Mexico Is Finally Trying to Stop Cartel Mineral Smuggling

Over the years, enterprising crime syndicates in Mexico and China have forged a sophisticated global meth ring that has cartels like the cultish Knights Templar shipping iron ore to the People's Republic in exchange for stimulant precursor chemicals. The arrangement is now producing so much high-powered "ice" that the Mexican government, fresh on the heels of the phone dragnet that nabbed the world's top drug lord, is stepping in to dig out the diggers.

Earlier this week, Mexican authorities busted up a major mineral smuggling operation in the Knights Templar-controlled western state of Michoacán. The officials seized 119,000 tons of minerals valued at $15.4 million, 124 pieces of heavy machinery, and also shuttered 11 mineral processing facilities, as Finantial Times reports. It was a statement raid intended to deal a crucial blow to the cartel's coffers.

Alfredo Castillo, head of the Mexican government's coordinated security efforts in Michoacán, said in a statement to the press that the organized criminals behind the smuggling operation are out “hundreds of millions of dollars” thanks to the raid. Castillo added that over 271,000 tons of iron ore were exported last year, which "means that the seizure . . . represents 44 percent of all the mineral exported” in 2013.

Also seized in the raid: six Chinese nationals, all found working at one of the processing centers. It's these sorts of transplants that Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, head of the Knights Templar, thinks should be allowed to do their thing in Mexico.

"They have a right to do business and expand their markets, or to create more industry or more industry," La Tuta, who's got a $2.5 million bounty on his head, recently told the UK's Cannel 4 News at a known smuggling port in Michoacán. "The Chinese have some huge transnationals and they are tough motherfuckers!"

Another miner at the port chimed in, opening up on the cartel's mineral-thirsty clientele: "Companies are exporting to China," he told Channel 4. "They know the minerals are illegal, but they've found their own little pot of gold. The companies you call illegal sell the minerals to legal companies, then it is exported." By his estimation, he added, a single ship is worth $13 million and yearly the Knights Templar see off 30 mineral ships to China. Of that, he continued, between 50 and 70 percent of buisness done at the port funnels directly into the pocket of organized crime.

Take these numbers with a heaping grain of salt. The point, though, is that even if the Knights Templar, who've managed to have the monopoly on illegal mineral smuggling, indeed just had the rug pulled out from under their feet there are "many" new cartels emerging to step into the void, Castillo said.

That means continuing to diversifying their portfolios, as well. Ah, frack.