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How the Cartels Work (2011)

• sandworm101 11y ago
  >> This article appeared in the September 17, 2009 issue of Rolling Stone. Six and a bit years ago. That was before operation fast and furious came to light. We now know that the DEA had several informants. They were paid and seemingly informed on rival cartels. So many assertions in the OP were probably incorrect even at the time.
• iwwr 11y ago
  The DEA is not "powerless to stop them", it's actually empowered as an organization by this growing threat. The police and government contractors are a political constituency and political donors. As a societal problem, drug use and criminality around it is a consequence of the drug war, the only way to stop it is to end the war and start treating addicts as sick rather than criminal.
• rbobby 11y ago
  > Borland recalls asking one sheriff how he knew that a courier had said what he was ordered to say when he was forced to call his boss and set up a meeting to trade the drugs. "That's what I told him to say," replied the sheriff, who spoke no Spanish. That's pretty awful.