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Global Drug Crisis; Juarez: The Deadliest City
Aired October 24, 2009 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, the New Jersey priest murder mystery. Why police believe a janitor stabbed a beloved priest 32 times and left him to die on the rectory floor.
The president declares a swine flu national emergency. The H1N1 virus is spreading quickly and taking more lives. What happens next?
And we focus on the illegal drug trade this hour. A new United Nations report says the worldwide war on drugs is in need of a major overhaul. And that Afghanistan and heroin, the trade there is fueling terrorism.
While along the U.S. border and Mexican border, officials are on the edge as one city has lost 2,000 people this year alone because of rival drug gangs. My talk with the mayor of Juarez is an eye-opener.
And we go even deeper inside a Colombian drug den, close-up accounts of those who buy, sell and kill for drugs.
Good evening, everyone. I'm Don Lemon, live here at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta.
We start tonight with some breaking news for you. It's a grisly murder we have been telling you about, of a New Jersey Catholic priest. Well, within the last hour, the Morris County prosecutor has announced an arrest in the death of the Reverend Ed Hinds whose body was found in St. Patrick Church's rectory in the town of Chatham.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, NEWS 12 NEW JERSEY)
ROBERT BIANCHI, MORRIS COUNTY, N.J. PROSECUTOR: The individual who was just recently arrested as a result of this is Jose Feliciano. He is 64 years of age. I have a photograph here of Mr. Feliciano. Mr. Feliciano is a janitor at that church. He has been employed there for approximately 17 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, police believe the Reverend Hinds who was 61 was killed between 11:00 p.m. Thursday night and 8:00 a.m. Friday. They say he suffered stab wounds in several parts of his body caused by a kitchen knife. His body was discovered after he failed to show up for Friday morning mass at St. Patrick's church in Chatham, New Jersey.
We want to turn now to our other developing story here, the rising concerns about the swine flu. President Obama has declared the H1N1 outbreak a national emergency. A White House aide calls the move proactive and not a response to any new development.
Now, more than 1,000 Americans have died from the swine flu, including a first grader at this school in Vacaville, California. Classes there were canceled yesterday, and every room at the school is getting disinfected. The nation's top infectious disease specialist tells CNN that elementary schools will continue to be a source of concern.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIR., NATL. INST. OF ALLERGY & INFECTIOUS DISEASE: When you get young children, kids who are vulnerable to a virus they've never seen before, again, congregating in schools, it's not at all surprising to us that we're seeing this blip. The concern is how high is it going to go, and how widespread it can be. It looks like this virus is very, very good at spreading from person to person. It has no trouble doing that. So we expect that this will continue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Forty-six states are reporting widespread flu transmissions and at least 20,000 Americans have been hospitalized with swine flu. And the director of the CDC says, for the time -- this time this year, the number is quite, quote, I should say, "extremely unusual," extremely unusual.
One of the pilots of that Northwest Airlines plane that overshot its intended airport by 150 miles -- well, he is speaking out. As you have no doubt heard about this, Flight 188 was en route Wednesday from San Diego to Minneapolis. Air traffic controllers could not make contact with the plane for over an hour. One of the pilots is denying popular speculation about what was going on inside of the cockpit. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD COLE, NORTHWEST FLIGHT 188 PILOT: Nobody was asleep in the cockpit. No arguments took place. But other than that, I cannot tell you anything that went on because we're having hearings this weekend. We're having hearings on Tuesday. All that information will come out then.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No arguments took place? I mean, that's the statement that's out there all over the place.
COLE: There was no arguments at all in the cockpit. That was -- that wasn't even an issue. Absolutely not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So passengers on the plane had no idea what was happening. And one of them tells CNN she's glad she was unaware of what was going on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANNE KROSHUS, NORTHWEST FLIGHT 188 PASSENGER: If any of us had known that was going on, I'm sure the entire flight would have been in a complete state of panic. But I think it's better that we didn't know. But I'm glad that they were at least trying to look out for us because I don't think the pilots were.
