Abstract
Kingpin strategies— the targeting of the top-levels of terrorist or drug trafficking organization hierarchies— has become a centerpiece of US and Mexican efforts to combat drug trafficking. This study addresses the unintended consequences of these strategies by assessing the impact of the arrest or deaths of Arellano Felix Organization leaders on kidnap and homicide levels from the late 1990’s to 2011. Based on the study, the arrest of important AFO “lieutenants” increased kidnap rates. Arrests or the deaths of organization “kingpins” did not result in increased homicides or kidnappings, if respected successors were ready to fill leadership vacuums. When leadership succession was in question, the arrest of “kingpins” did result in internecine conflict and thus increased homicide and kidnapping rates. Following internecine conflict, kidnap and homicide rates dropped, but not to pre-conflict levels. This is likely attributable to the use of kidnapping and homicide as a dispute resolution mechanism in the growing Tijuana consumer drug market.
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Notes
The author would like to thank the Institute for Global Conflict and Cooperation, which funded 9 months of fieldwork in Mexico; the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, and the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies, which funded preliminary research trips; and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, where much of the editing of this project was completed.
Before El Teo’s arrest in January 2010, I visited Tijuana in 2009 and noticed that municipal police always travelled in groups of two trucks, with at least two men each sitting in the truck bed with automatic weapons. Motorcycle police, that typically enforce traffic violations individually, rode in groups of three. Seven months after Teo’s January 2010 arrest, Police appeared calmer and rode in their trucks with one partner in the cab with them and no one in the truck bed. This is evidence of the impact that Teo’s arrest had on the Tijuana psyche. It has calmed municipal police by reducing the daily threat of police assassination (Anonymous Tijuana resident 2009).
Voluntary and anonymous surveys conducted regularly throughout Mexico might help to provide a more accurate picture of the kidnapping problem than reports based on statistics provided by law enforcement institutions that lack the faith of the populace. Indeed, websites like www.notecalles.org.mx appear to attempt to address this issue in this fashion by allowing Mexican citizens to self-report crime anonymously (No Te Calles - No+Inseguridad 2010).
This argument posits that certain factions of the organization became profit-starved while others may have continued to thrive. The profit-starved factions began to focus on the taxation of territory and the expansion into “high impact” crime like kidnapping and extortion. This was especially true in the internecine conflict period where the enforcers of the Teo faction attempted to take control of the territory and network. Thus, the argument is not dependent upon a commensurate reduction in drug trafficking, which might be measured or correlated with a reduction in confiscated drugs at the border. Rather drug confiscations at the border would represent an irrelevant variable because another portion of the illicit network continued to traffic.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my dissertation committee members Professors Caesar Sereseres, Etel Solingen, Kamal Sadiq and Louis Desipio. I would also like to thank Steve Duncan of the California Department of Justice for opening important doors for me in the course of my research on the AFO. Finally, I would like to thank the Institute Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), the UC Irvine Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies (CGPACS) and the UC Irvine Department of Political Science for funding various phases of research on which this analysis is based.
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Appendices
Appendix
Data
ICESI annual kidnap data
1997 | 28 | 1 |
1998 | 72 | 3 |
1999 | 23 | 1 |
2000 | 47 | 2 |
2001 | 25 | 1 |
2002 | 22 | 1 |
2003 | 20 | 1 |
2004 | 9 | 0 |
2005 | 9 | 0 |
2006 | 38 | 1 |
2007 | 20 | 1 |
2008 | 115 | 4 |
2009 | 103 | 3 |
2010 | 79 | 2 |
2011 | 64 |
ICESI Baja/National Kidnap Rates
Year | Kidnap Rate Baja California | Kidnap Rate National |
1997 | 1 | 1 |
1998 | 3 | 1 |
1999 | 1 | 1 |
2000 | 2 | 1 |
2001 | 1 | 1 |
2002 | 1 | 0 |
2003 | 1 | 0 |
2004 | 0 | 0 |
2005 | 0 | 0 |
2006 | 1 | 1 |
2007 | 1 | 0 |
2008 | 4 | 1 |
2009 | 3 | 1.1 |
2010 | 2 | 1.1 |
Secretaria de Seguridad Publica (SSP) data on homicides, kidnappings and extortion cases in Tijuana.
