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Federal agents in charge of monitoring drug smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border say more and more teenagers are getting involved in the smuggling trade – and may even be at risk for recruitment.
According to federal agents, many suspected teen smugglers have been caught this year at the San Ysidro border trying to cross into the U.S. with drugs secretly taped to their bodies.
Agents say both American and Mexican children as young as 12 years old are being recruited by cartels as drug mules. And, these days, marijuana is no longer the drug of choice.
“It shocks me and saddens me that kids are getting involved. It doesn’t shock me that cartels will use whatever method they need,” said Jose Garcia, a deputy special agent for ICE Homeland Security Investigations.
Garcia says his agents have been focusing on teen drug smugglers since 2009.
So far, Garcia says cartels have recruited kids outside schools, arcades and malls from the South Bay to Poway, and as far east as Mountain Empire.
Social media has also been used to entice potential teen smugglers.
“We’ve even had one recruited by someone they know on Facebook,” said Garcia.
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The special agent says teens can carry as much as six kilos of drugs hidden under their clothing. The money they get if they make it across the border is minimal compared to the risk they take.
“The lowest (payment) is $50 and the highest we’ve heard is about $500. But the average is somewhere between $75 and $300,” explained Garcia.
The cartel recruiters tell the kids that because they are minors, they won’t get in serious trouble.
However, Garcia says that selling point is misleading.
“The truth is if they are arrested with narcotics, especially hard narcotics, they're going to have two felonies on their record,” said Garcia.
Last year, a record 190 teens – ages 18 and under – were caught smuggling drugs along the San Diego County-Mexico border, according to federal investigators.
So far this year, the number is down to 128, but Garcia says there are still disturbing new trends.
While marijuana was once the main drug being smuggled by teenagers, now it’s meth.
Also, recruiters used to target mainly teenage boys, but now they’re targeting young girls.
"If you look at the way that some females are dressed, it's hard to detect, they're wearing skinny jeans and tight tops and they still manage to hide it on them so the untrained eye wouldn't pick up on it," explained Garcia.
To help combat the teen drug smuggling trend, agents have formed a special outreach program that travels from school to school, warning kids about the dangers of drug smuggling.
Agents also warn parents to be alert and aware of their teens’ cash flow. Agents say that if a child suddenly has a lot of money and parent don’t know where it came from, it could be a red flag.
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This is nothing new. It has been happening for years. Their crime families are part of it too. It is just getting worse.
"Agents say that if a child suddenly has a lot of money and parent don’t know where it came from, it could be a red flag."
If you need an agent to tell you this, you might as well just drive your kid to the Zetas recruitment office.
I certainly agree with that. But, most likely it is a family business.
they need to label all these cartels as terriost,then all this @!$%# will stop,lets jjust random shoot missle at the leaders like we do to the people in the middle east,these @!$%#s are no diffrent,kill each and everyone of them,i mean @!$%#,mexcio is a @!$%#en pile of @!$%# place,with weak ass people whop dont give a @!$%#,if they did this @!$%# wouldnt be going in,you all have the wroset prez in the world,i mean all your border patrol works for the cartel,all your goverment works for the cartel,i can't wait tell they label you @!$%#s as terriost.
It has always irritated me that juveniles are given special treatment. The ability to choose right and wrong and a fully formed conscience have been scientifically proven to develop around 7 years old. A 12 year old is perfectly capable of being an evil and violent premeditating killer. They know what they are doing. If they do the same crime, they need to do the same time. No mercy and zero tolerance for any criminal behavior no matter what age, race, sex, or religion is the only way to go.
The sad fact is that liberals, whether they be left or right leaning, refuse to punish, and they dominate the lawmaking process.
The cartels are in approx 300 US Cities and taking over the Gangs. Frm CA to the East Coast. Gangs are connected, until you travel and experience each area do you discover these connections and it is not good. The cartels, the Zedas in particular, are recruiting teens to go into computer technology this requires the teens finish H.School. It will be interesting to see how, or if, the high school drop out rate with Hispanics begins to trend dwnward. This Cartel realizes they can steal via the internet, just like the Russians have been doing via Craigs List and Ebay where they create identical sites including paypal. But what is not being said in this article is the number of Border Patrol, their Supervisors and 'someo people' in the CA State Capitol are paid off regularly to allow whomever, teen or other, to pass over the border. This has been told to me, and others first hand. Even the Coyotes pay these persons off, when they don't or if they pay for fewer people than are really being transported, then the Coyote is pulled over and busted as an example to the others to not 'short change' those who are; turning their head, leaving their post at a specific time etc. The Hispanic gangs in OC have been discussing getting into the kidnapping and human trafficking of children, a year ago this was being discussed. The Russian Cartels are big into human trafficking and the payoffs are big. The Hispanic gangs almost have carte blanc here in the US, the illegals will not call the PD if their child goes missing. Even if the family is legally in the US they fear the gangs and cartels and likely will not call PD. To aid the gangs is the corrupt cops and deputies that take a cut of any illegal transaction that they ignore. The people of the US need to wake up and take control of each local community, question everything that takes place in government and legal authorities and stop accepting explanations. Trust but verify. People need to group together and share the responsibilities of monitoring all local government. Everyone is in danger in the US where the Hispanic gangs are developing, and if you do not believe there are any gangs in your area then you should do an investigation because they are everywhere. Eventually the Hispanic children will be substituted for any child, the cops will be turning their head as they are part of the payoff. Drugs to me is secondary to kidnapping and human trafficking and that is where we are headed. Everyone needs to wake up.
