
Elijah Crane, Arizona
Stephen Siao, Staff Director
Hope Goins, Minority Staff Director
Natalie Nixon, Chief Clerk
Sean Jones, Deputy Chief Clerk
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON COUNTERTERRORISM, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND INTELLIGENCE
August Pfluger, Texas, Chairman
Dan Bishop, North Carolina Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island,
Tony Gonzales, Texas Ranking Member
Anthony D'Esposito, New York J. Luis Correa, California
Elijah Crane, Arizona Daniel S. Goldman, New York
Mark E. Green, MD, Tennessee (ex Dina Titus, Nevada
officio) Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
(ex officio)
Michael Koren, Subcommittee Staff Director
Brittany Carr, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director
Alice Hayes, Subcommittee Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements
The Honorable August Pfluger, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Texas, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Seth Magaziner, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Rhode Island, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Witnesses
Mr. Douglas Farah, Founder and President, IBI Consultants:
Oral Statement................................................. 9
Prepared Statement............................................. 11
Mr. Christopher Urben, Former Assistant Special Agent in Charge
of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA, and Managing Director,
Nardello & Company:
Oral Statement................................................. 20
Prepared Statement............................................. 21
Ms. Melissa Ford Maldonado, Policy Director, Texas Public Policy
Foundation, Secure and Sovereign Texas Campaign:
Oral Statement................................................. 24
Prepared Statement............................................. 25
Mr. Jason Blazakis, Professor, Middlebury Institute of
International Studies, Director, The Center on Terrorism
Extremism and Counterterrorism:
Oral Statement................................................. 28
Prepared Statement............................................. 29
TRANSNATIONAL CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS: THE MENACING THREAT TO THE U.S.
HOMELAND
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Wednesday, June 7, 2023
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism,
Law Enforcement, and Intelligence,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:04 p.m., in
room 310, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. August Pfluger
(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Pfluger, Bishop of North Carolina,
D'Esposito, Crane, Jackson Lee, Thanedar, Garcia, and Ramirez.
Mr. Pfluger. The Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and
Intelligence will come to order. Without objection, the
subcommittee may recess at any time.
The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony from a
nongovernmental panel of expert witnesses to examine the wide-
ranging operations of Transnational Criminal Organizations,
TCOs, which have expanded both in size and sophistication as
well as to explore Federal and other efforts to mitigate and
disrupt TCO activities. I now recognize myself for an opening
statement.
Good afternoon, and welcome to Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence. Today, we
are holding an important hearing on the menacing threat posed
by Transnational Criminal Organizations, TCOs, to our Homeland
Security and public safety. I'd like to thank all of our
witnesses for your time and for testifying today.
TCOs are groups or networks of individuals who engage in
illegal activities across national borders. They engage in
multifaceted criminal enterprise from drug trafficking, to
human trafficking, to human smuggling, and other criminal acts.
Organized crime is a massive business. In fact, it's a
multibillion-dollar business.
TCOs are responsible for trafficking deadly drugs, like
illicit Fentanyl and other opioids into American communities
fueling violence and corruption and undermining the rule of
law. These enterprises exploit our poor Southern Border to
advance their criminal agendas as they facilitate and profit
off of smuggling and trafficking of people, often victimizing
susceptible migrants who are traveling along the treacherous
journey from Central and South America to the United States.
According to the DEA, Mexican TCOs, in particular, control
smuggling corridors, mainly across the Southwest Border and
maintain the greatest drug trafficking influence in the United
States. The trafficking of drugs, like illicit Fentanyl into
American neighborhoods and communities from Texas to New York
by TCOs have contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of Americans. In fact, Fentanyl is the leading cause of death
for Americans between the ages of 18 to 45, and these deaths
are occurring in every single State in our Nation
unfortunately.
The scourge of Fentanyl has hit every single one of our
communities. In February, two of my constituents lost their son
Jackson Lee Warnick, 17 years old, to Fentanyl poisoning.
Jackson's parents had to live through a nightmare that no
parent should ever have to endure. Jackson's family has been
working tirelessly across the Permian Basin to share their
son's story, to help educate other people in the dangers posed
by synthetic opioids.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, 107,735 Americans died between August 2021 and
August 2022 from drug overdoses or from the poisoning of
Fentanyl, with the vast majority of those deaths involving
synthetic opioids like Fentanyl.
Just this past April, the head of the DEA, Anne Milgram,
called the Sinaloa Jalisco New Generation Cartel the greatest
criminal drug threat that the United States has ever faced, and
that these ruthless, violent criminal organizations have
associates, facilitators, and brokers in all 50 States in the
United States as well as in more than 40 countries around the
world.
These cartels purchase precursor chemicals from China which
are shipped to South America and Mexico and using those
precursors to produce Fentanyl and even process that Fentanyl
into counterfeit prescription pills. The cartels then traffic
the drugs from Mexico into the United States for distribution.
To put this in perspective, and as noted recently by the
DEA administrator, it cost the cartels as little as 10 cents to
produce a Fentanyl-based fake prescription pill that is then
sold in the United States for as much as $10 to $30. As a
result, the cartels make billions of dollars from trafficking
Fentanyl in the United States each year.
Cartels are also beginning to mix Fentanyl with Xylazine, a
powerful sedative that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
has permitted for veterinary use. It has licit uses, but it
causes fatal overdoses in this country.
It is also important to examine the collaboration between
Asian and Mexican TCOs. In particular, the Asian TCOs play a
major role in the laundering of the illicit drug proceeds on
the behalf of Mexican TCOs. Meanwhile, China has ceased all
counterdrug cooperation with the United States, which raises
serious concerns about the global effort to curb precursor
chemicals from going to Mexico for the manufacturing of illicit
Fentanyl.
Additionally, these criminal activities by TCOs extend well
beyond drug-smuggling and money-laundering activities. TCOs are
also involved in human trafficking, human smuggling, and a wide
variety of other crimes.
In fiscal year 2022, Homeland Security Investigation or HSI
initiated over 1,300 criminal investigations related to sex
trafficking and forced labor resulting in more than 3,650
arrests and 630 convictions. We cannot allow these criminal
networks to operate with impunity and endanger our Homeland
Security and public safety. We must explore all tools at our
disposal to detect, disrupt, and dismantle their operations and
hold them accountable for their actions.
As we face a growing crisis at the border, and as TCOs
evolve, both in size and sophistication, it is more important
than ever that we unequivocally support our dedicated Border
Patrol Homeland Security Investigation agents as well as our
State and local law enforcement as they work on the front lines
to disrupt and dismantle the egregious operations of the TCOs.
This afternoon, I'm pleased to say that we have a
distinguished panel of expert witnesses to discuss the TCOs,
the grave threat that they pose to our homeland, and to have a
debate in front of the American public on the direction that we
should go as a whole-of-Government in order to put a stop to
this scourge that is causing hundreds of thousands of deaths.
I'd like to thank our witnesses for being with us this
afternoon, and I look forward to this discussion on a critical
topic.
[The statement of Chairman Pfluger follows:]
Statement of Chairman August Pfluger
June 7, 2023
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence. Today we are
holding an important hearing on the menacing threat posed by
transnational criminal organizations to our homeland security and
public safety.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses for testifying today.
Transnational criminal organizations or TCOs are groups or networks
of individuals who engage in illegal activities across national
borders. They engage in a multi-faceted criminal enterprise from drug
trafficking, human trafficking, human smuggling, and other criminal
acts.
Organized crime is a massive business. In fact, it is a multi-
billion dollar business.
TCOs are responsible for trafficking deadly drugs like illicit
Fentanyl and other opioids into American communities, fueling violence
and corruption, and undermining the rule of law.
These enterprises exploit our porous Southern Border to advance
their criminal agendas, as they facilitate and profit off of the
smuggling and trafficking of people, often victimizing susceptible
migrants who are traveling along the treacherous journey from Central
and South America to the United States.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Mexican
TCOs, in particular, control smuggling corridors, mainly across the
Southwest Border and maintain ``the greatest drug trafficking
influence'' in the United States.
The trafficking of drugs like illicit Fentanyl into American
neighborhoods and communities from Texas to New York by TCOs have
contributed to the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
In fact, Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans
between the ages of 18 to 45, and these deaths are occurring in every
State in our Nation.
The scourge of Fentanyl has hit every single one of our
communities. In February, two of my constituents lost their son,
Jackson Lee Warnick, age 17, to a Fentanyl overdose. Jackson's parents
had to live through a nightmare that no parent should ever have to
endure. Jackson's family has been working tirelessly across the Permian
Basin to share their son's story to help educate folks on the dangers
posed by synthetic opioids.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
107,735 Americans died between August 2021 and August 2022 from drug
overdoses, with the vast majority of those deaths involving synthetic
opioids like Fentanyl.
Just this past April, the head of the DEA, Anne Milgram, called the
Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel the ``greatest criminal
drug threat the United States has ever faced'' and that ``these
ruthless, violent, criminal organizations have associates,
facilitators, and brokers in all 50 States in the United States, as
well as in more than 40 countries around the world.''\1\
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\1\ Fiscal Year 2024 Request for the Drug Enforcement
Administration: Hearing before the Committee on the Appropriations,
Subcomm. on Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, 118th Cong. (Apr.
27, 2023) (testimony of Anne Milgram at 4, Administrator, U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration).
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These cartels purchase precursor chemicals from China, which are
shipped to South America and Mexico, and using those precursors to
produce Fentanyl and even process that Fentanyl into counterfeit
prescription pills.\2\
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\2\ Id.
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The cartels then traffic these drugs from Mexico into the United
States for distribution.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To put this into perspective, and as noted recently by the DEA
administrator, ``[i]t costs the cartels as little as 10 cents to
produce a Fentanyl-laced fake prescription pill that is then sold in
the United States for as much as $10 to $30. As a result, the cartels
make billions of dollars from trafficking Fentanyl into the United
States.''\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cartels are also beginning to mix Fentanyl with Xylazine--a
powerful sedative that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has
permitted for veterinary use--causing fatal overdoses across the
country.
It is also important to examine the collaboration between Asian and
Mexican TCOs. In particular, Asian TCOs play a major role in the
laundering of illicit drug proceeds on behalf of Mexican TCOs.\5\
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\5\ 2020 Drug Enforcement Administration NDTA National Drug Threat
Assessment at 69, (March 2021) available at https://www.dea.gov/sites/
default/files/2021-02/DIR-008-
21%202020%20National%20Drug%20Threat%20Assessment_WEB.pdf.
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The money-laundering tactics used by Asian TCOs involve the
transfer of funds between China and Hong Kong, using front companies to
facilitate international money movement.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Id. at 76.
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Meanwhile, China has ceased all counter-drugs cooperation with the
United States, which raises serious concerns about the global effort to
curb precursor chemicals from going to Mexico for the manufacturing of
illicit Fentanyl.
Additionally, these criminal activities by TCOs extend well beyond
drug smuggling and money-laundering activities. TCOs are also involved
in human trafficking, human smuggling, and other crimes.
In fiscal year 2022, Homeland Security Investigations initiated
over 1,300 criminal investigations related to sex trafficking and
forced labor, resulting in more than 3,650 arrests and over 630
convictions.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., DHS Center for Countering Human
Trafficking Releases Fiscal Year Annual Report (Jan. 31, 2023), https:/
/www.dhs.gov/news/2023/01/31/dhs-center-countering-human-trafficking-
releases-fy-2022-annual-report.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We cannot allow these criminal networks to operate with impunity
and endanger our homeland security and public safety. We must explore
all the tools at our disposal to detect, disrupt, and dismantle their
operations, and hold them accountable for their actions.
As we face a growing crisis at the border, and as TCOs evolve in
both size and sophistication, it is more important than ever that we
unequivocally support our dedicated Border Patrol, Homeland Security
Investigations agents, as well as our State and local law enforcement
as they work on the front lines to disrupt and dismantle the egregious
operations of TCOs.
This afternoon, we have a distinguished panel of expert witnesses
to discuss TCOs and the grave threat they pose to the homeland.
Thank you to all our witnesses for being with us this afternoon,
and I look forward to our discussion on this critical topic.
Mr. Pfluger. I would now like to recognize the Ranking
Member of the subcommittee, Mr. Magaziner for his opening
statement.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for calling
this hearing on such an important topic and to our witnesses
for being here today and for your work and your expertise. I am
glad that we are having this hearing to examine threats posed
by Transnational Criminal Organizations to the U.S. homeland.
TCOs are broad-ranging, originate all over the globe, and
engage in many forms of criminal activity, from drug and arms
trafficking, to human smuggling, to cyber crime, and illegal
fishing and mining. In carrying out criminal activity, TCOs are
often violent, degrading the security and stability of the
countries they have a presence in, harming and killing
civilians of those countries, and threatening the national
security of the United States.
In our neighboring country of Mexico and in Central and
South America, violent crime has steadily been on the rise at
the hands of drug trafficking organizations. It has been
estimated that between 40 and 65 percent of all homicides in
Mexico are organized-crime-related. It is possible that the
percentage is higher. As it is well-known that the cartels have
threatened journalists and government officials in attempts to
cover up the identities of homicide victims.
Mexican citizens are unfortunately not alone in living in
fear of extreme violence under TCOs. Guatemala, Honduras, and
El Salvador have some of the highest homicide rates in the
world. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by TCO
violence.
In response, Central Americans and Mexicans flee their
homes to avoid the threat of violence, and often travel to the
U.S. Border for safety. More than 2 million people are
estimated to have left El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras
from 2014 through 2022. Many hoping to escape the violence in
their home countries end up facing danger and extortion from
TCOs on their journey.
TCOs are connected to migrant smugglers who will charge a
fee before allowing the smugglers and migrants to pass through
territories under their control. Streamlining asylum processing
and allowing migrants to apply for legal protection before they
get to our border is a smart policy that is good for our
national security, because it undermines the financial model of
human traffickers and creates more order at our border and
points of entry. I am encouraged that the administration is
exploring these policies, so that those who are eligible for
legal asylum don't have to make the dangerous journey under the
extortion of smugglers. Those who are not eligible can find
out--because as we all know the cartels and the smugglers, the
traffickers will tell people anything in order to convince them
that if they do come to the United States, they'll have no
problem getting in, even what that's not true.
So by creating these opportunities, we can undercut the
cartels' ability to exploit traffic and profit from vulnerable
people.
It is also critical that the United States collaborate with
our partners in Mexico and Central America to stop the primary
harm from TCOs to the U.S. homeland illicit drug trafficking.
Mexican drug traffickers are the primary wholesalers of U.S.-
bound cocaine from the major supply countries of Colombia,
Peru, and Bolivia, and are also largely responsible for the
procurement of Fentanyl precursors from China, and control the
cross-border trafficking of Fentanyl, a drug DEA Administrator
Anne Milgram has declared the single, deadliest drug threat our
Nation has ever encountered.
As we hold today's hearing, we also need to focus on
another source of the cartels' strength, the illegal export of
guns from the United States across our Southern Border. ATF
estimates that as many as 597,000 firearms are trafficked from
the United States into Mexico each year, 597,000 each year. It
is shameful, and it is fueling the cartels' violence which only
exacerbates the problems we face here at home. We cannot call
ourselves fully committed to the fight against threats posed by
transnational crime groups, particularly, those operating in
Mexico and Central America until we act on illegal gun
trafficking.
So my hope for today's hearing, in addition to objectively
examining the TCO threat landscape, is that we begin a
discussion in how we in Congress can support the U.S.
Government's efforts to stifle the cartel and all TCO activity.
It is critical that we examine the efforts of the Department of
Homeland Security, which through several components, including
Homeland Security Investigations, and the Office of
Intelligence and Analysis, develop intelligence, interdict
illicit money and goods, and investigate the TCOs. We must
ensure that DHS has the resources and the authorities it needs
to protect Americans from TCO violence. With that, once again,
I thank the witnesses for being here, and I yield back.
[The statement of Ranking Member Magaziner follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Seth Magaziner
June 7, 2023
I am glad to be holding this hearing to examine threats posed by
transnational criminal organizations to the U.S. homeland. TCOs are
broad-ranging, originate all over the globe, and engage in many forms
of criminal activity, from drug and arms trafficking to human smuggling
to cyber crime and illegal fishing and mining. And in carrying out
criminal activity, TCOs are often violent--degrading the security and
stability of the countries they have a presence in, harming and even
killing citizens of those countries, and threatening the national
security of the United States.
In our neighboring country of Mexico, and in Central America,
violent crime has steadily been on the rise at the hands of drug
trafficking organizations. It has been estimated that between 40 and 65
percent of all homicides in Mexico are organized-crime-related, and it
is possible that the percentage is much higher--as it is well-known
that the cartels have threatened journalists and Mexican government
officials in attempts to cover up the numbers and identities of
homicide victims.
Mexican citizens are unfortunately not alone in living in fear of
extreme violence under TCOs. Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador have
some of the highest homicide rates in the world, and women and girls
are disproportionately affected by TCO violence. In response, Central
Americans and Mexicans flee their homes, to avoid the threat of
violence, and travel to the U.S. border. More than 2 million people are
estimated to have left El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras from 2014-
2022. Many--hoping to escape violence in their home countries--end up
facing danger and extortion from TCOs on their journey. TCOs are
connected to migrant smugglers and will charge a fee before allowing
the smugglers and migrants to pass through territories under their
control.
Streamlining asylum processing and allowing migrants to apply for
legal protection before they get to our border is smart policy that is
good for our national security because it undermines the financial
model of human traffickers and creates more order at our border and
points of entry. I am encouraged that the Biden administration is
exploring these policies in the interest of American security.
So far, I have also been pleased with the Biden administration's
handling of Title 42's expiration, as recent numbers indicate
encounters are down significantly since the week of its expiration, and
even lower than the average daily encounters in March. This is further
evidence that expanding legal pathways for migrants and a more humane
approach to our immigration system is better for our country and better
for migrants. By creating further opportunities, we can undercut the
cartels' ability to exploit, traffic, and profit from vulnerable
people.
It is also critical that the United States collaborate with our
partners in Mexico and Central America to stop the primary harm from
TCOs to the U.S. homeland--illicit drug trafficking. Mexican drug
traffickers are the primary wholesalers of U.S.-bound cocaine from the
major supply countries of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. We also know
that the Mexican cartels are largely responsible for the procurement of
Fentanyl precursors from China and control the cross-border trafficking
of Fentanyl--a drug DEA Administrator Anne Milgram has declared ``the
single deadliest drug threat our Nation has ever encountered.''
As we hold today's hearing we also need to focus on another source
of the cartel's strength: the illegal export of guns from the United
States across our Southern Border. ATF estimates that as many as
597,000 firearms are trafficked from the United States into Mexico each
year.
Five hundred ninety-seven thousand. Each year.
It is shameful and it is fueling the cartels' violence, which only
exacerbates the problems we face here at home. We cannot call ourselves
fully committed to the fight against threats posed by transnational
crime groups--particularly those operating in Mexico and Central
America--until we act on illegal gun trafficking.
My hope for today's hearing--in addition to objectively examining
the TCO threat landscape--is that we begin a discussion on how we in
Congress can support the U.S. Government's efforts to stifle cartel
activity. It is also critical that we examine the efforts of the
Department of Homeland Security, which through several components,
including Homeland Security Investigations and the Office of
Intelligence & Analysis, develop intelligence, interdict illicit money
and goods, and investigate various TCOs. We must ensure that DHS has
the resources and the authorities it needs to protect Americans from
TCO violence.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Ranking Member Magaziner. Other
Members of the committee are reminded that opening statements
may be submitted for the record.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
June 7, 2023
I am pleased the subcommittee is exploring threats to the homeland
from transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and the fact that
violence perpetrated by TCOs is one of many reasons that people migrate
to the U.S. Southern Border. Violent crime has caused thousands across
the globe to flee in fear for their lives, particularly in Central
America, a region that experiences some of the highest crime rates in
the world.
As migrants seek a better, safer life, and embark on a journey to
the United States, they face extortion and violence on migration routes
through Mexico which the cartels control and charge large sums to allow
the migrants to pass.
Increasingly, we hear awful stories of migrants being assaulted,
robbed, abandoned, and even murdered along the way. Some experts assess
that the increased violence toward and extortion of migrants may be a
result of heightened profit competition among the various cartels. That
is important for us to factor into today's conversation--the cartels
are profit-driven. They are violent, and criminal, but they are not
political. They act with callousness toward migrants, perpetrate
horrendous acts of gun violence, profit from illicit drug trafficking
at the expense of American lives, and disrupt the much-needed border
trade helping to lift millions of our Latin American neighbors out of
poverty.
