The Other Dimensions: Smuggling,

Gangs, Weapon Trafficking, Money

Laundering, and Enforcement

Antwann Tigner, a 34-year-old man in Indianapolis, was recently sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than 50 grams of methamphetamine and fentanyl, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. This is over double the average sentence for heroin traffickers, which is 63 months. Despite his role as a relatively regional dealer, he was in possession of enough fentanyl to kill approximately 25,000 people. Detectives were also able to seize around $50,000 in drug profits located in his house.[62]

Smugglers

Cartels are classified as drug trafficking organizations (DTO), defined by the United States Department of Justice as "complex organizations with highly defined command-and-control structures that produce, transport, and distribute a large quantity.”[63] Mexican DTOs supply drugs to distributors in at least 230 U.S. cities.[64] Operationally, DTOs rely on smugglers and gangs to distribute the product to their customers.

Thousands of pounds of fentanyl, heroin, and meth flow into the U.S. from Mexico every month via trucks, cars, tunnels, and people through heavily guarded border crossings. Some of it is smuggled through couriers, also known as mules. According to a National Public Radio report, many mules smuggle an average of five kilos of fentanyl and 10 kilos of meth on each trip.[65] Immigration authorities say many of the mules are US citizens or people who are legally authorized to cross the border. Fentanyl and other drugs are also frequently concealed inside passenger cars and tractor-trailers carrying legitimate cargo into the U.S. The new synthetic opioids, in turn, are easier than the standard meth and heroin to conceal, making it difficult to apprehend the drugs. “Smugglers have become very good at concealing fentanyl deep in passenger cars.”[66] Mules often do it for the money needed to support their own addiction.

In addition to border crossing, there are reports of fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and meth crossing between ports of entry. Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, the Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, reported that "the video cameras placed by ranchers on the border show the cartel members in camouflage outfits wearing carpet shoes and backpacks full of fentanyl pouring into our country." [67]  

Gangs

Once in the US, gangs—street gangs, outlaw motorcycle gangs, prison gangs, and transnational gangs—are the primary distributors of illegal drugs. They also produce and transport drugs within the country. National street gangs include Latin Kings,Gangster Disciples, Crips, Bloods, Florencia 13, and Trinitarios. The National Gang Center reports that 41.6% of the total number of gangs are located in large cities, 26% in suburban counties, 27% in smaller towns, and 5.5% in rural counties.[68] In the U.S., Los Angeles and Chicago are considered “the capitals of gangs,” with L.A. being the base to the oldest active gangs—Bloods and Crips. Chicago is estimated to have approximately 150,000 gang members.  The National Gang Center reports that, in 2019, approximately 50% of all the violence in the US was gang-related.[69]

Larger than national street gang are the transnational gangs that are located in multiple countries. Transnational gangs are present in almost every state. Transnational gangs of note include:

• The MS-13 gang located in the United States, Canada, Mexico and El Salvador

• The 18th Street Gang, also known as the Barrio 18, located in the United States, Canada, Central America and Mexico

• The Barrio Azteca, prison gang, located in the United States and Mexico

• Hells Angels located in the United States, Europe, Canada, Africa, Asia, South America and Central America

• The Tren de Aragua gang, located in Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama and Chile

• The Black Pistons located in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Canada. 

Transnational and national street gangs engage in a variety of criminal activities that includes not only drug-trafficking, but also human-trafficking, firearms-trafficking, human smuggling, kidnappings-for-ransom, racketeering, and money laundering.[70] 

Weapon Trafficking

Cartels, gangs, and smugglers have armed themselves for decades with guns purchased easily in the U.S. and smuggled south. In his 2020 book, Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs, Ioan Grillo reports that as many as 200,000 trafficked guns per year flow from U.S. south to Mexico and Latin America.[71] The GAO reports that at least 80% of firearms in Mexico enter through the northern border with Tijuana being the main entry points for arms trafficking. Texas is the main arms exporter to Mexico, followed by California.[72] 

Money Laundering

The money laundering process of converting illicit drug money to clean money that cannot be traced back to the original source of income operates globally on a massive scale. In their Global Financial Integrity Report, the IMF estimated the size of the global illicit drug market in 2014 was between $426 and $652 billion in 2014.[73] [74] More recently, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports that the amount of money laundering is between $800 billion to $2 trillion annually.[75] Laundering strategies include cash smuggling to another country and depositing the amount in a bank located there or by wire transfers of funds from one country to a person, entity, or an account in another country. The drug dealers often use shell companies to buy other financial assets and property for safekeeping and to move the funds around. Drug dealers also open online accounts with digital currency exchanges that accept fiat currency from traditional bank accounts. In a process known as ‘chain-hopping,’ money is then moved from one cryptocurrency digital currency exchanges to another, making it difficult for authorities to track.[76] 

