The unlikely partnership between Mexican drug cartels and white supremacists

In 2005, something happened that marked a radical change in the commercial relationship between Mexican cartels and criminal groups operating in the United States.

The authorities of the United States began to control the sale of pseudoephedrine, one of the main ingredients for the production of methamphetamine, also known as “crystal”, a stimulant more powerful than cocaine and highly addictive.

Previously, American criminal gangs, especially white supremacist groups, produced methamphetamine in laboratories usually located in the rural south of the country with materials that were available to them over the counter. They had no need to get any kind of chemical precursor in Central or South America.

The materials could be obtained in almost any store and they could manufacture the drug in garages or makeshift home spaces. However, starting in 2005, the government began to control the sale of pseudoephedrine, which until then was freely available in pharmacies.

The business became unsustainable when the sale of this drug began to be controlled. It was then that the Mexican cartels entered the scene and took advantage of a new business opportunity that assured them a substantial income.

Eventually, the Mexican cartels managed to get a distribution line from China, they found a new way to get pseudoephedrine very cheaply. The Zetas, who had already settled in Michoacán by then, and other groups such as the Familia Michoacana, benefited from this business.

The ships that arrived from Asia at the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas, one of the most important in the country, made it possible for Michoacan criminals to become drug producers.

From that moment on, an unusual alliance was created between Mexicans and American groups with racist leanings, such as the “Aryan Brotherhood”, born in the 1960s in California prisons, and the “Hells Angels”, a group of motorcyclists founded more than 70 years ago in California that currently has about 800 members and is mainly dedicated to drug trafficking.

“They needed drugs and Mexico distributors”, explained the drug trafficking expert journalist Ildefonso Ortiz in an interview with León Krauze for Univisión Reporta.

Criminal groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, and Los Zetas made their respective alliances and formed partnerships with neo-Nazi groups operating in Texas, Oklahoma, and Georgia, among other states.

However, after observing the success of crystal, the US groups were not satisfied and began to ask for other types of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, etc. Once the drugs crossed the border, they were in charge of the logistics, transportation, distribution, sale, and price of the substances.

Over time, the alliances ceased to be based solely on the sale and purchase of drugs, as the Mexican cartels began to take advantage of the connections they had with ultraviolent groups in the US to hire them as hitmen.

“It is something very convenient for local governments in the US because then if the Mexican cartel hires local gangs to execute or kidnap a person when they do that the authorities of that city say that it was a gang problem. Nobody wants to say that they have a cartel problem in the US,” the journalist expanded.

White supremacy believes that white people are superior to others because of their race. However, despite their openly anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant racist ideology, they were also associated with the Mexican mafia. Why?

“The only explanation has been money. It is a business. They put money above ideologies. It is an alliance of convenience because both sides take advantage of this situation.” Ortiz concluded.