However, designating Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist
Organizations will do nothing to stop them. They are not deterred by
anything unless it affects their bottom line--which terrorist
designations will not accomplish. What designating these transnational
criminal organizations as terrorists will succeed in is damaging our
relationship with the government of Mexico. Comments from Republicans
suggesting we invade Mexico only make matters worse.
As I have said before, and will say again, it is high time the
Majority stop focusing on trying to score political points--especially
when those ``points'' work to our Nation's detriment. I urge my
colleagues across the aisle to join Democrats in seeking real solutions
to address the threats posed by heinous TCOs. For example, we ought to
reinstate the interagency Joint Task Force-Investigations--which
coordinated efforts across the Federal Government to dismantle TCOs,
prevent their reconstitution, and reduce illicit flows. Unfortunately
for us and fortunately for the cartels, the Trump administration shut
this task force down.
We must improve the Department of Justice's Transnational Organized
Crime Actor Detection Program.
At my request, the Government Accountability Office recently
conducted a review of this program and recommended that DOJ build on
its success by increasing participation and information sharing among
partner agencies and developing analysis from the shared data.
We must support DHS's surge operation against Fentanyl, known as
``Operation Blue Lotus,'' which in its first month of operation stopped
over 4,000 pounds of Fentanyl at ports of entry, where more than 90
percent of Fentanyl is trafficked.
We must also support our Customs and Border Protection officers at
points of entry since they are on the front lines of the battle against
Fentanyl.
Democrats were disappointed to see Republicans vote down our
amendments to their border bill that would have authorized Operation
Blue Lotus and ensured CBP is well-staffed and resourced to seize
Fentanyl.
I am hopeful we can begin to work together to further address the
dangers posed by the cartels.
Mr. Pfluger. I am pleased to have the distinguished panel
of witnesses before us today on this very important topic, and
I ask our witnesses to please rise and raise their right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you. You may be seated. Let the record
show that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
I would now like to formally introduce our witnesses. Mr.
Douglas Farah is the founder and president of IBI Consultants,
a security consulting firm that specializes in field research
study and security challenges in transnational organized crime
in Latin America. From September 2013 to September 2022, Mr.
Farah was a visiting senior fellow at the Center for Strategic
Research, the National Defense University, where he led the
Western Hemisphere Illicit Network Review Project under the
auspices of Deputy Secretary of Defense for counter narcotics
and global threats. In that position, Mr. Farah briefed his
research findings across the interagency and intelligence
communities, including U.S. Southern Command.
Farah also testified before Congress more than a dozen
times on important matters related to Western Hemisphere and
U.S. homeland. Thank you.
Mr. Christopher Urben is a former assistant special agent
in charge of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA. Currently, he
is the managing director of Nardello & Company in which Mr.
Urben supports the firm's efforts to target organized crime
groups operating in the ports and borders of the United States,
Mexico, Panama, and Colombia. Mr. Urben started his career with
DEA in 1996 as a special agent in the New York division. He was
later assigned to the New Jersey division where he worked on
several high-profile investigations involving Colombian and
Mexican drug cartels. Mr. Urben also served on two overseas
tours in Europe, working with international law enforcement
agencies.
Mr. Urben's most recent position was assistant special
agent in charge of the Special Operations Division for Europe,
Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. In particular, Mr.
Urben has led sensitive global undercover DEA operations that
targeted Chinese organized crime groups that facilitated money
laundering for Mexican drug cartels. Thank you for being with
us.
Ms. Melissa Ford is the policy director for the Texas
Public Policy Foundation's secure and sovereign Texas campaign
which helps to keep our country safe and free. Ms. Ford's work
is focused on policies that secure the border and restore the
rule of law.
Prior to joining the foundation, Ms. Ford served at the
White House first in the Office of American Innovation, and
later in the Domestic Policy Council. Ms. Ford has written
extensively about foreign policy, public safety, drug cartels,
and organized crime. Thank you for being with us.
Last, Mr. Jason Blazakis is a professor at Middlebury
Institute of International Studies where he focuses on threat
financing, sanctions, and violent extremism, and special
operations-related research. He is the director of the Center
on Terrorism Extremism and Counterterrorism where he directs
research on domestic terrorism, terrorism finance, recruitment
propaganda, and the use of special operations to counter
transnational threats.
In 2008 to 2018, he served as the director of
Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office, Bureau of
Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State.
I would like to welcome all of our witnesses and thank you
for your professional experience.
I know that you have submitted statements for the record.
Some of those will exceed 5 minutes. In the interest of time,
please summarize your statements to 5 minutes so that we go
along the committee lines here and ask questions.
I now recognize Mr. Douglas Farah for your 5 minutes in an
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS FARAH, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, IBI
CONSULTANTS
Mr. Farah. Thank you, Chairman Pfluger and Ranking Member
Magaziner, and Members of the subcommittee for the opportunity
to be here today talk about the issue of Transnational Criminal
Organizations and the threats they pose to their homeland. The
multi-billion-dollar illicit economies in Latin America
centered on the cocaine trade but diversifying to new
commodities and activities are undergoing profound
restructuring with long-term strategic repercussions for United
States and its allies in the hemisphere.
New actors, new markets, and new products are driving
fragmentation among traditional groups, consolidation of
criminalized economies, and convergents among different actors
are driving instability and corruption. The growing
ideologically-agnostic criminalized authoritarian model that's
spreading across Latin America with leaders staying in power
through alliances with transnational criminal structures that
render ideology almost meaningless.
While the world of illicit economies and TCO structures are
undergoing the seismic realignment across the hemisphere, many
of our strategies to combat these threats remain rooted in the
past.
Much of the law enforcement and intelligence community
analysis do not grasp the significant implications of states
and governments that actively seek the participation of TCOs as
part of their national strategic endeavors. Often relying on
old paradigms of ideologically-driven actors, model product
cartel structures, and shared values of once-friendly
government. Yet, as General Richardson, the commander of
USSOUTHCOM recently stated, the Western Hemisphere is under
assault from ``A host of cross-cutting trans boundary
challenges that directly threaten the homeland.''
Already the staunchly anti-U.S. bloc of countries led by
Venezuela is ensconced in power, while deeply corrupt
authoritarian governments in El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Honduras are no longer viable partners for the United States.
In Colombia, which has been the strongest partner of the
United States for the past three decades, President Gustavo
Petro campaigned on moving away from that alliance, and since
taking office has consistently bolstered the Maduro regime in
Venezuela.
Most of Colombia's counter-narcotics efforts have been
brought to a standstill by budget cuts, loss of experience,
personnel, and a lack of political will. This leaves us with
the very real possibility of a traditionally robust alliance
that U.S. strategic partners in Latin America will be reduced
to a handful of the smallest countries rather than regional
economic and political leaders.
Amid these changes, new actors such as Albanian organized
crime, Turkish criminal groups, Libyan fixer groups, and
Italian mafia groups are emerging as significant new players
across the region changing the dynamics of the traditional
criminal economics and offering new paths to expand profits to
product and market diversification.
I and my colleagues at the international coalition against
illicit economies in the spring 2023 policy brief identified
several emerging threats that we believe need to be dealt with
quickly. The first is the trafficking of natural resources,
especially gold. That is a primary contributor to massive
environmental degradation, health hazards, child labor, human
trafficking, and sexual slavery, and loss of state legitimacy.
It also brings broad new avenues of almost untraceable money
laundering that's being taken advantage of by criminalized
states and criminal groups.
The second is the diversification and the expansion of the
cartels, Jalisco Nueva Generacion. Jalisco in the past 3 years
has emerged as the most prominent cocaine trafficking
organization in Latin America and is expanding its operation
and corruptive influence in different parts of the world. A
primary area of expansion is into the diversified economic
portfolio of growing fake and counterfeit pharmaceuticals, a
new multibillion-dollar industry, as well as the Fentanyl
industry mentioned by the Chairman and the Ranking Member.
The second is the evolution of the MS-13 and the PCC gangs
and the Transnational Criminal Organizations. Since the 1990's,
the MS-13 are Mara Salvatrucha in Central America and the PCC.
In Brazil, it has been identified primarily as street thugs
knows for their ruthless violence, flashy tattoos, neighborhood
extortion rings, and cultural insularity. These groups have now
moved far beyond being that type thing and are what we have
termed in the academic community, Community Embedded
Transnational Armed Groups. Working in informal and imperfect
alliances to become part of the multinational trafficking
structures that are effectively challenging U.S. strategic
interest in the region and make the U.S. ability to respond to
the broadening instability much more difficult.
The third one that we identified is the emergence of new
extra regional criminal structures as noted with the
diversification of markets and products. The face of
transnational organized crime in Latin America is going much
more diverse.
Now, there is a growing presence of Eastern European,
Chinese, Turkish, Italian, Balkan, syndicates all vying for
space across the transnational criminal world in the
hemisphere, and this is most visible in the crisis in Ecuador.
In conclusion, as illicit networks expand their territorial
control, ecosystems of corruption, and political power, they
are aided and abetted by extra regional actors, such as China,
Russia, and Iran. They will undercut the rule of law and
directly challenge U.S. goals and initiatives across the
hemisphere.
As traditional Transnational Organized Criminal Groups form
new alliances with non-state extraregional networks and emerge
with regional criminal state actors, the United States is very
likely facing an unprecedented loss of key allies and influence
in the hemisphere. The United States has an underutilized
toolbox that can be deployed to reverse these worrisome trends,
but new policy initiatives back by resources to carry them out
must be deployed quickly or the cost of these trends will be
even higher. I thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Farah follows:]
Prepared Statement of Douglas Farah
June 7, 2023
Chairman Pfluger, Ranking Member Magaziner, and Members of the
subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss with you today
the issue of Transnational Criminal Organizations and the threat they
pose to the homeland.
The multi-billion dollar illicit economies in Latin America,
centered on the cocaine trade but diversifying to new commodities and
activities, are undergoing profound restructuring with long-term
strategic repercussions for the United States and its allies in the
hemisphere.
New actors, new markets, and new products are driving fragmentation
among traditional groups, consolidation of criminalized economies
within the Bolivarian Joint Criminal Enterprise (BJCE) \1\ and
convergence among different actors that are driving instability and
corruption.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ We define the Bolivarian Joint Criminal Enterprise as an
alliance of criminalized states and non-state actors, led by the Maduro
regime in Venezuela, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
in Colombia and the Daniel Ortega regime in Nicaragua. For a full
discussion of the BJCE see IBI Consultants deliverable for DAS-D CNGT
March 28, 2019, ``Maduro's Last Stand: Venezuela's Survival Through the
Bolivarian Joint Criminal Enterprise.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The growing, ideologically agnostic criminalized authoritarian
model is spreading across Latin America. Authoritarian cliques are
staying in power through alliances with transnational criminal
structures that renders ideology almost meaningless. This new approach
has opened new possibilities for formerly antagonistic groups. One-time
ideological opponents are no longer considered enemies, but potential
partners who can provide or purchase specific criminal services and
financial rewards.
The sustained ability of the Bolivarian authoritarian criminal
structures to consolidate and endure in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia
and elsewhere has emboldened new leaders across the political spectrum.
These new leaders follow the same playbook to gain a chokehold on state
power and the wealth generated by the alliance of states and
transnational criminal organizations (TCOs).
This necessitates using the same type of state partnership with an
array of illicit actors in order to generate revenues, withstand U.S.
economic sanctions, evade accountability and maintain a grip on power.
Because they are politically agnostic, leaders of criminalized states
often merge across ideological boundaries to move their illicit
products or hide their illicit fundings through a shared network of
fixers and facilitators.
This dynamic cripples democratic governance and the rule of law by
embedding the criminal alliances at the most senior levels of multiple
governments. Weakened democratic governance and growing criminal
authoritarianism, in turn, greatly undermine U.S. strategic interests
and influence by undermining its key allies in the region.
While the world of illicit economies and TCO structures are
undergoing a seismic realignment across the hemisphere, many of our
strategies to combat these threats remains rooted in the past, often
attacking problem sets and issues that were relevant years ago but are
no longer are part of the landscape.
Much of the law enforcement and intelligence community analysis do
not fully grasp the significant implications of the ideologically
agnostic criminalized states--that is, states and governments that
actively seek the participation of TCOs as part of their national
strategic endeavors. This leads to gaps in understanding how illicit
activities are undertaken and who profits from them. The law
enforcement and intelligence communities often rely on old paradigms of
ideologically-driven actors, mono-product cartel structures, and shared
values with once-friendly countries. Unfortunately, these paradigms no
longer describe the context that allows these illicit economies to
flourish, and they do not help law enforcement develop viable
strategies to address them.
Few states are wholly criminalized and most operate along a
continuum. At one end are strong criminalized states, where the state
acts as a partner of TCOs and/or use TCOs as an instrument of state
policy. In addition to Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Cuba of the
Bolivarian bloc these include the countries of the Northern Triangle of
Central America (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala); while Paraguay and
Argentina are moving closer to that end of the spectrum.
At the other end are weak and captured states, where certain nodes
of governmental authority have been seized by TCOs, where officials are
the primary beneficiaries of the proceeds from the illicit activity but
where the state as an entity is not integrated into the enterprise.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Douglas Farah, ``Transnational Organized Crime, Terrorism and
Criminalized States in Latin America: An Emerging Tier-One National
Security Priority,'' U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies
Institute, August 2012, accessed at: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/
cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1551&context=monographs.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The framework of the convergence paradigm posits that multiple
transnational criminal and terrorist groups--and their enablers,
regardless of ideology--work collaboratively when economic or political
interests align, and under state protection when such cooperation is
mutually beneficial.\3\ In too many places in the hemisphere, these
threat networks co-opted governance structures and penetrated key
public institutions and markets. Yet this framework, although
repeatedly validated in recent years, is seldom used to analyze threat
structures and illicit product pipelines.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ For an examination of convergence theory see: Michael Miklaucic
and Jaqueline Brewer, eds. Convergence: Illicit Networks and National
Security in the Age of Globalization (Washington, DC, NDU Press, 2013);
Douglas Farah, ``Convergence and Criminalized States: The New
Paradigm,'' in Beyond Convergence: World Without Order, Ed. Hilary
Matfess and Michael Miklaucic, Center for Complex Operations, NDU
Press, October 2016.
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The result is that now Latin America is facing a ``perfect storm of
reinforcing economic, criminal, and political stresses that is eroding
its institutions and economic prospects, radicalizing its people, and
undermining its commitment to democracy and the rule of law.''\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Evan Ellis, ``Latin America's Perfect Storm,'' Global
Americans, August 31, 2022, accessed at: https://
theglobalamericans.org/2022/08/latin-americas-perfect-storm/.
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The massive levels of corruption and multiple, persistent armed
conflicts among and between state and non-state actors are key drivers
of the regional decline in democratic governance and the wave of
authoritarian populism in the hemisphere. The Biden administration
designated corruption as a ``core United States national security
interest'' in December 2021,\5\ noting that
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ ``Strategy on Countering Corruption,'' The White House,
December 2021, accessed at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/
uploads/2021/12/United-States-Strategy-on-Countering-Corruption.pdf.
``In today's globalized world, corrupt actors bribe across borders,
harness the international financial system to stash illicit wealth
abroad, and abuse democratic institutions to advance anti-democratic
means . . . Corruption threatens United States national security,
economic equity, global anti-poverty and development efforts, and
democracy itself.''\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ United States Strategy on Countering Corruption, December 2021.
While the United States has revoked the U.S. visas of several dozen
Latin American leaders for corruption, these are executed in a
haphazard, episodic manner that do not dismantle criminal structures or
lead to asset forfeiture, the true life blood of the corrupt.
Significantly more political will and a broader, more coordinated and
coherent set of enforcement efforts will have to be employed to
dismantle kleptocracies and criminal ruling elites.
This significant reordering of illicit networks structure in the
Western Hemisphere is not taking place in a vacuum. The malign
influence of China, Russia, and Iran adds new layers of complexity to
regional anti-crime strategies.
This is in part because, at the same time illicit economies are
expanding, traditional U.S. allies are shifting away from strategic
partnerships with the United States to either openly antagonistic
relationships or ones of dramatically less strategic engagement.
As Gen. Richardson, commander of U.S. Southern Command, recently
stated, the Western Hemisphere is under assault from ``a host of cross-
cutting, transboundary challenges that directly threaten'' the
homeland. She added that:
``Transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), which operate nearly
uncontested, and blaze a trail of corruption and violence that create
conditions that allow the PRC and Russia to exploit, threaten citizen
security, and undermine public confidence in government institutions.
These threats, along with Iran, corruption, irregular migration, and
climate change, all overwhelm the region's fragile state institutions,
springing unrest and increasingly frustrated populations. This
combination of factors pushes many political leaders to seek resources
and support from all sources, including our adversaries who are very
eager to undermine U.S. presence and public image.''\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Statement of General Laura Richardson, Commander, United States
Southern Command, Before the 117th Congress, House Armed Services
Committee, March 8, 2022, accessed at: https://www.southcom.mil/Media/
Special-Coverage/SOUTHCOMs-2022-Posture-Statement-to-Congress/.
Already the staunchly anti-U.S. bloc of the BJCE is ensconced in
power in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua while deeply corrupt
authoritarian governments in El Salvador, Guatemala, and increasingly
Honduras, are no longer viable partners for the United States.
In Argentina, President Alberto Fernandez announced his country as
the gateway to Russian expansion in the hemisphere on the eve of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine and following a face-to-face meeting with
Vladimir Putin.\8\ He has also granted the PRC privileged access to
strategic Argentine state infrastructure and key minerals. These
concessions included the construction of an autonomous deep space
station, control of a key access point to Antarctica, and access to
lithium deposits under opaque contracts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Federico Rivas Molina, ``Alberto Fernandez le ofrece a Rusia
que Argentina sea su puerta de entrada a America Latina,'' El Pais,
February 4, 2022, accessed at: https://elpais.com/internacional/2022-
02-04/alberto-fernandez-le-ofrece-a-rusia-que-argentina-sea-su-puerta-
de-entrada-a-america-latina.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brazil's right-wing populist leader Jair Bolsonaro also visited
Russia just before the invasion of Ukraine. Bolsonaro declared his
solidarity with Russia after meeting Putin and falsely bragged that he
had negotiated a peaceful resolution to the looming conflict.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Giovanna Galvani, ``Bolsonaro em encontro com Putin: `Somos
solidarios a Russia,'' CNN Brasil, February 16, 2022, accessed at:
https://elpais.com/internacional/2022-02-04/alberto-fernandez-le-
ofrece-a-rusia-que-argentina-sea-su-puerta-de-entrada-a-america-
latina.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a sequence that clearly demonstrates blurred ideological lines,
Bolsonaro's successor, long-time leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva (Lula), went out of his way to downplay Russia's aggression in
Ukraine, declare the United States was partly to blame for Russia's
actions, and publicly embraced Maduro and the region's other
authoritarian regimes.\10\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Will Grant and Jaroslov Lukiv, ``Lula welcomes back banned
Venezuelan leader Maduro,'' BBC News, May 30, 2023, accessed at:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-65750537.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Colombia, which has been the strongest partner of the United
States over the past three decades, President Gustavo Petro campaigned
on moving away from that close alliance. Since taking office, Petro has
consistently bolstered the Maduro regime in Venezuela and used his
large social media following to repeat Russian propaganda talking
points. Most of Colombia's counter-narcotics efforts have been brought
to a standstill by budget cuts, loss of experienced personnel, and lack
of political will.
This opens the door to the real possibility that the traditionally
robust alliance of U.S. strategic partners in Latin America will be
reduced to a handful of the smallest countries rather than regional
economic and political leaders.
This erosion of alliances comes while traditional actors in
criminal economies have remained active--including the Sinaloa Cartel
(Mexico), the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion--CJNG (Mexico), and
several thousand dissident members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia--FARC (Colombia/Venezuela/Ecuador) divided into different
groups.
Amid these changes, new actors such as Albanian organized crime,
Turkish criminal groups, Libyan actors, and other mafia groups are
emerging as significant new players. These groups are changing the
dynamics of traditional criminal economies, challenging and upsetting
current relationships, and offering new paths to expand profits through
product and market diversification. Each group brings added prospects
of globalization for products, money laundering, and exchanges of
lessons learned.
