The cat and mouse game takes to sea: Narco’s new routes to California

<figure id="attachment_4933" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4933" style="width: 523px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a class="highslide" onclick="return vz.expand(this)" href="http://laprensa-sandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/pot-bust-01.jpg… loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-4933 " title="MEXICO DRUG SEIZURE" src="http://laprensa-sandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/pot-bust-01-102…; alt="" width="523" height="238"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-4933" class="wp-caption-text">Packages of marijuana are stacked for display during a presentation to journalists of approximately 15 tons (15,445 kilograms) of marihuana at the Morelos army base on 23 February, 2010 in Tijuana, Mexico. The packages of drugs were discovered during a search of a trailer truck at a military roadblock. The man in the center is the driver of the truck. Photo - David Maung</figcaption></figure>
Military personnel in Baja California recently announced the biggest seizure of marihuana in state’s history; 15 tons of pot found inside a trailer carrying a shipment of “Maria” cookies; 12 tons had been found in a similar case on February 7th, making the grand total of 30 tons of pot seized in less than a month.
What makes the seizures unique is not just the volume, but their destination: you see, the drugs were not going north but where headed to the Ensenada port instead, pointing to the growing trend of drug traffic by sea.
Military Commander Alfonso Duarte Mujíca, head of Tijuana military region, said the seizure was done after a routine inspection at a military checkpoint at Federal Highway 3, around Chinero-Ensenada route.
Duarte added the shipment was complete with false governmental seals and the drug was not placed under a false floor but instead was poorly hidden behind a pile of “Maria” cookie boxes, —the Mexican equivalent to animal crackers—.
The shipment was headed south, from Mexicali to Ensenada passing trough San Felipe, investigations lead authorities to believe it was headed to the US.
“[We believe] The drugs where headed north by sea so we are putting up another military check point at Ensenada Port  and coordinating with Marines so we have stricter examination of cargo ships before they head to the US” said Duarte.
Despite claiming not to know which criminal organization was hit with the seizure, Duarte confirmed the drugs seized had a black market value of at least 18 million dollars.
The tuck used for transporting the drugs had a sign in the cabin claiming to be “under 24 hour satellite localization surveillance”.
The drug packages were all covered in brown tape and had names and nicknames of possible owners; Virus, Flor (flower), Vaca (cow), H-5, L-V as well as numbers 8 and 9.
The driver who is in military custody is 34 year-old Mario López Castro, born in Guaymas, Sonora, who claimed to be living in Mexicali when he was contacted to make a trip to Ensenada and paid around $4 thousand dollars.
Vicente Sánchez Munguía, senior Public Safety researcher for political think thank COLEF, explains information about this new traffic tendency has not flowed to the public, mainly because the secrecy of the federal forces.
“Since about five years ago we’ve seen a growing tendency of traffic trough the San Felipe port, —despite it not being in the press, the Golf has been commonly used as a land-sea route for drugs, because it’s just a stone throw away from Sonora” he says, “it is widely known by fishermen and even environmental researchers that drugs are thrown from airplanes into the sea, where they are picked up by speedboats.”
What’s new is not what’s happening south of the Peninsula, not even the use of speedboats commonly stopped by both Mexican Marines and US Coast Guards, what’s new is the possibility of traffic trough cargo ships going directly to high traffic ports like LA or Long Beach.
With this, Baja narcos appear to have learned techniques used to smuggle ephedrine into Mexico and aiming to corrupt port authority officials due to closing doors in other federal agencies.
“Ephedrine coming into Mexico, —a base for meta-amphetamine production—has been found in the ports of Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, so it makes sense that they would use this as a possible route; scrutiny is less likely compared with by land and if you mix that with corruption success rates might be higher, this might definitely be a new game they are trying out.”