Blog dedicated to reporting on Mexican drug cartels
on the border line between the US and Mexico
.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Mexico: High tech cartel operations

Guest Reporter-Thank you "Doc" for sending the story in....Motherboard link at bottom
Tijuana drug drone
Tunnels, catapults, drones, and manned semi-submersibles.  Breast implants, fake carrots, and puppies…..

These are just a few examples of smuggling tactics used by Mexican and Central American organized crime groups to move illegal drugs and people across borders and past law enforcement. But they also exemplify the kinds of innovative behavior and problem-solving prowess that in other, legal contexts, such as Silicon Valley, often result in groundbreaking businesses.  However, reductionist and neocolonial theories of Mexican cartels have for too long hamstrung efforts to properly understand these complex entities and capture the vast potential therein, according to Dr. Rodrigo Nieto-Gomez. We, in essence, have failed to study these organizations within the right framework.

D
r Rodrigo Nieto-Gomez is a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, studying "criminal entrepreneurship" in drug cartels, who beat Amazon to using drones for delivery by years, use modified potato guns to shoot cocaine and marijuana bundles over border fences, and represent the "true libertarian, Ayn Rand capitalism."

In a wide-ranging interview with Motherboard, Nieto-Gomez speculates on the future of drug smuggling (flying and submarine drones), and describes the Silicon Valley-like relationship between a Mexican investor class and the smuggler-innovators, who sell a share in future returns in exchange for capital to fund high-risk/high-tech R&D efforts to beat police interdiction.

Don’t you think if people really knew the odds of being captured or killed while working as a drug dealer they might reassess their career choice? But what are the odds of becoming the next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk? They are tiny. But they fuel the dreams of 90 something percent of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley that will probably fail. It’s ambition. These are low probability high reward kinds of environments. And that is highly ambitious behavior that you want to encourage. Those are the people that see a problem and don’t get deterred. They change everything.

One of the biggest missed opportunities on the War on Drugs is that we haven’t identified a way of filtering out these high-risk tolerant people that we are losing to organized crime. We aren’t providing any alternatives for them to take the exit and leverage some of the skill sets they acquired in a way that would be both high-risk and high-reward and also legal.

Motherboard: What are you currently working on?

Nieto-Gomez: My key research agenda right now is based on analyzing criminal entrepreneurship. When you see what it takes to smuggle drugs from Mexico to the US, those are the kinds of skill sets we go and admire at a maker’s faire in San Mateo [California]. You take a compressor and mix it with a potato gun and you start shooting cocaine or marijuana ... over the border. It’s freaking amazing. It’s completely unhindered by regulation. If you want to see what true libertarian, Ayn Rand capitalism looks like, don’t look at the US, but Mexico, and specifically the drug cartels.

Organized crime, and organized crime in Mexico especially, is often portrayed as a top-down enterprise. What have you found through your research regarding these “cartels” or organizations?

It’s not the one that Mario Puzo sold to us in The Godfather, with the puppeteer’s hand controlling every puppet. I don’t think that’s a good representation of organized crime and I don’t think it ever was.

What we see in Mexico is more akin to Silicon Valley, and the relationship with venture capitalists and startups. You’re good at what you do so I’ll fund you. I’ll give you access to the narcotics, you sell them for me, and you make some money. Out of that money you hire somebody else to help. You start to create your small little enterprise. If one day one part of the operation is captured or killed it’s just one start-up. The different organizations in Mexico will have hundreds of operations like that operating at the same time and in the same chain.


Note by Borderland Beat:

Newly FAA approved The Sky Runner promises to be a valuable new tool for the military and incredible toy for big guys, but it got my mind stirring of ways the machine could be used in the narco world.  It is a manned all-terrain vehicle that is also an aircraft. It has a short takeoff and landing requirement, low flying at max 10k ft, cruise speed 45mph, and ground speed max at 75 mph. It can transport passengers or cargo.  First thought was the rugged Sierras mountain range.  Price is 119k USD.  ATVs are already heavily used in the Sierras, but this one can transport and fly.  I wondered what your thought are, especially those who are more familiar with aircraft than I am…..

Below is military version


Detailed info

18 comments:

  1. This Nieto-Gomez is easily impressed . Why don't he get a bunch of these guys that are getting released from a prison sentence and invest his money in their future . Be a great opportunity to prove his point and help the convicts and society . I cant tell they have developed anything . Seems to me everything they use is something somebody else used for a different purpose . Its not like they invented the automobile just because they use it to smuggle drugs . Its obviously sneaky illegal shit that this guy is impressed with . Hell criminals have been hiding stuff in their asshole for hundreds of years . I guess we should be impressed because of how resourceful they are with what they got .
    You had the professors view . Now you got mine again.

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  2. To your point :
    http://www.proceso.com.mx/455404/aseguran-en-sonora-vehiculo-bazuca-lanzar-droga-hacia-eu
    A BAZOOKA like device found in Sonora to launch parcels across the border.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. BIG BERTHA of mexican drug trafficking is no Navaronne Gun, just a section of drain pipe.

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  3. Great piece. Thanks for taking the perspective up a notch from guns & gangstas.

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  4. Strap a couple of keys to a drone and you call that night tech? No that's some lazy idiots idea.what's the word for Mexican hillbilly? Chuntaro?

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    Replies
    1. 11:11 still constructive, more constructive than the donal's trillion dollar wall, I heard epn has volunteered to lay that first brick of mariguana to start construction, heheheee...

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  5. The vast quantities aren't being shot into the US with potato cannons. They come in via ship and truck and large aircraft.
    The "War on drugs" is perpetuated by two entities: the Mexican government and the US government. It's business, and like any other war, it generates income for them.

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    Replies
    1. That is one of the most intelligent comments i've seen on this blog, and the very reason why the blog will be here fifty years from now. Flow of drugs can never end. Self perpetuating, with the help of the governments of course.

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    2. nicely said too many people benefit from the war on drugs

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    3. 11:58 nice to meet, good outlook we share Lando

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  6. I appreciate the effort, but the references and comparisons are a stretch at best.

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  7. Bullshit. Silicon Valley is run by white wealthy men who are educated in elite institutions and live in a land where there are numerous opportunities. DTOs are run by campesinos who have no education, no background interacting with the elite, and no opportunities. A failed Silicon Valley entrepreneur can always get a corporate job.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And those campesinos are some of the most inteligent people on earth.

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    2. 1:41 yes, but this is not about failed entrepreneurs "getting a job", it is about working with cons or ex-cons and seeing where it goes because of them are what them are, not failed wannabes.

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    3. Who cares about coins, we are about dollars.
      Seriously, cons do not appreciate mommy or daddy getting into their business, that started the shit in the first place.
      Just come to see me in prison, and don't forget to bring money, big money, pa los cheetos de las maquinas, ya también hay tamales a 2 dolares y 3 small wings por $10.00, better yet, just send the money daddy, mommy!
      I have to pay protection to los tintos y los pintos...

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  8. this is not new they have been shown in old corrido music videos you can also rent them in culiacan

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  9. Wow that skyrunner is amazing.Forget dual purpose.3 purpose.Everybody and their brother that has $119,000 will get 1.I could see hunters even using it too.

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  10. los Viejones siempre encontraran maneras de mandale la Merca a los green goes

    ReplyDelete

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