New actors, new markets, and new products are driving fragmentation
among traditional groups, consolidation of criminalized economies
within the BJCE and convergence and competition among different actors
that are driving instability and corruption. The Mexican CJNG has
displaced the Sinaloa cartel as the dominant criminal network,
expanding its illicit pipelines from primarily trafficking in cocaine
to dominating Fentanyl markets, fake pharmaceuticals, precursor
chemicals, methamphetamines, and a host of other products.
Traditional criminal actors based in Colombia and Mexico are now
competing with--and sometimes collaborating with--new actors such as
transnational gangs in Brazil and Central America, as well extra-
regional, non-traditional actors. New actors such as Albanian organized
crime, Turkish criminal groups, Libyan actors and Italian mafia groups
are emerging as significant new players that are changing the dynamics
of these traditional groups, challenging and upsetting current
relationships, and offering new paths to expand profits through product
and market diversification. Each group brings added prospects of
globalization for products, new technologies, money-laundering
methodologies, and exchanges of lessons learned.
As attention in the United States is focused heavily on the Russia-
Ukraine conflict, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future,
the space for criminal actors and state-sponsored criminal groups to
expand under the protection of regional and extra-regional governments
will likely continue to grow.
Among the most visible effects of the on-going reordering of
illicit economies and networks in Latin America under the protection of
a criminalized state is the massive refugee and humanitarian crisis
arising from the Maduro regime's repression, corruption, and
mismanagement. Some 6 million people have fled Venezuela in the past 5
years, with more than half remaining in camps in Colombia and millions
more scattered around the region. This crisis is not the focus of this
report but must be noted not only because of the human toll, but
because supporting the Venezuelan migrant community strains the
humanitarian resources of surrounding countries.
Long-term results of these two major blows to the regions'
economies has been to force the state to retrench, leaving broadening
gaps for illicit economies to flourish while empowering non-state armed
actors that can replace the state. These issues, in turn, make finding
viable, sustainable strategies to combat these trends in the near- and
mid-term very difficult, even in the countries where the political will
to do so exists.
In this context I and my colleagues at the International Coalition
Against Illicit Economies (ICAIE), where I am a senior adviser, in a
recent Spring 2023 Policy Brief (https://icaie.com/2023/04/spring-
icaie-policy-brief-emerging-transnational-organized-crime-threats-in-
latin-america-converging-criminalized-markets-illicit-vectors/)
identified several emerging security trends that offer new challenges
to law enforcement and policy communities in the region that are far-
reaching, and threaten to accelerate the negative trends unless dealt
with effectively. I summarize our findings in the Policy Brief, below.
Trafficking in Natural Resources.--The illicit trafficking of
natural resources not only opens new revenue streams for transnational
criminal organizations and money-laundering avenues, but it is a
primary contributor to massive environmental degradation, health
hazards, child labor, human trafficking and loss of state legitimacy.
The most lucrative commodity is gold--especially illegally-mined gold--
a largely unregulated trade booming across the hemisphere from
Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, and in the north to the Madre de
Dios regions of Peru and Bolivia and the Amazon Basin in Brazil.
Gold has several advantages that make it increasingly attractive to
criminal groups as the formal financial system has put anti-money
laundering laws and regulations in place. As the Organization of
American States (OAS) noted in a series of reports, illicit gold mining
provides fungible assets that are easy to transport, largely impossible
to trace once out of the ground, and readily convertible in markets
around the world.\11\
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\11\ ``Tipologias y senales de alerta relacionadas con el lavado de
activos provenientes de la mineria illegal en America Latina y el
Caribe,'' Organization of American States, Department Against
Transnational Organized Crime, January 2022, accessed at: https://
www.flipsnack.com/dcmmcenter/doc-tipolog-as-y-se-ales-de-alerta-
mineria-ilegal-esp.html.
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The price of gold has risen sharply in recent years, meaning in
many places, mining gold illegally is more profitable for miners in the
jungles of South America than planting coca crops to produce
cocaine.\12\ If gold is moved at 95 percent purity or below it does not
legally have to be declared a financial instrument. This makes it easy
to move nearly pure gold to a financial hub without declaring it,
refine it in situ and have gold that can be turned into cash
immediately in ways that avoid the formal banking system. This process
enables criminals and kleptocrats to exploit gold markets as a way to
launder dirty money.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Javier Villalba, ``Colombia Drug Trafficking Money Laundered
Through Modified Gold,'' InSight Crime, June 17, 2021, accessed at:
https://insightcrime.org/news/urabenos-gold-launder-drug-money-
colombia/.
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The Maduro regime in Venezuela has raised hundreds of millions of
dollars through the sale of illegally mined gold, often with the
support or proxy actions of Colombian non-state armed actors affiliated
with different groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) dissident factions. Large gold refineries in the United Arab
Emirates, United States, and elsewhere have been sanctioned for their
massive failure of their own ``know your customer'' rules and due
diligence. One refinery in Suriname helped the FARC, the Maduro regime,
and Mexican cartel launder hundreds of millions of dollars through
illicit gold and falsified gold invoices.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Douglas Farah and Kathryn Babineau, ``Suriname: New Paradigm
of a Criminalized State,'' Global Dispatch, Center for a Secure Free
Society, March 2017, accessed at: https://www.securefreesociety.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/03/Global-Dispatch-Issue-3-FINAL.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As U.S. pressure to stem the flow of what human rights groups and
others call ``blood gold'' to the international market has increased,
growing amounts of gold have flowed from Venezuela, Nicaragua,
Suriname, Ecuador, and elsewhere to state actors and criminal
enterprises operating outside of the hemisphere, including Turkey,
China, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.\14\ In recent
years, China has become an increasingly important market for gold mined
by the Maduro regime, which often the allied regime of Daniel Ortega in
Nicaragua to move the gold to market.\15\ A group of Libyan middlemen
who had long ties to the Gadhafi regime's sanctions evasion efforts in
the 1990's are key facilitators in this new criminal convergence
space.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ See for example: Carina Pons and Mayela Armas, ``Venezuela
sold 73 tonnes of gold to Turkey, UAE last year: Legislator,'' Reuters,
February 6, 2019, accessed at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
venezuela-politics-gold/venezuela-sold-73-tonnes-of-gold-to-turkey-uae-
last-year-legislator-idUSKCN1PV1XE; and ``Gold and Grief in Venezuela's
Violent South,'' International Crisis Group, February 28, 2019,
accessed at: https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/andes/
venezuela/073-gold-and-grief-venezuelas-violent-south.
\15\ Yalile Loiza, ``La OEA advirtio sobre el incremento de
comercio de oro desde Ecuador a China,'' Infobae, February 1, 2023,
accessed at: https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2023/02/01/
la-oea-advirtio-sobre-el-incremento-del-comercio-ilegal-de-oro-desde-
ecuador-a-china/.
\16\ For details see: Douglas Farah and Marianne Richardson,
``Dangerous Alliances: Russia's Strategic Inroads in Latin America,''
Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University,
Strategic Perspectives 41, December 2022, accessed at: https://
inss.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratperspective/inss/strategic-
perspectives-41.pdf.
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The Ascent, Diversification, and Expansion of the Cartel Jalisco
Nueva Generacion (CJNG): The CJNG in the past 3 years has emerged as
the most prominent cocaine trafficking organization in Latin America,
surpassing the Sinaloa Cartel and other Mexican and Colombian
trafficking structures. It now operates in at least 29 of Mexico's 33
states, as well as northern Central America, Ecuador, Colombia, and
Venezuela.\17\ It is also expanding its operation and corruptive
influence in different parts of the world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ IISS Armed Conflict Survey, 2022. Data from the Mexico
Ministry of Finance and Public Credit.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In order to achieve this, the CJNG has successfully focused on:
Expanding its territorial control in multiple jurisdictions
in order to control all illicit activities rather than just
operating as a cocaine plaza;
The indiscriminate use of wide-spread violence to combat
other cartels, law enforcement, perceived enemies such as
journalists, and would-be competitors and successfully
targeting high-profile targets;
A rapid scaling up of its business opportunities inside and
outside of Mexico while moving to diversify its portfolio and
develop new methodologies for laundering and moving its illicit
proceeds.
A primary area of the CJNG's expanded and diversified economic
profile now includes a growing dominance in the trafficking of fake
medicines and counterfeit pharmaceuticals, a multi-billion illicit
industry repeatedly traced back to this cartel. In Mexico, 60 percent
of commercially-sold pharmaceuticals are counterfeit, expired, or
stolen.\18\ Pirated pharmaceuticals are most common in Guanajuato,
Jalisco, Guerrero, and Michoacan. The medicines are sold on-line, in
the informal economy, and in professional brick-and-mortar pharmacies,
where CJNG liaisons force pharmacists and storekeepers to sell and
store them alongside real medicine.
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\18\ Castillo Garcia, Gustavo. ``Se apodera el `CJNG' de la
produccion de medicinas `piratas' ''. La Jornada, 17 March 2020.
https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/politica/2020/03/17/se-apodera-el-
cjng-de-la-produccion-de-medicinas-piratas-9877.html.
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Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are often sold for a fifth of the price
of real medicine. Fake medicine has included treatments for HIV,
cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, and
obesity.\19\ Pharmacists who oppose the sale of the counterfeit
medicines, do so at risk to their own lives.\20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ ``El CJNG extiende sus tentaculos criminales: asi trafica
medicamentos piratas en Mexico.'' Infobae, 17 March 2020. https://
www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2020/03/17/el-cjng-extiende-sus-
tentaculos-criminales-asi-trafica-medicamentos-piratas-en-mexico/.
\20\ Castillo Garcia, Gustavo. ``Se apodera el `CJNG' de la
produccion de medicinas `piratas' ''. La Jornada, 17 March 2020.
https://www.jornada.com.mx/ultimas/politica/2020/03/17/se-apodera-el-
cjng-de-la-produccion-de-medicinas-piratas-9877.html.
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The cartels' expanded trafficking in counterfeit pharmaceuticals
includes pills that are cut with illegal drugs, notoriously Fentanyl,
or Fentanyl disguised as other pharmaceutical products. Many
counterfeit pharmaceuticals connected to the CJNG and other cartels
contained Fentanyl, including counterfeit Oxycodone, Xanax, and
Roxicodone.\21\ These pills were milled in pill presses to mimic
legitimate pharmaceuticals. Including Fentanyl in the recipe for these
drugs makes drug trafficking even more profitable and harder to detect,
as cartels can package the substances into ever-smaller bags, spread
them among an ever-wider network of distributors, and achieve the same
or greater levels of usage.\22\ Increasingly, the cartels have also
started mixing Fentanyl with Xylazine--a sedative used in cow and
horses--and found in many cities across the United States which causes
severe skin ulcerations, necrosis, and can result in amputations if
left untreated.
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\21\ Atlanta-Carolinas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area's 2019
Threat Assessment. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/CommitteeInfo/
HouseLegislativeOversightCommittee/AgencyWebpages/AlcoholDrugAbuse/
Drug_Trafficking_Threat_Assessment.pdf.
\22\ ``La estrategia del CJNG y el Cartel de Sinaloa para inundar
Estados Unidos con fentanilo.'' Infobae, 12 May 2022. https://
www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2022/05/13/la-estrategia-del-cjng-y-el-
cartel-de-sinaloa-para-inundar-estados-unidos-con-fentanilo/.
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The CJNG is sourcing the precursor chemicals for Fentanyl
production from the same suppliers--largely Chinese and Indian--used by
other cartels, including the Sinaloa cartel.\23\ The Asian suppliers
sell to precursors to large Mexican companies and primarily imported
through the Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo ports.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Asmann, Parker. ``Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG Share Fentanyl
Chemical Suppliers.'' InSight Crime, 16 November 2022. https://
insightcrime.org/news/mexico-sinaloa-cartel-cjng-chemical-suppliers-
Fentanyl/.
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The link between expanded Fentanyl production and supply of
precursor chemicals makes controlling ports, especially vital ports
such as Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo, critical for cartel economic
supremacy. Whoever controls the ports has a stranglehold on the
production of the new synthetic production line, and related illicit
markets.
The Evolution of the MS-13 and PCC Gangs into Transnational
Criminal Organizations: Since their emergence in the criminal landscape
as prison-based gangs in the mid-1990's both the MS-13 (Mara
Salvatrucha) in Central America and the PCC (Primeiro Comando da
Capital) in Brazil have been identified primarily as street thugs known
for their ruthless violence, flashy tattoos, neighborhood extortion
rings, and cultural insularity. While that typology was true for many
years, both groups have now grown into transnational criminal threats,
making the past nomenclature both obsolete and inaccurate.
As I have argued in recent academic publications and policy
discussions that this coalescing of transnational criminal groups that
have moved beyond gangs to Community Embedded Transnational Armed
Groups (CETAGs) in informal and imperfect alliances, pose enormous and
little-understood challenges to U.S. strategic interests and the U.S.
ability to effectively respond to broadening hemispheric instability.
Rooted in their communities, this type of criminal group is likely to
expand across the hemisphere.
The MS-13, primarily operating in the Northern Triangle of Central
America (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala) and the PCC, based in Sao
Paulo (and active in most Brazilian States), are now both tier one
criminal/political/military threats to hemispheric stability.\24\ The
groups--no longer gangs but transnational criminal structures--are
becoming more deeply enmeshed in the global drug trade, the body
politic, and armed conflicts in the hemisphere. Both structures are
rapidly amassing formal political power and seek new alliances with
each other and other state and non-state armed actors to achieve their
goals of becoming major criminal enterprises embedded in the state. In
addition, both groups share important characteristics. These include:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ A tier one, or existential threat is considered to be among
the most serious of all threats to national security, and has been
defined as a threat that would ``deprive the United States of its
sovereignty under the Constitution, would threaten the territorial
integrity of the United States or the safety within U.S. borders of
large numbers of Americans, or would pose a manifest challenge to U.S.
core interests abroad in a way that would compel an undesired and
unwelcome change in our freely chosen ways of life at home.'' See Louis
Jacobson, ``Is ISIS an existential threat to the United States,''
PolitiFact, November 16, 2015.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A hierarchical structure that is both rigid and allows for
local autonomy. At the highest levels, the hierarchies are
pyramid-shaped. Leaders achieve coordination through bodies
known as sintonias (PCC) and ranflas (MS-13), but local groups
have significant freedom in implementing the strategic
decisions the leadership makes;
Members aspire to visible trappings of wealth and economic
success (weapons, cars, luxury houses, beautiful women,
jewelry);
An increasing reliance on local, retail drug sales (narco
menudeo) to create local demand and provide income that allows
them to diversify their criminal portfolios and move away from
deeply unpopular revenue streams such as extortion in the
neighborhoods they control. The retail sales include cocaine,
crack cocaine, chemical-laced marijuana called krispy and
generate the bulk of revenues for both groups; prostitution;
human smuggling and other high-end illicit activities;
A reliance on territorial control in heavily populated areas
such as national and regional capitals, as well as key drug
trafficking routes, to gain political and economic leverage and
vertically integrate their trafficking structures;
In addition, both groups have reached some understanding with the
Maduro regime in Venezuela and allied criminal structures operating in
Venezuelan territory to acquire cocaine and weapons, and both rely on
territorial control as their primary claim to legitimacy.
These groups have replaced the state as the arbiter of power across
most of the areas where they operate; they have more legitimacy in many
ways than government institutions.
The MS-13 remains largely confined to northern Central America and
the United States, with a growing presence in Mexico. The MS-13 poses
an existential threat to the governments of El Salvador and Honduras,
both small countries whose primary strategic importance derives from
their proximity to the United States. The group is expanding
territorial control, infiltrating the police and negotiating pacts with
governments that have increased the group's engagement in cocaine
trafficking, production, and retail. While moving aggressively to take
over cocaine trafficking routes in the region, the MS-13 is far less
involved in the transnational drug trade than the PCC. However, most of
the MS-13 activities directly impact the United States, making it a
more direct challenge.
The MS-13--initially formed in prisons in Los Angeles, California
in the 1980's before many were deported back to post-conflict Central
America in mid-1990's \25\--has long been recognized as a significant
strategic challenge for the United States, in part because of its U.S.
roots and on-going proximity and engagement across the United States.
In 2012 the group was declared ``significant transnational criminal
organization'' by the U.S. Treasury Department.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ In the mid-1990's, as the civil wars in Central America ended,
the Clinton administration began deporting thousands of gang members as
they completed their prison terms in the United States, primarily
California, flooding the Northern Triangle with thousands of violent
felons the reconfigured back into the mirror images of the gangs they
had formed in the United States. For a detailed look at the policies
and history of the gang deportations and enormous difficulties this
policy has caused in Central America, see Ana Arana, ``How Street Gangs
Took Central America,'' Foreign Affairs 84, no. 3 (May/June 2005): 98-
110.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the PCC, unlike the MS-13, does not have operational U.S.
branches and does not operate near a U.S. border, this CETAG has a
demonstrated capacity to disrupt and destabilize multiple countries in
the hemisphere--most notably Paraguay and Bolivia--as well as the
operational capacity to deliver cocaine and other illicit products to
Brazil, Africa, and Europe. This broad reach, now extending into
Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela, in turn, drives massive corruption and
is spurring the groundwork for State collapse in multiple countries.
The cumulative impact poses a significant strategic threat to the
United States and its hemispheric allies.
The Emergence of New Extra-Regional Criminal Structures: For most
of the history of large-scale cocaine production and shipments in Latin
America, the primary operational groups were Colombian or Mexican, with
Caribbean groups and Central American structures playing a lesser role.
With the diversification of both markets and products, the face of
transnational organized crime in Latin America is growing much more
diverse.
Now, operating alongside--and sometimes in competition with--the
fragmenting and realigning regional structures, there is a growing
presence of Eastern European, Chinese, Turkish, Italian, and Balkan
syndicates vying for space.
There are many other indicators of growing extra-regional actors in
the region. Albanian, Kosovar, and Greek criminal groups are competing
alongside Mexican cartels for power in Ecuador.\26\ An Albanian
national, reportedly an important link between South American drug
trafficking networks and Balkan criminal networks, was shot to death in
a restaurant in Guayaquil in late January 2022.\27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-trail-from-europe-to-
ecuador-inside-the-hunt-for-elusive-narco-suspect-dritan-rexhepi-
11637756980.
\27\ Mistler-Ferguson, Scott. ``Albanian drug traffickers jockey
for position in Ecuador.'' InSight Crime, 28 February 2022. https://
insightcrime.org/news/albanian-drug-traffickers-jockey-for-position-in-
ecuador/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ecuadoran media has confirmed at least 6 murders of Albanians
since 2019. Turkish organized crime has been developing inroads into
Venezuela since at least 2020 \28\ and in November 2022, Panama's role
as a central logistics hub for extra-regional criminal organizations
came to light. Authorities arrested 49 people in Dubai, Spain, France,
Belgium, and the Netherlands, all with alleged ties to the so-called
`Super Cartel'. Defendants were allegedly coordinating a massive drug
trafficking operation out of Panama with support from leading cartels
in Ireland, Italy, Bosnia, the Netherlands, and Morocco.\29\ According
to Panama's attorney general, Panamanian nationals had been helping the
Super Cartel move drugs and maintain communications around the world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ ``Turkish organized crime boss: to evade DEA and ship cocaine
to middle east, Erkan Yildirim, son of former Prime Minister and
Parliament Speaker Binali Yildirim, close friend of Interior Minister
Suleyman Soylu, recently established `New Headquarters' in Venezuela.''
Memri, 26 May 2021. https://www.memri.org/reports/turkish-organized-
crime-boss-evade-dea-and-ship-cocaine-middle-east-erkan-yildirim-son.
