My Broad & Liberty Piece On The U.S. Treasury Department’s Report On Fentanyl-Related Threat Patterns

Broad & Liberty ran my piece on the Treasury Department’s report on drug trafficking.

You can read the piece via the link below or the text below:

 Paul Davis: The Treasury Department’s report on fentanyl-related threat patterns

I’ve covered the God-awful illegal drug centers in Kensington and South Philly here many times.

And as I’ve noted here before, I’ve toured the Kensington drug areas with a detective who has worked in the area for many years. The sad waste of life is apparent as one views the stooped, slouched and staggering drug addicts along the avenues. The drug-addled men and women, and sometimes just teenagers, are living in an unhealthy, filthy, and deadly existence on the city’s mean streets.      

The pathetic drug users in Philadelphia are supplied the drugs, including the deadly drug fentanyl, by local drug gangs. The drug gangs are in turn supplied the drugs by transnational drug cartels, who in turn are supplied the chemicals to make fentanyl by Communist China. 

Illegal drug trafficking, according to the Treasury Department, is big business.    

On April 9, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Financial Trend Analysis focused on patterns and trends identified in Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) data linked to fentanyl-related illicit finance. 

According to the Treasury Department, between January and December 2024, financial institutions filed 1,246 BSA reports that identified suspected fentanyl-related activity amounting to approximately $1.4 billion in suspicious transactions.

“The reported financial activity highlighted various aspects of the illicit fentanyl supply chain — including precursor chemical procurement, fentanyl trafficking, and fentanyl-linked money laundering — that have touchpoints across the U.S. financial sector,” the Treasury report noted. 

“As Treasury continues to prioritize combating the illegal production and trafficking of fentanyl, our public-private partnerships are vital,” said Scott Bessent, the Secretary of the Treasury. “As today’s analysis shows, the information we receive from financial institutions is a critical element in our ability to more effectively investigate and disrupt the malicious actors that profit off this unprecedented epidemic, and ultimately aids in the effort to save American lives.”

The Treasury Department explained that illicit fentanyl is primarily synthesized, trafficked, and smuggled into the United States by Mexican cartels. 

“The Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion — which are Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Specially Designated Global Terrorists, and Drug Trafficking Organizations — largely control the fentanyl supply chain from Mexico and use precursor chemicals and manufacturing equipment primarily sourced from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to synthesize illicit fentanyl in clandestine laboratories. FinCEN analysis identified Mexico and the PRC as the top two foreign countries listed in subject address fields of fentanyl-related BSA reports filed in 2024.”

The Treasury Department offered additional findings of FinCEN’s analysis that include:

·     The cartels and associated chemical brokers use front companies, money mules, and U.S.-based intermediaries to procure fentanyl precursor chemicals from PRC-based suppliers.

·     PRC-based chemical suppliers accept a wide range of payment methods and often leverage public advertisements, including e-commerce platforms, to market fentanyl precursor chemicals.

·     Fentanyl-related financial activity in the United States primarily involves subjects in populous states with large urban areas that have established drug distribution networks and serve as collection points for illicit proceeds, including a substantial number of subjects in southwest border counties in California and Arizona.

·     Domestic sales of fentanyl appeared to be conducted primarily in cash and peer-to-peer transfers, which were referenced in 54 and 51 percent of BSA reports, respectively.

·     Methods to launder suspected fentanyl proceeds varied in sophistication. BSA filers identified complex schemes, including the use of suspected Chinese money laundering organizations potentially facilitating the movement of illicit fentanyl proceeds on behalf of the cartels.

On June 20, 2024, the Treasury Department issued a “Supplemental Advisory on the Procurement of Precursor Chemicals and Manufacturing Equipment Used for the Synthesis of Illicit Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Opioids.”

“The opioid crisis continues to pose a significant threat to U.S. national security, economic prosperity, and communities, as illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids inflict an unprecedented epidemic of addiction and death across the nation,” the advisory explained. “According to provisional data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in December 2023, with over 74,000 of those deaths involving synthetic opioids, principally illicitly manufactured fentanyl.

“Many of these overdose deaths are the result of fentanyl poisonings, where the victims were unaware that other illicit drugs or counterfeit prescription medications they used contained lethal doses of fentanyl. The social and economic costs from these deaths are sobering, far-reaching, and unprecedented, as American communities lose generations of parents, children, friends, and other loved ones to these deadly drugs.”

