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1 1 (January 31, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govyhf0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional *aResearch Service Drug Trafficking at the Southwest Border: Homeland Security Issues in the 116th Congress Updated January 31, 2019 The United States sustains a multi-billion dollar illegal drug market. An estimated 28.6 million Americans, or 10.6% of the population age 12 or older, had used illicit drugs at least once in the past month in 2016. The 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment indicates that Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) continue to dominate the U.S. drug market. They remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States; no other group is currently positioned to challenge them. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) indicates that these TCOs maintain and expand their influence by controlling lucrative smuggling corridors along the Southwest border and by engaging in business alliances with other criminal networks, transnational gangs, and U.S.-based gangs. TCOs either transport or produce and transport illicit drugs north across the U.S.-Mexico border. Traffickers move drugs through ports of entry, concealing them in passenger vehicles or comingling them with licit goods on tractor trailers. Traffickers also rely on cross-border subterranean tunnels and ultralight aircraft to smuggle drugs, as well as other transit methods such as cargo trains, passenger busses, maritime vessels, or backpackers/mules. While drugs are the primary goods trafficked by TCOs, they also generate income from other illegal activities such as the smuggling of humans and weapons, counterfeiting and piracy, kidnapping for ransom, and extortion. After being smuggled across the border, the drugs are distributed and sold within the United States. The illicit proceeds may then be laundered or smuggled as bulk cash back across the border. While the amount of bulk cash seized has declined over the past decade, it remains a preferred method of moving illicit proceeds-along with money or value transfer systems and trade-based money laundering. More recently, traffickers have relied on virtual currencies like Bitcoin to move money more securely. To facilitate the distribution and local sale of drugs in the United States, Mexican drug traffickers have sometimes formed relationships with U.S. gangs. Trafficking and distribution of illicit drugs is a primary source of revenue for these U.S.-based gangs and is among the most common of their criminal activities. Gangs may work with a variety of drug trafficking organizations, and are often involved in selling multiple types of drugs. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov IN11030 CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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