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 Editorials | Opinions | June 2008 
Fearless or Feckless? Mexican Security Forces
 Tad Trueblood - thiscouldgetinteresting.com
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| | Some of the 'good guys' in Mexico's drug war | | |
Mexico’s highly bureaucratic and secretive government has created a messy alphabet soup of police units and “special” military forces that defies quick explanation.
This is partly due to President Calderon’s aggressive approach to countering the cartels and sweeping attempts at reform. Consequently, there are many new organizations involved in the drug wars, making it hard to sort out the org chart. Here’s my stab.
There are four different levels of law enforcement in Mexico; municipal (2,400 cities and rural districts), state (31 states), the “federal district” (Mexico City and its over 8 million people), and federal (national). At each level, police come in two flavors, “preventative” (basically uniformed cops) and “judicial” (plainclothes investigators). This labyrinthine setup, with an estimated 350,000 personnel in 3,000 police units/departments, breeds jurisdictional disputes.
The most prominent police organizations fighting the drug wars are:
• PGR (Federal Attorney General’s Office) oversees several key agencies (see below) but also has several thousand of its own plainclothes police.
• AFI (Federal Agency of Investigations), under the PGR, is Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI with a strong focus on organized crime and drug trafficking. The AFI replaced the earlier PJF (Federal Judicial Police) which was notoriously corrupt.
• UEDO (Special Anti-Organized Crime Unit), also under PGR, is another entity exclusively dedicated to targeting and breaking up the narco-cartels. It may be part of the AFI.
• FEADS (Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Health), apparently separate from PGR, was created to replace another corrupt agency. It is also deeply involved in the drug wars and runs the UECLD (Special Anti-Money Laundering Unit) and the Border Rapid Response Groups.
• PFP (Federal Preventative Police), established in 1997, is the product of another broad reform to create a reliable, national police force. Initially, it combined the Federal Highway Police, Fiscal Police and the Immigration Police. Since then, it has added a Brigade of Military Police and officers from the national intelligence agency, the Center for Research and National Security (CISEN). The PFP is essentially a uniformed para-military force for combating the cartels.
Calderon has also committed thousands of soldiers to fight the narco-insurgency, but the bulk of the Army is under trained and ill equipped for anything more than checkpoint duty. There are, however, Mexican special operations units that are capable and no doubt heavily involved:
• FES (Naval Special Forces) specializing in amphibious and riverine operations, sort of like U.S. Navy SEALS.
• BFP (Infantry Parachute Brigade) of the Mexican Air Force. Three battalions of paratroopers, for quick deployment anywhere in the country.
• GAFE (Special Forces Airmobile Group) is the Army special ops force most involved in targeting and eliminating cartel members. GAFE commandos reportedly receive training worldwide, including in the U.S.
• GAFE of the High Command are the elite of the elite. Open sources say they number only about 100 hand-picked personnel, specialize in counter-terrorism tactics. These are the guys who have taken down some of the top Mexican cartel leaders.
With all these various units (and even more not listed here), coordination, command and control has to be a huge problem. Crossing lines of authority, competition and bureaucratic turf battles between all these forces can only detract from their effectiveness and foster corruption. Then again, these guys are up against some of the most ruthless and well-armed criminals in the world. You gotta respect that.
Tad Trueblood has more than 20 years in the U.S. Air Force and the national security community. He blogs at www.thiscouldgetinteresting.com. |
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