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A Mexican heroin cartel and social media

Friday, Sep 20, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* A big hat tip to a commenter for pointing me to this NPR story about one of the roots of Chicago’s street violence. John Lippert is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg Markets magazine. Lippert spoke with Steve Inskeep of NPR about how Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, who heads the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel, gained a monopoly on heroin sales in Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest…

LIPPERT: And another interesting element of that is that he chose Chicago for exactly the same reason that, you know, Montgomery Ward flourished in Chicago, or Sears flourished in Chicago, because it’s a crossroads of the Midwest. It always has been. It’s a transportation hub.

INSKEEP: What practical effect has that had on the streets of Chicago? What does it matter who the supplier of the heroin is if people are taking it?

LIPPERT: He’s a monopoly supplier now, so it used to be when the mega-gangs had discipline and when they were sending their people down to the border to buy drugs, they had a choice of suppliers. But Guzman himself is saying, okay, here’s what I’m willing to charge for heroin in the city of Chicago. So he’s personally dictating and there’s less of an economic pie because the monopoly supplier is taking off a bigger share and so there’s just more competition.

There’s more pressure. If you want to expand your sales, you have to expand your street corners. You know, you have to physically take street corners, which is a violent act. So the fact that there is less discipline among these gangs and less money for them to make fuels the competition between them and fuels the violence.

* Meanwhile, Wired took a look at how social media is fueling Chicago’s murder rate…

There’s a term sometimes used for a gangbanger who stirs up trouble online: Facebook driller. He rolls out of bed in the morning, rubs his eyes, picks up his phone. Then he gets on Facebook and starts insulting some person he barely knows, someone in a rival crew. It’s so much easier to do online than face-to-face. Soon someone else takes a screenshot of the post and starts passing it around. It’s one thing to get cursed out in front of four or five guys, but online the whole neighborhood can see it—the whole city, even. So the target has to retaliate just to save face. And at that point, the quarrel might be with not just the Facebook driller a few blocks away but also haters 10 miles north or west who responded to the post. What started as a provocation online winds up with someone getting drilled in real life.

More…

Even for an outsider,the online gangosphere isn’t difficult to enter. Sites like TheHoodUp.com and StreetGangs.com host message boards where gangsters openly swap tips and tricks: how much an ounce of weed is worth, how to bribe a cop or judge. Videos from ChiTownBangn and Gang Bang City Ent. look like the thug-life version of Girls Gone Wild, the cameras inspiring kids to act out vicious caricatures of themselves. WorldStarHipHop.com has become a clearinghouse for amateur fight videos, with guys often shouting “Worldstar!” as they record themselves administering beatings or film someone else being pummeled; the site even puts together best-of-the-week fight compilations.

On YouTube, search for the name of any gang or clique, or better yet the name plus “killa” (“Vice Lord Killa,” “Latin Kings Killa”), and you can quickly find yourself on just about any block in gangland America. In these videos, guys proudly proclaim their allegiance into the camera, shouting out tributes to their gang and even announcing their own names and aliases. People in the videos often light up a joint or flash a gun tucked in their waistband while bragging to the camera that they know the police are watching.

* The CPD response…

Gang enforcement officers in Chicago started looking closely at social media sites about three years ago, after learning that high school students were filming fights in the hallways and alcoves of their schools and posting the videos online. Boudreau tells me that they began to hear about fight videos going on YouTube during the day, and then they would often see a related shooting later in the afternoon. In the department’s deployment operations center, the other unit in the force that regularly monitors social media activity, officers first took notice when they read in the newspaper about a West Side gang member who was using the Internet to find out about enemies being released from prison. But “virtual policing” became a priority only after kids aligned with local cliques started calling each other out in rap videos.

Much of this police work is reactive. In the same way that flyers taped to light poles used to announce parties, news of a big gathering is now posted online, and officers move into position based on that intel. Other times guys will say point-blank that they’re going to kill someone. “We’re like, oh sh*t, we better put some police there because this is about to set off,” an officer in deployment operations says. When people brag about a crime they’ve already committed, detectives use that as yet another investigative tool, assuming that online admissions alone won’t hold up in court. (Though in one successful case, a Cincinnati district attorney was able to introduce thousands of pieces of online evidence of suspects appearing beside guns, drugs, and one another to establish a criminal conspiracy.)