\29\ Ballestin, Raquel. ``Panama becomes logistics hub for drug
trafficking `Super Cartel'. InSight Crime, 9 December 2022. https://
insightcrime.org/news/panama-logistics-hub-drug-trafficking-super-
cartel/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Italian organized crime, in particular groups with ties to the
`Ndrangheta, are also active in Argentina and Chile, with ties in
Central America along drug trafficking routes to Europe.\30\ Cocaine
seizures in Portugal in August 2022 also indicate comprehensive
collaboration between prominent Brazilian criminal groups, in
particular the PCC, and West African groups operating out of Angola and
Guinea Bissau.\31\ Guinea Bissau has long been identified as a narco-
state, with drug kingpins able to live freely and openly outside the
capital with no threat from law enforcement.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\30\ Alvarado, Isaias. ``Este pais de America es el nuevo `paraiso'
de carteles y su fama de tranquilo se esta diluyendo.'' Univision, 25
July 2021. https://www.univision.com/noticias/narcotrafico/este-pais-
es-el-nue
\31\ Ford, Alessandro. ``Portugal fighting back against rising tide
of cocaine.'' InSight Crime, August 2022. https://insightcrime.org/
news/portugal-fighting-back-against-rising-tide-cocaine/
\32\ Dalby, Chris. ``Record cocaine hauls confirm Guinea-Bissau's
`narco-state' reputation.'' InSight Crime, 25 September 2019. https://
insightcrime.org/news/analysis/guinea-bissau-colombia-cocaine-hauls/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
conclusions
Latin America is facing a ``host of cross-cutting, transboundary
challenges'' that directly threaten not only U.S. strategic interests,
but the key pillars that have sustained long-standing partnerships
across the region to jointly face myriad common issues. As illicit
networks expand their territorial control, ecosystems of corruption,
political power, and product lines, they are aided and abetted by
extra-regional actors such as China, Russia, and Iran who undercut the
rule of law and directly challenge U.S. goals and initiatives in the
Western Hemisphere.
As traditional transnational organized criminal groups have formed
new alliances with non-state extra-regional networks and merged with
regional criminalized state actors, the United States is very likely
facing an unprecedented loss of key allies and U.S. influence in the
hemisphere. The terrain that is lost will likely prove very difficult
to regain as states continue to deal with the fallout of the COVID-19
pandemic and the on-going Venezuelan humanitarian crisis.
Russia and China view Latin America as a key theater of great power
competition, and act accordingly. The United States must forgo the
complacency inherent in having been most of the region's international
partner of choice for a century, and seek creative new engagements with
its partners. Higher-quality, more comprehensive, and more sustained
engagement with the right communities will go far to strengthen
democracy, civil society, and regional stability.
The sheer number of violent, criminal networks now controlling
territory and wielding political power--some of them protected by
member states of the BJCE--mean the desired end-state of stability will
prove elusive for many communities. The same forces wield massive
corruption networks to undermine rule of law, hollow out state
institutions, weaken civil society, and drive violence and irregular
migration.
The United States has an underutilized toolbox that can be deployed
to reverse these worrisome trends, but new policy initiatives, backed
by resources, must be deployed quickly or the costs of these trends
will be even higher.
In order to counter the current trends in Latin America, the United
States must take short-term actions that support a long-term strategy
of re-engagement and partnership. These include:
Getting U.S. Ambassadors confirmed and in place in key
countries across the region would be an important and
achievable first step. The lack of Ambassadors feeds the
perception that the United States does not prioritize the
region and provides less robust engagement at senior policy
levels.
Redefine who the United States is willing to strategically
partner with away from the traditional right vs. left paradigm
to one that prioritizes democratic governance, rule of law, and
anti-corruption efforts. This would open the doors to
meaningfully engage with the new governments of Chile and
Honduras more robustly while making countries like Argentina
and Brazil less central for policy initiatives.
Fully embrace the Biden administration's twin policies of
combatting transnational organized crime and corruption as
priorities. This includes funding and implementing unfulfilled
and unfunded initiatives to create task forces to work with
regional partners on these issues and empower civil society to
participate in these struggles.
As part of the whole-of-Government agenda, refine and
prioritize combatting illicit networks, particularly those
linked to state actors such as Venezuela and Nicaragua. This
not only combats corruption but weakens the criminalized states
and their non-state actors.
Use the Summit of the Americas event in June 2022 to reset U.S.
engagement in the region with a clear articulation of
priorities, while highlighting the advantages partnership with
the United States offers as opposed to the consequences of
allying with Russia, China, or Iran.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Farah. I now recognize Mr.
Urben for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER URBEN, FORMER ASSISTANT SPECIAL AGENT
IN CHARGE OF U.S. DRUG ENFORCEMENT AGENCY, DEA, AND MANAGING
DIRECTOR, NARDELLO & COMPANY
Mr. Urben. Chairman Pfluger, Ranking Member Magaziner, and
distinguished Members of this subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to address you today on this important issue. I
spent 24 years working for the DEA where I worked as an agent
as well as a supervisor to investigate and disrupt and
dismantle significant transnational organized crime within the
United States and around the world.
During the last several years of my career with DEA, I
worked in DEA's Special Operations Division, SOD, with an
interagency group to target what we identified as a growing
threat. The collaboration between Chinese and Mexican TCOs in
the trafficking of Fentanyl and in the money-laundering
activities associated with it. It is a development that I and
others at SOD dedicated substantial efforts to understanding
and addressing. This may be relevant to the subcommittee's
consideration as it seeks to address threats to the homeland
posed by these TCOs.
To understand how this collaboration works, it's important
to understand how it developed in the past. Mexican cartels,
including Sinaloa and CJNG have long established control over
territory in Mexico and access to supply and distribution
chains extending into the United States. This dates from their
trafficking time in cocaine and heroin and other drugs that are
produced south of the U.S. border and moved into the United
States for sale.
The cartels used that control and access to move into the
Fentanyl marketplace as the source of supply for these deadly
drugs. They became available primarily via precursor chemicals
supplied by Chinese TCOs. This development presents an
unprecedented challenge by itself.
But there is another part of this growing relationship that
helps fuel the success of Fentanyl production and
distribution--the growing role of Chinese organized crime that
they have taken in the laundering drug proceeds. The Mexican
cartels, they laundered these proceeds for the Mexican cartels
in a way that's safer, quicker, and more profitable for the
cartel.
As reflected by the graphic in exhibit 1 to my testimony
that you have, here is how it works. Every day in the United
States, Chinese money brokers pick up narcotics proceeds from
the sales of Fentanyl and other drugs, such as cocaine and
heroin in the form of bulk U.S. cash. A distribution gang,
let's say, in New York, or any other city in the United States
that owes payment to the Mexican cartel delivers bulk cash to
the Chinese broker in the United States. That Chinese broker
then sells the U.S. dollars to Chinese customers who want to
spend their money in the United States, acquiring real estate,
paying for college tuition, gambling, or other investments.
These Chinese customers pay in China for the cash they receive
in the United States. It doesn't cross borders. Proceeds in
China are used to buy goods for exports in Mexico or South
America where the goods are sold by Chinese brokers located in
Mexico to recoup their funds.
Some of the proceeds are also used to pay for precursor
chemicals that enable to cartels to produce more synthetic
opioids then bound for the United States. These Chinese brokers
accomplish all this with a trusted electronic encryption
communications network that allows this to happen instantly. It
is called WeChat.
While the threat posed by the collaboration between Chinese
and Mexican TCOs is real and growing, more can be done to
combat it. More investigative resources such as translators,
data scientists, and experienced targeting analysts will enable
law enforcement to have the tools needed to detect and
investigate these networks, where they operate.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have authorized
the imposition of sanctions or participants in the global trade
of Fentanyl and synthetic opioids. Recent sanctions on Chinese
brokers of precursor chemicals and Mexican suppliers of
synthetic opioids are an encouraging development. But further
investments in the sanctions program, along the lines of the
effective sanctions program targeting those involved in the
Russian aggression against the Ukraine would help address this
threat.
In the private sector where I now work on Nardello & Co,
the global investigative firm, I am also seeing greater
awareness by the business community that needs to understand
this emerging threat and develop the tools to address it. More
investments in training and detection will facilitate private
sector's organization's compliance with anti-money laundering
laws and help protect the integrity of our financial system as
well as reduce the flow of dangerous synthetic opioids in the
United States.
Congress can also play a vital role by providing resources,
incentives, and authority for Government and the private sector
to work together to combat this threat. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak with you today about this important issue.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Urben follows:]
June 7, 2023
Prepared Statement of Christopher Urben
Chairman Pfluger, Ranking Member Magaziner, and distinguished
Members of this subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to address
you today on this important issue.
I spent 24 years working for the United States Drug Enforcement
Administration (``DEA''), where I worked as an agent and supervisor to
investigate and disrupt or dismantle significant transnational criminal
organizations (``TCOs'') within the United States and around the world.
During the last several years of my career with DEA, I worked in
DEA's Special Operations Division (``SOD'') with an interagency group
to target what we identified as a growing threat: the growing
collaboration between Chinese and Mexican TCOs in trafficking of
Fentanyl and in money-laundering activities. It's a development that I
and others at SOD dedicated substantial efforts to understanding and
addressing, and that may be relevant to this subcommittee's
consideration as it seeks ways to address threats to the homeland posed
by TCOs.
To understand how this collaboration works, it's important to
understand how it developed. Mexican cartels, including the Sinaloa and
Cartel Jalisco New Generation (``CJNG''), have long-established control
over territory in Mexico and access to supply and distribution chains
extending into the United States. This dates from their time
trafficking cocaine, heroin, and other drugs that are produced south of
the U.S. border into the United States for sale.
The cartels used that control and access to move into the Fentanyl/
synthetic opioid marketplace as the source of supply for these deadly
drugs became available, primarily via precursor chemicals supplied by
Chinese TCOs. Prior to approximately 2019, the cartels and drug dealers
within the United States were receiving Fentanyl in shipments directly
from chemical brokers in China and selling it in the United States.
Then, the Chinese government started cracking down on the production of
pure Fentanyl in mainland China and its shipment and sale into the
United States. Now, Mexican cartels increasingly are receiving what are
known as precursor chemicals via chemical brokers in China and using
them to produce Fentanyl themselves in territory they control in Mexico
for distribution into the United States.
The potency of the synthetic opioids created in Mexican cartel-run
drug labs has made them particularly dangerous--as the DEA has reported
previously, 1 kilogram of pure Fentanyl has enough opioid to kill
500,000 people. Because of the Mexican cartels' powerful existing
distribution networks, it's relatively easy for them to smuggle
Fentanyl into the United States. Where once the cartels might have had
to smuggle tractor trailers full of cocaine, heroin, or other drugs
into the United States to supply the market, now just a few kilos
smuggled via passenger cars or individual travelers, or via the mail,
can supply equivalent potency to local drug trafficking organizations
(``DTOs'') here in the United States, which mix the Fentanyl with other
chemicals for consumption or process them into counterfeit pills for
sale on the street or over the internet.
This development presents an unprecedented challenge by itself. But
there's another part of this growing relationship that helps fuel the
success of synthetic opioid production and distribution: the growing
role that Chinese TCOs have taken in laundering drug proceeds for the
Mexican cartels in a way that's safer, quicker, and more profitable for
the cartels.
The most predominant laundering scheme that had been employed by
the Mexican cartels, known as the Black-Market Peso Exchange
(``BMPE''), was complex and dangerous, resulting in high transaction
costs of 7-10 percent of the total amount laundered and lengthy delays
of a week or more. Moreover, because of the BMPE connection to the
cartels, laundering involved a constant risk of violence, theft, or law
enforcement intervention.
The method used by the Chinese TCOs avoids the costs, delays, and
risks of the BMPE by employing brokers in three countries--China, the
United States, and Mexico--and by addressing needs of other
participants in the global economy that are in China or that do
business with China.
As reflected by the graphic in Exhibit 1 to my testimony, here's
how it works:
Every day in the United States, Chinese money brokers pick up
narcotics proceeds--from sales of Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids
as well as heroin, cocaine, and other drugs--in the form of bulk U.S.
cash. A drug distribution gang in New York or another U.S. city that
owes payment to the Mexican cartel delivers the bulk cash to the
Chinese broker. The Chinese broker then sells the U.S. dollars to
Chinese customers who want to spend money in the United States,
acquiring real estate, paying college tuition, gambling, or making
other investments. These Chinese customers pay in China for the cash
they receive in the United States. The proceeds in China are used to
buy goods for export to Mexico or South America, where the goods are
sold by the Chinese brokers in Mexico to recoup their funds. Some of
the proceeds also are used to pay for the precursor chemicals that
enable the cartels to produce more synthetic opioids. The Chinese
brokers accomplish all of this with trusted electronic encrypted
communications that allow all of this to happen instantly.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
What makes this so effective and hard to detect?
First, it minimizes movement of funds. Dollars don't leave
the United States, pesos don't leave Mexico, and RMB does not
leave China.
Second, it takes advantage of the huge and increasing volume
of trade with China, and the existence of capital controls
within China, by ensuring a constant stream of customers and
making it harder to separate legitimate from illegitimate
transactions.
Third, it uses technology to its advantage, advertising the
sale of dollars in internet chat rooms and communicating
primarily via WeChat, an encrypted network that is resistant to
surveillance by U.S. law enforcement and that facilitates speed
and trust within the Chinese organized crime network.
While the threat posed by collaboration between Chinese and Mexican
TCOs is real and growing, more can be done to combat it. More
investigative resources such as translators, data scientists, and
experienced targeting analysts will enable law enforcement to have the
tools needed to detect and investigate these networks where they
operate. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have authorized
imposition of sanctions for participants in the global trade of
Fentanyl and synthetic opioids. Recent sanctions on chemical brokers in
China for precursor chemicals and Mexican suppliers of synthetic
opioids are an encouraging development, but further investments in the
sanctions program along the lines of the effective sanctions program
targeting those involved in Russian aggression against the Ukraine,
would help address the threat. Additional investigative tools and rules
addressing this money-laundering scheme also can play an important
role.
In the private sector, where I now work for Nardello & Co., the
global investigative firm, I am also seeing greater awareness by the
business community that it needs to understand this emerging threat and
develop tools to address it. More investments in training and detection
will facilitate private-sector organizations' compliance with anti-
money laundering laws, help protect the integrity of the financial
system, and help reduce the flow of dangerous synthetic opioids into
the United States.
Congress can play a vital role by providing resources, incentives,
and authority for the Government and the private sector to work
together to combat this threat.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about this
important issue.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Urben. I now recognize Ms.
Ford, for your openingstatement of 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MELISSA FORD MALDONADO, POLICY DIRECTOR, TEXAS
PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION, SECURE AND SOVEREIGN TEXAS CAMPAIGN
Ms. Ford Maldonado. Chairman Pfluger, Ranking Member
Magaziner, and Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today. My name is Melissa Ford
Maldonado, and I'm a policy director at the Texas Public Policy
Foundation; a nonprofit and nonpartisan research institute.
We're based in Austin, Texas, but I'm originally from Bolivia.
My work focuses on the relationship between the United
States and Mexico. I have done extensive research on Mexican
drug cartels and why they pose a huge threat to the United
States and Texas.
What I've learned is that cartels have complete control
over the Southern side of the border. The border that the
United Nations recently labeled the deadliest land crossing in
the world. There are record numbers of people dying while
attempting to cross in the worst conditions possible, and this
is all being orchestrated by cartels.
People who have lived and worked on the border for decades
are saying that they have never seen tragedies of this
magnitude. Officials in Eagle Pass evening are having to keep a
refrigerated truck to hold the bodies of migrants that are
drowning in the Rio Grande. Across the river in Piedras Negras,
families often report seeing bodies floating under the bridge.
Less than a year ago, a trailer with over 60 migrants
locked inside was abandoned by a smuggler near San Antonio, and
53 of them died after being left in the heat.
To cartels, these human beings are just commodities to be
exploited and discarded. That's what cartels do; they prey on
the vulnerable. Workers that aid migrants at the border
estimate that most females encounter some sort of sexual
assault on their way to the United States. They're also telling
us that there's been a significant rise of sex trafficking
cases involving children.
The cartels won't stop. They're richer, and they are bolder
than ever, and they will continue to take advantage of our weak
border to extend their operations into the United States.
The effect on Texans is just as heartbreaking. We've spoken
to ranchers and homeowners who no longer feel safe in their
homes, who can't walk around their property unarmed, or let
their children play outside because they have encountered armed
smugglers on their land, breaking in, stealing, destroying
their property, and many have had to move away because of this.
Texas communities are also facing a growing number of high-
speed car chases.
In March, in Ozona, a 7-year-old girl named Emilia and her
grandma were killed, along with 2 of the 11 migrants due to a
high-speed car chase that ended in a wreck.
We are also seeing an increase in American teenagers being
recruited on social media by cartels to transport migrants. We
saw it with a 15-year-old in Mission, and a 12-year-old and 15-
year-old in San Antonio, and then with a 15-year-old in El Paso
as well. DPS there in El Paso when we were there a few weeks
ago told us that is a daily occurrence for them, and sometimes
they see multiple of these high-speed car chases in just 1 day.
Another problem we are having is these officers are
increasingly assaulted; 248 border agents have been assaulted
just this fiscal year. This is all having a huge impact in the
quality of life of communities in Texas, but it's not just a
Texas problem. Our entire country is feeling the effects of the
deadliest drug crisis in history. Texas alone has seized 418
million lethal doses of Fentanyl since 2021. To put that into
perspective, that's enough to kill every man, woman, and child
in America.
One of the most disturbing parts of this is that the
cartels are processing deadly amounts of Fentanyl into pills
made to look like any other prescription pill, but they're
laced with Fentanyl.
One mother, Rebecca, shared in testimony how both her sons,
Kyler and Caleb, 18 and 20, were killed by pain pills that were
laced with Fentanyl.
Chairman Pfluger, Ranking Member Magaziner, and Members of
the subcommittee, I believe that cartels are the largest threat
to the United States right now. Texas is working really hard to
fight them, but we need help. This crisis is happening because
the Federal Government has failed to do their job to secure the
border and protect the people of Texas and the United States. I
ask you to be realistic about what we are up against.
We must face the facts that the border is already
militarized from the Southern side. Cartels control 30 to 40
percent of Mexico's territory right now. There is extensive
evidence of collusion between the state and the cartels. This
is a new scenario that demands new solutions; new solutions
from policy makers like you who need to understand that the
Mexican state as a meaningful partner against cartels is a
thing of the past. Therefore, I think we need to use every
option on the table to fight back against them. Thank you for
your time. I am grateful for your leadership and ready to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ford Maldonado follows:]
Prepared Statement of Melissa Ford Maldonado
Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Chairman Pfluger, Ranking Member Magaziner, and Members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name
is Melissa Ford Maldonado, and I am the policy director for Secure &
Sovereign Texas, an initiative of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a
nonprofit and nonpartisan research institution based in Austin, Texas.
Much of my work focuses on the relationship between the United
States and Mexico, and the center of that relationship, Texas and
Mexico. Texas and Mexico not only share a heritage and culture, but
also 1,200 miles of common border and a massively important trade
alliance. However, this close relationship and proximity has left a
door open for illegal activity from Mexico to harm the United States,
especially Texas.
The Secure & Sovereign Texas campaign has done extensive research
on Mexican transnational criminal organizations, specifically drug
cartels, and why they pose a grave and imminent threat to the safety
and well-being of families and communities in Texas and in the United
States. I want to share with you what we've seen and learned.
Today, the flow of humans being smuggled, opioids, and poisonous
illegal narcotics are driven by Mexican drug cartels. These drug
cartels are ruthless, strategic, highly organized money-making entities
that continue to evolve in strength and sophistication. They are
running a billion-dollar slave trade, and are richer, more armed, and
bolder than ever. This is leading to a lot of suffering at the border
and beyond the border as well. Texas citizens and communities are being
devastated by crime, drugs, a humanitarian crisis, and an unprecedented
level of violence.
Smugglers are profiting from pushing people across our border, and
it has been heartbreaking to see literally millions of migrants being
smuggled--and often abused--across the Texas-Mexico border in the worst
conditions possible. Mexican drug cartels have complete control over
the southern side of the border. There are record numbers of migrants
dying at the U.S.-Mexico border, and a U.N. report recently labeled it
the most dangerous and deadliest land crossing in the world.
Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber, who grew up in the area,
called the border a graveyard, saying he's been working on the border
for almost four decades but has never seen tragedies of this magnitude.
Local officials in Eagle Pass, Texas, are having to keep a refrigerated
truck to hold the bodies of migrants who drown in the currents of the
Rio Grande while trying to cross the border into the United States.
Across the river, families having picnics or walking along the
waterfront promenade of Piedras Negras, Mexico, say they sometimes see
bodies floating by or bobbing among the reeds under a bridge. ``We had
times when we received four or five bodies a week,'' said Hugo
Gonzalez, owner of Funerarias Gonzalez in Piedras Negras. ``At one
point, there were a lot of corpses and there was nowhere to put them.