We were just, you know, completely under the impression that it was just air traffic and that Minneapolis airport was not giving us clearance to land and that, basically, we were just going to fly around until they allowed us to do so. And that's what we all believed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: We've also learned today that senior White House officials were aware the plane was off course and out of touch. National Guard jets were alerted as well, but none of the military planes ever took off.
Police say the balloon boy story is quickly deflating, thanks to his mom's confession. Mayumi Heene reported told sheriff's deputies that while the world was watching that helium-filled balloon last week, she and her husband knew all along that 6-year-old Falcon was safe at home. The affidavit also says the couple told the kids to lie about it to reporters and to police. The sheriff says he will recommend charges against the couple, some of them felonies that carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison.
People in Puerto Rico are being urged not to go outside as firefighters continue to battle that huge fuel storage fire. Five tanks are still burning, 12 are smoking, and four have burned themselves out. It started with an explosion after midnight Friday at a fuel complex near San Juan. And it is still burning.
The wind has shifted, putting more people at risk for smoke inhalation. The cause of the explosion is not known, but the plume of smoke is so big, it can be seen from space. Check this out. This is a view from a weather satellite high above Puerto Rico.
Targeting Taliban targets -- then wham! This is cockpit video from the Pakistani air force as it bombards the enemy in South Waziristan right along the Afghan border. And today, the army reportedly sees the Taliban stronghold of Kotkai marking a symbolic and strategic win.
But the rebels have put up a tough fight there in eight days of battle in the region. Sources say hostile fire brought down a Pakistani military chopper today, killing three people. U.S. drones are backing up Pakistani soldiers, and a drone strike is reportedly responsible for killing 14 people.
Afghanistan's runoff presidential campaign officially started today on an ominous note. The Taliban is calling for a boycott and threatening voters. Allegations of massive vote rigging during the first round led election inspectors to call for a do-over.
The runoff between incumbent President Hamid Karzai and challenger Dr. Abdullah Abdullah is set for November 7th. And election officials say this time around they're keeping it simple with fewer polling places and a promise to pause voting if they suspect fraud at a particular location.
You can hear from the Afghan presidential candidates themselves tomorrow. It all starts at 9:00 a.m. when John King speaks with former Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah on "STATE OF THE UNION." Then at 1:00 p.m., Afghan President Hamid Karzai talks to our Fareed Zakaria. Hear what both have to say about the upcoming presidential runoff and whether it can be fair. That is tomorrow, 9:00 a.m. Eastern and 1:00 p.m. Eastern, only here on CNN.
Lucrative and deadly. The drug trade, the war on drugs has been raging for years, but there is no victory in sight. One town just across the border from the U.S. in Mexico has already seen 2,000 murders this year, most drug-related. We're going to talk with the mayor there.
And in our country, a cult drug ring right here. Little known about them, but they have a very big presence in the U.S. The global drug crisis -- our focus this hour in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Also, we want your feedback and your questions to pose to our panel here. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or iReport.com. That's how you get them to us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: All right. If you want to learn something about illegal drugs, how they're made, couriered, how they get to the United States or anywhere they're going, you need to stick around and listen to this conversation.
And where exactly are we in the war on drugs? Well, the war on drugs was launched decades ago with the expectation that with time, money and police, the scourge could be eradicated. Well, today, narcotics are bigger business than ever and far deadlier.
This week, the U.S. government disclosed one of its biggest drug busts yet, targeting a little-known Mexican drug cartel known as La Familia. The group has been described as a religious cult with operations in nearly every major city in the U.S. -- nearly every major city in the U.S.
Well, just across the border, from El Paso, Texas, the city of Juarez, Mexico, now has the notorious distinction as the deadliest city in the world. Already, this year more than 2,000 murders, 10 times the rate of all of 2007. The mayor of Juarez says it is a turf war between rival drug cartels and rival drug gangs.
And in the thick of it, the Barrio Azteca, a vicious Mexican drug gang that was formed 25 years ago within the U.S. prison system. This week, the FBI placed the head of the Aztecas, Eduardo Ravelo, on its top 10 most wanted list.
