Desperate Times on the Southern Border

Last week, in an act that combined desperation and stupidity with ingenuity and hard work, a Narco group built a raft to float a pickup truck across the Rio Grande River near Brownsville. The raft was constructed of blue 55-gallon drums and plywood, and it got the truck safely across. Upon reaching our side of the river, the pickup sped off through an open gate in the border wall. The driver then noticed Border Patrol and State Police trucks waiting for him on the levee once he cleared the wall, so he turned around and drove right back into the river.

You have to give these dope smugglers an A for effort, but an F for planning

Several Mexican nationals then swam to the truck to recover some of the bundles of drugs; the rest floated downstream and were retrieved by the Border Patrol. The large bundles contained marijuana, which raises questions. Thanks to American ingenuity, weed in the form of delta eight and delta 10 THC is (for the time being) legal in Texas. Delta 9 is the high-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol found in legalized weed, but Deltas 8 and 10 will get the job done, especially in smokable concentrates, vapes, or ingested via gummies, drinks, or brownies.

Potent THC hemp derivatives blindsided Texas lawmakers, who claim they legalized hemp for industrial purposes, not psychoactive gummies, so this September, the multimillion-dollar industry built on hemp buds is scheduled for eradication. I’ve gone from supporting THC products as a safe alternative to alcohol to acknowledging that THC is an addictive drug that robs one’s vitality and drive while being difficult to quit. The only safe alternative to alcohol is not drinking alcohol. Still, I’m not sure closing the hemp weed loophole is the best idea because it will encourage Mexicans to build flimsy rafts and float pick-up trucks across the Rio Grande River. The Rio Grande is polluted enough, so adding trucks and whatever was in the blue plastic drums to the water is Eso no es bueno. For readers who do not live in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), I’m obliged to inform you that it is never correct to say “no bueno.”

Why did the weed smugglers go to all that trouble when the market for shitty Mexican weed is so depressed? Granted, the border appears unguarded because illegal crossings are now rare, but the Border Patrol isn’t stupid. They watch the open gates in the wall and have a Tethered Aerostat Radar Systems (TARS) and Ground-Based Operational Surveillance Systems (GBOSS), both of which can see a long way. The federales claim the TARS is used for detecting aircraft, but I watched a contractor using one at Combat Outpost Lonestar in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan to smoke check a few miscreants. He had observed three dudes planning an IED on the road leading to Tora Bora and summoned a soldier from the fire direction center, who dropped some 155mm artillery on them. The TARS system can see plenty on the ground, just like the smaller GBOSS.

Tethered Aerostat Radar System Site Lajas, Puerto Rico. Photographer: Donna Burton

Even when the border looks empty, there are plenty of eyes watching it, and they don’t miss much.

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were a constant menace for me in Afghanistan, and they have now made an appearance in the RGV. Last February, a local rancher, Antonio Céspedes Saldierna, was killed by an IED on the Mexican side of the border near Brownsville. Mr. Saldierna, like many RGV ranchers, has property on both sides of the border and was traveling to his Mexican Hacienda when he hit the IED. His son, Ramiro Céspedes, an army vet who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was injured in the blast. An IED that kills the driver but not his son or wife, who were in the truck with him, isn’t much of an IED. I assume the Gulf Cartel has yet to tap into terrorist expertise from Afghanistan or Iraq. Mexico imports tons of calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which is easily converted into a powerful homemade explosive.

Ammonium nitrate IEDs with simple, easily fabricated pressure plates. These were recovered in Nimroz Province, Afghanistan. It is only a matter of time before these are deployed in Mexico and the United States.

In a recent interview on Chuck Holton’s Hot Zone podcast, Mexican Journalist Oscar Ramirez claimed that the Arellano-Félix Cartel in Tijuana has already imported Taliban from Afghanistan to train them on tunnel digging and IED construction. It’s just a matter of time before we start seeing the boom in Mexico and on this side of the border. It’s more effective than throwing children into the Rio Grande River (a routine occurrence during the FJB administration) to distract American law enforcement so they can complete their nefarious missions.

Our side of the border is like a ghost town, while Mexico is filling with ghosts. Last Tuesday, Ximena Guzmán, the personal secretary to the mayor of Mexico City, Clara Brugada, and José Muñoz, a municipal advisor, were shot and killed in the Moderna neighborhood of Mexico City. It has been five years since there was a high-profile assassination in Mexico City. That shootout was triggered when sicarios from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) ambushed the chief of police.

Murders on busy streets in broad daylight are depressingly common south of the border—photograph by Teun Voeten from his book Drug War in Mexico.

This hit indirectly targeted La Presidencia, Claudia Sheinbaum. It's a safe bet that one of the Sinaloa cartels carried it out, targeting associates of allies of President Sheinbaum because they are afraid to target her directly. It is an undeniable fact (according to my Blanco Brujos neighbor, who knows things) that she's a powerful Negros Brujos. I, too, am afraid of her after she flooded out the RGV in a 3-hour supernaturally powerful rainstorm.