We just didn't have enough refrigerators at the funeral home.''
In the 2022 fiscal year that ended in September, the bodies of more
than 890 migrants, a record number, were recovered by U.S. authorities
along the border, a 58 percent increase over 2021, and far higher than
the 247 to 329 deceased found each year between 2014 and 2020.
Unfortunately, the number of actual deaths is likely higher, as other
local agencies often recover bodies without involvement from U.S.
Customs and Border Patrol.
There are countless heartbreaking stories of cartel-orchestrated
human smuggling in Texas. Less than a year ago, a trailer with more
than 60 migrants locked inside was abandoned by a smuggler near San
Antonio. Fifty-three of them died after being left in the heat. This is
terribly sad. The men, women, and children who died in that hot trailer
were just looking for a better life, but cartels saw them as disposable
commodities to be exploited and discarded. That's why we must work hard
to target those that are using them and profiting from their illegal
crossings the most.
Regrettably, it is a grim reality that cartels exploit the most
vulnerable, specifically targeting women and young girls. Rape,
assault, and sexual slavery are everyday life for the women and
children who attempt to cross. In our investigations, we have conducted
interviews with Border Patrol agents and engaged with individuals
involved in supporting and safeguarding female migrants. They estimate
that an overwhelming majority of female migrants face some form of
sexual assault during their journey toward the United States.
Furthermore, they have alerted us to a concerning surge in instances of
child sex trafficking.
The impact on the Texas side of the border is equally
disheartening. Exploiting the porosity of our border, cartel operatives
have expanded their operations into the United States, inflicting
turmoil upon our border communities. Texan ranchers and homeowners
often find themselves confronted with armed smugglers trespassing on
their land, engaging in theft, destruction, arson, and property
invasion.
Individuals residing in border towns have shared with us their
profound sense of insecurity within their own homes. Many now find
themselves unable to roam their properties unarmed, and their children
are no longer allowed to play outside. One of these women is Dolores
Chacon, whom we met about 3 weeks ago in El Paso. She lives in a small
home on the El Paso-Mexico border. In 2008, a fence was erected right
behind her home, which she now calls her freedom wall. Before that, she
says her property was constantly getting broken into and vandalized,
which left her constantly terrified in her own home. Many of her
neighbors moved away because of this.
Many Texas communities are also seeing an increasing number of
high-speed car chases in usually quiet little towns, placing residents
at risk. In March, a human smuggler in Ozona, Texas, killed Emilia, a
7-year-old girl and her 71-year-old grandmother while trying to escape
police. The smuggler also killed 2 of the 11 illegal immigrants he was
transporting.
Another disturbing trend we are witnessing involves the recruitment
of American teenagers by cartels through popular social media platforms
such as Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and others. These
platforms serve as avenues for enticing young individuals with the
promise of quick cash in exchange for transporting migrants into the
United States.
In February, a 15-year-old led police on a high-speed chase in
Mission, Texas, that ended with 7 migrants bailing out of the vehicle
on a dirt road. That same month, a 12-year-old and 15-year-old
transporting illegal immigrants near San Antonio, Texas, crashed their
vehicle while trying to outrun cops in a high-speed chase. Last August,
a 15-year-old girl transporting migrants in El Paso led police on a
high-speed chase which ended in a multi-vehicle wreck.
The smuggling of migrants is often used as a diversion to overwhelm
Border Patrol agents, who are increasingly assaulted doing their job.
Since October of last year, 248 Border Patrol agents have been
assaulted at the Southern Border.
All these occurrences have a huge impact on the local economy and
quality of life of communities in Texas, but it is not just a local
issue anymore--this is affecting the entire country.
Mexican drug cartels are responsible for the smuggling not only of
humans but of record amounts of illegal drugs into the United States,
the former being used to help facilitate the latter.
Whether transported by the criminals themselves or smuggled by the
migrants on the orders of their coyotes, drugs are coming across the
border in record amounts, and people are dying in record numbers in
what has become the deadliest drug crisis in history.
Texas law enforcement has seized 418 million lethal doses of
Fentanyl since the beginning of Operation Lone Star in 2021.
That is enough to kill every man, woman, and child in America.
Over 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in the 12-
month period ending in January 2022, and we've had more than
1,000,000 American drug overdose deaths since 1999.
Fentanyl is involved in more deaths of Americans under 50
than any cause of death, including heart disease, cancer,
homicide, suicide, and accidents.
More Americans are dying each year from drugs than were
killed in the entire Vietnam War--and the death toll is rising
every day.
One of the most disturbing parts of this is that Mexican drug
cartels often process deadly amounts of Fentanyl into pills made to
look like any other prescription medicine. One mother, Rebecca
Kiessling, shared her story when she testified before the Homeland
Security Subcommittee on Border Security earlier this year, after both
her sons, Caleb, 20, and Kyler, 18, were killed by prescription pain
pills that ended up being laced with Fentanyl.
Chairman Pfluger, Ranking Member Magaziner, and Members of the
subcommittee, I believe that Mexican criminal organizations are the
largest criminal threat to the United States right now. Texas is
working hard to fight them with every means possible, but we need help,
and it is past time to take decisive action to protect American
communities.
I'd like to conclude by making two points:
1. The Federal Government has failed to fulfill its duty to secure
the border and protect the people of Texas and the United
States.
2. The Mexican state is no longer a partner to the United States.
There is irrefutable evidence of extensive collusion between
the Mexican state and criminal cartels at all levels of
government. Cartels effectively control 30 to 40 percent of
Mexico's territory and together, they are conducting a deadly
export trade, trafficking in Fentanyl, corruption, and worst of
all, literally millions of fellow human beings. This collusion
makes it impossible for the United States and Mexico to have a
reliable border security partnership.
It is crucial that we approach the border situation with a
realistic perspective and respond accordingly. The border is already
militarized from the southern side, and the cooperation with the
Mexican state ceased a long time ago because the Mexican government
would much rather cooperate with cartels than with us. In light of
these circumstances, we must implement robust measures and utilize the
full strength and capabilities of the United States to effectively
address the border crisis.
Thank you for your time. I am grateful for your leadership, and I
am happy to answer any questions you may have.
Attachment
[A copy of the document has been retained in committee files and it
can also be accessed at the following: https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-
content/uploads/2022/09/2022-09-RR-SST-Abrazos-no-Balazos-The-Mexican-
State-Cartel-Nexus-paper1.- pdf.]
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Ms. Ford. The Chair now recognizes
Mr. Blazakis for his opening statement of 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JASON BLAZAKIS, PROFESSOR, MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE OF
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, DIRECTOR, THE CENTER ON TERRORISM
EXTREMISM AND COUNTERTERRORISM
Mr. Blazakis. Good afternoon, Chairman Pfluger, Ranking
Member Magaziner, and distinguished Members of the committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I request that
my full written statement be put into the record.
Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the U.S.
National Security Architecture has pivoted to the challenge of
tackling state foreign threats. While there is little question
that Russia, China, and Iran pose significant threats to U.S.
national security interests, we must not ignore the broad array
of transnational actors that seek to harm the United States.
This is why your hearing today is so important. It gives us a
chance to examine the transnational threat landscape.
Prior to joining the Middlebury Institute as a professor, I
worked in the Federal Government for nearly 20 years. Of those
years in Government service, I worked across both Republican
and Democratic administrations. While in Government, I worked
directly on counterterrorism, counter-narcotics, and
intelligence issues. These experiences of working in
counterterrorism, law enforcement, and intelligence for the
U.S. Government really has influenced my views about which
policy options are most suitable for countering terrorist
groups and criminal organizations like drug cartels.
Today, I was asked to focus my testimony on the question of
whether or not the Mexican drug cartels should be designated as
foreign terrorists organizations or FTOs for short. It's also
very important to emphasize that the question of whether to
label the Mexican cartels as FTOs has come up before. In fact,
President Trump said that he was going to designate the
cartels, but he did not do so.
Here are some of the reasons why I think designating the
Mexican drug cartels as FTOs is a bad policy idea. I also like
to note in my written testimony there are other reasons that I
can't address in my oral.
First, the FTO list is comprised of organizations that are
guided by an ideological belief system. The Mexican drug
cartels are guided by one thing: A desire to make money. They
don't peddle drugs because they want to uproot the powers that
be. They have no interest in governing. Simply put, unlike
ISIS, they have no interest in creating a caliphate-like
structure. They don't have an interest overthrowing the Mexican
government.
Second, if the State Department starts designating criminal
groups as terrorists, the number of eligible targets that could
be added to the FTO list would increase significantly. Hundreds
of new organizations would be added to the FTO list, not just a
Mexican cartel. Many more would be eligible for listing--
Brazilian gangs, Central American gangs, Italian mafia groups,
the Yakuza crime syndicate, and many more. That's a recipe for
disaster. It's a recipe for bureaucratic inertia, especially
when you consider the amount of work that goes into every FTO
designation.
Each FTO designation takes hundreds, or in some cases,
thousands of hours to complete. There is one significant
advantage, though, to applying the FTO regime against Mexican
cartels. Adding the Mexican cartels to the terrorist list would
trigger the material support benefits that come with FTO
designations. Simply put, that means more time behind bars for
those who try to provide material support to the cartels. But
on the other hand, there is a negative to this benefit. I can
easily imagine scenarios where drug consumers may run afoul of
the material support clause when they buy drugs trafficked by a
Mexican cartel.
I provide a few examples of such hypothetical scenarios in
my written testimony.
Fourth, the designation of the Mexican drug cartels would
damage U.S.-Mexico relations. If the U.S. Government pushes the
Mexican government on the FTO designation, it does run the risk
that Mexico will distance itself from the United States and
strengthen relations with countries like China and Russia. For
these reasons and for others mentioned in my written testimony,
adding the Mexican drug cartels to the FTO list would do very
little to solve this immense national security challenge.
There are better alternatives to meaningfully counter the
cartels. First, the United States needs to look inwards. The
Mexican drug cartels are well-armed. It has been well-
documented that the cartels are getting their guns from the
United States. The United States should explore arms control
options that the diminish the cartels' access to weapons.
Second, the United States should engage in capacity
building to build up the Mexican financial sector, not just the
governmental sector.
Third, the State Department should make more cartel
individuals subject to the Narcotics Rewards Program.
Fourth, we must treat the demand side of this problem. This
means investing more in health and educational policies that
can cut down America's insatiable appetite for drugs.
Finally, we must not forget the challenge that is posed by
groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Wagner Group in Iran's threat
network, these transnational actors throw--or pose a
significant threat to the U.S. homeland. I look forward to your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Blazakis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jason Blazakis
introduction
Good afternoon, Chairman Pfluger, Ranking Member Magaziner, and
distinguished Members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity
to testify today. I request that this written statement be put into the
record.
Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the U.S. national
security architecture has pivoted to the challenge of tackling state-
borne threats. While there is little question that Russia, China, and
Iran pose significant threats to U.S. national security interests, we
must not ignore the array of transnational actors who seek to harm the
United States. This is why your hearing today is so important--it gives
us a chance to examine the transnational threat landscape.
Before diving into the substance, I want to share with you some of
my past and current work experiences that qualify me to speak to the
issues that I am going to cover in my testimony below.
My name is Jason Blazakis and I am a professor at the Middlebury
Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. I am also
the director of Middlebury's Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and
Counterterrorism (or CTEC for short). I have served in these dual roles
since July 2018. At the same time, I am also a senior research fellow
at the Soufan Center, a non-profit and non-partisan think tank based in
New York City.
Prior to joining the Middlebury Institute, CTEC, and the Soufan
Center, I worked in the Federal Government for nearly 20 years. Of
those years in Government service, I worked across both Republican and
Democratic administrations. The last 10\1/2\ years of my Government
service was spent at the Counterterrorism (CT) Bureau at the U.S.
Department of State.
Additionally, I was the head of Embassy Kabul's Narcotics Affairs
Section (NAS) for much of 2004 and worked at the State Department's
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Bureau
(INL). Finally, I spent nearly 4 years in the U.S. intelligence
community (USIC). In the USIC, I worked at the Bureau of Intelligence
and Research (INR). These experiences working on counterterrorism, law
enforcement, and intelligence issues for the U.S. Government influence
my views on which policies are most suitable for countering terrorist
groups and criminal organizations, like drug cartels.
At the CT Bureau between early 2008 and July 2018, I directed the
activities of the Office of Counterterrorism Finance and Designations.
Simply put, I, and my team, at the CT Bureau were responsible for
evaluating and compiling the underlying evidence that ultimately
contributed to the Secretary of State's labeling of Foreign Terrorist
Organizations (FTOs) pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act.
My office was also responsible for recommending which groups or
individuals should be designated as Specially Designated Global
Terrorists (SDGTs) pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 13224. Furthermore,
my team developed the evidence required for listing state Sponsors of
Terrorism consistent with various legal statutes. In my time at the
Department of State I oversaw the designations of hundreds of
individuals, organizations, and countries as terrorists.
Simultaneously, my office was responsible for reviewing hundreds of
Treasury Department proposed terrorist designations under EO 13224.
Finally, I served as the CT Bureau's representative to the U.S.
Government's review group responsible for activities related to the
Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program, the U.S. Department of State's
national security rewards program that was established in 1984.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. Department of State. ``Program History and Statutory
Authorities.'' https://rewardsforjustice.net/about/program-overview/.
Accessed on June 1, 2023.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
the mexican drug cartels
Today, I was asked to devote a significant portion of my testimony
to the question of whether the ``Mexican drug cartels should be
designated as FTOs.'' In my time at the CT Bureau at the State
Department the issue of whether to designate the ``Mexican cartels'' as
FTOs was raised periodically. Every time the debate arose, I expressed
my opposition to leveraging the FTO tool against the ``Mexican drug
cartels.'' Before getting into the substance of my reasons for this I
want to note two things. First, I was not alone in opposing these
designations. Many others at the State Department, Department of
Defense, intelligence community, and law enforcement community believed
this was a bad idea. This remains the case today. It is also very
important to emphasize that this is why the Trump administration did
not designate any Mexican drug cartels as an FTO, despite promising to
do so.\2\ Second, the Mexican drug cartels are not monolithic. As such,
when someone calls for designating the drug cartels, we need to inspect
what this precisely means. There are dozens of drug cartels based in
Mexico. Not all of them are created equal and some, quite frankly, are
not significant threats to U.S. national security, much less the
homeland. Yet, while I oppose the use of terrorism tools to counter
cartels, I want to be clear: several Mexican drug cartels are a threat
to the homeland. For example, a recent press release by the Department
of Justice noted, ``the Sinaloa Cartel is one of the most powerful drug
cartels in the world and is largely responsible for the manufacturing
and importing of Fentanyl for distribution in the United States.''\3\
The Sinaloa Cartel is a clear and present danger to U.S. national
security, especially when you consider that Fentanyl is more than 50
times more potent than heroin and is the leading cause of death for
Americans ages 18 to 49.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ https://www.npr.org/2019/11/27/783449704/president-trump-says-
he-will-designate-mexican-drug-cartels-as-terrorist-groups.
\3\ https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-
charges-against-sinaloa-cartel-s-global-
operation#:?:text=The%20Sinaloa%20Cartel%20is%20one,times%20more%20poten
t- %20than%20heroin.
\4\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nevertheless, designating any of the Mexican drug cartels as FTOs
at this time is a bad idea.
Here's why: First, the FTO list is comprised of organizations that
are guided by an ideological belief system. The Mexican drug cartels
are guided by one thing--a desire to make money. They do what they do,
sling drugs, to make money. They don't peddle drugs because they want
to uproot the powers that be. They have no interest in governing.
Simply put, unlike ISIS, they have no interest in creating a caliphate-
like structure. They don't have any interest in overthrowing Mexican
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. The U.S. Government must not
conflate terrorism and crime. It is a slippery slope when the State
Department gets into the business of identifying criminal organizations
as terrorist groups. As of June 1, 2023, the FTO list has 68 groups on
it. If the State Department starts designating criminal groups as
terrorists, the number of eligible targets that could be added to the
FTO would significantly increase. Hundreds of new organizations could
be added to the FTO list--not just Mexican drug cartels, but Brazilian
gangs, Central American gangs, Italian mafia groups, the Yakuza crime
syndicate, and many more. That's a recipe for disaster. It's a recipe
for bureaucratic inertia, especially when you consider the amount of
work that goes into every FTO designation package. Each FTO designation
takes hundreds, in some cases thousands, of combined person hours to
complete. Each FTO designation package is the equivalent of writing a
Ph.D. dissertation. My old office responsible for this work has fewer
than 10 people who are exclusively dedicated to sanctioning FTOs. As
such, they must carefully prioritize the targets they select for
designation. If the CT Bureau at State gets into the business of
designating criminal groups as terrorists, it gets out of the business
of designating terrorist groups. This is a bad tradeoff.
However, there is one very significant advantage of applying the
FTO regime against the Mexican drug cartels. Adding the Mexican cartels
to the terrorist list would trigger the material support benefits that
come with FTO designations.\5\ Simply put, that means more time beyond
bars for those who try to provide material support to the cartels.\6\
On the one hand, that's a net positive. However, this is also a
possible benefit with downsides. I can easily imagine scenarios where
drug consumers may run afoul of the material support clause when they
buy drugs trafficked by a Mexican drug cartel. I can imagine a scenario
where a high school junior, let's name him Henry, buys Fentanyl from a
Mexican drug cartel and an overly enthusiastic prosecutor decides to
pursue a material support case against Henry because he provided
funding to an FTO. Similarly, I can see a college sophomore, let's call
her Sally, who goes to spring break in Acapulco and ends up buying
drugs from a Mexican cartel. In this scenario, let's assume when Sally
returns home from spring break that she has the illicit drugs in her
checked bag. This results in Sally being arrested at the airport. She's
eventually charged for providing material support to a Mexican drug
cartel that had been already designated by the U.S. Department of State
as an FTO. These types of theoretical scenarios worry me--and should
worry every one of you. Sadly, because of America's drug epidemic,
there are a lot of Sallys and Henrys hooked on drugs. I don't think the
solution is branding Henry and Sally as terrorists. Yet, adding the
Mexican drug cartels to the list of terrorist organizations increases
the chances that many more Americans could be prosecuted for terrorism.
Their drug addiction is already a tragedy. It seems unnecessary to
compound the error, but adding the Mexican drug cartels to the list of
terrorist organizations would do just that.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-17/dont-
designate-mexican-drug-cartels-as-foreign-terrorist-organizations.
\6\ Many of the cartels are treated as transnational criminal
organizations already and as a consequence individuals who support
these groups can face stiff prison sentences. Yet, low-level material
supporters of FTOs often receive 20 to 25 years behind bars.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moreover, a U.S.-driven FTO designation of drug cartels holds a
variety of consequences for asylum seekers. For example, victims
coerced into carrying out material support are frequently discounted
from receiving any humanitarian assistance or asylum.\7\ In this way,
an FTO designation fails to distinguish those who act willingly on
behalf of the cartel from those that are forced to do so. Conversely,
an FTO designation could aid those attempting to flee for politically-
motivated reasons--an FTO automatically identifies a terrorist or
terrorist group as a political actor.\8\ Should civilians speak out
against the cartels, they are more likely to obtain asylum for
expressing a suppressed political opinion; nonetheless, only a limited
group of individuals can receive this benefit. Even those asylum
seekers that are capable of resisting recruitment may not be considered
``politically persecuted,'' much less those forced to carry out the
cartel's illicit activities.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ https://michiganlawreview.org/ms-13-as-a-terrorist-
organization-risks-for-central-american-asylum-seekers/.
\8\ Ibid.
\9\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the strengths of the FTO regime is the fact that the
designation requires financial institutions to block any assets
associated with the designated entity. Because the most dangerous
Mexican drug cartels are already designated pursuant to the Foreign
Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act,\10\ they are already subject to
having their property and interests blocked. Of note, hundreds of
entities and individuals have been designated as Kingpins and there
have been tangible results. According to a 2019 GAO study, OFAC has
``reported that it has frozen more than half a billion dollars of
sanctioned individuals' or entities assets under the Kingpin Act
between 2000 and 2019.''\11\ Simply put, the FTO designation would
bring nothing new to the table when it comes to accessing the wealth of
the Mexican drug cartels.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-V/
part-598.
