In the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, Arpaio said, a cartel operative was openly selling heroin to high school students. "He was getting 150 calls a day on his cellphone," the sheriff said.
The DEA believes 80% of the methamphetamine in the United States is coming from labs in Mexico, which were set up after police raids shut down many of the labs in the U.S.
In Dallas, police are dealing with the deaths of 21 high school students from "cheese heroin," a mixture of Mexican heroin and over-the-counter cold medicine. A hit sells for $2 to $5. Several arrests of dealers have been made; now officials are bracing for the coming school season.
"It's a small packet," said Lt. Tom Moorman of the Dallas Police Department. "They can carry it in a pack of gum. Very, very small."
Antonio Oscar "Tony" Garza Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, has issued repeated notes to the Mexican government. Last year he sent an advisory to American tourists that "drug cartels, aided by corrupt officials [in Mexico], reign unchecked in many towns along our common border."
A House subcommittee on domestic security has investigated the "triple threat" of drug smuggling, illegal border crossings and rising violence, and it found that "very little" passes the border without the cartels' knowledge.
The panel found that cartels send smugglers into the United States fully armored with equipment -- much of it imported to Mexico from the United States -- including high-powered binoculars and encrypted radios, bazookas, military-style grenades, assault rifles and silencers, sniper scopes and bulletproof vests. Some wear fake police uniforms to confuse authorities as well as Mexican bandits who might ambush them.
The panel's report cited numerous recent crimes. In McAllen, Texas, "two smuggled women from Central America were found on the side of a road badly beaten and without clothing. Their captors intimidated the victims by shooting weapons into the walls and ceiling as they were raped." In Laredo, Texas, Webb County sheriff's deputies came upon 56 illegal immigrants locked in a refrigerator trailer; 11 were women, two children. After six hours, "many were near death by the time they were rescued."
It was in Laredo last summer where police encountered Rosalio Reta, then 17, a Houston native who fell under the spell of the Gulf Cartel across the river. Known as Bart, the youth was 13 when he started visiting Mexico.
