Former DEA official on Mexico’s drug-fighting future after cartel leader’s death : NPR

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

So where is the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico headed after the assassination of the powerful drug lord known as El Mencho? Let’s ask Mike Vigil. He is a former chief of international operations for the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. Hello and welcome to the program.

MIKE VIGIL: Thank you very much, Leila.

FADEL: So what does El Mencho’s assassination mean for the future of his cartel?

VIGIL: While the assassination of El Mencho is a very, very definitive action and is undertaken by the Mexican government to go after the cartels, El Mencho – very different from “El Mayo” Zambada, “El Chapo” Guzman – what (ph) ruled the next generation cartel in Jalisco with an iron fist. He was a dictator. So he controlled practically everything. So this is the time for Mexico and hopefully the United States to go after the infrastructure of the entire cartel, simply because it’s not enough to kill the leader of a cartel, because normally they fragment, and all of a sudden you have a proverbial hydra, where instead of one cartel, you have two or three.

FADEL: Are you saying, though, that this could lead to an even bigger war on drugs if more military force is not used now to go after the infrastructure?

EVE: That’s right. Because we’ve seen that the pivot strategy, you know, hasn’t been resolved. But there are consequences. You know, when Felipe Calderon, who was president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012, went after the cartel leaders and captured and killed probably about 75% of them. But what we saw was the cartel fracturing and, you know, people started going after the cartel leaders, which led to a lot of violence. For example, with the old Guadalajara cartel, you know, with the Sinaloa cartel and many others. But this is the moment when Mexico can capitalize and tackle infrastructure. I’m talking about the people who launder money, the armed branches of the Jalisco Next Generation Cartel, the mid-level and upper-level drug traffickers within this organization. They really need to act quickly. They must move efficiently and base their actions on intelligence.

FADEL: When you say speed and efficiency, are you only talking about force, violence or are there other alternatives as well?

VIGIL: Well, not necessarily by force, but, you know, by arresting these individuals. But, you know, obviously it will come with force because they won’t leave of their own free will. And unfortunately, the cartels are heavily armed thanks to weapons arriving from the United States. We estimate that approximately 300,000 weapons enter Mexico from the United States each year. Mexico has only one gun store in the entire country, located on a military base near Mexico City, and sells only low-caliber weapons, about 6,500 a year. So the vast majority of weapons come from Texas, Arizona and California, and many of them enter Mexico and end up in the hands of the cartels.

FADEL: Very quickly, the Mexican president made it clear that she did not want the United States to intervene in Mexico. Do you think this show of force was intended to ensure that the United States did not intervene alone?

VIGIL: Well, that’s true. But the Trump administration really doesn’t understand Mexico because it hasn’t learned the lesson from Afghanistan. Mexico is three times larger than Afghanistan. Then there’s the Sierra Madres, which is the equivalent of the Bora Bora mountains, you know, the rugged terrain of Afghanistan that they would have to navigate.

Currently, the Mexican population would not cooperate because they would view this as an invasion, limiting the ability of the United States Armed Forces to gather intelligence. There would then be cartels that would also engage, you know, U.S. military troops if they entered Mexico. So, in that sense, it would be a disaster. And that would then create enormous instability, not only in Mexico but throughout Latin America.

FADEL: Mike Vigil is a former head of international operations for the DEA. Thank you for your time.

EVE: Thank you, Leila.

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