On February 20, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that President Trump was declaring the drug traffickers to be terrorists.

“Today, the State Department is fulfilling one of President Trump’s first promises since he took office. I’m pleased to announce the Department’s designation of eight organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs),” Rubio stated. “As President Trump said in Executive Order 14157, cartels and other transnational organizations “threaten the safety of the American people, the security of the United States, and the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.

“The State Department announces the designation of Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Cártel de Sinaloa, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), La Nueva Familia Michoacana, Cártel de Golfo (Gulf Cartel), and Cárteles Unidos as FTOs and SDGTs. The intent of designating these cartels and transnational organizations as terrorists is to protect our nation, the American people, and our hemisphere. That means stopping the campaigns of violence and terror by these vicious groups both in the United States and internationally.  

“These designations provide law enforcement additional tools to stop these groups.” Terrorist designations play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective way to curtail support for terrorist activities. Today’s actions taken by the State Department demonstrate the Trump Administration’s commitment to protecting our national security interests and dismantling these dangerous organizations.”

President Trump and others have suggested that we may use U.S. military special operators or deadly drones to take out the leaders of the Mexican drug cartels. 

We sent in Navy SEALs to take out Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and we have used drones, aircraft, and U.S. special operators to take out terrorist leaders in other Middle Eastern countries, so perhaps we need to engage the Mexican drug lords, now designated as leaders of foreign terrorist organizations, by using deadly American military action.

Paul Davis, a Philadelphia writer and frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty, also contributes to Counterterrorism magazine and writes the “On Crime” column for the Washington Times. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com.       

Fast And Furious: The Scandal In Washington No One Is Talking About

Paul Sperry at the New York Post offers a piece on the Fast and Furious scandal.

The deadly-but-forgotten government gun-running scandal known as “Fast and Furious” has lain dormant for years, thanks to White House stonewalling and media compliance. But newly uncovered e-mails have reopened the case, exposing the anatomy of a coverup by an administration that promised to be the most transparent in history.

A federal judge has forced the release of more than 20,000 pages of emails and memos previously locked up under President Obama’s phony executive-privilege claim. A preliminary review shows top Obama officials deliberately obstructing congressional probes into the border gun-running operation.

Fast and Furious was a Justice Department program that allowed assault weapons — including .50-caliber rifles powerful enough to take down a helicopter — to be sold to Mexican drug cartels allegedly as a way to track them. But internal documents later revealed the real goal was to gin up a crisis requiring a crackdown on guns in America. Fast and Furious was merely a pretext for imposing stricter gun laws.

Only, the scheme backfired when Justice agents lost track of the nearly 2,000 guns sold through the program and they started turning up at murder scenes on both sides of the border — including one that claimed the life of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry (seen in the above photo).

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://nypost.com/2016/05/21/the-scandal-in-washington-no-one-is-talking-about/

An Unexpected Place For Lessons To Fight Mexico's Mafia: Italy

Robert Saviano, author of Gomorrah, offers his views on how to combat Mexican organized crime at Reuters.com.

At this moment, the fiercest, most powerful criminal organizations in the world are located in Mexico. Recent events should leave no one with any doubts.

On Sept. 26, 43 trainee teachers in the southwestern city of Iguala were abducted by the police and, according to the government, were most likely murdered by drug traffickers. Their deaths, which are the latest in a long list of bloody gang-related murders, sparked widespread riots in Mexico City. According to Amnesty International, 136,100 people were killed by Mexican cartels between December 2006 and May 2014 alone.

So how is Mexico to deal with this formidable problem? Perhaps it could look to Italy for lessons on how a deeply entrenched mafia.

Why Italy?

Italy is the country with the oldest mafia in the world—indeed, the very word mafia has Italian origins. But ever since the 1980s and early 1990s, when the Italian mafia was planting bombs on highways to kill state magistrates, mafia-related homicides have nose-dived. Between 1992 and 2012, murders related to organized crime dropped around 80 percent, according to the United Nations.

According to one mafia expert, the “radical and painful” changes seen in the decline of mafia groups in southern Italy “are the best proof of the effectiveness of anti-mafia law enforcement.”

Some might counter that Mexico does not have a mafia problem. After all, the Mexican cartels are often simply referred to as “drug traffickers.”

