MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS INTO OTHER ENTERPRISES

The cartels are now ‘drilling’ for oil and trafficking in fish bladders

The cartels, especially Los Zetas, are ‘fuel milking’ Pemex oil pipelines. The Zetas and other cartels are drilling into Pemex pipelines and siphoning off Pemex oil storage tanks because selling stolen oil is more profitable and less risky than trafficking in coke, meth and pot.

Furthermore, the cartels have been harvesting the bladders of an endangered fish found in the Gulf of California. They are trafficking in the bladders of the Totoaba fish. Those bladders can fetch from up to $7,000 in the U.S. and $14,000 in Asia. The bladders are smuggled into the U.S. for shipment to Asia. In China, soup containing Totoaba bladder can sell for as much as $25,000. The bladders are being referred to as ‘Aquatic Cocaine.’ Just as with the stolen oil, trafficking in fish bladders is more profitable and less risky than trafficking in drugs.

There are those who say that the cartels will be driven out of business if we would just legalize pot and other drugs. To the contrary, I have always maintained that if we legalized drugs, the cartels would just find other lucrative criminal enterprises. Tapping into Pemex pipelines and storage tanks, and harvesting and smuggling fish bladders, are just two examples, and they're doing that while still in the drug trafficking business.

With respect to the legalization of pot, just look at what is happening in Colorado. Instead of tanking, the black market in pot has flourished since the recreational pot law went into effect because it is cheaper to buy marijuana from illegal sources than to buy it from legal pot shops where you have to pay a hefty state tax.