This is what 90% of Mexicans believe to feel justified for sneaking under our fences
to steel our country. I lived with Mexicans-Chicanos for 30+ years and I am white, I am an officianado on this subject.
I come Texas from Mexico in 1987 so call illegal way but Texas was Mexico until
USA stoel it during War of Aggression 1846. I consider myself a Mexican
We did not steel it from you pendejo. That obsurd excuse for you Mexicans to feel justified
to steel white and black mans vote. You have no ties to our great nation, you
and poncho vila. We conqured it by defeating your pathetic corupt leaders and
army with guns and knives. And it was North American indians land not yours.
when you kick out Spain, Spains territory was up for grabs and we grabed it
with our white blood. Your stealing America by sneaking and crawling under our
fence to steel our jobs. We did not steel, we fight, we conqure with our white
blood. You sneak under our fences
The south west USA was north american indans land. Apaches, Navajo, Gila, Pima
indians. You dont belong here. They kept kicking your butts back down south to
Mexico every time you murdered and raped their villages to to conquere them.
Whites conquered indians with their white blood
190 caught, that means thousands more have gotten through. No worries though, keep sending our tax dollars to foreign nations, it's all good at the border
Wow! Breaking news, they have done this for years.
This is not new and no surprise. Been done for years. They are also used to divert attention during a smuggling operation. The cartel uses them as expendables. If they are shot, killed or whatever, just collateral damage. If Border Patrol is involved...a big payday for the family, doesn't matter what the kid was doing.
Why isn't the TSA there feeling up everyone at the border? At least we should have the scanners. We have them at our airports, but not at the border crossings?
As long as everyone has a 'blind eye' to this, it will continue. As long as everyone has the mentality, "It won't happen to me", it will continue. To see someone that you love diminish because of a dependence on drugs...legal or illegal...is horrifying. What can be done? If the number of people dependent on drugs, self medication, legal OR illegal, is MORE than the number of people who are not......WHAT is the answer??? Please help me understand.
I will help you understand. Make the punishment severe. Kill the drug smugglers, no questions, no trial. Just shoot on sight and bury them. I am sick of this spineless society that doesn't have the balls to take out the criminals. Bring back vigilanties.
I like your thinking, but you do realize that people will try to rehabilitate them and hug them back to being 'human' and the people that do not agree with this foo foo method are the monsters. Sometimes I want to scream.
Don't you and everyone else believe for one sec that if the most powerful government on the face of this earth REALLY wanted this $hit stopped that they could not stop it in it's tracks? Hell yes they could! They DON'T WANT IT STOPPED! Look at the hundreds of thousands of gov jobs it creates which in turn EXPANDS the government making it more and more powerful. It is what it is because that's the way THEY want it!
So what can we do to protect our families, friends, people that we love from all of this???
Lock and load baby. Get plenty of practice in, and hope for the best.
I live in three points AZ. The stuff you see down here would make a movie! I am a minor and run into these idiots all the time! We were about 8 miles north of Mexico by Sassabe AZ and a guy offered me fifty dollars for two bottles of dasani? I gave it to him at no charge because I felt bad for his stupidity! Eight miles from Mexico and out of water? Desert? Fifty miles to go? You might as well turn yourself in!! It is a war zone out here!! I can here a helicopter right now! But we should just let them in to raise our taxes?
So, they said that the price to pay is they "have 2 felonies on their record". Big fricken deal. They made a few hundred dollars. That is more than their parents make in a month. So, it IS worth the risk. When the punishment is "you will be shot on sight" then the punishment will not be worth the risk. You want to end drug smuggling, shoot the sob's on sight, and you will see a dramatic drop.
