Mexican cartels and Central American street gangs: what do we really know?

There are plenty of drug war analysts to go around, and they all publish their respectable pieces of analysis, commentary and suggestive reading for policy makers in ever larger volumes. The more money is being poured into combating the drug trade, the more money is available to pay analysts. That's not surprising.

What is surprising though, is how rare thorough analysis of trafficking routes, 'DTO' (as is the fashion to call drug cartels, crime groups, or whatever) dynamics and such are accompanied by details that show that analysts have actually been in the field to test their theory.

The difference between theoretical physics and applied physics is, well, application. I love listening to theoretical physicists. They have fascinating theories, they broaden our perspective on what could be possible in the world of science and give us an idea as to what our surrounding universe could be like. But any chat with a theoretical physicists will always end with the phrase: '... but that's just a theory.'

Drug war analysis doesn't usually end with the author saying '... but that's really just a thought experiment.' A friend and colleague of mine who has done extensive research in the field with regard to the drug trafficking world, says more often than not that 'nobody really knows what's going on.' That's a fair argument, as criminals and drug traffickers usually don't have annual meetings with the shareholders showing of their strategies for the next fiscal year. It's a closed, shadowy world where misinformation is just as common as in an actual war.

Recent analysis on the drug trade in Central-America often points out that Mexican drug cartels are moving into Central America, where they supposedly establish connections with local gangs like the 18th Street and MS-13 to do their legwork in the street.

There is no reason to doubt that line of thought, but I'm starting to think it's not the entire story. The above-mentioned connection suggests that street gangs in a country like El Salvador and Mexican cartels like Los Zetas (who are the most mentioned recently with regard to Central-America) have a smooth alliance going on, with Mexican groups functioning as the powerful, wealthy overlords employing street thugs as their minions to do their dirty work.

Yesterday I had a chance encounter in El Salvador with a young ex-member (or so he said) of the MS-13, the Mara Salvatrucha, one of the world's most notorious gangs. Gustavo Alberto, 23 years old, gave me some interesting and surprising comments.

We talked for a while about life in the barrios surrounding the capital of increasingly violent El Salvador. At some point we touched the subject of Mexican involvement with local gangs. Gustavo Alberto, who claims to have been out of gang life for about a year now, started frowning.

"We don't like the Mexicans", he explained, "We don't trust them. They don't live by the same rules as MS-13 and they don't respect us the way they should." I asked him if he or one of his fellow gang members ever had dealings with Mexicans, to which he decidedly said they hadn't. "It might be that the other gangs do, but I never heard of it. Why would we? You don't know what those Mexicans are up to. They don't know our barrios and we don't know them."

I asked him if the MS-13 trafficked drug for other gangs. He avoided answering directly. "We do things, you know. But not for anybody else. Our loyalty is with our territory, with our brothers from the gang."

Even more interesting was his answer when I asked him about Los Zetas. He looked at me, seemingly without understanding what I was talking about. "Los who? Zetas? Wait, are those the guys who cut off heads in Mexico? I think I read about them in the papers."

That's surprising, as increasingly the Mara Salvatrucha is being linked to Los Zetas in journalistic and analytical publications.

Of course, this was just one interview with one (former) member of MS-13, but it does raise some questions that aren't investigated enough in the media. One element that often isn't mentioned, is the fact that deals made with the 30.000 or so strong MS-13 can't possibly be collective agreements. MS-13 is an umbrella term for a fairly loosely organized collective of many thousands of small groups without a clear hierarchy, each (at least in El Salvador) confined to their neighborhood, connected mostly by their gangs' name, culture, tattoos, et cetera.

Are there elements of MS-13 making deals with Mexican groups, while other members of the same gang don't? Does it depend on where the gang is based? Do Mexican groups make deals with both MS-13 and their mortal enemies of 18th Street? How would those gangs react to such a double-crossing agreement? Who decides on those agreements and how do they work in practice?

As the above-mentioned friend often says: there's very little we actually know for fact about how the drug trade works, be that in Central-America or in Mexico. We have general ideas, but research in the field sometimes contradicts conventional wisdom. And research in the field is also very dangerous, so its scope is by definition limited and results are hardly conclusive.

Still, we base our policies on such conventional wisdom, especially when it's published by authoritative analysts. Of course it's very difficult for policymakers to report to their bosses with a phrase such as 'yeah, we really don't know'. Tough decisions (which often end up erroneous and with disastrous consequences) need to be made based upon very little information.

But still, with so many questions left unanswered, it wouldn't be a bad idea to look into the details a little further.