However, the most recent report of the U.S. State Department has estimated that the amount of money laundered annually in Mexico is between $19 and $29 billion. Such data suggests that continuing to merely call them drug traffickers is neither accurate nor, indeed, responsible.

To launder that amount of money, one has to be a mafia organization. These groups do more than merely produce and sell drugs — they reinvest profits in real estate, businesses and stocks. In addition, the groups also have a pyramid structure and employ financial consultants and accountants, which is typical of mafia organizations.

To date, Mexico has primarily used military crackdowns to fight its mafia. This has not resolved the situation, and, in some cases, has even worsened it by leading to a significant increase in ferocity and defections.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/12/04/an-unexpected-place-for-lessons-to-fight-mexicos-mafia-italy/

The Top Five Organized Crime Groups In The World

Chris Matthews at Fortune.com offers a piece on the top five organized crime groups in the world.

So, who are the biggest organized crime gangs around the world and how do they make their money? Organized crime revenues are very difficult to estimate, as criminals often spend a significant amount of time trying to hide what they make. Also, “organized crime” is a loosely defined concept. Anything from a vast drug smuggling ring to a handful of car thieves can be classified as organized crime groups, and the cohesiveness of organized crime organizations around the world varies widely. Some groups, like Japan’s Yakuza, are highly organized and hierarchical, allowing economists and crime fighters in Japan to attribute much higher revenue totals to Yakuza groups than others around the world. Here are the top five criminal gangs, ranked by revenue estimates:

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://fortune.com/2014/09/14/biggest-organized-crime-groups-in-the-world/

Mexican Drug Cartels Reportedly Dispatching Agents Deep Inside U.S.

FoxNews.com offers an Associated Press report on the threat of Mexican drug cartel agents in the U.S.

CHICAGO –  Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States -- an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits.

If left unchecked, authorities say, the cartels' move into the American interior could render the syndicates harder than ever to dislodge and pave the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as prostitution, kidnapping-and-extortion rackets and money laundering.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/01/mexican-drug-cartels-reportedly-dispatching-agents-deep-inside-us/

Three Philippine Nationals Convicted In Los Angeles Of Illegally Importing Military Grade Weapons

The U.S. Justice Department released the below information yesterday:

Three Philippine nationals were convicted today in Los Angeles of illegally importing military grade weapons into the United States after being caught in a sting operation that was conducted in the Philippines, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Bill Lewis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office.
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Sergio Syjuco, 26, Cesar Ubaldo, 27, and Arjyl Revereza, 26, each of the Philippines, were convicted after a four-week trial by a federal jury in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California of conspiring to illegally import the weapons into the United States, and aiding and abetting the importation of those weapons.
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The defendants were charged in an indictment filed on Jan. 12, 2012.
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According to the evidence presented at trial, the defendants conspired to sell high-powered military and assault weapons to a buyer interested in bringing weapons into the United States to arm drug dealers in Mexican drug cartels and Mexican Mafia gang members. In November 2010, Ubaldo met with a prospective weapons buyer, who was actually an undercover FBI agent, and offered to introduce the agent to suppliers of high-powered firearms. Ubaldo subsequently introduced the undercover agent to Syjuco, who supplied the weapons, and Revereza, who was a police officer in the Philippines Bureau of Customs who facilitated the movement of the illegal weapons through Philippines customs and eventually into the United States. The weapons supplied included a rocket propelled grenade launcher, a mortar launcher, an M203 single-shot grenade launcher and 12 Bushmaster machine guns, as well as explosives including mortars and grenades. The trial evidence demonstrated that the defendants also illegally imported into the United States the highest level military body armor.
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The weapons, which were tracked and safeguarded by the FBI during their shipment, landed in Long Beach, Calif., on June 7, 2011, where they were seized by the FBI.
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At sentencing, which is scheduled for June 10, 2013, each defendant faces a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for conspiracy to import weapons into the United States, as well as 20 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine for causing the importation of all of the weapons, excluding the 12 fully automatic Bushmaster firearms. In addition, defendants Syjuco and Revereza face a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine for causing the importation of all of the weapons in this case, and five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for causing the importation of the 12 fully automatic Bushmaster firearms in this case.
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The investigation was conducted by agents and investigators of the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service and the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation. Deputy Chief Kim Dammers and Trial Attorney Margaret Vierbuchen of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section prosecuted the case.