Homicides - Tijuana | Kidnappings Tijuana | Extortions in Tijuana | |
2006-1-January | 25 | 3 | 10 |
2006-2 -February | 27 | 3 | 5 |
2006-3-march | 20 | 1 | 4 |
2006-4-april | 26 | 3 | 5 |
2006-5-may | 27 | 4 | 10 |
2006-6-june | 28 | 1 | 23 |
2006-7-july | 25 | 5 | 17 |
2006-8-august | 29 | 3 | 21 |
2006-9-September | 32 | 0 | 23 |
2006-10-october | 26 | 3 | 20 |
2006-11-november | 23 | 1 | 7 |
2006-12-December | 26 | 3 | 19 |
2007-1-January | 22 | 0 | 13 |
2007-2 -February | 27 | 0 | 19 |
2007-3-march | 24 | 2 | 12 |
2007-4-april | 25 | 2 | 5 |
2007-5-may | 22 | 1 | 7 |
2007-6-june | 32 | 0 | 7 |
2007-7-july | 22 | 4 | 7 |
2007-8-august | 27 | 1 | 7 |
2007-9-September | 24 | 0 | 11 |
2007-10-october | 23 | 1 | 6 |
2007-11-november | 38 | 2 | 8 |
2007-12-December | 24 | 1 | 6 |
2008-1-January | 30 | 11 | 5 |
2008-2 -February | 33 | 11 | 7 |
2008-3-march | 48 | 10 | 11 |
2008-4-april | 42 | 10 | 10 |
2008-5-may | 21 | 5 | 17 |
2008-6-june | 33 | 3 | 29 |
2008-7-july | 28 | 5 | 14 |
2008-8-august | 29 | 5 | 4 |
2008-9-September | 32 | 7 | 11 |
2008-10-october | 87 | 7 | 23 |
2008-11-november | 123 | 16 | 19 |
2008-12-December | 71 | 2 | 17 |
2009-1-January | 56 | 7 | 14 |
2009-2 -February | 36 | 9 | 14 |
2009-3-march | 47 | 12 | 21 |
2009-4-april | 38 | 7 | 9 |
2009-5-may | 43 | 15 | 9 |
2009-6-june | 31 | 3 | 9 |
2009-7-july | 41 | 3 | 9 |
2009-8-august | 51 | 5 | 18 |
2009-9-September | 45 | 5 | 26 |
2009-10-october | 32 | 5 | 17 |
2009-11-november | 38 | 12 | 22 |
2009-12-December | 98 | 12 | 18 |
2010-1-January | 99 | 9 | 19 |
2010-2 -February | 51 | 3 | 19 |
2010-3-march | 57 | 4 | 23 |
2010-4-april | 54 | 5 | 25 |
2010-5-may | 50 | 6 | 25 |
2010-6-june | 44 | 6 | 22 |
2010-7-july | 52 | 6 | 20 |
2010-8-august | 45 | 9 | 16 |
2010-9-September | 58 | 5 | 21 |
2010-10-october | 50 | 3 | 14 |
2010-11-november | 69 | 7 | 13 |
2010-12-December | 59 | 5 | 15 |
2011-1-January | 51 | 4 | 18 |
2011-2-February | 27 | 11 | 13 |
2011-3-March | 45 | 4 | 9 |
2011-4-April | 28 | 4 | 16 |
2011-5-May | 42 | 4 | 6 |
2011-6-June | 41 | 5 | 8 |
2011-7-July | 35 | 1 | 14 |
2011-8-August | 38 | 0 | 11 |
2011-9-September | 33 | 6 | 14 |
Oct-11 | 28 | 4 | 12 |
Nov-11 | 24 | 1 | 11 |
Dec-11 | 26 | 1 | 19 |
Jan-12 | 39 | 1 | 19 |
Feb-12 | 22 | 0 | 26 |
Mar-12 | 24 | 1 | 16 |
Apr-12 | 26 | 0 | 12 |
May-12 | 27 | 1 | 14 |
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Jones, N. The unintended consequences of kingpin strategies: kidnap rates and the Arellano-Félix Organization. Trends Organ Crim 16, 156–176 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-012-9185-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-012-9185-x