Mexico: New Drug Gang Alliances May Spread Overseas
   7 August 2002
   Summary
   Mexico's drug-trafficking industry is evolving into smaller, more
   compartmentalized and discreet criminal enterprises in which alliances
   between rival gangs are being viewed as more profitable than trying to
   kill each other off. This new preference for alliances instead of
   gunplay may soon lead to expanded associations between Mexican gangs
   and organized criminal groups from other Latin American countries as
   well as Europe, Russia and Asia.
   Analysis
   Mexico's illegal drug-trafficking industry is restructuring rapidly
   into smaller, lower-profile criminal organizations following the death
   earlier this year of Ramon Arellano Felix -- leader of the Tijuana drug
   cartel -- and arrest of his brother Benjamin, The Associated Press
   reported Aug. 3. At the same time, the center of power of Mexico's
   drug-trafficking industry has moved from Tijuana in Baja, Calif. to
   Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua, just across the border from El
   Paso, Texas.
   Mexico's evolving drug-trafficking organizations are smaller, more
   compact networks in which competing drug lords now seek to work
   cooperatively instead of killing their rivals, as the Arellano Felix
   brothers were fond of doing. Moreover, the shift in power to Ciudad
   Juarez means there likely will be a significant surge in narcotics
   smuggling from north-central and northeastern Mexico into the states of
   Texas and New Mexico. But southern California may see a drop in
   narcotics smuggling from Tijuana.
   [1]http://www.stratfor.com/fib/fib_view.php?ID=205628
   Get your drug war on at...
   art I: Violence-Prone Netwars
   Chapter Two: The Networking of Terror in the Information Age
   Chapter Three: Transnational Criminal Networks
   Chapter Four: Gangs, Hooligans, and Anarchists - The Vanguard of Netwar
   In the Streets
   Part II: Social Netwars
   Chapter Five: Networking Dissent: Cyber Activists Use the Internet to
   Promote Democracy In Burma
   Chapter Six: Emergence and Influence of the Zapatista Social Netwar
   FROM
   [2]http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/
   Famous for humping camels.

References

   1. http://www.stratfor.com/fib/fib_view.php?ID=205628
   2. http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/