Several years ago, I remember reading “El Sicario: The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin.” A Sicario in Spanish is like the grim reaper in English and in Mexican slang it has become their term for a hit man.
The Sicario said that when he was first inducted into the Cartel, the first thing they had him do was go to a police academy. Officially, he was a full blow police officer even as he spent none of his time ever in patrol and a lot of time hunting down and killing people. At one point, as part of his official police duties, he was sent to the United States to get trained on how to identify stolen cars. El stupido Americanos trained him up on how to find hidden VIN numbers on vehicles. Are we stupid or what?
Previously, in our infinite wisdom, our Green Beret helped train the Los Zetas. The Green Beret’s supposed excuse was that they trained up some Mexican Army trainers in Special Forces tactics and the guys the Green Beret trained didn’t defect to the Cartels, but the guys the Mexican Army trainers trained did. Thanks Green Beret, that makes it all better. (Actually, I don’t blame the Green Beret soldiers on the ground, but I do blame the idiot General who came up with this idea).
Recently, I watched Shawn Ryan’s interview with Canadian journalist Katarina Szulc (last name is Polish and pronounced kinda like Schulz). She was saying that the Mexican Cartels have hired ex-Special Forces members from the American military and from other foreign militaries like the Israeli army. This has been going on for awhile now.
In any case, I highly recommend Shawn Ryan’s interview of Katarina, though, it is a bit depressing and frightening. She details how wrapped up into the Mexican government the Cartels are, going so far as to say that current Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum is either dirty herself, or, at the least, she is running cover for other members of her party who are corrupt.
One of the things Katarina Szulc points out is how the Mexican Cartels are now expanding into Canada. Precursors for making fentanyl are having a harder time making it into Mexico. So now, the Mexican cartels are trying on one hand to make the precursors themselves, and in the meantime getting precursors sent to Vancouver where CBSA inspects something like 2% of all cargo sent in from China. The Mexican Cartels are recruiting Canadians, Asians in Canada, and also people from the Balkans to act as hitmen and couriers for them in Canada. The “Balkans” part doesn’t surprise me because when I was stationed on the northern border, we had several reports of Serb organized crime being involved in all sorts of crime whether narcotics or prostitution. Here’s the shorter version focusing on Canada.
Thanks to lackadaisical immigration enforcement in Canada, Canada is full of different criminal organizations (thank you Justin Trudeau). Not to mention, for a few years, Trudeau waived the requirement that Mexicans needed to obtain a visa before flying into Canada. That brilliant idea helped to alert the Mexican FTOs (Foreign Terrorist Organizations) about how easy it was to operate in Canada. (Typical sob story about poor Mexicans having a hard time invading Canada thanks to visas being required again here.
The Cartels are not stupid and they will adjust. The land border is closed? They will try the sea. The sea is shutdown? They will try to go to Canada. If Canada gets shutdown, they sill certainly try something else again, tunneling under the border for instance. Evil never sleeps. Stay vigilant.
20 year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol. Author of "What Bridge Do You Work At? Or, Kids Are Cute; Therefore, Open Borders" & "East into the Sunset: Memories of patrolling in the Rio Grande Valley at the turn of the century". Books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, as well as Thrift Books.
Master's Degree in Justice, Law and Society from American University.
Grew up partly in Europe.
