Drugs, undercover stings and smuggled AK-47s – were US government enforcement agencies bound up in the business of Mexican gangs?
The casual drug user – the sort who considers his crime to be essentially victimless – is often reminded that he funds a criminal network in which violence is endemic and bystanders are regular victims. But if you are American and you don’t like drugs, there is another way you can fund this system: by paying your taxes.
This World: Secrets of Mexico’s Drug War (BBC2) sought to explore the various ways in which US government enforcement agencies have become bound up in the business of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, ostensibly in the name of bringing down its kingpins.
Last year, Joaquin Guzman, the cartel’s leader, was finally captured and arrested. But for 13 years before that, it is alleged, US enforcement agencies protected the cartel in exchange for information about rival drugs gangs. This was a convoluted story with a lot of dead ends, but it seems unquestionable that the policy of rewarding and protecting informants ran out of control, essentially making the US government an accessory to all sorts of criminal behaviour.
Nowhere was this better illustrated than by This World’s account of Fast and Furious, an investigative operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The documentary argues that the US doesn’t just provide the money that fuels Mexico’s drug wars, it provides all the weaponry, too. John Dodson, an ATF agent, was supposedly running an undercover sting in which compliant Arizona gun-sellers would provide truckloads of AK-47s to smugglers looking to arm the Sinaloa cartel. While preparing to arrest his first target, Dodson was suddenly told to stand down, and the guns went across the border unhindered. The operation continued for 14 months; 2,500 firearms were put directly into the hands of the cartel.
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