Mexico is getting buffeted from its neighbors to the south as they, too, try to stem the flow of drugs in their countries, according to news from the two-day security conference of the 34-member Organization of American States (OAS).
All of the world’s cocaine is produced in South America and most of it makes its way through Mexico to the United States and Europe, who consume almost all of it. That makes Mexico, caught in the middle, a prime battlefield of the drug trafficking cartels. A drug-related killing takes place nearly every day in the troubled country.
The OAS meeting also established that Latin America has the world’s highest murder rate in which 27 are killed for every 100,000 inhabitants.
Mexico is exporting, not only drugs, but the organizations that supply the drugs. Costa Rica’s interior minister reported that Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel is infiltrating the tourist areas of his country. "For a long time, we’ve recorded Colombian raids," Janna de Vecho told a news conference. "In the last 12 months, we’ve noted the presence of groups of Mexican traffickers."
Colombia believes Mexican cartels are now buying drugs from FARC rebels (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). These drugs get exported to Mexico, North America and Europe.
The Sinaloa Cartel has even been at work in Argentina, where a laboratory producing ephedrine (a stimulant and appetite suppresant) was discovered. The people arrested are suspected of working with the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel.
The countries have agreed to reinforce border security in hopes of preventing the spread of Mexican cartels across the region.