National Drug Intelligence Center   South Texas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2009   February 2009   UNCLASSIFIED

Strategic Drug Threat Developments

• The South Texas HIDTA region is a principal drug smuggling corridor along the U.S.-Mexico border. Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) use the region as a key transportation, transshipment, and distribution center for large quantities of cocaine as well as Mexican heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine.
   
• Large-scale methamphetamine and heroin smuggling routes appear to be shifting back to South Texas from other areas along the Southwest Border, such as Arizona and California. The amount of methamphetamine and heroin seized in the South Texas HIDTA region increased significantly in 2008 after declining in 2007. This shift may be the result of DTOs seeking to avoid the violence-prone smuggling corridors of Tijuana, Baja California, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and steering more smuggling operations through the states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
   
• Mexican DTOs, particularly the Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel, and their enforcement arm, Los Zetas, are expanding the use of South Texas-based prison gangs and street gangs such as Mexikanemi, Texas Syndicate, and Valluco Soldiers as well as individual gang members from various gangs in their drug trafficking operations. These drug traffickers also hire gangs and gang members to perform home invasion robberies, commit burglaries, and collect drug debts throughout the South Texas border area.

HIDTA Overview

The South Texas HIDTA region is one of the most strategically important drug smuggling corridors in use by drug traffickers. It shares a longer portion of the international border with Mexico--625 miles--than does any other Southwest Border HIDTA region. It encompasses 14 counties--13 located adjacent to the U.S.-Mexico border--in South Texas. Much of the South Texas HIDTA region is sparsely populated; the largest populations are concentrated in San Antonio (Bexar County), Del Rio/Eagle Pass (Val Verde and Maverick Counties, respectively), Laredo (Webb County), and McAllen/Brownsville (Hidalgo and Cameron Counties, respectively). Despite the limited population in this area, the South Texas HIDTA region influences national-level drug trafficking and drug availability more than any other area along the U.S.-Mexico border. Brownsville, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Laredo, McAllen, and San Antonio are the major transportation and distribution centers in the South Texas HIDTA region; smaller border communities such as Rio Grande City and Roma also are significant transshipment zones and distribution centers for illicit drug shipments destined for drug markets in every region of the country.

The combination of vast stretches of remote, sparsely populated land and extensive cross-border economic activity at designated ports of entry (POEs) creates an environment conducive to large-scale drug smuggling. Few physical barriers exist between POEs to impede drug traffickers, particularly Mexican DTOs, from smuggling illicit drug shipments into the United States from Mexico. Along many areas of the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas, the Rio Grande River can be easily breached by smugglers on foot or in vehicles, enabling Mexican DTOs to smuggle multikilogram quantities of illicit drugs, primarily marijuana and cocaine, into the United States. In addition, drug traffickers can easily conceal drug shipments among the high volume of legitimate cross-border traffic at the region's POEs, creating significant challenges for area law enforcement officers. The thousands of private vehicles, commercial tractor-trailers, and pedestrians that cross the U.S.-Mexico border daily provide ideal cover for drug smuggling operations.

The South Texas HIDTA region is vulnerable to both overland and maritime drug smuggling activity. Overland transportation, including the use of private and commercial vehicles, is the primary drug smuggling and transportation method used by traffickers operating in the South Texas HIDTA region; however, maritime smuggling operations are also quite common. Mexican drug traffickers often launch maritime smuggling operations from Tamaulipas, Mexico, using fishing vessels, shrimp boats, and shark boats (lanchas) to transport illicit drug shipments to locations along the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), Padre Island National Seashore (PINS), and South Padre Island (SPI). Upon arriving in these areas, Mexican traffickers typically transfer drug shipments to waiting vehicles or bury them in sand dunes for retrieval at a later time. Additionally, law enforcement officers in these areas commonly discover bundles of marijuana and cocaine that have washed ashore from maritime smuggling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Traffickers also exploit Lake Amistad and the Lake Amistad National Recreation Area, which straddle the U.S.-Mexico border in Val Verde County, for maritime drug smuggling; traffickers using pleasure craft reportedly deliver drug shipments to boat ramps on the Texas side of the lake.

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