\11\ https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-112.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifth, one of the benefits of the FTO regime is that it renders
individuals associated with the designated terrorist group inadmissible
to the United States. According to the same GAO study, one of the
consequences of sanctions pursuant to the Kingpin Act is that it
provides a basis for denying visa requests. Specifically, ``Treasury
provides information to State so it can decide whether to cancel
existing visas and deny visa applications of Kingpin Act
designees.''\12\ Yet again, an FTO designation would not benefit the
U.S. Government when it comes to denying drug traffickers access to the
United States. The ability to do that already exists thanks to the
Kingpin Act.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Ibid. Page 12.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, the designation of the Mexican drug cartels would damage
U.S.-Mexico relations. In 2019, when the Trump administration explained
that it was considering the FTO designation, President Obrador was
categorical in his opposition. To counter the Mexican drug cartels, the
United States must work with the Mexican government. Foreign Minister
Marcelo Ebrard emphasized this point in an Op-Ed earlier this year. He
criticized U.S. efforts to seemingly undermine Mexican authority and
indicated that an FTO designation would ultimately increase violent and
illicit activities within both countries.\13\ It is clear that U.S.
calls for intervention in Mexico have increased tensions between the
two countries writ large; to defend Mexican authority and geopolitical
interests, Ebrard stressed that the United States' sheer plethora of
available weaponry remains a major contributing factor to increased
cartel violence.\14\ To maintain our own image and secure our
relationships with our Central American partners, it is in the United
States' best interest to secure avenues of collaboration--not
competition. While Mexico can certainly do much more to fight the drug
cartels, we would be mistaken to think that they are sitting on their
hands. We would also be mistaken to think that the Mexican drug cartel
challenge is only Mexican-made. Some have irresponsibly argued \15\
that the designation would allow for more direct U.S. military action
against the cartels. This notion is highly problematic, likely would
result in a violation of Mexico's sovereignty and poison the well for
any cooperation with the Mexican government. Even worse, it could push
Mexico further into the orbit of America's fiercest economic (China),
military (Russia), and ideological (Iran) opponents.
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\13\ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexicos-top-diplomat-
stresses-cooperation-with-us-versus-intervention-2023-03-11/.
\14\ https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexico-foreign-minister-drug-
cartels-bill-barr-ag-91345214.
\15\ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/16/mexican-
drug-cartels-terrorist-organizations-senators-fentanyl-mexico-border/
11666432002/.
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China's investment in Mexico has grown in leaps and bounds over the
last several years. In fact, in 2021, Chinese and Mexican trade
exceeded $100 billion.\16\ In 2022, Chinese foreign direct investment
(FDI) in Mexico was significant at $282 million--indicative of Chinese
industry's vested interest in expanding its global reach and
overarching sphere of influence.\17\ Moreover, evidence of criminal
collusion between Chinese chemical companies and the Sinaloa cartel are
noteworthy; an unsealed indictment in April revealed that a Chinese
company sold illicit Fentanyl-producing ingredients to cartel
personnel, thus perpetuating America's burgeoning opioid crisis.\18\ A
U.S.-driven FTO designation could serve to facilitate and sustain
Chinese and Mexican illicit trade routes, should the Mexican and
Chinese governments fail to adequately address this expanding
criminality. The United States' volatile relationship with the CCP in
addition to its mounting tensions with Mexican authorities have the
potential to isolate U.S. influence from conversations on mitigating
the Fentanyl trade--a trade that ultimately reaps severe consequences
among the American public.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ https://www.brookings.edu/on-the-record/how-is-china-involved-
in-organized-crime-in-mexico/.
\17\ https://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2023/swe2303.
\18\ https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/04/27/fentanyl-
china-chemical-compa- nies/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia similarly continues to cultivate relationships and strategic
business ventures in the LATAM region. While limited in quantity,
Russia previously supplied Mexico with military equipment and continues
to expand its presence among the United States' central and South
American neighbors, likely to sow geopolitical discord and sour
perceptions of U.S. authorities.\19\ Evidently, given growing interest
and investment from our adversaries in Mexico, the United States must
work to ensure our partnerships in Central America are strong and
cooperative in nature. There have also been reports that the notorious
Russian mercenary organization, PMC Wagner, tried to establish an
office in Mexico prior to the outbreak of COVID-19.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-western-hemisphere-
assessing-putins-malign-influence-latin-america-and-caribbean.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All this to say, if the U.S. Government pushes Mexico on the FTO
designation, it runs the risk that Mexico will distance itself from the
United States and strengthen relations with countries like China and
Russia.
These are but handful of reasons why designating the Mexican drug
cartels as terrorist groups would be a mistake. Yet, there is much more
that should be done to counter these groups. The next section of my
testimony explores some possible ways the U.S. Government can expand
its efforts to counter the drug cartels.
what should be done about the mexican drug cartels?
Militarizing the border, putting U.S. troops into Mexico, and
sanctioning the cartels as FTOs are not appropriate policy responses to
countering the drug cartels. As noted earlier, the Mexican cartels are
not only a Mexican-made problem. The trafficking of arms, ammunition,
and other weaponry from the United States across the border into Mexico
broadens cartels' breath of resources and facilitates continued
violence. Mexican authorities found that approximately 70 to 90 percent
of guns found during criminal investigations are linked to the United
States.\20\ This figure tells us that the availability and
accessibility of guns within the United States renders their feasible
illicit transfer. Moreover, it indicates U.S. complicity in the
cartel's violent crimes. In fact, a gun used to carry out the
kidnapping and subsequent murder of two Americans in Mexico during
March of this year was trafficked by way of the United States.\21\ More
recently, in April 2023, a U.S. citizen was caught plundering 5,680
rounds of pistol ammunition from Southern Texas to his home in
Mexico.\22\ In addition to arms and ammunition, U.S. Customs and Border
Control officials uncovered 50,000 pounds of Fentanyl crossing into the
U.S. Southern Border in 2022 alone.\23\ These examples serve as a
snapshot of a much broader problem, implicating both the United States
and Mexico in furthering transnational cartel crime. There are no
simple solutions to this problem, but one obvious policy is to adopt
stricter arms control laws in the United States. Simply put, America is
arming the Mexican drug cartels and that must stop.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/02/stopping-toxic-
flow-of-gun-traffic-from-u-s-to-mexico/.
\21\ https://abcnews.go.com/International/gun-kidnapping-americans-
mexico-allegedly us/story- ?id=98012006.
\22\ https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/american-living-mexico-
caught-trying-export-5680-rounds-ammunition.
\23\ https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/fentanyl-
gun-smuggling-us-mexico-border-deal-rcna75782.
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narcotics rewards program/rewards for justice (rfj) program
When I was at the State Department, I managed the CT Bureau's
involvement in the RFJ program that focused on countering terrorists.
That program has been used more frequently than the U.S. Department of
State's ``Narcotics Rewards Program (NRP).'' The RFJ program is
administered by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), but the NRP
program is administered by the State Department's INL bureau. This is a
bureaucratic inefficiency and folding NRP under the authority of the DS
Bureau may improve the pace of narcotics-related designations. The NRP
should be used more. The program is designed to incentivize individuals
to provide tips on the activities of drug dealers so that they can be
prosecuted for their misdeeds. Adding more individuals from the Mexican
drug cartels to the NRP list would be useful. If the program expands,
it is very likely that some of the best lead information will come from
within the cartels. After all, criminals like their money, especially
informants within crime groups. It is important to acknowledge that on
April 14, 2023, the U.S. Department of State used the NRP to announce
rewards offers for information leading to the arrest and conviction of
27 individuals involved in illicit Fentanyl trafficking. Expanding
these efforts would be better than labeling drug cartels as FTOs.
capacity building
According to the U.S. Department of State, between 2008-2021, the
United States spent $3.3 billion in equipment, training, and capacity
building for Mexican justice and law enforcement sectors.\24\ Much of
this security cooperation assistance has focused on assisting Mexican
police, prosecutors, and judges' efforts to better track criminals,
drugs, arms, and money to disrupt organized crime groups. Moving
forward, funds for countering the drug cartels should aim to build
Mexico's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) capacity. Further,
specialized attention and training in the area of anti-corruption is
critical. Based on my experience of working in the NAS in Embassy
Kabul, building up judiciary and law enforcement capacity is crucial.
However, winning the fight against blood money will require an
expansion of regulatory efforts, as well as the strengthening of
Mexico's FIU and most importantly the private sector. The solution to
countering the financing of the cartels will require reinforcing and
bolstering Mexico's banking compliance systems. In my experience of
countering illicit actor financing, the private sector's buy-in is
critical. Like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF),\25\ I define
private sector broadly, to include accountants, lawyers, precious gem
dealers, among many others. In its last Follow-Up Report regarding its
FATF mutual evaluation, Mexico scored a ``non-compliant'' on FATF
recommendation 23. As such, the United States should focus on capacity
building efforts that aim to strengthen Mexico's Designated Non-
Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs). The Mexican drug cartels
need accomplished lawyers and accountants to make their money look
clean as they try to insert their dirty money back into the formal
financial system. Improving Mexico's DNFBPs' abilities to detect and
report suspect transactions and money laundering is a cost-effective
way to counter Mexico's drug cartels.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-mexico/
#:?:text=The%20United%20States%20and-
%20Mexico%20partner%20to%20combat%20transnational%20organized,justice%20
and%20- law%20enforcement%20'sectors.
\25\ FATF sets guidelines for countries to follow in countering
terrorism financing and money laundering.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
social, health, and educational policies
As much as the Mexican drug cartels are a national security
challenge, the broader challenge of drugs in America is, frankly, more
of a health, social, and educational challenge. In my view, the Federal
Government is not allocating enough time, money, and resources to
health, education, and social policies that can decrease America's
appetite for drugs. We must address the demand side of this problem
while also countering the suppliers and traffickers.
In the 2022 fiscal year, the U.S. total Federal drug control
spending was $41 billion. In response to the increase of substance use
disorders, namely the ever-growing Fentanyl crisis, the budget requests
for 2023 and 2024 were slightly increased.\26\ The misuse of
prescription drugs and the opioid epidemic are a major focus of U.S.
drug control strategies and spending. The death rates caused by the
misuse of opioids and synthetic variants such as heroin continue to
rise. From 1999 to 2014, the number of annual deaths caused by Fentanyl
overdoses hovered just underneath 3,000 deaths per year. After 2015,
there has been a massive spike in Fentanyl overdoses. In 2021,
overdoses dramatically increased to 70,601. This jump is alarming--this
new potent synthetic opioid is the No. 1 cause of drug-related death in
the United States.\27\ Yet, when compared to other types of spending,
our efforts to fight the drug problem on the demand side can be best
characterized as unserious, especially when we compare that $41 billion
to the current Department of Defense (DoD) budget. DoD's budget for
fiscal year 2023 was over $2 trillion.\28\ Simply put, killing,
prosecuting, and sanctioning the supply-side entities and individuals
(the Mexican drug cartels) of this problem is not enough. It may not be
sexy policy to invest in educational, medical, and social-policy
initiatives to fight the drug scourge, but this is an area where
lawmakers must invest more financial resources.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ https://www.statista.com/statistics/618857/total-federal-drug-
control-spending-in-us/.
\27\ https://www.statista.com/statistics/895945/fentanyl-overdose-
deaths-us/.
\28\ https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-
defense#:?:text=Each%20year%20Fed-
eral%20agencies%20receive,making%20financial%20promises%20called%20oblig
ations%20.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
other transnational threats
The United States faces a broad array of transnational threats, to
include gangs, terrorist groups, and private military companies. In my
view, the groups noted below represent the most serious transnational
threats to the U.S. homeland.
ms-13
The Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) originated in the 1970's and 1980's in
Los Angeles, California.\29\ Formed by Salvadorian immigrants escaping
civil war, the transnational street gang now has outreach in El
Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, and the United States. Engaging in crimes
such as murder, narcotics, weapon trafficking, and extortion, MS-13
continues to pose a serious threat to U.S. security.\30\ Despite its
American origin, the gang's cultural ties to Central America have
enabled their influence to spread rapidly among communities in El
Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Chasing the reputation of
being the most murderous gang in the world, MS-13 is on the road to
just that: in March 2022 the gang's death toll reached an all-time high
of 62 deaths within a 24-hour period.\31\ Unsurprisingly, their
barbaric practices have become well-known to the U.S. Department of the
Treasury, who recently sanctioned members of the gang residing in
Nicaragua and Honduras in February 2023. Freezing their property rights
and blocking their financial transactions, the U.S. Department of the
Treasury hopes their response will prevent further extortion, money
laundering, and drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border.\32\ MS-
13's violence, sadly, is unlikely to end because of these designations,
or any designation for that matter. Indeed, MS-13's violence has
sparked the flow of refugees--innocents who want to escape the violent
world MS-13 has created in Central America. Sadly, as I have previously
described, this violence has American roots.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ https://insightcrime.org/el-salvador-organized-crime-news/
mara-salvatrucha-ms-13-pro- file/.
\30\ https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/ms-13-
gang-profile.
\31\ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-60893048.
\32\ https://apnews.com/article/drug-crimes-crime-caribbean-
honduras-central-america-812e435334860ae703110202fa64c008.
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terrorist threats (isis and aq)
The Salafi-jihadist threat posed groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda.
These groups, while not the potent forces they once were, still have
the capacity to inspire home-grown extremists to carry out acts of
violence. Frequently, we can still read Department of Justice media
releases documenting a new arrest, prison sentence, or guilty verdict
for individuals associated with ISIS and al-Qaeda. Recently, not far
from where we sit today, in Virginia, the U.S. Government arrested an
alleged ISIS supporter. In early May 2023, Virginia resident Mohammed
Chhipa was arrested for sending nearly $200,000 overseas to ISIS.\33\
Chhipa could face decades behind bars for providing material support to
a designated FTO. This underscores that ISIS sympathizers remain active
in the United States. Second, it underlines the point that terrorist
financing is also a persistent threat to U.S. national security
interests. As the February 2023 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S.
Intelligence Community, ``ISIS's ideology and propaganda . . . almost
certainly will continue to inspire attacks in the West, including the
United States.''\34\ This challenge is likely to intensify because of
the ham-fisted way the United States left Afghanistan. This spring,
General Michael Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, told the U.S.
Senate Armed Services Committee that ISIS's province in Afghanistan,
ISIS-Khorasan, ``can do an external operation against U.S. or Western
interests abroad in under six months with little or no warning.''\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ https://www.fox5dc.com/news/virginia-man-accused-of-sending-
money-to-isil-remains-behind-bars-following-court-appearance.
\34\ https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2023-
Unclassified-Report.- pdf.
\35\ https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2023-03-16/
u-s-commander-isis-in-afghanistan-6-months-away-from-foreign-attack-
capability.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like ISIS, al-Qaeda remains a threat to U.S. national security
interests, despite that the group's leader was killed in 2022.\36\ Of
particular concern is the sanctuary al-Qaeda now has in Afghanistan by
virtue of the Taliban \37\ taking over the country. As the Annual
Threat Assessment of the U.S. intelligence community explains, ``al-
Qaeda remains committed to attacking U.S. interests.'' The group also
continues to inspire home-grown extremists and the group is well-known
for playing the long game. Unlike ISIS, al-Qaeda is more patient. In
many ways, this makes the group more difficult to infiltrate and
counter. One of many examples of al-Qaeda's careful planning culminated
in the group's deadly December 2019 attack at a Naval Air Station in
Pensacola, Florida. The perpetrator of the attack was part of the Royal
Saudi Air Force and the investigation following the attack revealed
operational ties between the attacker and al-Qaeda's affiliate in
Yemen.\38\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ https://www.csis.org/analysis/zawahiris-death-and-whats-next-
al-qaeda.
\37\ Al-Qaeda is a long-time ally of the Taliban and the ties
between the groups remain strong.
\38\ https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/politics/pensacola-shooting-al-
qaeda/index.htm.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
iran's threat network
The Iranian regime and its many proxies represent a clear threat to
the United States. While Iran's proxies, including Hizballah, operate
in the United States, Iran's menacing activities are a greater threat
to U.S. overseas interests. Nonetheless, Hizballah's U.S.-based
terrorist financing schemes have made the group millions of dollars.
Iran has also plotted to assassinate Americans, most notably John
Bolton. This month the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned
Mohammad Reza Ansari and Shahram Poursafi pursuant to E.O. 13224 for
their plot to assassinate Americans.\39\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\39\ https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1513.
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pmc (wagner)
Private Military Companies (PMCs), such as the Russia-based Wagner
Group represent a threat to U.S. national security interests. Indeed,
the Treasury Department emphasized the transnational criminal aspects
of the Wagner Group on January 26, 2023, when it designated the group
as a transnational criminal organization (TCO) pursuant to Executive
Order 13581.\40\ In justifying the Wagner Group's criminal designation,
the Treasury Department explained, ``Wagner personnel have engaged in
an on-going pattern of serious criminal activity, including mass
executions, rape, child abductions, and physical abuse.''\41\ While it
has been well-documented in numerous reports that the Wagner Group
carries out terrorism and criminal acts in Ukraine and throughout the
African continent, what is less well-known is that the organization
leverages American-made social media tools to recruit U.S. citizens and
others to its cause.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\40\ https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1220.
\41\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In May 2023, Politico published an article noting that PMC Wagner
was trying to recruit, via Facebook and Twitter, individuals to fill
positions as medics, drone operators, and psychologists to assist in
the group's war effort in Ukraine.\42\ According to Logically, a U.K.-
based disinformation-focused research group, the posts were in multiple
languages and received more than 120,000 views.\43\ The Wagner Group
has grand ambitions, and its founder has admitted to meddling in U.S.
elections. In a post over Russia social media site VK, Prigozhin
explained, ``we have interfered in U.S. elections, we are interfering,
and we will continue to interfere.''\44\ The Wagner Group is a threat
to the United States. That is why I have argued that the group should
be added to the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist
Organizations. It is also why I support the bipartisan HARM Act, which
would require the State Department to designate the Wagner Group as an
FTO.\45\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-ukraine-war-
mercenaries-wagner-group-recruit-twitter-facebook-yevgeny-prigozhin/
?utm_campaign=Readbook&utm_medium=K-
email&_hsmi=260770258&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9yPLN20j9Zz7stblBhK5trA8vxwCc-
_CH9DJf3B2_dmNWEusDazbwgk4RB8c45f3Dz2MrxkB5kXkdzvFo0hVqrCJYcIw&utm-
_content=260770258&utm_source=hs_email.
\43\ Ibid.
\44\ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/russias-prigozhin-admits-
interfering-us-elections-2022-11-07/
#:?:text=LONDON%2C%20Nov%207%20(Reuters),efforts%20to%20influence%20Amer
i- can%20politics.
\45\ https://www.Congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/
506?s=1&r=50.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
conclusion
The threat posed by a broad range of transnational groups remains
significant. The drug trafficking organizations, terrorist groups, and
mercenaries I have highlighted in my testimony only represent a very
small component of the overall threat picture. Books are quite
literally written about each one of these dangerous groups. What is
contained in the testimony above is a surface-level examination.
Moreover, there are many other types of transnational threats that
persist, such as the growing threat posed by racially- and ethnically-
motivated violent extremists (REMVE). The REMVE threat has become
increasingly interconnected with U.S.-based Nazis linked to overseas
REMVE groups like the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). RIM was
designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Department of State on
April 7, 2020, pursuant to Executive Order 13224.\46\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\46\ https://2017-2021.state.gov/united-states-designates-russian-
imperial-movement-and-leaders-as-global-terrorists/.
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I want to close my testimony by emphasizing that while I
strenuously oppose the terrorist designation of the Mexican drug
cartels, I can understand the desire to label them as FTOs. They are a
menace and more must be done to counter them. Congress certainly has an
important role in ensuring this is done by holding the Executive branch
accountable for failed approaches. While I encourage Congress to not
designate the cartels as FTOs, Congress does have every right to pursue
that objective. I speak from direct experience when I say that without
Congressional pressure, the State Department would not have moved as
quickly as it could have to designate Boko Haram and the Haqqani
Network as FTOs. In the case of the Mexican drug cartel issue, however,
I would encourage all to examine some of the recommended policy
approaches I offer instead. Unlike a Mexican cartel FTO designation,
these alternative approaches are more likely to impact the cartels'
blood-stained wallets.
