Outlook

The role and importance of the South Texas HIDTA in drug trafficking and national-level drug distribution are likely to increase as Mexican DTOs assume greater control over U.S. drug markets. As DTOs based and operating in South Texas continue to expand to these market areas, the amount of illicit drugs that they smuggle through the area will quite likely increase, in large part as a result of the HIDTA region's location at the eastern end of the U.S.-Mexico border and its proximity to key distribution centers and drug markets in midwestern, eastern, and southeastern states.

The effectiveness of recent border security measures, including the implementation of Operation Jump Start, the opening of the Laredo Checkpoint on I-35, and the allocation of additional Border Patrol resources, as well as the extradition of Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, will most likely have a direct effect on the level of violence along the border and within the South Texas HIDTA region. Mexican traffickers will most likely increase the use of violent tactics against Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement personnel in the area in an attempt to frustrate the effectiveness of these measures and to ensure safe passage of their drug shipments into and through the area.

The South Texas HIDTA, specifically the port of Laredo, may experience an increase in rail smuggling in the next 3 to 5 years. Two of Mexico's primary Pacific coast ports--Manzanillo, Colima, and Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacán--are undergoing expansions to accommodate increased container traffic from Asian countries. The port of Lazaro Cardenas is part of an extensive intermodal transportation network that will connect the port with Kansas City, Missouri, via Laredo, Texas. The rail lines connecting these two locations transit the Mexican states of Colima, Jalisco, and Michoacán, three of the major methamphetamine production areas in Mexico. Once the transportation systems are fully operational, the amount of illicit drugs, primarily methamphetamine, smuggled by rail through Laredo may increase.

Methamphetamine smuggling through South Texas will very likely continue and may increase. According to National Seizure System data, South Texas ranked behind only California in the amount of methamphetamine seized within approximately 150 miles of the border in 2005 and seized approximately the same amount as Arizona in 2006, which ranked second to California. Any change in methamphetamine smuggling trends through South Texas will most likely be dictated not only by a growing demand in Texas but also by the growing demand for Mexican methamphetamine in central, eastern, and southeastern U.S. drug markets.

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