The following day, protestors from Reynosa closed the international bridge connecting their city to Pharr, Texas. They were protesting the disappearance of five musicians from the Grupo Fugitivo band, who may or may not have been writing and performing narco corridos. Corridos are ballads that portray powerful Narcos as Robin Hood-like figures. Singing Narco corridos songs in Mexico is now illegal. Not singing Narco corridos in Mexico is deadly. A few days after the protests, the bodies of the five men were found outside Reynosa.

Luis R. Conriquez, a 28-year-old Sonoran singer with hundreds of millions of views on YouTube

I've been told the mark of a true gentleman is one who can play the accordion—and doesn't. I'm not a fan of regional Mexican folk music, but those guys have it hard. President Trump, probably acting under a spell cast by Mexico's chief Curandero, President Sheinbaum, won't give corridor bands visas so they can't rake in the big bucks playing venues in San Antonio, Houston, or Robstown. If they play their original ballads in Mexico, they'll get arrested. If they don't play them, they'll be disappeared. It's not like they can turn themselves into American law enforcement, confess to playing the accordion, and request asylum.

When Conriquez announced he would no longer sing Narco Corridos or corridos belicos (warlike ballads - a term he invented), his fans in Texcoco rioted, ran him and his band out of town, smashed their drum set and amplifiers, but didn't trash his accordions. Can you believe that?

There are over 124,000 Mexicans listed as disappeared by Mexican authorities. Seven women go missing every day in Mexico. The usual fate for these poor souls is rape, torture, and a gruesome death. Protests and vigils by the family and friends of the missing are a near-daily occurrence, as is the discovery of mass graves, illegal crematoriums, or acid bath operations. There are thousands of heartbreaking stories about mothers dedicating their lives to organizations like Madres Buscadoras (searching mothers).

Cecilia Flores, a member of the "Searching Mothers of Sonora and Jalisco" group. Photo from Israel Fuguemann of NPR

The earliest known madre buscadora is Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, whose son Jesús Piedra Ibarra was forcibly disappeared in 1974. These women lead teams of volunteers on searches throughout Mexico for mass graves, and they stage protests at government offices or popular border crossings. They garner their share of sympathetic international press, but this has been going on for over 50 years and it is obvious the powerful elites of Mexico don’t give a damn about them or their missing children.

The last known photo of 18-year-old Debanhi Escobar, which went viral and was featured on the front page of many Mexican newspapers after she was kidnapped in April 2022.

The elites might give a damn now because Marco Rubio has quietly put them in a very uncomfortable position that will cost them the one thing they care about: money.

Our Department of State is revoking the US visas of Mexican politicians, police, and military officers linked to the Narco cartels and/or fuel theft rings. I have never seen our State Department working for the interests of the American people, or the Mexican people, for that matter. They have always pursued their own progressive globalist agenda, but now their agenda seems to be President Trump’s agenda, and President Trump is putting the American people first.

The most common drug war trope from Mexico is that America's thirst for drugs fuels the drug war. That is nonsense. What Americans have is lots of money to pay exorbitant rates for drugs. Countries like Mexico don't have people with much disposable income but they still have plenty of junkies who pay fire sale prices for the same poison that is smuggled into el norte. photograph by Teun Voeten

He is also lending a hand to La Presidencia, Sheinbaum, by placing pressure on bad actors. Not having an American Visa is, for the wealthy elites of Mexico, a serious problem. Being on an American revoked visa list negatively impacts banking and investment, hurts business relationships, and international credibility. I am not implying that every rich Mexican national has amassed their wealth illegally; that would be rude. There must be a way to accumulate millions of dollars in Mexico legally. . . I guess, but check out the names that have been published in the press:

• Marina del Pilar Ávila, Baja California governor

• Américo Villarreal, Tamaulipas governor

• Rubén Rocha Moya, Sinaloa governor

• Alfonso Durazo, Sonora governor

• Samuel García, Nuevo León governor

• Layda Sansores, Campeche governor

• Mario Delgado, federal Education Secretary

• Ricardo Monreal and Adán Augusto López, Morena power players

• Several mayors from Tamaulipas and Chihuahua

• At least four high-ranking generals

According to the Gringo Gazette Alberto Granados, the mayor of Matamoros, had his visa revoked while attempting to cross into Brownsville. He denied it. But the story didn’t go away.

The Mexican elite can find other countries to bank their wealth, educate their children, and purchase vacation properties. But the modern, enjoyable, safe, and investment-friendly places like Dubai or Singapore are off-limits to them. Those countries, mui eso no es bueno, the drug business. If they’re on the State Department shit list I doubt many European tax havens would welcome them either.

Will putting the soft power screws to the monied elites change anything in Mexico? Who knows, but the cartels are losing tons of money and the head Negros Brujos is keeping the pressure on them. Mexican Marines have been raiding “mega drug labs” in Sinaloa for months now, seizing tons of methamphetamine. Fentanyl seizures are plummeting at the border, although it is unclear why. Illegal border crossings are down 94%, and it is very clear why. The big question is how long the cartels will continue to lose money before they start getting dangerously desperate and resort to powerful IEDs for leverage in Mexico and revenge in the USA.