And on the other side of the world, 60,000-plus American troops are battling an enemy funded by the lucrative trade. The U.N., this week, confirmed that the Taliban in Afghanistan are no longer skimming profits off the opium production. They are now deeply involved in all aspects of heroin trafficking, raking in -- raking in some $400 million a year to finance the war against the west.
So, for the remainder of this hour, we're going to look closer at all the aspects of the global drug crisis and why it's an issue that affects all Americans, everyone.
We begin tonight with Rafael Romo, CNN senior Latin American affairs editor and the major bust of La Familia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SR. LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): Raids like this one in suburban Atlanta mirror what happened throughout the U.S. In a massive anti-drug operation, federal agents targeted a Mexican drug cartel known as La Familia.
ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEYGENERAL: This unprecedented, coordinated United States law enforcement action is the largest ever taken against a Mexican drug cartel.
ROMO: The attorney general says that as part of this 3 1/2-year-long operation against the Mexican drug cartel, federal agents arrested 1,200 suspects and confiscated 11.7 tons of narcotics, as well as almost $33 million.
HOLDER: While this cartel may operate from Mexico, the toxic reach of its operations extends to nearly state within our own country.
ROMO: The news about the operation came one day after authorities in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez acknowledged the death toll there has reached 2,000. The city that borders El Paso, Texas, is considered one of the hot spots for Mexico's war against drugs in a contested territory for several drug cartels that rival La Familia in scope and power.
As the Mexican government tightens its grip on cartels, arresting their leaders and disrupting their operations, the criminal organizations have reacted by killing more police officers and soldiers than ever and increasing their level of violence and cruelty throughout Mexico.
(on camera): This summer, the La Familia drug cartel killed 12 federal police officers and attacked several police stations.
Dismantling the drug cartel has become a top priority of President Felipe Calderon's war on drugs that has killed 5,600 people this year alone.
Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. You saw Rafael's report. Now, we want to bring in Sam Quinones. He's a reporter with "The Los Angeles Times." He's covered the Mexican drug war in depth and joins us new live from Los Angeles.
Thank you, sir. So you heard Rafael's report.
SAM QUINONES, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Right.
LEMON: Let's start with La Familia. This is a Mexican cartel, and we have not heard about it a lot before. A lot of people describe it as a religious cult.
So, what have we learned -- what have you learned about them?
QUINONES: Well, it's a newer cartel. It has the distinction of believing that it's kind of on the right path. It doesn't believe in selling drugs to Mexicans. It believes in selling drugs abroad. It's a kind of a group that's kind of -- formed in one of the most kind of extreme areas of Mexico. It's called Tierra Caliente, which is translated as the Hot Land. It's a place where it's very hot weather.
LEMON: What is that near? Give us some -- give us some geography lesson here. What is that near? You said it's...
QUINONES: That's near -- it's about four hours west of Mexico City. It straddles the states of Michoacan and Guerrero.
LEMON: OK.
QUINONES: And this area is known for extreme violence, extreme temperature, and now, a kind of a breakdown in government and the rise of -- tremendously kind of anarchic and powerful drug gangs in that area. That's been -- it's been going on a while. This one is, kind of, a new offshoot in the last few years, I would say.
LEMON: Yes. And according to the group's communications, its members say they are simply carrying out a divine mission here. So, that's probably harder to fight than just greed for money.
QUINONES: Well, you know, yes. I mean -- but you need to take some of these comments with a little grain of salt.
LEMON: A grain of salt, right, because they like the money as well.
QUINONES: When money makes its way into it, money talks pretty loud.
LEMON: Let's talk about Juarez now.
QUINONES: Yes.
LEMON: And I'm going to talk to the mayor just a little bit later, an eye-opening interview. Juarez has emerged as a focal point of the Mexican drug war, 2,000 murder there plus, so far, this year.
QUINONES: Right.
