NAFTA success stories: Free trade "unwittingly" fuels drug smuggling

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Feb. 11, 2006, 11:43PM
NUEVO LAREDO
Free trade fuels drug smuggling
Traffickers find a perfect cover in legitimate cargo passing through

By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3653312.html

NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - The five bridges spanning the green waters of the Rio Grande bustle with more than 21,000 cars, trucks and buses every day. This border town — and its American sister city across the river — see more than $100 billion in commerce rumble through every year. They're known as "Los Dos Laredos," and few dispute the towns are one of the great NAFTA success stories.

But U.S. drug agents say that free trade with Mexico has had an ugly and unintended consequence: Just as legitimate business people have flocked to Nuevo Laredo, so have criminals. And they have quickly turned it into one of the most dangerous and violent towns along the U.S.-Mexico border, agents say.

Last week, gunmen swept into the newsroom of Nuevo Laredo's main newspaper, sprayed it with gunfire and tossed at least one grenade, critically injuring a reporter. Mexican authorities haven't arrested anyone, but say warring drug traffickers are widely suspected.

U.S. drug agents say they aren't surprised the city of 310,000 has become such a coveted outpost for smugglers. They've worried for years that free trade unwittingly fuels trafficking.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. "They've worried for years that free trade unwittingly fuels trafficking."

I'm sure the CIA will reign this in. They hate competition.