Breathe
By Yuriria Rodríguez Castro
While North America strays into populist state policies through migratory waves that become the labor force of organized crime, criminal organizations in Mexico, the United States and Canada have already achieved the ideal of the knowledge revolution that no other political system could legitimately achieve. Now it is transnational organized crime, with its logistical, industrial and technological know-how, that is the great global power. This is the conclusion we reached after talking to specialist Luis Horacio Nájera, who left Ciudad Juárez for Canada a few years ago after being the victim of threats from criminal groups.
Luis is known for his pioneering book on the subject of drug trafficking between Mexico and Canada: The Woolfpack. The millenial mobsters who brought chaos and the cartels to the canadian underworld, which is an in-depth report on a generation of millennial drug traffickers who arrived on the organized crime scene in Canada with a more executive profile than that of the Mexican drug trafficker, But as of last November, with the dismantling of a "super lab" of synthetic drugs located on a farm in the province of Columbia, the links that Luis had already warned about between Mexican and Canadian drug trafficking were confirmed, simply because of the production method with a Mexican signature.
The typology in the production of synthetic drugs makes it possible to identify contacts between organizations, as it reveals the presence of criminal groups based on their productive behavior: never before had a laboratory with characteristics that only Mexican drug traffickers have been improving for years been seen in that nation. It is an apprenticeship set in motion with the installation of drug laboratories; as if it were a huge nursery hidden in a farm, this is how the "super laboratory" was discovered by the Canadian Mounted Police. The operation also refers to the Mexican way of having no evidence: only one detainee and a very dubious documentation of ownership that seems to suggest the use of loan sharks. In Mexico this is a common occurrence, but in Canada it is a novelty.
Luis Horacio mentions in his book and during our conversation how after the death of the Italian drug lords who controlled the drug market in the Canadian nation, Mexican traffickers began to weave links with them, meeting in the port of Acapulco, Guerrero.
When speaking with Luis Horacio, one senses the imprint of exile, a feeling that is increasingly closer, but listening to him also evokes the analysis of a violent criminal industry that harms both nations: it is about seeing drug trafficking as a political and media phenomenon, unlike the mythical and apologetic social construction of the "narco" that adorns television series. Among the highlights of the meeting was the agreement that organized crime in Mexico and Canada is not limited or focused exclusively on drug trafficking, but on the commercial exchange of industrial and logistical know-how:
"Drug trafficking also experienced what Moisés Naím calls the revolution of knowledge," warns Luis, quoting the Venezuelan writer of Ilícito and El fin del poder. It is then when I ask him if it is possible to talk about an exchange of industrial or business advice in organized crime, to which he adds:
"A Vietnamese Canadian citizen was arrested in Los Angeles because he had a telecommunications company in Canada; he sold encrypted electronic devices wholesale to organized crime. Those kinds of opportunities have been exploited in Canada," says Luis, who immediately makes me think of the Canadian potential for groups like the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation (CJNG) and before that, the so-called Gulf Cartel through its armed wing, Los Zetas, who used radars and cameras to carry out their criminal activities, this organization was led by Osiel Cardenas, who at the end of the year was deported to Mexico in an unusual exchange policy. Now, both the Sinaloa group and CJNG use new technologies to deploy their industry.
Luis comments that he suspects that Mexican organized crime has murdered Canadian citizens in Canada and probably disappeared them, then mentions the case of former Olympic athlete Ryan James Wedding, who in October 2024 was accused of running a drug trafficking network linked to Mexico, where his second in command, Andrew Clark, was arrested while he remains at large.
"One of the competitive advantages for organized crime in Canada is diversity. In fact, there is a criminal group called the United Nations, made up of natives, Filipinos and Latin Americans. These are people who speak several languages and have the ability to travel with passports from North America to the Middle East," said Najera.
At that moment, Luis Horacio refers to Roby Alkhalil, linked to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, "who escaped from prison like something out of a movie," said the Mexican-born journalist. The expression has similarities with the memorable and mediatic escapes of Joaquín Guzmán Loera ("El Chapo Guzmán"). According to Luis' information, Alkhalil could be hiding under the protection of China or a Middle Eastern country, thus referring to the relationship between drug trafficking and terrorism:
"There is a video of Mexican drug traffickers decapitating hitmen with a chainsaw, which is then used by jihadists to warn and threaten about what they can also do," recalls Luis. Everything seems to indicate that the video he is referring to is from 2014 and shows two Sinaloa Cartel hitmen killed with this tool, which was published on Blog del narco, a portal and global media platform for Mexican organized crime.
However, it could even be any other video from the early 2000s, since there are many typologies of criminal behavior that Mexican drug traffickers and jihadist terrorists share, which shows that, as we have pointed out in academic research, there is an influence not only in the drug trafficking market for financing between Islamic terrorism and drug trafficking in Mexico, but there is also an exchange of knowledge reflected in their ideology.
Luis Horacio warns that he finds the Mexican government's refusal to recognize the terrorist behavior of criminal groups, who also trade in people, very "irresponsible" , as the crime of trafficking is linked to drug trafficking and the trade in terror, as all crimes are obviously related to each other:
"The issue is to know at what point the ideology will move from one side to the other; when the criminal will stop feeling like a criminal and start absorbing the ideological issue towards a deeper radicalization, more oriented towards terrorism," warns Luis.
"Before, drug trafficking wanted to be the State, but now the State wants to be drug trafficking," Najera asks after we talked about the long conceptual path that tries to deny the existence of the terrorist phenomenon in Mexican organized crime, generally saving drug trafficking by the escape route of ideology as an excuse not to talk about terrorism. Another very recurrent evasion is the political use of the subject to justify a supposed invasion of Mexican territory, something that is fanciful but which has been introduced in public opinion.
The fentanyl "super lab
"Vancouver is a port connected to China," says Luis Horacio regarding the new drug on the regional market and recalls that in November 2024, the Canadian Mounted Police dismantled the "super lab" of synthetic drugs never before seen in that nation.
"Because of the type of technology they found, because of the type of method used, the police consider that there is the hand of Mexican trafficking, most likely advising or participating in a partnership. In fact, one of the versions mentioned is that members of The Wolfpack would be involved in this laboratory," warned Najera in reference to his book on the great criminal alliance of traffickers in Canadian territory. This was another colossal seizure for the world, practically invisible to the Mexican media and authorities.
"We are seeing a different mentality and a different business model with synthetic drugs, which has a huge influence on criminals to facilitate their activity. Now everything can be done in the basement. This also makes fentanyl in Canada a public health problem, especially in Vancouver and Toronto. There is an organization that is dedicated to taking drug samples and has discovered that most of the overdose deaths contain high amounts of fentanyl and tranq, a drug used for horses", emphasizes Luis Horacio.
"Drug expertise is being taken to other countries, where the trafficker has become a kind of consultant because he knows how the business is done and they hire him for that," the writer points out, using a concept that refers to the expertise or skill acquired by these criminals.
"So you also traffic with knowledge, with technique and methodology in drugs?" I ask, to which Luis adds that the same happens with the "ability" to kill: "It's like in companies: you hire a consultant who gives you the knowledge in different specialties," he clarifies, referring to advice at different levels: production, distribution and even market campaign.
Distrust between Canada and Mexico
That Canada controlled by Italian mafia bikers and some small first generation indigenous groups, changed to the dominance of Mexican drug traffickers since the first encounters between the Italian-Canadian mafia in Acapulco, Guerrero, many years ago, says Najera, who also points out that the main Canadian advantage is its ports through the Montreal-New York connection, in addition to the Niagara crossing, as they are routes that easily connect the drug market in the entire northern region of America with Europe and China.