But over time, the cops’ approach to social media has become more entrepreneurial. The police in Chicago now actively look for inflammatory comments around specific dates: the anniversary of a homicide, say, or the birthday of a slain gang member, the sorts of events that have often incited renewed rounds of violence. They also use information collected from public sites to add to their knowledge about the hundreds of cliques and sets operating in the city, cataloging the members, affiliations, beefs, and geographic boundaries. […]

In New York City, where the number of homicides is now the lowest since it started keeping crime statistics 50 years ago, the NYPD credits much of its recent success to monitoring online gang activity. The department determined that street-crew members, by and large teenagers, were responsible for a vastly disproportionate share of the violent crimes in the city. And so last year it launched Operation Crew Cut, which is doubling the number of detectives in its gang division to 300, with many of the additional officers focusing specifically on social media sites. The result, authorities say, has been a steep drop in retaliatory violence, as the police have been able to identify clashes and step in before they escalate. “Any tweet might hold the identities of the next potential victim and perpetrator,” NYPD deputy commissioner Paul Browne says.

Go read the whole thing. Hat tip: OneMan.

…Adding… Rep. Ed Sullivan passed legislation way back in 2007 to establish a pilot program for a State Police Internet Gang Crime Unit. From Sully…

I was working with some local law enforcement folks that were seeing a proliferation of gangs using the internet to organize and further their gang operations. Real good legislation that could have made a difference but we could never get funding. The Governor’s people didn’t think it was worthy.

Sullivan then passed a bill to extend the pilot program’s sunset date. But the administration never did anything.

34 Comments

- Not today - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 11:45 am:
It’s The Wire in real life. You can learn a lot by watching that too.

- Rich Miller - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 11:48 am:
What bothers me most about this post is that the news sources aren’t Chicago-based.

The Chicago media has been almost purely reactive and sensationalistic in its reporting. We get the who, what and where, but we need lots more informed and thoughtful “why” from them.

- 47th Ward - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 11:50 am:
I guess it was only a matter of time before social media was tapped into by those who behave like animals. The rap culture is really sick if this is the lifestyle it seeks to glorify. Is it a reflection of the violence or a cause?

What is wrong with these people?

- Mason born - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 11:51 am:
Why is a confession on-line not admisable in court?

I am glad the CPD is capitalizing on this.

- Rich Miller - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:00 pm:
===What is wrong with these people? ===

Back during the West Coast vs. East Coast rap wars, it occurred to me that the gangbangers at the bottom of the scale lived in communities with basically nothing to offer. So, they latched onto something bigger than themselves, a real war, with famous figureheads, where the possibility of being shot was an hourly reality. They became, in essence, soldiers and bonded closely with their “brothers in arms,” which gave them a purpose in life that they couldn’t get elsewhere in their own communities.

It’s unbelievably frustrating to watch this happen, but I do get the mindset up to a point. And once they’ve gone over, I don’t know how society gets them back on track until they finally burn out, as soldiers eventually do (or die).

Maybe international conflict resolution specialists can offer some advice. That may sound crazy, but this looks very much like a regional civil war fueled by drug money, being fought by people who look at themselves as soldiers, without training or responsible leadership.

- Anon - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:01 pm:
Had one of these videos made a few blocks from my house.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxQiN6ouaVI

Apparently several arrests have been made based on the video for firearm parole violations.

- 47th Ward - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:05 pm:
I clicked on a couple of the Chicago You Tube sites. Very depressing stuff. Rich, I think you’re right about the soldier mentality, but it leaves me feeling like there is nothing that can be done to change this culture of violence.

- cod - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:11 pm:
- Rich Miller said on Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 11:48 am:
“The Chicago media has been almost purely reactive and sensationalistic in its reporting. We get the who, what and where, but we need lots more informed and thoughtful “why” from them.”

