Just Thinking

Drug Cartels, Money & Guns

I really am wondering if we're all being fooled.

A news article caught my eye today. Seem the Hondurans discovered drug smugglers using a fiberglass "submarine" to smuggle up to $500 million worth of cocaine along the coast.  That's over 7 tons of the stuff.  In the past, drug smugglers have used airplanes to smuggle up to one ton loads across the gulf into the southern states. 

Now, let's think about this a moment. The drug producers and smugglers can afford to buy an airplane and are now using semi-submersible submarines.  These are not cheap toys. A twin engine airplane will set you back $200,000 or more.  A working "submarine" may not cost that much (no certifications of course) but it will still cost at least $100,000 by the time you outfit it with an engine, pumps, nav gear, etc.  Smugglers have ditched their planes (and loads) at sea, letting them sink to avoid prosecution. The same goes with these "subs" -- in the last few years two were scuttled off the Pacific coast.

Now, we're dealing with an outfit that can afford to "write off" a $250,000 airplane or $100,000 submersible, plus its cargo and still stay in buisness.  And many do this several times a year.  So my question is why do drug cartels need to buy guns in American gun shops?  With millions of dollars at their disposal, they can afford to procure even brand new guns via the black market.  Or brand new fully automatic weapons. 

One suspect in Operation Fast and Furious reportedly bought over 300 guns while the BATF picked its collective nose and watched. At an average of $600 each, that's $180,000 for 300 semi-automatic rifles.  If reports are correct -- that 2,500 guns were "walked" into Mexico -- a combination of AR's and AK's plus numerous pistols the average price for these would come to around $750 or $1.75 million.  That's chump change when you compare that against the hundreds of millions the drug trade rakes in every year.  In cash. 

We know they're buying black market goods -- grenades, C4 plastic explosives, RPG's, fully automatic weapons, even a few mortars.   One shipment of cocaine can easily reward these animals with $100 million.  Paying $1.75M for civilian rifles is like handing your nephew $1.75 out of a $100 bill to buy a slurpee.  So why would cartels buy American guns under American laws when they could purchase equivilant guns on the black market and probably for less?

Operation Fast & Furious - The White House Connection

Much is being made over a memo from Phoenix BATF office chief William Newell to Kevin O'Reilly, Director of North American Affairs of the National Security Council, which reports to the White House.  O'Reilly asked about guns going to Mexico and Newell provided some information in an e-mail, saying "You didn't get this from me." 

Newell says that O'Reilly is a long time friend and makes it seem that he was, essentially, doing a friend a favor.  But as Dave Codrea says, we can rephrase the question thusly;

Why are ATF field office management communications about Fast and Furious with NSC’s North American Affairs Director significant?

The best explanation comes from Mike Vanderboegh of the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog as he describes the relationship of the National Security Council to the Executive branch.

The President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State are considered to be statutory attendees of NSC meetings, but they are also regularly joined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Advisor, and other executive officials. The NSC conducts its meetings in the White House Situation Room, and the National Security Advisor’s presence in the West Wing provides the President with direct access to research, briefings, and intelligence related to all aspects of national security. During times of crisis, the National Security Advisor is also responsible for operating out of the Situation Room in order to provide the President and other members of the NSC with regular updates pertaining to the situation at hand.

What this means is twofold. First, it provide congressional investigators with a nexus between the White House staff and Operation Fast and Furious. It helps to show that there was recognition at the highest levels of the administration that Phoneix was a "key player". 

I also suspect that with Newell's caveat that "you didn't get these from me" means that (a) he didn't want the ATF/DOJ to find out he'd provided the information "outside of normal channels" and/or (b) he didn't want to end up verifying the information in the Oval Office should someone question the information.  This would imply that the President didn't know all the details of the operation or was deliberately being kept out of the lop on th details. 

The most important factor here is that the NSC did know that Phoenix was a key element regarding gun smuggling into Mexico and it shows that the Oversight committee has access to more documents than previously believed.  In the end, it's likely they'll find Fast and Furious was National in scope, violating the laws and constitution wholesale.

That's when the big fireworks will begin.