In 1971, the US President Nixon first declared the US ‘war on drugs’, although at this time, his key concern was marijuana and the opium trade, not cocaine. It was not until the mid-late 1970s that cocaine started to become a US problem. It was also a time where counter-narcotics in cocaine was practically non-existent in Colombia and overseas, including the US (Kenney 2011; Porter 2015). This initial lack of law enforcement certainly contributed to the conditions that allowed the Medellín Cartel to emerge with exponential growth. It was not until 1980, to address its increasing cocaine problem, that the US Reagan administration overhauled the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Act 1970 to strengthen its counter- narcotics efforts both domestically and overseas (Kenney 2011). In the words of US President Reagan at the time (‘The Godfather of Cocaine’ 1997):
My very reason for being here this afternoon is not to announce another short-term government offensive, but to call instead for a national crusade against drugs, a sustained, relentless effort to rid America of this scourge by mobilising every segment of our society against drug abuse.
Fragment 7: US President
The US also significantly increased its law enforcement, but at a cost to its drug rehabilitation programs (Kenney 2011). Essentially, the Reagan administration had implemented a new strategy. It had largely passed on the responsibility and blame of the drug problem onto producing countries, including Colombia, pressuring them into implementing tough counter-narcotic efforts, even though these countries had weak state rule, a lack of law enforcement and limited budget (Kenney 2011). Although the US provided monetary aid, most of the cost still rested with the producing countries (Kenney 2011). It was not until the election of US President Bush in 1988, that finally put the US on a collision course with the
Medellín Cartel. In contrast, the Colombian government was well aware of the growing drug problem. However, it’s key concern was widespread corruption, not the drug problem. In an interview with Colonel Martinez, even in the early 1970s (Streatfeild 2000):
It started with the corruption, especially in the northern departments up by the coast. The army was sent in to fight drugs, but the corruption was so bad that you had generals in jail.
Fragment 8: Colombian law enforcement
Increasingly, wealthy traffickers were able to bribe politicians, the judicial and law enforcement agencies to a point where arrested traffickers rarely did time in jail. They were either released on legal technicalities or simply escaped (Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). For the handful of successful prosecutions, traffickers paid off other judges, together with the police, to release them or simply look the other way while they escaped (Strong 1995; Bowden 2002). In terms of legislation, it can be argued that three legal issues greatly influenced the conditions that led to the rise and fall of the Medellín Cartel: i) legalisation of cocaine; ii) extradition laws between Colombia and the US; and iii) money laundering legislation. Drawing on the complexity concept of sensitivity to initial conditions, otherwise known as chaos theory, a slight change in any one of these variables would greatly influence the conditions of the Medellín Cartel, and in the case of extradition laws, it did.
Legalisation of cocaine
Much has been written on legalising drugs such as cocaine and how this impacts the ‘war on drugs’. In the words of Juan Ochoa, one of the Medellín Cartel leaders (interview in Frontline 2000e):
They should also punish those who sell liquor, because it’s just as or more dangerous than cocaine, but it’s legal. It’s just a manner of seeing things.
Fragment 9: Medellín Cartel leader
As some would argue, drug use and addiction is a health problem, not a criminal one. In turn, it should be treated as a health problem, not a police or military one. While the debate on legalisation continues, there is no doubt that cocaine’s illicit nature created and still creates the initial opportunity for traffickers, such as the Medellín Cartel, to do business (Clawson & Lee 1998; Thoumi 2003). As Kauffman (1995:217) argues through a complexity lens, ‘goods and services “live” in niches created by other goods and services’ and it is the illicit nature of cocaine that
creates the niches of so many other illicit goods and services surrounding the drug trade.
Extradition
Throughout the operational period of the Medellín Cartel, the legal status of extradition was cyclically on and off Colombia’s negotiating table in response to popular public opinion and/or pressure from the US. At any given point in time, the legal status of extradition played a pivotal role in the behaviour and actions of the Medellín Cartel and its leaders. Extradition was the one thing that all traffickers feared the most. A popular saying by the traffickers was ‘better a grave in Colombia than a prison cell in the US’ (Strong 1995; Bowden 2002; Escobar JP 2016). As put by Jorge Luis Ochoa Vásquez (‘Jorge Ochoa’) one of the Medellín Cartel leaders, extradition was feared (interview in Frontline 2000d):
Because justice for a Colombian is different than the US and for an American…and the natural thing is that one should be judged in one’s own country, not in a country that is not one’s own.