In my experience, the Chicago-based media rarely gets the who, what, and where right.

- Jimmy CrackCorn - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:13 pm:
Chicago Magazine also did yeomen’s work this month on the supply chain: http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2013/Sinaloa-Cartel/

And I just watched a half-hour documentary on BIO based on this Mick Dumke’s story: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/gang-violence-heroin-new-breeds-vice-lords/Content?oid=8761736

I thought I had a sense of the problem. But, I didn’t realize how involved Sinaloa had become in the street level distribution, and how critical Chicago was to their overall operation.

- wordslinger - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:13 pm:
One of the biggest open-air heroin markets in the Midwest is located in the area of Columbus Park in Austin.

Folks from all over — suburbs, Downstate, Wisconsin, Iowa — hop off the Ike and cop. Often, they wander into the relative safety of my neighborhood in Oak Park to shoot or snort.

My local paper routinely has reports of some fools being arrested on the nod in their cars.

Over the years, I’ve called the coppers twice to pick up some idiots nodded off in their running cars in front of my house.

- The Captain - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:14 pm:
Check out this very long read on the Sinaloa Cartel in next month’s Chicago Magazine “Why Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel Loves Selling Drugs in Chicago”. It’s a bit about the history, a bit about the rise and fall of some of the people involved and a bit about how the operation works but it also paints a much more complex picture of the connection between drugs and guns and gangs and violence than maybe you’re used to. Here’s the snippet on how the connection between the cartel/gangs/drugs/violence is complicated:

Like the top cartel bosses, the Flores brothers rarely handled the drugs themselves. Rather, they arranged for handoffs to smaller wholesalers who would sell bulk quantities down the drug chain. Nor did the twins personally deal with street-level dealers—a popular misconception reinforced by police and drug enforcement officials, who often link the cartels to the city’s gangs and the deadly violence they perpetrate.

Law enforcement’s logic seems to be that because Mexican cartels supply nearly all of Chicago’s drugs, and because the gang members who peddle the drugs are responsible for 80 percent of the murders and shootings in the city, the cartels are responsible for bringing the violence of the drug wars in Mexico to the streets of Chicago.

But are drug cartels the primary cause of Chicago’s violent crime problem? Some criminologists say—and simple logic suggests—that they’re not. Pressed for a specific example of a direct cartel-to-gang pipeline, Andrew Bryant of the narcotics division of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office concedes: “I can’t give you a chain all the way from the top to the bottom.” The connections between a cartel and street gangs, he says, are very loose.

More:

As one senior member of the Latin Kings puts it: “This is far more complicated than a bunch of Mexicans getting together and bringing drugs into Chicago.” He calls the link between the Flores brothers and the streets the “gray area” of the drug trade.

It appears that no one involved in the Flores brothers’ huge narcotics ring had strong ties, if any at all, to Chicago gangs. The twins employed old friends from the neighborhood, not gang members. Antonio Aguilera, for one, was a boyhood friend of the twins’ older brother. Jorge Llamas rescued Margarito Flores from a beating when they were teenagers. Other crew members were brought in by friends or friends of friends.

Violence is bad for business; it scares away customers. A 2000 study by University of Chicago economics professor Steven Levitt and Columbia University sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh found that the availability of drugs and their prices fell by 20 to 30 percent during gang conflicts. Which is why the drug trade has actually unified rival gangs, or at least pushed some into an imperfect détente, says Brian Sexton, head of the narcotics unit at the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. “They’ve realized that . . . if I can sell you dope, and you can sell it, and I can keep selling you dope, and I’m making money, what do I care about Folks or Peoples?”

More:

A lot of the murders and shootings that the police call “gang related” aren’t tied to actual gang activity, according to criminologists and police sources. The offender or victim may be in a gang, but the dispute was a personal one.

One classic study by the Chicago sociologists Richard and Carolyn Block examined gang homicides from 1987 to 1994—the height of the crack wars and a period when gang violence soared. The Blocks found that just 3 percent of the gang-motivated homicides were drug related. “The connection between street gangs, drugs, and homicide was weak,” they said.

