Drug Threat Overview

Significant quantities of illicit drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and Mexican black tar heroin are readily available and abused in the Arizona HIDTA region. Law enforcement officers seize more marijuana (often in ton quantities) than any other illicit drug along the Arizona-Mexico border; much of this marijuana is abandoned by traffickers. Nonetheless, methamphetamine distribution and abuse as well as the drug's associated violence pose the most significant drug threats to the region. Successful law enforcement initiatives since December 2005 in Arizona and Mexico have curtailed some of this threat by contributing to temporary shortages of ice methamphetamine in both areas. As a result, ice methamphetamine prices in the Arizona HIDTA region from late 2005 to the beginning of 2006 increased from $8,000 to $10,500 per pound and remain consistently high. Because significant quantities of methamphetamine transit the Arizona HIDTA region destined for other U.S. locations, including Las Vegas, Nevada, shortages of the drug in those areas have also occurred.

Mexican DTOs--most of which are polydrug in nature--smuggle increasing quantities of cocaine and Mexican black tar heroin across the Arizona-Mexico border, quite likely as a result of heightened law enforcement pressure along the California- and Texas-Mexico borders and recent decreases in the availability of Mexican methamphetamine. Some of the cocaine smuggled into the area is abused locally; however, additional quantities transit the area destined for other U.S. locations. Most of the heroin smuggled across the Arizona-Mexico border is intended for consumption outside the HIDTA region; however, the availability of Mexican black tar heroin has increased in areas such as Lake Havasu City and Bullhead City, which previously reported little or no heroin availability. Additionally, increased quantities of Mexican black tar heroin smuggled from sources in Chiapas, Jalisco, Michoacán, and Nayarit, Mexico, through Arizona have contributed to increased availability in areas supplied by traffickers in Arizona--including areas east of the Mississippi River, such as Nashville, Tennessee, which historically had minimal or no Mexican black tar heroin available.

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Drug Trafficking Organizations

Mexican DTOs generally control drug trafficking in the Arizona HIDTA region. They use established smuggling routes and adapt their smuggling methods to increase the flow of illicit drugs into Arizona for distribution to drug markets throughout the country. Many of these Mexican DTOs are family-based organizations; they protect their operations by employing relatives and friends living on both sides of the border, making it difficult for law enforcement agencies to penetrate them. In addition, Mexican DTOs often exploit illegal immigrants who wish to remain in the United States by soliciting them to backpack or "mule" illicit drug shipments into remote areas of Arizona, thus protecting DTO members at virtually no cost.

Mexican DTOs have established a highly sophisticated smuggling infrastructure consisting of compartmentalization of duties; alliances with other DTOs, criminal groups, and street gangs; and nationwide networks. For example, several East Coast-based Jamaican DTOs have formed associations with Mexican traffickers to purchase 250- to 500-kilogram loads of marijuana from Mexican traffickers operating in southern or central Arizona. They then transport the drug to their Jamaican counterparts, particularly those in the Northeast and Southeast. In addition, Jamaican DTOs distribute Mexican marijuana in the Phoenix and Tucson areas at an increasing rate.

Caucasian criminal groups, independent dealers, Jamaican DTOs, OMGs, street gangs, and prison gangs transport and distribute illicit drugs in the Arizona HIDTA region, but the nature and scope of their trafficking operations are relatively minor compared with those of Mexican DTOs. They transport wholesale to retail quantities of illicit drugs for distribution in the Arizona HIDTA region and to other U.S. destinations.

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