Mr. Pfluger. Well, thank you, Mr. Blazakis, for your
statement, for all the witnesses' statements. Members will now
be recognized by order of seniority for 5 minutes of
questioning, and an additional round of questioning may be
called after all Members have been recognized. I now recognized
myself for 5 minutes of questioning.
Hearing the discussion that the first thing that I'll
address is that there's this narrative that seems to be that
the problem is in the United States and not with the lack of
rule of law at our border and to the south. So immediately I
would like to push back on that suggestion that the rule of law
and the lack of rule of law, as we see it, is directly
responsible for this.
I'll start with Mr. Urben. In April, you testified before
the House Oversight Committee and the Accountability Committee.
In your testimony, you discussed how Chinese organized crime
networks launder money, or Mexican Transnational Criminal
Organizations. You stated more needs to be done. What steps can
the United States take to undercut this budding relationship
between the Chinese organized crime networks and Mexican TCOs?
Mr. Urben. So it is two-fold. One is certainly on the
government-law enforcement side. There's is an opportunity to
leverage data that's judicially acquired by law enforcement.
One component or an access point or a weakness of Chinese
organized crime is that you can hold that data in and map the
network out, identify the targets that the Government should go
after in terms of prosecution. So that's on the Government
side.
Also, on the Government side, we have used the term whole-
of-Government approach in the past. What I mean by that is
using specific authorities that the Government has that we can
leverage to impact the Chinese money-laundering network.
For example, sanctions. For example, pulling visas of
identified Chinese money laundering that we decide we're not
going to prosecute. There's a limited amount of resources to
prosecute high-valued targets in leadership. So that's on the
Government side.
On the private-sector side, I think training, I think
enhanced compliance at banks, financial institutions, wire
remitters. This is an evolving threat, so I think there needs
to be essentially a partnership, to some degree, with
Government in the private sector where we provide the
intelligence, not sensitive intelligence, but the information
that will allow them to enhance their compliance programs to
impose what I call cost on Chinese money launderers, make it
more difficult for them, whether again through Government,
arrest and prosecutions, or on the private-sector side with
compliance.
Mr. Pfluger. Well, thank you, Mr. Urben. I am hearing that
strength works best when dealing with these thugs. Ms. Ford,
I'll go to you. This narrative that illegal immigration from
some of my counterparts on the other side of the aisle has
absolutely nothing to do--the wide open borders has nothing to
do with the rise of transnational criminal organizations,
trafficking of drugs, the trafficking of people. You mentioned
the 53 tragic deaths on the tractor south of San Antonio. What
is illegal immigration, and the surge, over 5 until since Biden
took office, doing to allow the flow of drugs and trafficking
of people into in country?
Ms. Ford Maldonado. Thank you, Chairman Pfluger. A lot of
people do say that the problem with legal immigration is
sometimes we use the cartels as a guise to go after illegal
immigration, right? But I would say two things about that. The
problem is not about immigration. This is about border security
and national security. I also think that if people care about
migrants, they should realize that the most inhumane thing that
we can do to them is let things run the course that they're
continuing to run. They're being smuggled. They're being
abused. They are often being killed at the border. So we need
to crack down on the border and crack down on the people that
are taking advantage of them, if we want to do something about
illegal immigration.
Now, I also think that illegal immigration is posing a
threat to what's happening, because we are seeing numbers come
in like they've never come in before. We're seeing so much
insecurity at the border, and that's taken away a lot of
limited resources and attention that should be going toward
protecting the homeland.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you very much. Mr. Farah, the evidence
that links the Sinaloa cartel and Hizballah, has been well-
documented by the DOJ through arrest and indictments and the
relationship between the two organizations as fueled
instability between Latin America and the Middle East for the
last decade. Can you describe that relationship to us today?
Mr. Farah. The Mexican cartels and Hizballah have primarily
a financial relationship that allows them to move money to
designated terrorist organizations in the Middle East in
exchange for access to ports and the import of illegal products
or smuggled products or products, counterfeit products into our
hemisphere.
I think my work is primarily focused on the tri-border area
of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil where you see this network
of now Essesay, which is the main gang with Hizballah
operatives and with Colombian and Mexican drug cartels moving
into ever-expanding circles of collaboration, not out of
ideology or religion, but simply for the ability to profit.
When I talked about the new groups that are emerging in the
hemisphere, it's this type of new specialization that comes in.
This ability of Hizballah to provide new things that the
cartels didn't have before access to new methodologies, et
cetera.
So I think that it is an economic relationship that is
primarily going into a different types of specialization, which
is being harmful to the countries in place as well as posing an
increasing threat to the homeland.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you. My time has expired. I now
recognize the gentleman from Rhode Island, the Ranking Member,
Mr. Magaziner, for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you, Chairman. You know, the reality
is that because these TCO treats emanate from outside our
border, because the violence, the taking advantage of people
who are fleeing poverty, fleeing persecution all originates or
primarily originates in Central, South America, and beyond. We
need to work with our foreign partners in order to crack down
on TCO violence. We have to do that. Some of those countries
that we must work with are more reliable partners than others.
That is the case. It has always been the case. But if we are
truly going to get to the root causes of these threats, it
requires multilateral coordination.
So on that theme, Mr. Blazakis, you talk about building
capacity in our partner countries in your written testimony?
Can you expand on what the opportunities are in working with
Mexico and ourselves and Central American allies to crack down
on TCO activity?
Mr. Blazakis. I would highlight one specific example from
my written testimony. I highlighted the need for Mexico for
instance, to improve its financial action task force or FATF
rating related to recommendation 23, which focuses on
designated nonfinancial businesses and professions DNFBPs for
short. This area is especially important in Mexico and is one
of some countries really that has struggled with trying to
strengthen the designated nonfinancial business and
professional sector. It is really important to build that up
for a lot of reasons, especially in Mexico.
When we're talking about DNFBPs, we're talking about
lawyers, accountants, and many others in similar professions
who are enabling transactions. The drug cartels can't wash
their money in the way that Mr. Urben discussed really
eloquently without having some sort of legitimate business or
invest in real estate without having an army of enablers. These
enablers are areas where the U.S. Government should focus a lot
of its capacity building moving forward, in addition to trying
to build the capacity of prosecutors, especially in the area of
corruption.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you. On a related note, Mr. Farah, I
was struck by a portion of your written testimony. You wrote:
Russia and China view Latin America as a key theater of great
power competition and act accordingly. The United States must
forego complacency and see creative new engagements with its
partners. Higher quality, more comprehensive, and more
sustained engagement with the right communities will go far to
strengthen democracy, civil society, and regional stability.
Can you expand on that a bit? In so doing, what can we do?
What can we the United States do to motivate our foreign
partners to be better partners and more effective partners in
tracking down on TCO activity?
Mr. Farah. Thank you. I think it's a challenging
environment because we are now facing numerous governments that
have--for example, the government of Argentina, which has
declared itself as Russia's doorway to Latin America and has
allowed China to come with nuclear programs, deep space
stations, et cetera. So I think that there's more constraint
space to operate with trusted partners. I think at the same
time, the vast majority of folks in the military and in the law
enforcement community prefer the United States as their first
partner of choice. I think that if you look at--and we mapped
this out for SOUTHCOM and others over time--the level of high-
level visits by the Russian and Chinese is about 17 times the
level of U.S. visits to Latin America. I think that--well, I
told them at the time--if Russia can find the time in the
middle of a war to send its foreign minister around, we should
be able to do a little better. We have a huge disadvantage with
Russia in that they have a small cadre of highly experienced
Ambassadors that rotate around the region and speak Spanish
around all the time. We have major Ambassadors sitting without
Ambassadors. In the case of Chile, almost 3 years. Now we're
going into Colombia, we're going into the second year.
So I think there are multiple relatively easy fixes that
engagement. I think we also need to do a better job of helping
to explain the threats to their own democracies and rule of law
that the Russian and Chinese involvement bring because they're
directly tied to massive corruption and massive destruction of
their own institutions.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you. Mr. Blazakis, one final question.
You notice that, see is a pattern that is developed at our
hearings on the border where Members of both parties talk about
the importance of cracking down on human smuggling, cracking
down on drug trafficking. But when it comes to trafficking
guns, there is a often deafening silence on the other side of
the aisle. Can you talk about why this aspect of TCO activity
is so important and something that we need to address?
Mr. Blazakis. Just as you mentioned in your opening
testimony, there is the illegal export of nearly 600,000
weapons going into Mexico. That's not insignificant. In many
ways, it could be perceived as fueling this insurgency that's
happening in Mexico that's taken so many civilians' lives in
Mexico that Ms. Maldonado, and also the lives of Americans when
the drugs come back into the United States. So in this case, we
have to improve our border security going outbound as just one
example, and using be AI technology, especially could be one
way to get at this challenge.
Mr. Magaziner. My time has expired. Thank you, all.
Mr. Pfluger. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Bishop,
for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Blazakis, is that
how you say it or Blazakis?
Mr. Blazakis. Potato, potato. My grandmother will say
Blazakis, I say Blazakis.
Mr. Bishop. Blazakis. Thank you, sir. One point that you've
made--you know, it is interesting, as I've listened to the
witnesses, I think it sounds like a very tough--to crack. Now I
understand this FTO designation thing has been out there for a
while. I hope I come to that with you, Mr. Blazakis. But I want
to first get at the last thing Mr. Magaziner was referring to
and you have in your testimony, that the sentence says that you
are to report information from Mexican authorities that--I
don't know whether they are reliable or not--I can't tell from
without further looking at it, but found that approximately 70
to 90 percent of guns found in criminal investigations are
linked to the United States. In your next sentence: This figure
tells us that the availability and accessibility of guns within
the United States renders their feasible illicit transfer.
So I want to make sure I understand this. So are you saying
just the fact that we have broad second amendment rights and
Americans have, I have got a Glock 19, is that--I mean, we
can't stop Mexican drug cartels because of that?
Mr. Blazakis. That's certainly one component of it. There
is no questioning that there are illegal weapons--weapons
illegally being moved, and individuals may be purchasing these
weapons legally in the United States. So there is a significant
access to the weapons. There's no secret about that.
Mr. Bishop. There certainly is access to guns in the United
States. It's Constitutionally protected. The question now that
I have for you. What are you saying then should be done about
that? I mean, I didn't think it was a great idea when the Obama
administration ran guns in the United States. I remember that
big controversy. I wasn't here then. So that seems dumb. I
think there are ways to stop trafficking guns across the
border, southward, I'm for that. So what beyond that are you
saying? Do you think we just need to repeal the Second
Amendment? I just want to understand what you're proposing.
Mr. Blazakis. No, no, not at all. Not repeal the Second
Amendment. But I think careful consideration about who should
have access to the guns is particularly important, and what
kinds of weapons should be accessible to the American public. I
mean, we've time and again, this is a separate issue, school
shootings in this country, plaguing us just as the drug
epidemic is plaguing us. Access to AR-15s, automatic weapons,
you know, some of these things absolutely need to be explored
and taken seriously. But in addition to that, as I mentioned
before, the challenge of the border, these weapons going
illegally, illegally across the border, there are things that
you can do short of looking at arms control-related gun laws in
America that would be helpful as I mentioned to responding to
Mr. Magaziner of the use of AI technology, bolstering our
border officials' capabilities to look at what's going
outbound. A lot of that requires intelligence as well. Who are
going across the border bringing these weapons? That's a thorny
issue as well Constitutionally in terms of the investigation of
Americans here. So these are quite a few issues I would
explore.
Mr. Bishop. OK. I hope I have a chance to come back to you.
Mr. Urben, I was interested in looking at your model that was
on the diagram and your testimony, and I found myself sort-of
surprised that with all the advances made, you know, the
suspicious activity reports that financial institutions do, and
they do them by the ton. That the success we've had in
interdicting terrorists moving money, that this is really a
model. They can money launder. Chinese money brokers can money
launder proceeds from illicit drug transactions in huge
quantities in order to supply Chinese who want to use money in
the United States. Why are we not having success in breaking
that up? It's classic money laundering, isn't it?
Mr. Urben. I mean, the cash that's here that's bought by
Chinese nationals after the Chinese broker receives the
proceeds, it is disconnected from the financial system.
Mr. Bishop. Oh, it does not go through the financial
system?
Mr. Urben. It does, but it's disconnected in a way where
it's not linear, where the drug proceeds are smurfed into banks
or smuggles or wire transferred. The cash stays in each country
or location. So it is not traditionally like it's been required
wired or moved or transfer. That's what you're talking about
suspicious activity reports. This is the dollars stay in the
United States, the pesos stay in Mexico, and RMB stays in
China.
Mr. Bishop. I would think the source of that money in those
accounts would be suspicious to a financial institution
handling it. So it may be something that acquires deeper than
here. I want to get one more question in or one more comment.
It does seem--you mentioned WeChat, though.
Mr. Urben. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. So you got that social media network. There's
an article in the Wall Street Journal that comes out today.
Instagram connects vast pedophile network. I didn't get a
chance to read the entire article. It's really shocking.
Ms. Ford Maldonado, you talked about, of course, child
trafficking is a phenomenon that we see--sex trafficking in the
United States facilitated by cartels is something we've seen
that at higher levels as ever. Maybe I'll ask you, are social
media networks contributing to that illegal conduct? I've been
concerned about U.S. officials, agencies suppressing free
speech on social media networks and have fought that. Speaking
of agencies doing that, but we ought to be doing everything we
can to stop illegal conduct on Instagram that's promoting
pedophilia and so forth, shouldn't we?
Mr. Pfluger. The gentleman's time has expired, but please,
quickly.
Ms. Ford Maldonado. Yes, 100 percent. I think there's a lot
of social media platforms that are very responsible for what's
going on. We've also done a lot of search on social media
platforms being used to recruit people to take place in
trafficking and smuggling and all of the illegal activities.
Mr. Pfluger. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Goldman.
Mr. Goldman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank our witnesses
for being here today. I want to follow up on a line of
questioning that my colleague, Mr. Bishop, was asking, because
my experience as a prosecutor of Transnational Criminal
Organizations makes it pretty clear to me that these
organizations need some mechanism to maintain their power and
their authority.
Mr. Blazakis, when you were in your opening testimony, you
talked a fair bit about that mechanism being assault weapons. I
believe you say based on your research, which I've also seen,
that approximately 70 to 90 percent of guns found during--by
Mexican authorities during criminal investigations are linked
back to the United States. Are you aware of how many legitimate
gun stores there are in Mexico?
Mr. Blazakis. I'm unaware, no.
Mr. Goldman. One.
Mr. Blazakis. Very little.
Mr. Goldman. One. So there are nearly 500,000 guns that go
across the border from the United States to Mexico illegally as
you point out.
Mr. Urben, I am grateful for your service in the DEA with
whom I worked with many of your colleagues. What impact do you
think that the cartels having access to assault weapons and
other weapons of war has on their ability to control the
border, to control human smuggling, to control the opioid and
Fentanyl trade?
Mr. Urben. Well, certainly, the access of weapons by the
cartels is a paramilitary organization, many of them are former
members of the Mexican military, enables them to impose
themselves in violence throughout the country and to determine
how they want to smuggle drugs across the border. So the
weapons obviously facilitate that.
Mr. Goldman. Right. Without those weapons of war to
maintain that control at the border, is it your experience--or
based on your experience, would you believe that the Mexican
government with support from the United States and other
countries would be able to curtail the authority and power of
the cartels?
Mr. Urben. Is it concerns just weapons or in general, a
joint partnership or relationship?
Mr. Goldman. Well, right, I'm trying to understand the
impact of this influx of assault weapons from the United States
to Mexico, especially to the cartels, how that impacts the
Mexican government's ability to crack down on the cartels as
well.
Mr. Urben. Sure. Them being well-armed makes it difficult
to control them.
Mr. Goldman. Would you say--and I'll turn to Ms. Ford
Maldonado--you know, the Executive Order signed by the
President in 2021 lays out Executive Order 14060 in December
2021 lays out objectives and mechanisms to fight these cartels
and to fight the Fentanyl trafficking. What's your sense of how
that has been implemented and whether that has had a material
impact on the cartels across the border?
Ms. Ford Maldonado. I think unfortunately the situation
that we're seeing at the border is only getting worse and
worse. So something new needs to happen, and we need to address
the new problems that we're facing. I believe that every option
should be on the table to fight these cartels. Because they're
not a small threat anymore. I think they're the largest
criminal threat to the United States right now, and I think we
should have every option on the table. Right now, I mean, we
have a very strong robust military. They're employed in
different missions around the world, which is honestly
necessary. But our governance is threatened because we are not
using the full force and weight of the United States to protect
our own border and fight those that are coming in and basically
declaring war against Americans. So we should be----
Mr. Goldman. Well, I do think that, you know, one of the
things that we are talking about here--and I'm sorry to
interrupt you, I'm about out of time--you know, to the extent
that my colleagues on the other side talk a lot about the
control that the cartels have over the Fentanyl trade, over
human smuggling, we have to look at this outflow of American-
made guns to the Mexican cartels, which give them the control
at the border and the power to oversee these trafficking
networks. With that, I yield back.
Mr. Pfluger. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. D'Esposito.
Mr. D'Esposito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the
panel for being here this afternoon sharing your time with us.
Since the Biden administration's taken office, encounters at
our Southwest Border have hit record numbers. The latest
statistics of monthly border encounters on our Southwest Border
show that the number of encounters is 10 times more than they
were in 2020. To reach across our Southwest Border, illegal
immigrants often rely on smugglers and cartels working for
TCOs. The FAA recently signed off on plans to open a migrant
shelter in a warehouse at JFK International Airport, just
blocks from my Congressional district.
Ms. Ford Maldonado, what sort of risks are associated with
housing unvetted migrants at a major international airport?
Ms. Ford Maldonado. I can tell you that the problem is no
longer just people coming in and looking for a better life. I
have a stat right here. In the last 26 months, we've seen 6
million total encounters from 171 different countries, and
we've had 1.7 million total gotaways. So we don't even know
what threats they're posing to our country.
But I can tell you that it's not a victimless crime, right?
The immigration that's going on, it's coming in. It's taking
away from our resources that should be used to defend our
country from all of these threats coming in.
In just the first 26 months of this administration, CBP has
apprehended over 80,000 criminals at the border with the very
few resources that are at the border right now. What's
especially scary about that is 90 percent of our border
resources aren't even on the front lines.
So I think that, among the 80,000 criminals, if you think
about it, there were murderers. There were rapists, pedophiles,
gang members. There's even a term, ``angel families,'' for all
the people that have lost their sons, their daughters, their
family members to crime coming in from illegal immigration
because we don't have control over our borders.
So I think--I think it's a massive threat. I think we need
to get it into control. I think we've handed complete
operational control at the border to the cartels, and we have
no idea what else is coming in.
Mr. D'Esposito. I agree. You know, not only is it a failure
of the administration; it's a failure of our Secretary of
Homeland Security. It's a failure of the American people, but
it's also a failure of those seeking the American dream.
I've always said that I support people coming into this
country but coming through the front door. Nobody comes to this
country for a better way of life because they want to be stored
in a vacant building at JFK Airport.
TCOs are decentralized and depend on multiple illicit
businesses' support from adversarial and lawless nation-states
and work together with other TCOs. Human traffickers use new
technology such as cryptocurrencies to hide and obscure
payments while trafficking these humans coming across our
Southern Border.
The first question is, what techniques have law enforcement
used to keep up with the evolving networks and techniques that
are employed to traffic humans covertly? I'll leave that to
anybody.
Mr. Blazakis. I'll take that question.
I think the Department of Justice Federal investigators
have done an excellent job charting the cryptocurrency flows,
whether it's Bitcoin, Ethereum, you name the crypto. The
Government has worked with groups like Chainalysis in the
private sector and Ciphertrace amongst others to be able to
track cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency is not anonymous. It's pseudonymous. There
is a great capability that exists within the Government to
track crypto as a general matter. We have seen billions of
assets frozen of transnational groups who have thought that
they were able to have secure transactions via crypto, and
they've lost those forfeited funds to the United States.
So we are doing some good work in the crypto space. Great
technology being leveraged by Department of Justice in
conjunction with the law enforcement community and the private
sector in this space.
Mr. D'Esposito. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Pfluger. The gentleman yields.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Arizona, Mr.
Crane, for 5 minutes of questioning.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you guys for
coming. I appreciate you all being here.
I am going to start with Mr. Urben. Sir, why do you think--
why do you think the cartels purchase chemicals necessary for
the production of Fentanyl from China?