LEMON: Why is Juarez more deadly than any other city, say, even Tijuana?
QUINONES: Well, Juarez is the place where the cartels are fighting it out now. They are -- there's long-held animosity between the Juarez drug cartel, Vicente Carrillo, who's the brother of the guy who founded that cartel and is now dead, and the Sinaloa cartel, and then there's also the folks from the Gulf cartel playing their roles and so on.
This is simply the forum, the playground, in a sense -- the battlefield in which these guys are fighting out long-held animosities. There's this feeling once -- long ago, there used to be this idea that if you were a drug cartel, you would sell your -- the territory that you controlled to the others. The others could get their drugs through, they just have to pay a kind of a tax.
It seems to me now that that's actually what's over. That what they're trying to do is get complete control and bar entry into the United States to others. And therefore, the other -- the rivals cannot allow that, and everyone is kind of fighting to the death. And it's extremely violent.
At the same time, of course, you're faced with a lack of police -- local police presence in Mexico.
LEMON: Well, here's...
QUINONES: Police are very poorly trained and equipped and so on. And all that plays a role in this as well.
LEMON: So, Sam, we know what's going on and it's terrible. But the concern for people here in the U.S., if you have border towns exploding like this with this many murders, obviously it poses a problem to the U.S. cities here.
QUINONES: Yes, you know, exactly. But if you look at the statistics, it just hasn't happened. Look at El Paso, one of the safest places in America today is...
LEMON: Yes.
QUINONES: ... to be is El Paso, you know? Laredo, Texas, a few years ago -- Nuevo Laredo was kicking off with hundred of murders.
LEMON: What is that, policing? Why doesn't it -- why hasn't it spread? What is that, policing in those towns?
QUINONES: I believe, my personal feeling is that -- after covering this for a while, talking with police along the border -- is that there is, cartels respect a kind of a U.S. criminal justice system.
LEMON: Yes.
QUINONES: And by that I'm talking about police, prisons, parole, et cetera -- the court system and all.
LEMON: OK. OK, Sam... QUINONES: And they understand that there's a price to pay for that in this country.
LEMON: All right, Sam, stand by because we have much, much more to talk to you about here.
QUINONES: Sure.
LEMON: I just want to say the head of the Barrio Azteca drug gang was named the top 10 most wanted as we said. So, very interesting things coming, and Sam is going to guide us through a lot of the things that are happening here. So, stand by, Sam.
Two thousand murders in one town already this year -- you heard us talking about Juarez, Mexico, right there -- so dangerous the mayor moved part of his family to try to keep them safe. I'll talk to him about how the drug trade has seized his city.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: OK. So as we mentioned earlier, Juarez, Mexico, is the deadliest city in the world. More than 2,000 murders so far this year. Now, think about all the war zones that we cover -- the deadliest city in the world. Juarez is right on the U.S. border, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.
I had a chance to talk with the mayor of Juarez about the epidemic of killing in his city.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: So, Mayor, so far this year, you've had over 2,000 murders. It didn't used to be that way in Juarez. What's going on there?
MAYOR JOSE REYES FERRIZ, CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO: Well, unfortunately for us, we are having a turf war between two groups of organized crime. Ciudad Juarez is the main point for logistics into the United States and Canada from Latin America. And because of our logistics stature, many companies come here, but also drug dealers want to use our platforms to distribute drugs within the United States.
And two drug cartels are fighting for the city. That has produced about 2,000 murders of people involved in drug dealing for the most part within our city.
LEMON: Well, there are a lot of -- there are, you know, a number of cities that border the United States into Mexico, and they're not having this problem. So, tell us why you think that you're having this problem.
You mentioned that there are two different factions, two different drug cartels that are fighting, that are battling for territory. And I believe one of those is Barrio Azteca, and much of the violence here is blamed on them. Explain to what's going on with those two gangs.
FERRIZ: Well, there are four -- basically four groups in Mexico of organized crime. One is in the Pacific. One is in the gulf. And two others are fighting for control of the middle part of Mexico into the United States. And that's the main reason.