Countries and territories traditionally considered money-laundering havens include the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, the Marshall Islands, Panama, the Philippines, and Russia.[77] [78] In a 2016 report, the DEA noted that there was a significant increase in the involvement of Chinese money laundering organizations (CMLOs) offering their services to Mexican, Colombian, and transnational criminal organizations.[79] Operationally, these CMLOs often move street money into large bank accounts or into China’s Underground Banking System that cartels then convert into mansions, yachts, and financial assets. In a process known as ‘mirror transaction,’ many money launderers also sell pesos and other currencies for dollars and then sell the dollars to Chinese clients who pay the launderer by depositing an equivalent amount of dollars in his or her account with a major Chinese Bank. With little or no Chinese government intervention, the drug-related cash proceeds are routed to China and then repatriated back to Mexican drug traffickers. In 2020, the U.S. Treasury reported a significant increase in such money laundering schemes that often involve Chinese citizens who reside in the US, transferring millions of dollars of cartel money into Chinese bank while handling thousands of cash deliveries across the United States.[80] 

Enforcement: Fighting the Opioid War 

In contrast to the thousands of sad stories, there are also myriad stories of those on the frontline fighting this epidemic.  It is the stories of DEA agents fighting the drug cartels, local undercover agents arresting dealers and gangs, judges in the drug courts dealing with justice, lawyers with the Department of Justice or local district attorneys prosecuting traffickers, state and local officials dealing with the homeless crisis, and caseworkers dealing with addicts and their families.

Law enforcement has grown exponentially as a result of the opioid crisis. Currently there is a large network of agencies, police, and military involved to fight drug criminals and drug organizations. Federal agencies, such as the DEA, FBI, ICE, the Border Patrol, and local and state law enforcement officers work independently, as well as collaboratively, to analyze, investigate, apprehend, and prosecute criminals and criminal organizations.   

The Drug Enforcement Administration

The DEA is the primary federal agency responsible for fighting the criminal drug network. Established in 1973, the agency combined the drug agents from the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) and Customs to provide enforcement of federal drug laws. The DEA employs approximately 10,000 special agents, investigators, intelligence analysts, chemists, and a professional staff across 241 domestic offices in 23 divisions and 93 foreign offices. The DEA’s State and Local Task Force Program also manages 271 state and local task forces. These task forces are staffed by over 2,200 DEA special agents and over 2,500 state and local officers. Participating state and local task force officers are deputized to perform the same functions as DEA special agents.[81] As part of DEA’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program, many federal, state, local, and law enforcement task forces operated in areas designated to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the U.S. There are currently 33 HIDTAs and HIDTA-designated counties. The DEA has more than 1,500 authorized special agent positions dedicated to the program.[82] In 2023:

• DEA seized more than 79.5 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. The seizures were equivalent to 376.7 million lethal doses of fentanyl.

•  In October, the DEA announced eight indictments, charging eight companies and 12 individuals, for importing fentanyl precursors, xylazine, and other man-made or synthetic chemicals into the U.S. 

•  DEA seized over 79 million fake pills containing fentanyl—33% increase from the year before.  DEA laboratory testing currently indicates that seven out of 10 pills contain a potentially deadly dose of fentanyl.

•  DEA implemented a Community Outreach strategy that disseminates drug information for teens, parents, caregivers, and educators, and promotes public’s awareness about the dangers associated with using drugs.[83]  

Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces

The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Program was established in 1982. Directed by the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, OCDETF’s mission is to disrupt and dismantle command and control elements of criminal organizations. OCDETF combines the resources of DEA and numerous federal agencies to target drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. They are the largest anti-crime task force in the country, overseeing 500 federal prosecutors, 1,200 federal agents, and some 5,000 state and local police. To specifically combat the opioid and methamphetamine crisis, OCDETF created the National Heroin Initiative (NHI) and National Methamphetamine Initiative (NMI) programs.[84]   

Within the OCDETF structure, there are 19 OCDETF Strike Forces. These strike forces are formed from various prosecutorial, state, and federal law enforcement agencies from key cities throughout the U.S.  Since OCDETF’s inception, tens of thousands of arrests have been made and hundreds of tons of narcotics and billions in currency and property have been seized.[85]  In Ohio, for example, an affiliated enforcement task force organized under the Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission (OOCIC) confiscated more than $63 million in illegal drugs in 2023 and 400 firearms and $5,471,132 million in currency.[86] 

