{"id":22138,"date":"2015-08-24T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T23:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=22138"},"modified":"2015-08-21T10:51:27","modified_gmt":"2015-08-21T00:51:27","slug":"el-chapo-is-on-the-run-again-should-australia-be-concerned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/el-chapo-is-on-the-run-again-should-australia-be-concerned\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018El Chapo\u2019 is on the run again: should Australia be concerned?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mexico<\/a><\/p>\n

On 11 July, Joaquin \u2018El Chapo\u2019<\/a> Guzman, the Mexican drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa cartel<\/a>\u2014arguably the world\u2019s most powerful drug syndicate\u2014escaped Altiplano<\/a> maximum security prison in Mexico after being arrested in February last year for a second time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, this wasn\u2019t Guzman\u2019s debut escape from a Mexican prison. Previously captured in 1993, Guzman first broke out<\/a> of jail in 2001 in a laundry cart. This time, a 1.5 km tunnel<\/a> took him directly from his cell\u2019s shower block to the streets of Mexico. More than a month after an unfruitful manhunt<\/a>, the Drug Enforcement Administration has established a tip line<\/a>, believing<\/a> Guzman is still in Sinaloa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The last time he escaped prison, Guzman was determined<\/a> to use his vision and innovation to dominate the US illicit drug market. With that under his belt, expansion seems a no-brainer for a savvy illegal entrepreneur such as \u2018El Chapo\u2019. Guzman has Australia in his sights<\/a> and its lucrative drug market is a temptation.<\/p>\n

Worryingly, it\u2019s not just drug prices enticing Guzman to reach Australian shores. Aussies\u2019 love affair with drugs helped to earn the nation the title of the world\u2019s top recreational drug users in 2014. According to this year\u2019s UNODC World Drug Report<\/em><\/a>, Australia makes the top ten in drug use per capita in every drug type including cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS).<\/p>\n

Guzman\u2019s criminal organisation sells more drugs today than Pablo Escobar\u2019s Medellin cartel<\/a> did in its best days. The Sinaloa cartel supplies nearly one quarter of all illegal drugs into the US. It\u2019s the largest methamphetamine and marijuana supplier<\/a> to the US market, and one of the largest of cocaine. Its estimated profits reach US$3 billion per year\u2014an income that surpasses some African nations\u2019 entire GDP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Guzman understood early in his career that his drug business wouldn\u2019t be sustainable if it was exclusively cocaine and marijuana-driven. Trading crystal methamphetamine gave \u2018El Chapo\u2019 an advantage over his competitors, and now he controls 80% of the US\u2019 \u2018ice\u2019 market.<\/p>\n

The Sinaloa cartel was the first<\/a> to design and construct tunnels into the US to smuggle drugs. It also had family members hired as US border agents, and has even used catapults to transport narcotics across high-tech fences at the US\u2013Mexican border.<\/p>\n

With evidence that there\u2019s only two drug cartels left operating in Mexico<\/a>, Guzman\u2019s organisation has distanced itself from violent domestic competition, and is moving towards building international tactical alliances<\/a>. Fighting former President Felipe Calderon\u2019s war against drugs<\/a> tested Guzman\u2019s business resilience, but not without financial cost. With a high level of financial incentive here in Australia, Guzman\u2019s profit-driven criminal organisation has sufficient reason to gravitate towards the land down under.<\/p>\n

The Sinaloa cartel\u2019s presence in Australia is progressively seen<\/a> through the proliferation of \u2018ice\u2019. In an earlier Strategist<\/em> post<\/a>, I highlighted concerns about the increasing internationalisation of \u2018ice\u2019 trafficking in Australia. More recently, the UNODC\u2019s The<\/em> Challenge of Synthetic Drugs in East and South-East Asia and Oceania <\/em>(PDF<\/a>) reported<\/a> Mexican drug cartels\u2019 links to the growing \u2018ice\u2019 trade in Australia. In addition, last year, Australian Crime Commission CEO Chris Dawson stressed<\/a> his concerns about organised criminal groups increasingly targeting Australia\u2014with particular reference to Mexican ones.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s reputation as a distant market is a thing of the past for Latin American drug syndicates. Our illicit drug market is increasingly tangled in a vast and complex global network where channels for drug supply and demand mingle. The driving forces behind the Sinaloa cartel constitute a significant threat to the nation.<\/p>\n

Guzman has been successful exploiting free trade agreements to move his products across borders. He understands that where free trade goes, drugs can follow<\/a>. The free trade agreement between Canada, Mexico and the US demonstrates this<\/a>. Mexico and Australia are expected to strengthen their trade flow via the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement<\/a> in the near future. Thus, while some are wondering what the TPP can deliver to Australia,<\/a> drugs could unintentionally be one of the items on the list.<\/p>\n

The good news is that Sinaloa\u2019s cartel isn\u2019t a distant target for Australia<\/a>\u2019s law enforcement agencies anymore. Joint operations have led to increasing Mexican-originated drug seizures<\/a> and drug syndicate disruptions on Australian soil. But, under our new border model<\/a> which rather than a physical line our border is a continuum<\/a> that stretches from overseas to our maritime zones and our domestic environment, rapid response enforcement and interdiction must place precedence on tackling drug trafficking before it reaches Australian shores.<\/p>\n

The Australian Border Force (ABF) now has a more active role in delivering on national, international, regional and local border protection, law enforcement and national security priorities. As such, Guzman\u2019s intentions<\/a> to set his flag in Australia must spark a re-thinking of how our border protection international engagement is prioritised, implemented and assessed in order to prevent an influx of narcotics from international drug syndicates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 11 July, Joaquin \u2018El Chapo\u2019 Guzman, the Mexican drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa cartel\u2014arguably the world\u2019s most powerful drug syndicate\u2014escaped Altiplano maximum security prison in Mexico after being arrested in February last …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":22139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1082,1233,1037],"class_list":["post-22138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-drugs","tag-latin-america","tag-mexico"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018El Chapo\u2019 is on the run again: should Australia be concerned? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/el-chapo-is-on-the-run-again-should-australia-be-concerned\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018El Chapo\u2019 is on the run again: should Australia be concerned? 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