Mexico's war with drug thugs pushing them away from Houston

Houston Chronicle:

Mexico's war on drug cartels might not change how much cocaine flows into the United States, but U.S. officials say Houston, long a major transshipment point for the underworld, could get a break as smugglers evade soldiers and police near the border.

A recent analysis by the National Drug Intelligence Center contends pressure by Mexican President Felipe Calderon on areas across the Rio Grande from South Texas may force drug traffickers to reroute smuggling pipelines, at least for the short term.

That would mean they'd be likely looking west to find holes in the U.S.-Mexico border and away from traditional routes that push tons of illegal drugs through an area that hugs the Gulf Coast, from Kenedy County to near the Louisiana border.

"What we are seeing is a temporary shift," said Stan Furce, director of a coalition of federal and state drug fighters assigned to a 16-county slice of Texas designated as the Houston High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

"It is getting real tough to get cocaine in this town for the first time," Furce said of Houston on Thursday. "The information we're getting is that it is certainly working, the pressure is on."

A kilogram of cocaine was going for as much as $22,000 here as recently as last week, up from a norm of about $18,000, said Houston police spokesman John Cannon.

Furce said several factors are at play, but Calderon's push is a major contributor. He also said that given the weak U.S. economy, traffickers are also looking to Europe, where the Euro is strong, the market is wide open and law enforcement is less aggressive.

The 19-page analysis points to thousands of Mexican law enforcement officers and soldiers conducting operations in several Mexican cities bordering Texas, as well as the use of highway checkpoints, aerial flyovers and investigations of local police departments.

"These counterdrug measures may impact the flow of drugs as traffickers avoid smuggling through this area," reads the report, which focuses on Furce's territory.

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A drug cartel turf war that had long made a battlefield of Nuevo Laredo, across the border at the end of Interstate 35, appears to have shifted up the Rio Grande to Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso.

The death toll there has climbed past 500 since January as Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's forces battle those loyal to the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes organization.

"These things oscillate," said Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami expert who studies drug trafficking. "Juarez really picked up, they are finding the dead bodies everywhere," said Bagley, who added that the trafficking organizations fight over the best available transportation routes for getting drugs into the United States.

And the violence continues to flare up elsewhere. On Wednesday, authorities reportedly found four decapitated bodies in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, home to Guzman and many other traffickers. Near the bodies was a note threatening Guzman.

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What this demonstrates is that interdiction can be effective in denying routes to drug traffickers. There are some secondary effects already in place in Houston. Price is going up because of shortage of supply which will probably effect consumption driving down demand. Is it possible that drug consumption might actually be reduced. That would be a happy outcome indeed.