Fragment 10: Medellín Cartel leader
Or, in other words, in Colombia, traffickers could easily bribe their way out of jail or at least serve minimal prison time. In the US, however, bribery was not an option and prison time usually meant life.
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of converting ‘dirty’ money generated by a criminal activity to make it appear legitimate, in other words ‘clean’ money from a legitimate source (Lilley 2006; Levi 2014). During the Medellín Cartel’s reign, authorities were initially unaware that millions of dollars were being laundered through the international banking system, including the US. This was due to an initial focus on the physical movement of drugs, not the money trail (Mazur 2009). However, that all changed by the mid-1980s as depicted in the 2016 movie The Infiltrator based on the 2009 book by Robert Mazur (‘Mazur’), a US undercover special agent (Mazur 2009). In 1984, Mazur began five years undercover to infiltrate the criminal hierarchy of the Medellín Cartel and befriend the bankers and businessmen behind the Medellín Cartel’s money laundering operation. In 1989, the operation culminated in one of the largest money laundering prosecutions at the time, eventually bringing down an entire global bank, the Bank
of Credit and Commerce International, which ceased operations in 1991, together with scores of Medellín Cartel associates (Mazur 2009). While money laundering legislation and banking regulations existed at the time, robust legislation and stringent regulatory oversight did not (Lilley 2006; Mazur 2009). Even today, despite the overhauling of legislation and regulatory oversight worldwide, bankers still provide unwittingly, or sometimes knowingly, a crucial role between the licit and illicit worlds. In Mazur’s (2009:340-341) own words:
The greatest weakness the drug trade has is banking relationships. Each dirty banker serves dozens of big-time traffickers, but those bankers don’t have the stomach to sit in prison for life. That’s the best weakness we can exploit and attack.
Fragment 11: US law enforcement
Moreover, during the same period, Colombia’s own monetary policies, aimed at preventing flight capital overseas and strengthening its own international monetary reserves, unintentionally facilitated the laundering of illicit money (Thoumi 2003). Colombians overseas were allowed to deposit large amounts of money in Colombia with minimal control, and in turn, Colombian citizens were allowed to exchange large amounts of dollars in Colombia for pesos, no questions asked (Thoumi 2003). The real winner here was not the Colombian government, but traffickers like the Medellín Cartel whose illicit cash was allowed to enter the financial system with relative ease.
6.3.5 Media – macro
As noted earlier, in the freedom of the US press, the US media played a key role in promoting cocaine as a status drug of the rich and famous. In contrast, the US media also played a key role in promoting the subsequent discourse against drugs (Ronderos 2003:216):
With spectacular and endless stories about drug seizures, drug barons, and countries with weak democracies where drugs, crime, and violence are the rule, the media persuade the public of the great danger posed by drugs not only to society but also to the US as a nation.
Fragment 12: Legal scholar
It was also through the US media that the Reagan and Bush administrations promoted their ‘war on drugs’ policies, with the official US discourse describing ‘drug trafficking as a threat to national security’ (Ronderos 2003:216).
In contrast, in Colombia (Encyclopedia Britannica 2016): The degree to which the press can exercise its rights has been somewhat dependent upon government in power, as well as the danger of retaliation from drug bands and guerrilla groups. Newspapers have traditionally been the most widely available source of political information and have been least controlled, while radio and television, regarded more as entertainment media, have received stricter government control. Fragment 13: Encyclopedic document
Of note, traffickers, including the Medellín Cartel, through direct and indirect ownership of news outlets, greatly influenced the Colombian media and public opinion by downplaying their role in the drug trade, promoting their generous social causes and upholding the drug problem as a US consumer one (Escobar JP 2016).