This is a fascinating look at the inner workings and organizational methods of a drug cartel. This is pure free market warfare, but practiced by thugs. This is like pre-Westphalia stuff, and certainly deserves some attention if you are a student of the drug war and narco-terrorism.
I also look at these cartels like big juicy targets, over flowing with cash and assets that could end up in the pockets of privateers given authority to take them down. That is how you take down folks who are playing by pre-Westphalia rules and living without any regards to the rule of law or borders. –Matt
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Cartel Inc: In the company of Narcos
Jan 14 2010
By Robin Emmott
RIO BRAVO, Mexico (Reuters) – Late last year, Mexican soldiers raided a house in Rio Bravo, a dilapidated town just across the border from Texas. What they found was a kind of “back office” that belonged to the Gulf cartel, the country’s most violent drug gang.
Inside the gray, one-storey house, clerical workers helped run cocaine shipments hidden in U.S.-bound avocado trucks from southern Mexico, said soldiers on patrol in the town. The office tracked the drug movements in trucks equipped with GPS and progress was logged into spreadsheets on laptops.
The Gulf cartel as well as its hitmen often refer to themselves as “The Company” — and not without reason. Often overlooked amid all the violence and chaos they engender is the fact that Mexico’s drug cartels are capably run businesses that have turned into some of the most lucrative criminal enterprises ever.
