For Some Mexican Cartels, Human Smuggling Has Taken Priority Over Drugs Alfredo Corchado - The Dallas Morning News
go to original August 31, 2014

Immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally in Arizona were detained this month after being found locked in the cargo area of a rental truck at a Border Patrol checkpoint. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

With recent waves of Central Americans seeking to reach the U.S., human smuggling along the Texas border has, at least for the moment, become more lucrative than smuggling illicit drugs for criminal organizations such as the Gulf and Zetas cartels, according to two U.S. intelligence officials.

U.S. agents tracking the money flow as part of the anti-smuggling Operation Coyote say that in just over six months, human smuggling has generated nearly $50 million, mostly in the area around the Mexican border city of Reynosa. The revenue has helped sustain the Gulf cartel during a bloody internal split, the officials said. Some factions of the Gulf cartel are now working with the Sinaloa cartel, they said, and another faction has joined forces with the Zetas, increasing violence and making the situation along the border more perilous.

“I’m not suggesting that the cartels have abandoned their drug-smuggling activities,” said Oscar Hagelsieb, assistant special agent-in-charge of Homeland Security Investigations in El Paso. “But with all the money to be made in human smuggling, they clamped their claws into it as well. Big time.

“Without a doubt, there are Gulf cartel links. We've been able to trace millions of dollars going into the Reynosa area. You cannot operate a criminal venture of that magnitude without the cartels having a major role in it.”

He said that U.S. authorities have identified “key operatives” of other cartels in the region “that are now heavily involved in alien smuggling.”

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