
Mexican Cartels Enslave Engineers to Build Radio Network (2012) - josefresco
http://www.wired.com/2012/11/zeta-radio/
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luckyno13
I, for one, am always surprised yet impressed by the things the cartels do.
All the while not being shocked at all.

They would be such an interesting psychological / sociological study if it
didn't mean potential torture and beheading of researchers. I mean this level
of organized crime makes Al Capone look like a petty pick pocket.

~~~
rodgerd
Want to be really impressed and horrified? See if you can dig out the 90s
Wired article on the Colombians using an AS/400 to do analysis of copies of
telco records. Whenever they found the logs showing cartel members calling
numbers registered to police officers, they'd kill the cartel member.

Big data before it was cool.

~~~
gwern
[http://www.geek.com/news/outclassed-by-technology-in-the-
dru...](http://www.geek.com/news/outclassed-by-technology-in-the-drug-
war-549059/) [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-cartel-supercomputer-
of...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-cartel-supercomputer-of-1994)

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hoozters
Yeah, let's keep drugs illegal, it really seems to work.

~~~
luckyno13
While I agree with you, the illegal drug trade got these guys started and off
the ground, I think at this point they would have other avenues to keep
themselves in business. I hear the human trafficking business is quite
lucrative and booming these days down their way.

~~~
tormeh
Well, you can't really be a small cartel. Even if the other businesses are
profitable, a cartel needs a certain size to pay for constant expenses like
bribes, armed forces etc. Politicians and the police don't give you a discount
because you're small and people still need to be just as intimidated even
though you're doing less shit.

Just removing one illegal activity might knock the sum value of dangerous,
illegal activities below the threshold where cartels can work.

~~~
eam
Just to add some more. The legalization of pot hurts cartel's income. I read
somewhere, that pot accounts for 60% of the cartel's profit in a multi-billion
dollar industry! I mention this because of the recent trends in the US where
states are beginning to legalize it. I'm sure they weren't too happy to hear
that Oregon and Alaska legalize it as it only takes part of the profit away.
Once the US is fully legalized, it won't be a hugely profitable business
anymore so they will hurt. This means less profits, which means less power for
them. With less power, then perhaps there will be less violence in Mexico?

~~~
jeangenie
What would stop the cartels from investing in legal storefronts and capturing
profits regardless? (This certainly shouldn't be construed as an argument for
the morass we have now, just an interesting aside.)

~~~
rizzom5000
Presumably nothing if the money they use to invest is considered legitimate.

Nevertheless, it really seems logical that as a society we should prefer that
market competition occurs legally in a open and free market rather than
violently in an illegal and black market. The difference between the two types
of economic activity is tremendous.

~~~
jeangenie
It's certainly logical but my question is if it will actually impact Mexican
cartel revenue as much as some people claim.

If the alternative to cartel weed is industrially-farmed weed propping up
another unholy conglomerate I'm not sure either is better.

~~~
DanBC
Has anyone done a comparison of the death rate from unholy conglomerates and
the Mexican drug cartels?

~~~
jeangenie
Are you asking because you plan on doing so? I'd be interested to hear what
you find. Here's something to get you started:
[http://online.wsj.com/articles/j-p-morgan-
fined-92-million-b...](http://online.wsj.com/articles/j-p-morgan-
fined-92-million-by-eu-over-cartels-1413907417)

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eksith
At this point, isn't it more accurate to call them a terrorist organization?
They have their own military, communications network and a healthy (seemingly
never ending) supply of soldiers to do their bidding and the citizens are
sufficiently terrorized.

Forget fighting ghosts in far off lands; right next door is where the
terrorists are.

~~~
apta
They're probably not Muslims, so they're not "terrorists". Only Muslims are
terrorists nowadays.

~~~
seivan
Daesh is butchering kurdish women. You know, selling 9 year olds christians
and kurds because they are "kafirs". Majority of the kurds getting killed are
muslims as well.

Genuinely dislike what you're insinuating but it borders close to clouding
criticism as 'islamophobia' as the left-wing do in Sweden.

~~~
apta
I was being sarcastic, as another poster pointed out. Daesh is not the point
of discussion here, though yes, their actions are abominable.

~~~
andreasvc
Hint: if your comment is only a single line of sarcasm, you're probably not
contributing anything to the conversation.

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ChuckMcM
Sad story. Transmitters though are generally easy to find (not perhaps to
decode if encrypted but RF energy is easily localized). As a radio amateur we
used to do transmitter 'hunts' where we could locate and disable a transmitter
hidden in some area.

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ZenoArrow
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that dismantling these radio networks
is backwards? By using these radios the cartels are giving the authorities
free information about their movements and evidence that's useful in their
conviction. Even if the traffic is encrypted there are ways around that. The
logical thing to me is keep the radios going and listen to them.

~~~
pizza234
I'd say more "useless" thank backwards.

Having evidence is not really a problem. In Mexico, you will see narcos in the
streets with very outlandish behavior. With a functioning judiciary system
they would be arrested and jailed easily and immediately.

The problem is that drug cartels have control of the everything, including the
police and the judiciary system. You should read about the meetings where they
show to the policemen what they do to the ones who betray them; it's
terrifying.

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logicallee
The free market solution is for Mexican engineers to band together and raise a
private army with their earnings.

You think I'm kidding, but I am actually making a point about rule of law - I
_literally_ just named the free-market solution. Think about it the next time
you dismiss the state.

~~~
josu
Well, the state is the one who started the whole ordeal by making drugs
illegal. So I would argue that in a real free-market no engineer would have
been kidnapped in the first place.

~~~
logicallee
That is an interesting point! But in failed states (where de facto nothing is
"illegal" as there is no rule of law), life is hardly peaceful. The source of
the strife may be drugs in this case, but it's just because that's what pays
well enough to approximate a lack of a strong state enforcing rule of law,
even in a Western country like Mexico.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_St...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Fragile_States_Index)

~~~
GregBuchholz
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on John Hasnas' "Myth of the Rule
of Law".

[http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm](http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm)

~~~
internet_arguer
I'd like to refute your succinct list by posting this incredibly long essay.
If you don't read it fully then you don't get to disagree with my point.

Effective!

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joshkpeterson
Legalize all drugs. Full stop.

