In Quintana Roo there have been serious acts of violence in recent weeks. The most serious, the murder of two Canadian tourists in Xcaret, inside a hotel where they vacationed with their families. But these were not just two tourists: these men were part of criminal groups from Canada that had operations with Mexican organizations. The crime was planned in Canada, in Mexico City the assassins were obtained and it was executed in the Rivera Maya. The cause: supposedly a debt of money derived from a drug deal.
Beyond the confusion derived from the misinformation that President López Obrador received about the participation of US agents in the investigation of these events, the truth is that it was a multinational crime derived from a phenomenon that does not respect borders either. The collaboration with the FBI has taken place, the Foreign Ministry has clarified, within the framework of the new Bicentennial Understanding and is related to a phenomenon that we have ignored, both in Mexico and in Canada, but that with that crime in Xcaret has been publicly exhibited: the growing relationship of the criminal groups of the two countries through the fentanyl and cocaine trade.
In the last days of the past six-year term, a comprehensive report by the National Defense on the subject of fentanyl trafficking already warned that although a good part of this illegal fentanyl trafficking came from Mexico to the United States, it was lost sight of the fact that a high percentage was moved from Canada, with the participation of local groups and also Mexicans settled in that country.
Illegal fentanyl is basically produced in China and is sent in its pure state, or like some of its precursors, to America and basically arrives in Mexico, at the ports of Lázaro Cárdenas and Manzanillo, and on many occasions by air traffic. Shipments usually pass through other countries such as South Korea first, to make it difficult to locate them.
But a significant percentage of the illegal fentanyl consumed in the United States also arrives through Canada, where trade with the Pacific nations is very intense and the controls for this type of product are more lax, as is also the case with the border crossing between Canada and the American Union, infinitely less controlled than that of the border with Mexico. There are Mexican groups that are already working with Canadian organizations in this operation. At the same time, Mexican groups are supplying cocaine to their Canadian partners. It is not a simple coincidence that days ago a Canadian citizen was arrested who was transporting 69 kilos of pure cocaine in the trunk of his car and was heading to the Toluca airport.
The Canadian factor in this type of trafficking is becoming more important every day due to the very characteristics of fentanyl: it is a laboratory drug, which can be broken down for illegal sale very easily, generating up to thousands of doses for every kilo of pure product that reaches the hands of traffickers. Now it has also become fashionable to combine fentanyl with other drugs, even with opposite effects, such as cocaine or methamphetamines. With fentanyl, large areas of cultivation are not needed, as for poppies or marijuana, nor are large laboratories that consume various chemicals, such as to produce cocaine, heroin, or synthetic drugs. Nor do these production spaces need special conditions and they do not generate an odor or a very marked contamination like clandestine cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine laboratories. And Canada has become a space where those conditions can be met with a wide margin of safety.
In these matters there is always a but. And the only condition that such an operation can work in countries like Canada is that it is sufficiently hidden and that it does not generate violence. And that is what is happening: the plot of trafficking between laboratories in China, Mexico and Canada seems to be more transparent every day and acts of violence like the one that happened in Xcaret generated too many red lights for it to go unnoticed.
We have been warning for months that the emergence of fentanyl would change not only the habits of consuming illegal drugs but also the very structures of drug trafficking. That is already happening and the criminal connections of Mexican groups with Canadians are an expression of these new ramifications.
poor panama
As far as I know, Panama has never done anything to us, we even owe our participation in the last World Cup to a strange result in Panamanian lands. Relations between the two countries have always been good but the federal government does not seem to appreciate it that way: first, Pedro Salmerón, the historian accused by students of ITAM, UNAM and Morena himself, of harassment, was proposed as ambassador. sexual. The Panamanian Foreign Ministry discreetly rejected that appointment. Salmerón yesterday announced his resignation from the position that he never had. And then Jesusa Rodríguez, the former senator, actress, active advocate of marijuana, peyote or mushrooms as sacred plants, is appointed in his place. Her diplomatic experience is null and her participation in the Senate (she was the substitute for Olga Sánchez Cordero and she had to leave it with her return) was described by locals and strangers as a headache. I don’t know why, but we don’t want Panama.
#Fentanyl #Canada #Connection
