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The Traffic of Black Gold on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Compliance in Human Trafficking?

Viable Alternatives to Discriminatory Anti-Gang Laws

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The Traffic of Black Gold on the U.S.-Mexico Border

The theft of gas and other oil products is a relatively new crime that in just a few years has become a serious threat to Mexico’s financial stability.

The crime involves both drug cartels and corrupt government officials in Mexico and an undetermined number of oil refineries and companies in the US who have been willing to buy such stolen fuel.

Fuel trafficking has grown exponentially and has been linked to Mexican drug cartels whose infrastructure and criminal webs of corruption in governmental offices has streamlined the flow of this stolen goods across the border.

Just Tuesday, the US government awarded 2.4 million dollars to Mexico as part of a settlement in a case where a small refinery in Houston was found guilty of having imported stolen fuel from across the border.

This crime is where drug cartels are now diversifying their activities into fuel theft especially grave for Mexico, because, as president Felipe Calderón admitted recently oil administered by government owned company Pemex is the source of 40% of the federal income in Mexico.

According to Mexican authorities the majority of thefts can be attributed to the now famous group of gunmen “Zetas” the most violent arm of the Golf Cartel, apparently in charge of the transport and distribution of the stolen fuel inside Mexico but also into the United States and Central and South America.

The names of American companies currently under investigation for the purchase of stolen fuel has not been revealed by Federal US authorities but it is well known that “big names” are responsible in making stolen products available to US consumer gas tanks.

Both the US and Mexican governments are working together and earlier in 2009 Mexican authorities froze 149 bank accounts with millions of dollars, believed to be a result of the illicit sell of gas, diesel and crude oil products by “Zetas.”

An on July 30th, retired army general Miguel Estrada Martínez, head of Pemex Segurity was arrested by Federal Police accused of aiding in the fuel robbery operation.

Along with Estrada, many of his aides and workers were also questioned, computers and cell phones were seized in the hopes of finding sufficient evidence to prosecute them as having clear links between public officials and this organized crime groups.

But despite arrests the loss in fuel theft has reached new heights.

The stolen fuel market has been on the steady rise since 2007 as Pemex security officials find more illegal takes every year.

According to Pemex numbers,190 illegal takes where found in the first semester of 2009, where at least 2 million and 88 thousand fuel barrels where taken, marking an astonishing 10% increase in comparison to the same period just last year.

Pemex data analysis suggests 44.2% of the takes where found in Veracruz, 28 % in Mexico State but many others where found in Hidalgo, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Tlaxcala, Durango, Querétaro, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Puebla and Baja California.

Source: La Prensa San Diego

Author: Mariana Martinez

Compliance in Human Trafficking?

Ever wonder where traffickers advertise their victims? Turns out it’s in one of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers - The Washington Post. Advertisements for massage parlors that are often fronts for brothels selling trafficked women are run in The Post every day, despite the fact that the publication has reported on human trafficking in massage parlors. You can tell The Washington Post to stop making money off exploitation!

During my tenure at Polaris Project, a non-governmental organization combating modern-day slavery, we’ve worked with dozens of women who’ve been victims of human trafficking within brothels disguised as massage parlors. Almost all of the women from commercially-fronted brothels we’ve worked with in the DC area have been victimized in locations that have been advertised in The Washington Post’s Sports section.

These women are often offered legitimate jobs, but then forced into prostitution. Many are unable to leave the brothel. Several are threatened with gang violence and others are threatened with harm to family members if they tried to leave. Some women are in debt bondage, and most have experienced some type of sexual violence or coercion from customers frequenting the brothels. All of them want to escape.

I picked up yesterday’s paper and saw that while there were only six advertisements for commercial sex-oriented parlors and spas in the Sports section, The Washington Post was still accepting such ads. I attribute the decrease in overall ads (which was up to 35 at one of its high points in 2002) mostly to the work of the DC Task Force on Human Trafficking and the general state of the economy.

In 2006, even the Ombudsman of The Washington Post, Deborah Howell, agreed that the paper should join the Los Angeles Times and its peers- The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe- by not facilitating the sexual exploitation of women through these advertisements.

Author: Katherine Chon

Source: Change.org

Viable Alternatives to Discriminatory Anti-Gang Laws

In Washington DC the gang “Mara Salvatrucha” M-13 has consistently made the front page of local newspapers with traumatic headlines.  Here and all over the nation, the public has responded to this kind of media coverage by passing anti-gang legislation. 

There is good news however– studies conducted by several Juvenile Justice Organizations have revealed falling youth homicide and youth crime rates. In light of these results, lawmakers and affected communities should carefully consider the implications of anti-gang laws, as they often disproportionately discriminate against youth of color. If anti-gang laws stereotype youth based on skin color and neighborhood, they may over time have the undesired effect of driving youth back to gangs where they feel they can belong.

To learn more about successful alternatives to anti-gang laws, visit NCLR’s site by clicking here .