Similarly, the Mexican cartels seem to have tried to minimize violence on this side of the border. Michael Clancy, a defense attorney for Ron Collins, a regular wholesale customer of the Flores twins, says he was a bit surprised to see how nonviolent the whole operation was. “It was strange,” he says, “to see such a big drug organization that didn’t have any acts of violence. I mean, there was nothing even close to a violent act in anything involving the twins’ organization.”

The couriers who later testified said that the twins forbade them to carry guns. Few couriers had prior convictions. Nicholas Roti, the chief of the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Organized Crime, says that the cartel operatives try to stay “very low key.” He adds, “This is their retail outlet; they don’t want to mess this up.”

So much money was flowing in that perhaps exacting violent retribution just wasn’t worth the effort. Explains Clancy: “If someone rips you off or someone stiffs you on 50 kilos, [do] you go out and do an act of violence against that guy and bring a bunch of heat on you and your organization? Let it go. You’ll sell another 50 kilos tomorrow.” (That number is entirely possible. In signed affidavits, the Flores twins said they moved upward of 46 tons of Sinaloa-supplied cocaine into Chicago between 2006 and 2008. That’s roughly 1,700 kilos a month.)

Go read the whole thing, it’s pretty eye-opening.

- thechampaignlife - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:21 pm:
Some jobs, opportunities, and healthy outlets would go a long way.

- dupage dan - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:23 pm:
Can it be, Rich, that the Tribune has a different agenda? Their posting of the ongoing violence and the questionning of the city on what to do is, I think, part of their campaign to lay this on Mayor Emanuel and shape the next election. Plus, splashy headlines are easier to print - big ones take up space that would otherwise be filled with the writings of reporters - and that costs money the Tribune just doesn’t have anymore.

- dupage dan - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:25 pm:
Hello, NYC PD? This is the Chicago PD calling. Hey, can we talk?

- shore - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:27 pm:
a few weeks ago you noted the highly respected carol marin’s comment about liking kirk dillard on facebook. I guess that and this and so many other examples demonstrate why workers over 30 who didn’t grow up with AOL instant messenger and friendster and cell phones absolutely have to be engaged and aware of these tools. The “it’s not my generations deal” and “I don’t get it” aren’t really excuses. Every day more and more younger workers/news subjects like these bangers enter the workforce world -there are interns now who probably don’t ever remember the world without the internet who use these tools and these stories are another reminder of how + why they’re so essential to know.

There isn’t a lot depth or racial/socio-economic /political diversity to chicago media at all. It’s basically 400 versions of people who think/live like eric zorn, are afraid to criticize the economic/political establishment of the city and don’t get beyond the surface on any issues like this.

- Amalia - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:31 pm:
I don’t know why, we who live around or in Chicago, are surprised by any of this. For years, from the 1920s to the 1980s, there were mob wars, killings fueled by the business of alcohol and then drugs, and tons of family associates benefitted from the money from these enterprises and things that fell off a truck. There are still remnants of the mob around Chicago today. And the gangs function like the mob. I regard the gangs in the same way that I do anything mob related…..I detest them and want to stay away from them and want them to be arrested and prosecuted for their illegal actions. I reject the notion that the way to solve the problem is primarily by social programs. There are plenty of people who are poor who are not involved in any of these enterprises, just like not everyone who is poor and Italian or Italian and well off in Chicagoland is a mob associate. Provide good schools and parks for all citizens. Pursue criminals everywhere with vigor.

- ChrisB - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:34 pm:
@Rich ==What bothers me most about this post is that the news sources aren’t Chicago-based.==

That’s not entirely true. Chicago Magazine did a more indepth story about the Sinaloa cartel.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/October-2013/Sinaloa-Cartel/

While we’re on the subject, “Gang Leader for a Day” is a fascinating read. Doesn’t totally explain what’s going on right now, but it does demolish some stereotypes that exist.

- ChrisB - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:36 pm:
Welp, that’s embarrassing.