Mr. Urben. There's obviously a budding relationship there,
and there's an ease to get them, as well as there's a
tremendous amount of chemical companies in China that produce
the precursors that they need.
Mr. Crane. That's a pretty long trip from China to Mexico,
isn't it, sir? Doesn't that increase costs, shipment costs?
Mr. Urben. Sure. It certainly would increase shipping
costs. But, again, it's obvious that they are successful in
acquiring the precursors from China, so they continue to do it.
Mr. Crane. Thank you.
In a Communist-run country like China, you would think that
they would be able to crack down if they wanted to on the
supply that's coming over and killing so many Americans. Would
you agree with that? Or maybe do a better job of cracking down?
Mr. Urben. I believe they can, yes.
Mr. Crane. Sir, have you ever read the book ``Unrestricted
Warfare''?
Mr. Urben. I have.
Mr. Crane. What about anybody else on the panel?
Mr. Farah, have you read ``Unrestricted Warfare''?
Ms. Maldonado.
Ms. Ford Maldonado. No.
Mr. Crane. Sir on the end?
It was written and published in 1999, authored by two PLA
senior colonels, and it talks about China's plan to, you know,
dominate and take out the United States of America using
economic warfare, cyber warfare, elite capture, corporate
espionage, intellectual property theft, asymmetric warfare on
almost every aspect of our social, economic, and political
life. Basically, take out the United States of America without
firing a shot, if possible.
Does that sound--does that sound familiar to anybody on the
panel?
Does that sound like something you're seeing in the
headlines, Mr. Urben?
Mr. Urben. I mean, certainly, they are finding ways to
undermine various aspects of our country. In terms of my
investigative efforts when I was with DEA, those investigative
efforts took place outside of mainland China.
Mr. Crane. Now, obviously this is a Homeland Security
Committee, and we're talking about border security.
Reading that list and just knowing a little bit about the
Chinese Communist Party, do you think it's feasible that they
might use Fentanyl and the ingredients for deadly drugs to kill
our own citizens?
Mr. Urben. Again, in terms of my investigative efforts, I
did not tie it back to mainland China and the CCP.
In terms of the question itself, is it feasible?
Mr. Crane. Yes.
Mr. Urben. I guess it is feasible.
Mr. Crane. But you would acknowledge that ingredients are
coming from China, right?
Mr. Urben. Oh, I certainly--they are coming--precursor
chemicals are coming from China to Mexico.
Mr. Crane. OK. Thank you.
Ms. Maldonado, you were talking about the cartels--how
effective they are, how powerful they've become. I think we can
all acknowledge that. But I want to ask you a question.
Do you think that that's what initiated this surge that
we're seeing on the Southern Border? What do you think the
cause of what we're seeing on the Southern Border--what do you
think initiated that surge that we're seeing right now?
Ms. Ford Maldonado. The surge of immigrants?
Mr. Crane. Yes.
Ms. Ford Maldonado. I think it's a lot of reasons.
Actually, I was just in Juarez about 3 weeks ago on the Mexican
side of the border, and I was able to talk to a lot of the
migrants that were there. I think a big part of it is they're
hearing that the border is open, right?
So people are traveling--I mean, there was people there
that traveled 8,000 miles with no water, no medical care
because they're hearing that the border is open. They're
hearing that their family members, their friends got in. That's
what's taking them straight into the hands of the cartels. So I
think a lot of it is word of mouth.
Mr. Crane. Yep.
Ms. Ford Maldonado. They're hearing that there's an open
invitation to come into the United States. Unfortunately,
they're having to make it through incredibly difficult and
horrendous circumstances to try and get here.
Mr. Crane. Yes, ma'am. Do you think something that might
contribute to that is when the future President of the United
States says in a 2019 Democratic primary debate, ``The United
States is a country that tells people struggling under
oppression or poor conditions,'' quote, ``you should come''?
``They deserve to be heard. That's who we are. We are a Nation
that says you want to flee and you're fleeing oppression, you
should come''?
Do you think that that's something that might initiate some
of the surge that we're seeing?
Ms. Ford Maldonado. I think absolutely. I think that that's
what we're seeing happen. It hasn't always been the same
problem that it is now. It's a problem that's continuously
increasing, and it's being orchestrated by the cartels because
they're making more money than ever.
But I think that a different policy would have different
results, and that's why we need to look at new avenues that
haven't been thought of before.
Mr. Crane. I agree. I also think we should go back to some
of the policies that were working in the past.
My time is up. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired.
We will now enter a second round of questioning and do the
same process between Republicans and Democrats for 5 minutes.
I'd like to highlight the fact that I think I finally agree
with one of my colleagues on the control of the border. When my
colleague from New York mentioned that the cartels do in fact
have control of the border, I do agree with that statement.
They do have control of the border.
I'd also like to remind my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle that Operation Fast and Furious under the Obama-Biden
administration put hundreds of thousands of weapons into
Mexico. One of those--two of those weapons actually were found
at the crime scene where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry
was murdered.
So maybe this narrative that we need to turn our Border
Patrol northward to protect Mexico from U.S. weapons--maybe we
should just take a deep breath and protect the United States
from the illegal and illicit activities that are entering our
country.
I'd like to focus your attention on this chart. On the
bottom rung is the year 2020, and then it goes 2021, 2022, and
2023. These are in pounds of drugs--illicit drug seizure by
weight every single year from 2020 in red, to 2021 in gray,
2022 in blue.
Mr. Urben, with your 25-plus years in DEA, why do we see a
doubling, tripling of the amount of drug seizures here in the
United States that are coming from Mexico? I mean, is it--are
these--is this success here, or is this actually an indicator
of failed policies?
Mr. Urben. Well, I mean, I'm not going to comment on the
policy aspect in terms of--it's obviously an indication of more
drugs coming across the border and more seizures. That's the
way I look at it. So, to some degree, there is some success
there if you're seizing the drugs.
With the amount of drugs coming over and the amount of
deaths associated with overdoses or murder for taking, you
know, pills that are laced with Fentanyl, that's not success.
Mr. Pfluger. That's not success. I agree.
So what are the policies that need to be implemented to
prevent the hundreds of thousands of deaths?
Mr. Urben. It's obviously a broad question. I think the
first component to that is there needs to be a joint
cooperative relationship with Mexico in some way where you can
action law enforcement or the military down there against the
cartels. For us to disrupt the Mexican cartels, we have to
start down there. That's, again, a broad issue. It's a State
Department issue. It's a negotiated issue. But that's something
that would have to happen to disrupt their capabilities.
In terms of the homeland, I think--again, what I talked
about earlier was data, right? We need data analytics to
leverage data for insight for law enforcement against the
Mexican cartels and Chinese money launderers.
Mr. Pfluger. You know, you have all mentioned working with
the Mexican Government.
Mr. Farah, do you see this administration doing anything to
have accountability or relationships with the Mexican
Government to push back?
Mr. Farah. I think the relationship with Mexico as well as
Colombia and many other countries is much more fraught than it
was previously. I think we have fewer and fewer interlocutors
that can be trusted that we can deal with.
I think--as I talked about the criminalized state structure
emerging as different governments--and I think the AMLO
government in Mexico is certainly moving this direction--they
become more aligned on a strategic level with cartels than with
United States and other groups, as I think Colombia will do
under President Petro and as we've seen in Venezuela and as
we've seen in Nicaragua.
You're facing an outlook where you have fewer levers
because we have, over time, allowed those relationships--and
I'm not saying--I think it goes back a decade at least--those
relationships to deteriorate, and we have not been successful
in engaging in on-going training because those--the units we
train and work with are consistently dismantled. When different
governments come in, they are more aligned with the criminal
groups.
So you have well-trained, well-meaning people that are then
dispersed to the wind. I think that that has made it more and
more difficult over time to engage people who want to talk with
us because they're not going to last in their own structures
and for us to have people we can talk to down there.
Mr. Pfluger. Thank you.
I look at one of the agreements that we had from 2016--or
really 2017 to 2020--and that was migrant protection protocols,
MPP, otherwise known as Remain in Mexico. I can't help but draw
a distinction between the numbers that we're seeing here in
2020 in a policy like that that does limit the amount of malign
activity that a cartel can do, that they can use people.
I have been to the border a dozen times. I've seen the
destruction. I've seen what Ms. Ford Maldonado has described.
The assaults, the sexual assaults, the amount of money that
they're charging.
Ms. Ford Maldonado, what do you think about reinstatement
and an actual implementation from this administration of MPP,
Remain in Mexico? Would that have an effect on the amount of
drugs that we're seeing come into this country?
Ms. Ford Maldonado. I think it's possible. I think it would
definitely have an effect on what's happening at the border. I
think we also need to explore new avenues as to how we can
secure the border and how we can stop the inhumane things that
are happening.
You were just saying, we've also heard stories from Border
Patrol who have interviewed little girls who were raped
multiple times on their journey to Mexico. Little girls that
came across with the morning-after pill because their parents
sent them across expecting them to be assaulted on their
journey.
So I think something needs to be done, not just because of
what's happening at the border but what's happening beyond the
border. I mean, Fentanyl is affecting absolutely everyone. I
think that the most recent numbers we've seen is 107,000 people
that were killed in the year ending in January 2022. That's
9,000 people every 30 days. That is the equivalent of a fully
loaded 747 crashing into a mountain every single day of people
that are dying because of this.
Mr. Pfluger. It's tragic. Thank you for your testimony. My
time has expired.
I recognize the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Magaziner.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you, Chairman. I have to--I wish that
some of our colleagues were still here.
On this discussion about guns illegally trafficked across
the Southern Border to the cartels, there are solutions here.
They don't need to be partisan solutions. I wish our colleagues
were here for this conversation.
But, you know, listen. I know that our colleagues across
the aisle are not going to support an assault weapons ban.
They're not going to support a high-capacity magazine ban. I
support those things. They don't. Fine. Leave that conversation
for another day.
As Mr. Blazakis said, the issue here is firearms often
being purchased legally and then trafficked to the cartels
illegally. There are things that we can do to crack down on
that, like universal background checks; closing the gun show
loophole so that when a gun is sold to an individual, wherever
they are in whatever setting, there is a criminal background
check to make sure that that firearm is not being sold to
somebody with a record that suggests that they can't be trusted
with it.
I have introduced a bill--or I'm introducing a bill soon to
stiffen penalties for dealers that fail to conduct background
checks that they are legally required to conduct. Because,
unfortunately, right now, under our current laws--and this is
not the vast majority of gun shop owners, most of whom follow
the law and do the right thing--but those that don't, when they
knowingly fail to perform a background check, get a slap on the
wrist over and over again.
So there are things that are common sense that ought to be
bipartisan that we ought to do, and we cannot minimize the fact
that the source of the power of these TCOs, of these cartels,
is their ability to inflict acts of violence on people because
they are heavily armed, and that is part of the equation.
I also want to build off of something that Ms. Ford said
correctly when she was asked--correctly, I believe. Why are
people coming here? The obvious answer is, well, because they
think they'll have an easy time getting across. One of the
reasons that they think they have an easy time getting across
is because the cartels and the traffickers are lying to them
and telling them that U.S. asylum laws will let anybody come
across; you'll have an easy time getting asylum, getting a
green card, whatever the case may be.
So, again, one of the remedies to this is, let people apply
for asylum at U.S. consulates or from their home countries so
that they can see whether they are eligible or not. When people
see themselves that they're not eligible, they'll be less
likely to believe the lies that the cartels are telling them
and make that dangerous, often deadly journey.
So, again, there are things here that ought to be common-
sense, bipartisan solutions, and I do hope that----
Mr. Pfluger. Will the gentleman yield? I'll give you
additional time.
Mr. Magaziner. Sure.
Mr. Pfluger. Is that not currently happening where you can
apply for asylum at U.S. consulates? Is that not the standard
protocol?
Mr. Magaziner. My understanding is that the legislation
that the House just passed restricts the ability of people to
use the CBP One app to get applications to have their asylum
claims considered, that the number of places in other countries
where people can apply for asylum in person is limited.
Again, I think, under the current administration, some of
those policies are changing. I think that's a positive thing.
But I do think that needs to be part of the conversation. We
need to make it harder for the cartels to lie to people about
their eligibility.
Mr. Pfluger. Yes. I just think we need to check that--you
know, the specificity of that particular asylum--when you're
seeking asylum and doing it in another country, I think it is
pretty much standard protocol that that happens, and I'm not
sure that the law has been changed to reflect any difference.
You still have 2 minutes left. So I yield back.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you. All right. Switching gears here.
We've focused most of our attention today on Mexican,
Central American, and South American TCOs, and rightfully so
because I think we are all in agreement that those are the TCOs
that pose the most immediate risks to the homeland and to our
citizens.
But there are other groups out there, some of which are
operating in the United States that are dangerous, and I
believe Mr. Farah and others have mentioned them. ISIS, the
Iranian transnational network.
Can we just--and I'll open it up to any of you with my last
couple minutes here. Would anyone like to spend a little bit
more time highlighting the risks posed by some of those
organizations and what we, as policy makers, should do to crack
down on them?
Mr. Farah. I think one of the real issues that we're seeing
across the region is not just the traditional like Hezbollah
threat network, Iranian threat network. It's--the Albanian
mafia is now there. There are multiple parts of the Italian
mafia structure now plugged in.
Because the market is--the cocaine market is shifting while
our synthetic market here is rising. So the cocaine market in
Europe and Russia and the former Soviet republics is much more
lucrative than it is in the United States. Our cocaine
consumption has been down while our synthetic consumption has
been way up.
So I think that there are numerous new types of violence
being introduced, numerous new types of money laundering being
introduced. Numerous new types of trafficking structures are
being introduced. It introduced these groups that have been in
this hemisphere to a whole new set of African, European, Asian,
and former Soviet republic structures that allow everyone to
make a lot more money and make it much more difficult for us to
crack down.
There's one case I'm sure Mr. Urben is familiar with. The
case of the Gayane, which is a ship that ended up being busted
in Philadelphia with 17 tons. That was--those are Eastern
European crews, loading off the coast of Chile, passing through
with a different group that switched--that loaded the cocaine
in the Panama Canal and moved to Philadelphia. It was all
external actors in a 17-ton cocaine shipment, which was busted
almost by luck in Philadelphia. So I think that's the issue.
Mr. Magaziner. Would anyone else like to weigh in on any
other TCOs that we should be focused on as well as a committee?
Again, ISIS, Iran.
Mr. Blazakis.
Mr. Blazakis. I'll just say, on the ISIS front, I think
it's particularly important that we keep our eye on
Afghanistan. We've had multiple senior officials within the
Biden administration speak with great alarm regarding a
possible resurgence of the so-called ISIS Khorasan Province in
Afghanistan, so much to the point where the administration said
that they worry about that group having the external operations
capability within 6 months. That statement was from a senior
Department of Defense official about 3 months ago.
I think it's particularly important that we continue to
invest some level of resources as it relates to tracking ISIS
Khorasan in Afghanistan, especially.
Mr. Magaziner. Thank you all.
Mr. Pfluger. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Nevada, Ms.
Titus, for her questioning.
Ms. Titus. Thank you very much.
I'd like to talk about an issue that maybe many people
don't think of as connected to homeland security, but it's
becoming more and more entwined with some of the issues that we
have internationally. It's affecting major metropolitan areas,
especially in a district like mine, which is Las Vegas. That's
organized retail crime.
We've seen that it involves targeted, large-scale organized
theft. It's run through international criminal networks. I
think the Department of Homeland Security Investigations Unit
issued a report saying the average American family will pay
more than $500 annually in additional cost due to the impact of
organized retail crime, which has been used to finance on-going
illicit operations like human trafficking and drug trafficking.
There was another DHS report that noted organized retail
crime is leading to more brazen, more violent attacks in retail
stores throughout the country, and many of the criminal rings
orchestrating these thefts are also involved in other serious
activities.
So I wonder--it's an incredibly complex issue, but should--
can you make some suggestions of how we can better address it
with more interaction among--across Government agencies or with
different levels of government? Anybody?
Mr. Urben. I mean, the first thing you'd want to do is
prioritize it and put funding into that and have a local,
State, and Federal response set up a task force to do--whether
it be undercover operations to engage--you know, they're going
to sell these products after they steal them.
Ms. Titus. Right.
Mr. Urben. There's a process associated with this, and
they're doing it continually again and again and again.
The other component is if you could intercept their
electronic communications. Obviously, if it's an international
or a sophisticated organized crime group, they're communicating
amongst other members. So I think that's the first thing.
I also think a deterrent--however you want to work with the
private sector--to have a deterrent at that store, at that
location, so it's not as easy to steal the goods.
Ms. Titus. That was going to be my question.
Do you think a Federal task force would be something that
would be useful in the Department of Homeland Security?
Mr. Urben. On this specific topic? Yes. I do think the more
sophisticated actors that are operating beyond State--from
State to State doing--multiple States--I think a Federal task
force would be the answer. Again, encompassing State and local
resources and expertise.
Ms. Titus. I've got a bill that's bicameral and bipartisan
called Combating Organized Retail Crime to give more resources
to Homeland Security to go after this. So we should look at
having a task force as part of those resources.
Mr. Urben. I've had task forces that I've supervised, and
if you have proper leadership and resources, they can do
amazing things. So I think the threat that you're discussing
and you're talking about--that would be a solution with
properly--properly resourced up.
Ms. Titus. Thank you.
We could look at that, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member.
Anybody else want to comment on that? I mean, they're
stealing everything from eyelashes to power saws, you know, and
reselling it, and then that money goes into other nefarious
operations.
Well, let me ask you another question. This goes back to
Mr. Goldman's talk about guns and--U.S. guns go to Mexico, and
that's where they are used in the involvement of a lot of
crime.
Mr. Blazakis, could you address how we could work better
with Mexico to address this issue?
Mr. Blazakis. So one of the most important things that we
need to do with the government in Mexico is engage with them as
it relates to implementing the bicentennial framework that was
put in place by the Biden administration in agreement with the
Mexican government.
On this front, it's still early days. But, in particular,
there are three pillars where I think it's particularly
important to spend our time. That is in the area of jointly
working on a challenge of public health-related issues, which
obviously is an impact that comes from the cartel work.
Doing more in the area of shoring up the border, particular
in the context of using technology. I'm not a believer of
building walls and moats. I think that's--you know, from times
in the past, it didn't help the Chinese particularly when it
comes to the creation of the Great Wall of China. It's
certainly not going to work in the contemporaneous time that we
live in today.
There's a cyber component to this that we have to explore
to pursue these criminal networks as well, and I think the
bicentennial framework is an important place to do this work.
But we can't alienate the Mexican government. I do think we
run the risk of doing so if we consider certain other kinds of
policy options, whether it's the FTO designation of the
cartels, whether it's the use of authorized military force
against cartel members across the border.
I think these things will push AMLO into the arms of our
economic adversaries like China, our ideological enemies like
Iran, and our military foes like the Russian Federation.
Ms. Titus. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Pfluger. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for your valuable testimony
and for Members on this committee for your questions.
Just to close with a couple of thoughts, I mean, I think
you heard Members on both sides of the aisle asking very
similar questions. We may disagree on a couple of tactical
points, but on the strategic problem that we have right now,
the fact that Fentanyl--the trafficking of the opioids, the
problem that we see in the United States is massive, and it's
tragic.
I hope that, as a result of this hearing, what we will see
is a push--not just in a bipartisan way but more in a whole-of-
Government way, that we take your testimony, that we take your
answers and your experience professionally, and that we're able
to push this into action.
Because--on a point of personal privilege, my 12-year-old
daughter was here listening to this. I have a classmate from
the Air Force Academy here with his daughter. I see many young
people in the audience here today. The reason that we're having
this hearing is to preserve the next generation from being
inundated with--whether it's Fentanyl or other opioids crime or
whatever else it may be.
I hope that the work on this subcommittee will really get
at the heart of this, that our country can come together in a
way that we can lower those numbers. Whatever the cause may be,
this is not and should not be a partisan solution. It should be
a bipartisan, bicameral--as Ms. Titus mentioned in her bill--
solution to get after this and to see our communities safe.
The Members of the subcommittee may have additional
questions for the witnesses, and we would appreciate and ask
the witnesses to respond to these in writing. Pursuant to the
committee rule VII(D), the hearing record will be open for the
next 10 days.
Without objection, this subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:33 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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