Follow the money. Major US banks have been caught laundering money from drug cartels and received slap on the wrist fines and no criminal prosecutions. If that happened in Mexico, we’d call it corruption, wouldn’t we? There are plenty of dedicated law enforcement officials working hard to stop the cartels but the fix is in at the highest level.
If the US government really wanted to stop drug cartels expanding into the US it would crack down hard on money laundering by big banks and file criminal charges against those responsible. Put a few dozen of them in prison after seizing their assets and I’m guessing the banks would clean up fast. But they know they have Get Out of Jail Free cards.
“While Chicago is 1,500 miles from Mexico, the Sinaloa drug cartel is so deeply embedded in the city that local and federal law enforcement are forced to operate as if they are on the border,” Jack Riley, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Chicago office, told CNN.
A number of high-tech pot farms have been busted here in rural southern Utah. They have been operated, according to authorities, by “interests from outside the U.S.” I think we can translate that into post-modern English.
Brits, I’ll wager. Never did trust them. 🙂