Crime is easy to stop. Make the punishment swift and severe and crime will drop. Give up on this BS notion that you can rehabilitate criminals. Kill them, bring the next one up, kill them and keep it up, you will see a drop in crime. Very simple, but to many don't have the balls to do it. Too many "touchy feely liberals" that want to help them. Screw them, someone sells drugs to my son, I will take them out in the desert, shoot them, bury them and go have a beer knowing I did society a favor.
Pull up a chair or two or a few hundred, you might have a few people that want to join you for a beer.
If more threat of life in prison or worse were on the table for the drug trade coming up from Mexico then maybe they would think twice. Build that wall with armed guards to protect this country.
I stopped being shocked by adults using children to commit crimes back in the late '80s. Here in southern NJ, some enterprising muggers would place a baby on the side of the road in a remote area ( yes, they actually exist in this part of the state! ). When some chivalrous driver ( often a woman ) stopped to tend to the baby, the muggers would spring from the bushes to rob and/or 'jack the victim.
Both sides in the drug "war" have enlisted teens. Remember the oh-so-lifelike Nancy Reagan exhorting teens to rat out their parents if they suspected drug use was happening, even though her Republican supporters had for decades condemned the Soviets for using similar tactics?
Yeah, I wonder how those families are doing now-a-days? You know the ones that got turned over to the police for using drugs? How did those kids like the foster care till they were 18? I'd sure like to hear if it was worth them ratting out their parents, you know so they could get the help the so badly needed and deserved (the 5 to 10 year prison stretch). Wonder if that kinda time really cured them? Or I wonder if it only made their lives that much worse? Having their children taken into foster care becaus ethose kids "thought" they were doing the "right thing" by helping out the "good guys" and ratting their parents out.
I don't know but to me it kind of sounds like the "good guys" are doing the exact samething as the "sleezy" cartels do, enlisting MINORS to do THEIR work for them. IMO, both sides should have left the kids alone and just let the kids be kids not DEA undercover agants or drug mules...
Borders should check on all ages from babies to old people for drugs. Use sniff dogs on persons. Don't forget pregnants too.. They should have xray for people go through so they can see somethings inside bodies. Kill Cartels:No more drugs, no more mules, and etc..
Don't you and everyone else believe for one sec that if the most powerful government on the face of this earth REALLY wanted this $hit stopped that they could not stop it in it's tracks? Hell yes they could! They DON'T WANT IT STOPPED! Look at the hundreds of thousands of gov jobs it creates which in turn EXPANDS the government making it more and more powerful. It is what it is because that's the way THEY want it!
My nephew is 14 yrs old...and is actively working in the "trade" per his fathers advice and full support. The father of this boy grew up selling drugs, and expect his son to "follow in the family tradition". My sister finally got the courage to file a report with the Department of Child Services, and was told that after initial investigations "they saw no reason to investigate further" because both parents denied the accusations!!!! My niece is on meth, her husband sells hard drugs...they have threee teenage boys...and a long history of drug use and distribution charges. WHAT IS HAPPENING IN COLORADO SPRINGS!!! no one cares what happens to these kids.
So which is it Jose from ICE? Are you "shocked and saddened" or are you just saddedned? Because at first you say that you were 'shocked to learn about the Cartel using kids to carry...' but in you next sentance you say "Nothing shocks you when in come to the legnths Cartels will go to..." I just don't get it!!! Is this the kind of double talk that occurs between our agents along the boarder? If so something needs to be done about it...
Anywho, that shouldn't be surprising to ANYONE that they are using kids, they've been using them forever, are you guys really just catching on now? Why wouldn't they use kids, they'll chop their heads off but not use them to smuggle? Was that really the thinking before this? And they are 100% right, if they use kids under 18 they'll just get a light slap on the wrist (light meaning compared to someone 18 years or older who would likely spend the next decade and a half behind bars for the exact same offense) and at the absolute most would be locked up until they turn 21. Sad when you think about it, if an 18 year old got caught we'd feel like he was an idiot and deserved everything he got, including spending the next 2 decades in a federal prison with "real hardcore felons" but if he was caught when just 1 month before that when he (and/or she) was only 17 we'd feel sorry for that "child" and we would be completely alright with letting him or her out when they turned 21. But again, 18 or a little older??? SEE YA WHEN YOU'RE 40 A$$HOLE...
Let's just do a couple fly-overs across Mexico and BLIP problem solved!
lol
If they are minors and younger than 18, aren't the felonies sealed? Sounds like a cheap 300 bucks in a society that doesn't care, and an underground that pays well.
This is not a new trend. Using kids as drug moles has been going on for decades.
Babies of druggies will probably become druggies.
Parents that suck pot in front of kids, are condemning them to a druggie life.
And yes: The same is true of alcohol and tobacco.
Teenagers being used to transport drugs? What will they think of next? Women?
Hope I didn't give them any ideas.