FBI’s Anti-Gang Initiatives

As part of the drug war, the FBI fights gangs through its anti-gang initiatives: Safe Streets Task Forces, the National Gang Intelligence Center, and Transnational Anti-Gang Task Forces. The National Gang Intelligence Center is an FBI multi-agency established in 2005 by Congress. It integrates the gang intelligence assets of federal, state, and local law enforcement entities to arrest and prosecute national gangs. The Violent Gang Safe Streets Task Force is a collaborative effort by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies that focuses on violent crimes. There are 160 Violent Gang Safe Streets Task Forces nationwide. Located in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, the Transnational Anti-Gang (TAG) Task Forces (TAGS) work collaboratively on national and international investigations targeting transnational gangs.[87]

OCDETF Member Agencies

Many of the FBI’s anti-gang initiatives combat gangs and cartels employ the Enterprise Theory of Investigation (ETI) strategy. The ETI strategy focuses on the investigations and prosecutions on the entire criminal enterprise rather than individuals. It also focuses on seizure of the enterprise’s assets. ETI strategy calls for task force investigators to expand their collection of evidence to show that an individual conducted the criminal act to benefit the enterprise as a whole. With such evidence, investigators can expand criminal culpability for a single criminal act to all members of the enterprise, regardless of whether they actually committed the crime. ETI strategy often leads to convictions to not only the leaders of major criminal enterprises (e.g., Gambino crime family, Colombian Cali Cartel, or the Sicilian Mafia), but also lesser-known individuals belonging to the same criminal organization. The goal of an ETI strategy serves to disrupt or dismantle the entire criminal organizations.[88] See Exhibit 3 for links to drug bust stories.

Drug Bust

Exhibit 3: Drug Bust: Links

It should be noted that the war on the drug trafficking network being fought by DEA, FBI, OCDETF, and state and local enforcement agencies is not just about the Mexican cartels and China—it is global in scope. As Sam Quinones notes, “Geography no longer matters. We’ve reached the end of the era when drugs can only be made in countries with the right mix of soil, weather, and corruption. A commodity that’s profitable can be made anywhere in the world. Meth traffickers have been discovered in Holland, Japan, Africa. Tomorrow’s synthetic drugs may be from India or Chile, Outer Mongolia or Malaysia, the Czech Republic or a neighbor of yours.”[89]

In Cincinnati, the Hamilton County Heroin Coalition Task Force focuses on heroin dealers with an ETI objective of prosecuting the source dealer on applicable State and Federal charges. The Task Force is comprised of investigators from the DEA, Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office, Cincinnati Police Department, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol. In 2019, they were named “Task Force of the Year” by Ohio NARCO enforcement association based on their impact on the community, drug seizures, initiative, and collaboration.[90]

Book Excerpt Sam Quinones, The Least of Us   “It was into this gathering maelstrom that Tommy Rauh entered, with his OxyContin prescriptions for tendinitis and for his extracted wisdom teeth. Within the year, he was abusing it to deal with pain on the job and the occasional hangover. He had come from a middle-class White counterculture where drug use was a form of adventure, particularly for a young man who had intellect and a thrill-seeking soul. That culture, however, formed in a time when the drugs were more forgiving than the street offerings of the new millennium. Attitudes hadn’t changed, but the dope had.   Jim Rauh an Akron businessman who founded the nonprofit Families Against Fentanyl, filed a civil complaint in 2020 against a group of Chinese nationals and businesses that local law enforcement and federal investigations found supplied the drug that killed his son. “The days of recreational drug use were over in America. The drugs came fanged now: highly potent marijuana, corrosive methamphetamine, and powerful narcotic pain pills in unprecedented supply. [...] Life without dope turned drab, as if without heroin. Tommy could not be happy again. His addiction was a decade old when fentanyl arrived. By 2015, it had crowded out the heroin on Akron’s streets, and more people than ever were dying. […] There, the body of Tommy Rauh knelt, facedown, as if in prayer, against the bathtub across the hall from a $300-a-month room he’d found on Craigslist. He was thirty-seven and had spent close to half those years fighting the torment that began with that doctor’s prescription of OxyContin for tendinitis. He had survived years on pills and heroin, struggling, failing, but hoping that all was not lost. With fentanyl on Ohio streets, he didn’t last a month.”[91]

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