Mexican drug cartels recruiting Texas children

[fatbuckRTO]

Mexican drug cartels recruiting Texas children

By Jim Forsyth | Reuters – 19 hrs ago


SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Texas law enforcement officials say several Mexican drug cartels are luring youngsters as young as 11 to work in their smuggling operations.

Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told Reuters the drug gangs have a chilling name for the young Texans lured into their operations.

"They call them 'the expendables,'" he said.

McCraw said his investigators have evidence six Mexican drug gangs -- including the violent Zetas -- have "command and control centers" in Texas actively recruiting children for their operations, attracting them with what appears to be "easy money" for doing simple tasks.

"Cartels would pay kids $50 just for them to move a vehicle from one position to another position, which allows the cartel to keep it under surveillance to see if law enforcement has it under surveillance," he said.

"Of course, once you're hooked up with them, there's consequences."

McCraw said 25 minors have been arrested in one Texas border county alone in the past year for running drugs, acting as lookouts, or doing other work for organized Mexican drug gangs. The cartels are now fanning out, he said, and have operations in all major Texas cities.

This month, "we made an arrest of a 12-year-old boy who was in a stolen pickup truck with 800 pounds of marijuana," he said. "So they do recruit our kids."

McCraw says the state of Texas is joining a program initiated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection called "Operation Detour," in which law enforcement officers meet with children and their parents in schools and at community centers to warn them about the dangers of what appears to be the easy money the Mexican drug gangs offer.

Law enforcement officers say children are less likely to be suspects than adults, are easily manipulated by relatively small sums of money, and face less severe penalties than adults if arrested.

Last month, Texas officials released a report indicating Mexico-based drug gangs are intent on creating a "sanitary zone" on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, and are "intimidating landowners" in south Texas into allowing them to use their property as "permanent bases" for drug smuggling activity.

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Jerry Norton)


http://news.yahoo.com/mexican-drug-c...173402030.html

[fatbuckRTO]

I'm going to go ahead and file this one under "just a matter of time" and "probably been happening a lot longer than the press has been willing to acknowledge."

Last month, Texas officials released a report indicating Mexico-based drug gangs are intent on creating a "sanitary zone" on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, and are "intimidating landowners" in south Texas into allowing them to use their property as "permanent bases" for drug smuggling activity.

Shocker.

Great job, US government. Why don't you go ahead and pre-emptively sue Texas for whatever it decides to do to protect its citizens from this invasion by foreign powers... worked in Arizona, right?

[Homeslice]

Americans who use drugs that weren't produced in the US (by legal citizens) are responsible.

[shmike]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

Americans who use drugs that weren't produced in the US (by legal citizens) are responsible.

I know a guy in the marijuana retail distribution business.

All of his stuff is grown in local houses.

I doubt that his clients know (or care) where it comes from.

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by shmike

I know a guy in the marijuana retail distribution business.

All of his stuff is grown in local houses.

I doubt that his clients know (or care) where it comes from.

Would you care? I would.

Originally Posted by anthonyk

It's early, but that is the weirdest thing I've read yet today.

How so?

[anthonyk]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

How so?

I just can't figure out what the hell you meant. Is there some sort of "Smoke Local" movement out there, where one of the requirements is also that your pot must be grown by a US citizen?

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by anthonyk

I just can't figure out what the hell you meant. Is there some sort of "Smoke Local" movement out there, where one of the requirements is also that your pot must be grown by a US citizen?

Sounds like you figured it out OK.

Why wouldn't you want it grown by a US citizen?

[anthonyk]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

Americans who use drugs that weren't produced in the US (by legal citizens) are responsible.

It's early, but that is the weirdest thing I've read yet today.

[fatbuckRTO]

Originally Posted by Homeslice

Americans who use drugs that weren't produced in the US (by legal citizens) are responsible.

I think they share responsibility, absolutely. But at what point do you (generic) as a drug dealer decide you've crossed the line? Is the "War on Drugs" really so effective that they need to involve kids in their crap? Of course, they've done worse. My point is that no one is forcing Mexicans to run drugs up here, or corrupt young kids, or cut people's heads off. These are individual choices they have made.

Cut off the demand and they wouldn't have that particular in-road to the country, sure. But they would still be worthless scum, and they would find some other way to hurt people. And it would still be spilling over the border, because the US government refuses to do anything to stop it.

[Homeslice]

Originally Posted by fatbuckRTO

I think they share responsibility, absolutely. But at what point do you (generic) as a drug dealer decide you've crossed the line? Is the "War on Drugs" really so effective that they need to involve kids in their crap? Of course, they've done worse. My point is that no one is forcing Mexicans to run drugs up here, or corrupt young kids, or cut people's heads off. These are individual choices they have made.

Cut off the demand and they wouldn't have that particular in-road to the country, sure. But they would still be worthless scum, and they would find some other way to hurt people. And it would still be spilling over the border, because the US government refuses to do anything to stop it.

I disagree that the amount of violence would remain the same. US drug demand creates the lure of easy money. And anytime that lure exists, it causes people to move beyond the bounds of sanity, into the justification of murder. People don't just start murdering just for fun.