{"id":5363,"date":"2017-05-09T18:52:30","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T22:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=5363"},"modified":"2017-05-09T18:53:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T22:53:41","slug":"border-wall-will-not-stop-drug-smugglers-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=5363","title":{"rendered":"Border Wall Will Not Stop Drug Smugglers: Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Kevin Hecht, a Border Patrol agent, in a smuggling tunnel under Nogales, Ariz. Credit Joshua Lott for The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A U.S.<\/span> government report shows that drug traffickers adapt their techniques in response to increased overland security, undermining the argument that a border wall will prevent the entry of illicit drugs, InSight Crime reports<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The GAO<\/span> study<\/a> released on 1 May analyzes the extent to which alternative tactics are used by criminal organizations. The United States Government Accountability Office\u2019s study cites Department of Homeland Security (DHS<\/span>) data showing that there were 67 discovered cross-border tunnels, 534 ultralight aircraft incursions, and 309 drug smuggling incidents involving fishing and recreational vessels along U.S.<\/span> mainland borders from 2011 through 2016.<\/p>\n

The number of known smuggling events involving these methods generally declined over this period, but they remain threats, the study says.<\/p>\n

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project<\/a> (OCCRP<\/span>) notes<\/a> that in his election campaign, President Trump promised to build a wall along the Mexican border to prevent people and drugs from entering the United States.<\/p>\n

Reuters reported<\/a> in February that its journalists had seen a DHS<\/span>internal study that says the \u201cwall\u201d would be a series of fences and walls and that it would cost as much as $21.6 billion.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, drug and people smugglers welcomed the idea of a wall, telling<\/a> the New York Times<\/em> that the higher the wall, the higher their profit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is never going to stop, neither the narco trafficking nor the illegals,\u201d a drug trafficker told the Times<\/em>. \u201cThere will be more tunnels. More holes. If it doesn\u2019t go over, it will go under.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fees criminal networks charge to transport people and drugs will just increase, smugglers claim.<\/p>\n

The techniques criminals adopt to bypass land barriers remain uncommon in comparison to the bulk of smuggling, which is still done through official points, but reports suggest<\/a> that criminal organizations are inventive when it comes to adapting and moving drugs across the border anyway.<\/p>\n

OCCRPsays that the U.S.<\/span> Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA<\/span>) notes that most of the drugs enter the United States concealed in passenger vehicles or hidden among legitimate goods on freight vehicles.<\/p>\n

The report says that there are better ways than building a wall to address cross-border trafficking. These would include improved detection technology, inter-agency coordination, and better techniques for gathering and analyzing information and intelligence.<\/p>\n

This article is published courtesy of Homeland Security News Wire<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A U.S. government report shows that drug traffickers adapt their techniques in response to increased overland security, undermining the argument that a border wall will prevent the entry of illicit drugs, InSight Crime reports.  The GAO study released on 1 May analyzes the extent to which alternative tactics are used by criminal organizations. The United…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borders-commerce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5365,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363\/revisions\/5365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}