- ChicagoDem - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:46 pm:
It’s a shame so many resources are being spent on such a small % of people causing all the problems. Perhaps someone should tell people like old dinosaurs like Bobby Rush that the only solution to the problem, same solution he has been proposing for 40 years, is “more government programs” for these kids “who have nothing to do.” Or that poverty is the root cause for the all the violence. POTUS has often said, poverty is no excuse for the lawlessness and disrespect for life. Rich may be right. The soldier mentality runs a mock amongst these gangs. Perhaps it’s time for the National Guard to get involved.

- Rich Miller - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:48 pm:
===Perhaps it’s time for the National Guard to get involved.===

Unless you plan on killing a whole lot of people and being stuck there forever, sending in the National Guard to quell what looks like a civil war prolly ain’t a great idea.

- Darienite - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 12:51 pm:
The book Freakonomics has a chapter dealing with the organizational structure of a street gang and how the run their territory. The leaders of these gangs are very astute people in terms of managing their staffs.

- MrJM - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 1:20 pm:
Perhaps it’s time for the National Guard to get involved.

As a former Guardsman, that strikes me as a spectacularly terrible idea.

– MrJM

- Tax Man - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 1:29 pm:
Heroin should be delivered free of charge in clinics.

Heroin use will decline dramatically.

Look to Europe.

- Marie - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 1:30 pm:
We are now the heroin cap of the country - and overdoses/deaths are increasing greatly - the heroin highway has really been picking up - and as you would have seen 70 deaths in DuPage County since the beginning of 2012 - 15 deaths from July 1 to July 15th this year for DuPage - the situation is out of control

- bored now - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 1:39 pm:
we noticed these links in chicago heights…

- Soccermom - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 1:49 pm:
I thought I was categorically opposed to drone strikes. But if they were headed towards the Sinaloa leadership…

(I know I know — due process, etc. I am just horrified and heartsick)

- LincolnLounger - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 2:17 pm:
I find myself alternately fascinated and horrified. Thanks for posting. I hadn’t seen any of this and have been baffled by the heroin epidemic.

- walkinfool - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 2:37 pm:
Good stuff, Rich

- ChicagoDem - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 2:39 pm:
Getting The National Guard involved in “civilian” issues would not be unprecedented in Chicago. Richard J. Daley brought in the Illinois/National Guard to quell the west riots in in ‘68.

- Shore - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 2:47 pm:
“Internet gang unit”-glad we’re starting to catch up to season 3 of the wire.

- Rich Miller - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 2:48 pm:
===Richard J. Daley brought in the Illinois/National Guard to quell the west riots in in ‘68.===

Not a great example for lots of reasons.

But riots are different than gangbanging violence. Riots involve generally concentrated groups of people and are therefore more easily dispersed. Gangbanger violence can erupt anywhere, anytime. It would be akin to sending the US Army into Syria.

- Rich Miller - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 2:49 pm:
Shore, the bill was passed six years ago.

- ChicagoDem - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 4:43 pm:
I’m not an authority on warfare, or what’s really going in the ground in Syria, but if 20 people are wounded and 2 people were shot-dead in the same night–not the first time this has happened–on July the 4th over 30 people were shot–And if it is obvious that the CPD is ill-equipped to deal with the situation, then we should look at other alternatives. Chicago gangs are terrorizing the south side. Let’s start thinking on these terms.

- Rod - Friday, Sep 20, 13 @ 4:54 pm:
There was a Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel killing very close to my home on the north side of Chicago. Maria Santiago was killed and her body set on fire in a garage on November 1st last year. The killers were two Mexican nationals who had been renting a unit in Ms. Santiago’s apartment building. The killers disappeared.

Every thing about the two killers indicated that they were Sinaloa operators including paying rent in cash and using assumed names. Ms. Santiago unfortunately took up drinking with these two operatives who she thought were nice guys and possibly discovered something she should not have. Needless to say Ms. Santiago’s murders have never been captured, in fact they may have been killed by the cartel and burned themselves. These guys really take no prisoners.

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