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Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

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Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#131
post #49
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That legalizing drugs would make the cartels and the violence disappear Nothing will make violence disappear completely. That said, legalizing drugs will most certainly reduce cartel activity. Cartels exist because they sell a product with a huge margin that people can't really buy from anywhere else. Even when selling stolen products such as gasoline their market and margin is much smaller.

it says in this article that the fuel theft is cheaper and easier, and one former cartel member says it makes as much money as drugs >their market and margin is much smaller you think there's a smaller market for gasoline than drugs?

There is a smaller market, definitely. Most average Joes don't want to take the risk of filling their cars with questionable gasoline.

For people like truckers, etc, if stolen gasoline is not immediately available, they will pump from a gas station.

You cannot get addicted to gasoline.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#132
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FTA, the stolen gas money already is as good or a bigger source of money than the drugs

There's another comment of mine on the thread, but basically, I doubt the small gang their interviewed has the big picture correctly (distressed gangs are not famous for correctly assessing the big picture). Specifically, I do think they aren't correctly measuring their risks, so the gangs will fall, one by one, while all of them think they are making a great deal.

The Los Zetas are not a small gang. Have you read the article in full? It’s really interesting with a good build up. They start with the small-timers and build up to the big league.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#133
post #70

I always wondering how the US managed to tame the Mafia in the early 20s to late 70s. Is there something the Mexican government can mimic or is there something either political or cultural that prevents this?

I heard it was due to the corporations moving in and getting stronger. Their lawyers were far more ruthless.

Certainly, that was depicted in the movie Casino for example. Not that I would take a Hollywood movie as any sort of history lesson, but it is demonstrative of that point of view. Taking it as the true explanation for the sake of argument, why does the same thing not happen in Mexico?

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#134
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black markets have decreased supply, increased demand due to decreased supply (through legal limitations and criminal interactions) all this leads to more margin and profits. To fight criminality and massive gains in black markets, the only way is to regulate and decriminalize black markets. In the drug war for instance, compressing markets to a few players, especially in a black market where that is a natural reacti…

I'm very strongly in favor of drug decriminalization, I believe it's oppressive for states to attempt to control the behavior of non-violent, well-informed, adult citizens who want to consume a substance. However, I think the overall situation is more complicated than that, as this article details. The organized crime cartels have many streams of revenue. There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities li…

> The organized crime cartels have many streams of revenue. There's nothing there to legalize in the case of activities like natural resource theft.

True, however with less criminal opportunities due to more legal/decriminalized markets such as ending the drug wars, there are legal market opportunities to offset the draw to black market opportunities, and help stop theft and other crimes by reducing demand providing alternatives to make a safer good living.

Economic opportunities on legal markets need to be safer and comparative or better to the criminal opportunities/markets for any real change to be made.

Theft and any violent crime not related to non-violent markets like drugs that should be legal/decriminalized, those are real crimes that can be pursued as they take other's civil, human and property/ownership rights away.

Would there still be theft and other crimes? Sure but much less so if people had other routes to make money and survive.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#135
post #122
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd certainly add City of God and City of Men to that list. Along with Elite Squad, these movies are simply amazing. Wagner Moura. the main character in Elite Squad, also stars as Pablo Escobar in Netflix's original series Narcos. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0609944/?ref_=tt_cl_t1

For some reason City of God to me was just some stylizing ... on top of some shocking violence that happened to involve a lot of kids. I really missed whatever was supposed to be great about that film...

It is poverty porn for middle class people. I cannot talk about the rest of the world, but one of the main reasons a large portion of Latin-American movies suck it is because of the huge disconnect between the middle-upper class people who do them and the more 'salt of the earth" common folk who are portrayed on them.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#136

> “This guy grabs his phone and dials up the general. For $50,000 and 50 kilos of marijuana, they let him go. He also gave up 10,000 pesos he had on his person. That’s how it works with los militares.”

maybe 50 kilos of cocaine. but marijuana? that shit is worthless even in mexico

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#137
post #107

Recommended movie: Elite Squad and especially the sequel Elite Squad: Enemy Within . It's about BOPE, the special operations unit of Rio de Janeiro police. The first is about the military anti-gang exploits, the second is a good hard look at what corruption looks like. The drugs aren't going away if you break up a cartel, neither is the money.

I'd certainly add City of God and City of Men to that list. Along with Elite Squad, these movies are simply amazing. Wagner Moura. the main character in Elite Squad, also stars as Pablo Escobar in Netflix's original series Narcos. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0609944/?ref_=tt_cl_t1

OK, we're going down that eoute3. Rhen I recommeend "Bus 174" which takes a look at the story of a bus hijackers life and how he found himself in that desperate situation. I'd say this one is more throwing nd depressing than Tropa Do Elite1/2. I got more understanding of those kids fate before I visited Rio for a month. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bus_174/

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#138

Recommended movie: Elite Squad and especially the sequel Elite Squad: Enemy Within . It's about BOPE, the special operations unit of Rio de Janeiro police. The first is about the military anti-gang exploits, the second is a good hard look at what corruption looks like. The drugs aren't going away if you break up a cartel, neither is the money.

Those movies certainly seem to fit right in with Brazil's current neo-authoritarian political climate. Not that it's limited to Brazil.

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never felt unsafe in Mexico and actually enjoy it a lot more than my yearly visits to the US. Incredibly friendly people, great food and beautiful places. Regarding violence, I find that most drug related violence stays contained within the cartel-world. Whilst in the US, random shootings are.. random.. Not that I feel unsafe in the US either though, the odds are pretty good that nothing will happen in either count…

> Whilst in the US, random shootings are.. random.. What you are saying is astonishingly untrue. https://crimeresearch.org/2017/04/number-murders-county-54-u...

The business implications are clear.

https://xkcd.com/1138/

Re: Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry

#140

I always wondering how the US managed to tame the Mafia in the early 20s to late 70s. Is there something the Mexican government can mimic or is there something either political or cultural that prevents this?

Whenever you see a government that doesn't have a significant organized crime problem, it's because either (a) the government is the organized crime (Russia), or (b) the government has resources at its disposal that are an existential threat to the organized crime while overlooking moderate operations (the US).

The US government has significantly overlooked organized crime operations in general (and while some members of government may have pursued them, it was largely a sideshow by the "legal" arm and not by the "operational" arm - and had organized crime retaliated against those senators, you can bet that there would have been an "operational" response). At times, we've worked with organized crime (running cocaine with the CIA, etc, or the CIA working with Lucky Luciano in WW2).

That's the thing with organized crime - it's not all that secret. So there's typically an informal balance stuck between the government and the criminals - don't be too much of a problem to civilians, and especially not members of government, and we'll leave enforcement to local law and not bring in the big guns, and we won't work with your competition against you.

I think the big difference, as others have noted, is that in Mexico there isn't significant corporate corruption in politics. So the money lining politicians' pockets was more likely to be drug related, and cartel specific. So the cartel wars extended into government and there isn't a sufficient corporate interest in stability to have pushed back against it. And well, now it's far past the point of a balance being stuck.

It's worth noting that we've had instances of significant local corruption and infiltration of organized crime into local police/AG/government in the US (including killing of local civilians by the police - you can search for "The Boys on the Tracks" - the argument against Dan Harmon is compelling) - it's just not as widespread and it's not at a national level.

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