Chinese, Latin American crime lords linking

There is increasing evidence that Chinese criminal cartels are linking up with their counterparts in Latin American to make profits from drugs and human trafficking, according to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.Sources say that last April a shipment of precursor chemicals bound for the Los Zetas Mexican cartel was intercepted in the small Caribbean country of Belize. According to report by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank, a Chinese mafia apparently is emerging in Chinese communities in Latin America. The report pointed out that other connections between China and Latin America include trafficking in persons from China through Latin America to be smuggled into the United States and Canada. Concerns also have been raised about contraband goods and money laundering. The report points out that law enforcement in Latin America is “woefully unprepared” to deal with the increasing criminal ties between the two regions. Part of the problem is the inability of police to penetrate Chinese communities where these criminal activities take place, since they lack ethnic Chinese agents or language skills, particularly in non-Mandarin dialects. The report also says there is evidence that Chinese and even Taiwanese embassies in some of these Latin American countries assist in such operations. “China-Latin America criminal ties are likely to become greater with the expanding commerce and investment between the two regions,” the report said. “Historical experience suggests that Chinese triads and tongs operating in Chinese communities in major Latin American cities will continue to diversify into human trafficking, narcotics and other lucrative criminal activities.” There is an anticipation of increased human trafficking as the number of Chinese workers grows to fulfill construction projects in the Caribbean. “Purchases of precursor chemicals from China and India by Mexican drug cartels are likely to expand into other forms of collaboration as well as competition for ‘turf’ in overlapping business areas such as Pacific maritime logistics,” the report said. “Mafias on both sides of the Pacific are likely to become increasingly involved in taxing, and perhaps controlling, the growing and highly lucrative contraband trade,” the report added. “New trans-Pacific banking ties and increasing currency convertibility will create new, difficult-to-monitor options for criminal organizations to cross the Pacific to hide earnings and protect assets.”