Good Country for Old Men

Sinaloa Cartel enlists seniors

The New York Times ran a story of a 90-year-old drug transporting legend Leo Sharp. DEA agents working out of Detroit were conducting an investigation local branch of the Sinaloa cartel (the world’s most notorious and powerful drug-trafficking ring). The cartel was thought to be importing almost hundreds of kilos of cocaine a month using a variety of couriers that transported the cocaine from Arizona safe houses into Detroit. However the most prolific courier known as Tata (‘Grandfather’) was a mystery. Tata averaged more than 200 kilos of cocaine a month and was fast becoming ‘an urban legend’ amongst law enforcement and drug traffickers.

As law enforcement personnel listened to wiretaps they came upon unusually coded phrases when Tata was the subject. They called him El Viejito, the little old man. Usually it was Mi Tata, my grandpa. His handler was heard to joke that Tata was happy because “he’s getting teeth put in the next few days.” This turned out not to be code, the cartel leaders were discussing their courier’s dentures. Days before the arrests cartel members were discussing Tata: “What did the old man tell you?” the other cartel member replied “He wanted to verify what he had told me because he couldn’t remember.”

An explanation for the previously law abiding grandfather’s becoming a cartel drug mule could have been financial. It’s easy to see how the work might have been tempting: Couriers were generally paid $1,000 per kilo, so Sharp would have made $104,000 on the trip where he was arrested and a total of more than $1 million in 2010.

According to the New York Times article law-enforcement authorities said the cartel deliberately recruited couriers who played against type. “Leo is the perfect courier for the cartel,” said Special Agent Jeremy Fitch, one of the D.E.A. agents who worked the case. “He has a legitimate ID, he’s an older guy, he wouldn’t be pegged as a drug runner and he has no criminal history.” Wired magazine reported that while the US Border Patrol emphasize that drug couriers are predominately Mexicans the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) has found that 80% of drug-related arrests by the Border Patrol are US citizens. “The CIR interviewed one former trafficker who said the cartels seek out U.S. citizens — particularly of middle-age — because they’re less likely to draw suspicion. Police officials believe the cartels are hiring more drivers to smuggle smaller loads instead of big ones, reducing the chance of a major bust but requiring more people.”