Interactive: Cocaine road map

Mexican cartels smuggle drugs across the U.S. through a web of independent distribution cells. The cells can move drugs from the border to the East Coast within days. The cells also return the cash proceeds to cartel bosses in Mexico. Roll over image for details. Click tabs to see other steps in the smuggling process.

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Sources: Court documents, Times reporting by Tom Reinken and Richard Marosi. Graphic and interactivity by Raoul Rañoa / Los Angeles Times. Graphics are schematic.

Comments (7)

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LexLuther at 5:47 PM August 05, 2012

@LAGirl: Believe me when I say that the cartels know all the ways/methods and the TTP's (tactics, techniques, and procedures) of the USBP and vice versa. Smuggling has been a way of life in Northern Mexico over 150 years now; from guns flowing south to Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, to alcohol flowing north during Prohibition, to drugs going North now. The routes, methods, and everything else are well known. The "game" is in the sheer volume of traffic; both legal and illegal. The border patrol could not spend the necessary time on every vehicle and still have traffic (and more importantly, commerce) flowing back and forth. Increasing the scrutiny of each vehicle could seriously hurt the economies of both countries.

LAGirl at 10:43 AM August 17, 2011

At what point do they apply all this knowedge to stop the process? It seems that an inordinate amount of time has been spent providing the public with all this info so that the perpetrators now know what we know and can learn how to change their strategy.

Four Blu at 8:58 AM August 15, 2011

This story is classic misdirection.

The details of this narrative are actually irrelevent.

HOw do most drugs get smuggled into this country ?

Look up the term "diplomatic pouch"

An entire cargo container may be labeled as a "diplomataic pouch"

and can not be searched. They just truck it in or sail it in, right up to the docks of Long Beach, sanFrancisco, Miami, New Orleans , New York, New Jersey, and Baltimore. Hiding in plain site.

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