Department of Defense, Coast Guard, DEA, CBP with Mexico fight illegal drug trafficking

The Defense Department’s statutory mission is to serve as the single lead agency for the detection and monitoring of the aerial and maritime transit of illicit drugs into the United States. Cooperation with allies and partners, such as Mexico, is critical to that effort, said a DOD official. BY DAVID VERGUN, DOD NEWS

“Mexico remains the source of nearly all heroin seized in the United States and is a transit route for much of the cocaine available in our country,” Matthew J. Flynn, deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics and global threats, said.

Moreover, Mexican cartels take advantage of uneven precursor chemical controls to manufacture deadly drugs, such as fentanyl and methamphetamine, inside of Mexico, which also make their way into the United States, he said.

“Despite the obstacles, Mexican law enforcement and military professionals, in cooperation with their U.S. counterparts, are bravely confronting the transnational criminal organizations that threaten both of our countries,” Flynn added.

While much more remains to be done in the fight against Mexican cartels, it is important to recognize the efforts of the Mexican security forces that work daily to confront the transnational criminal organizations that threaten both the United States and Mexico, Flynn emphasized.

Two recent seizures highlight the efforts of Mexican agencies to disrupt the cartels’ illicit activities, he said. 

On Oct. 15, the Mexican army used radar data from a U.S.-provided radar in Hermosillo, a city in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora, to track a plane carrying drugs, Flynn said. 

Mexican soldiers moved to the area in which the plane appeared to land and seized a “poly-load” totaling 430 kilograms of assorted drugs: 56.6 kilograms of heroin, 4.1 kilograms of fentanyl, 177.2 kilograms of cocaine and 192.6 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine, he said. 

On Oct. 20, the Mexican navy informed U.S. officials of a suspicious vessel off the coast of Colima state, Mexico, Flynn said. The Mexican navy maneuvered six of its vessels to the suspicious vessel, then boarded it and discovered 1.1 metric tons of cocaine.  

A DOD official said that Mexican drug interdictions have been relatively low, and drug cartel violence remains at disturbingly high levels. “These organizations present a clear threat to Mexico and the Mexican government’s ability to exert effective control over parts of its country.”

One priority of the strategy is to reduce the availability of illegal drugs in the United States, Flynn said.  “By performing this priority mission, DOD helps deter, disrupt and degrade potential threats before they reach the United States and harm our citizens,” he said. With help from DOD, federal agencies — such as the Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs and Border Protection and others — are enhancing their efforts focused on the interdiction of heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamines and precursor chemicals in the air and maritime approaches to the United States and along its borders. Flynn said the DOD aims to reduce the harm posed by criminal networks. “Through our programs, we disrupt and degrade drug trafficking and other illicit threat networks, in order to reduce them to a level where they no longer threaten United States citizens and U.S. national security,” he said.  

In conjunction with other U.S. departments and agencies and international partners, DOD also supports the administration’s national priority to identify, disrupt and degrade transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, by targeting their infrastructure and preventing the criminal facilitation of their activities in various ways, Flynn said. 

“The task of identifying and targeting drug trafficking and other illicit threat networks is complex and requires close coordination among U.S. and international intelligence, [the] military and law enforcement partners,” he noted.

DOD supports U.S. government and international efforts to target TCOs at their source and build international partnerships to prevent transnational threat networks from undermining sovereign governments, decreasing regional stability and threatening the United States, he said. 

We have small teams at the combatant commands and elsewhere in DOD that provide intelligence analysis and counter threat finance analysis support to U.S. law enforcement partners by helping them identify and understand illicit networks and financial flows,” Flynn said. “With this support, our law enforcement partners are better able to disrupt the activities of drug trafficking and other transnational criminal organizations, including their abilities to generate, store, move and use money and other forms of value.” 

Under the authority of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, the department’s counterdrug program is administered by the DASD for counternarcotics and global threats.