The other two groups are not at war, let's say, between them. So the fight is concentrated within the center of Mexico and between those two groups, in particular.
LEMON: And you happen to be right there in the middle where all of the fighting. Is that the reason that you are the deadliest city and it's not some other border city?
FERRIZ: That's exactly the reason. Last year, we had 1,600 dead. Out of those, we had to bury in unmarked graves half of them, about 800, persons that came in to fight the war. I'm pretty sure their families don't even know that they are in Juarez. And they don't know that they have died in this war.
LEMON: Mayor, tell us about the Barrio Azteca, because we've been hearing a lot about them and we've been hearing that they are responsible for most of this violence. Is that true?
FERRIZ: Well, there's something that happened 20, 25 years ago in the United States, and that is the creation of a group called the Mexican mafia, a gang inside the U.S. jails that was formed to protect themselves from attacks, racial attacks, within the U.S. jail system. Out of those, several groups have been created. One of them is called the Aztecas. One of them is called the Mexicles. Another one is called the Artists Assassins.
And those three groups have been fighting for a long time in the city of Juarez. In particular, the largest group in Juarez called the Aztecas which has a large component...
LEMON: Yes.
FERRIZ: ... in California, in Arizona, and that has been a large source of the violence here.
LEMON: You know, the FBI says the head of the Barrio Azteca, which is on the 10 -- one of the 10 most wanted, if they were to capture the head of the Barrio Azteca, that that would cut this -- the killings here dramatically. Do you believe that?
FERRIZ: Well, unfortunately, what happens within these gangs is that they're very well-structured gangs. They have their structure in Mexico, but they also have a structure within the United States.
And as happens with well-structured organizations like this, catching the leader is not necessarily a source of ending the operations of a group this big. They have about 7,000 Aztecas in Juarez. Just in jail we have 1,200 of them. It's a large organization, a well structured organization.
It's good that the FBI has the leader on its most wanted list. But I don't think it's enough just to catch the leader.
LEMON: Do you think that you're getting enough resources from El Paso and also the United States in order to take care of this problem?
FERRIZ: Well, we are getting a lot of help from the United States. The city of El Paso is helping us greatly. And we have seen a shift in the policies of the federal government with the new federal administration.
Before, what we could see was the federal administration just saying, well, you do have a problem in Mexico. And we're going to build a big wall to keep the problem on the other side. Now the federal administration has realized that it's a joint solution that we need to face.
LEMON: If you -- if you can answer this next question for me really quickly, what about corruption inside of the Mexican government -- Mexican government as well? Is that posing a problem for you?
FERRIZ: It is. Corruption is feeding a lot of what is happening. We need to continue to clean up our -- all of our police forces within Mexico.
LEMON: OK. Finally, what about legalization or decriminalization? Is that a solution for you? Do you consider that?
FERRIZ: Well, I think the recent decision by the federal government not to prosecute use of medical marijuana is going to have an effect. That's something that we need to analyze. And at the end of the day, if that is a solution, it can't be just a solution in Mexico or the United States. It has to be a joint solution.
We can't have one set of laws in Mexico and a different set of laws in the United States. It has to be a joint policy.
LEMON: The mayor of Juarez, Jose...
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: All right. That was the mayor of Juarez. Thank you very much, sir, for that interview.
CNN goes inside a major drug operation. Watch as the cocaine gets cut and the marijuana rolled.
And where the war on drugs and the war on terror collide, Afghanistan -- where opium fuels the enemy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR, CNN NEWSROOM: So for most of us, this is as close as we're going to get to the actual drug-making process. So if you haven't seen this, if you haven't been that close, which most of us haven't, sit down and take a look at this.
The Mexican drug war begins far to the south, in Colombia, and other South American countries. That's where much of the cocaine comes from. CNN's Karl Penhaul takes us to Medellin, and deep inside a drug gang as it goes about its daily business. This is an exclusive inside report you will only see right here on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A father shakes his fist at heaven and asks, why? That's his son in the coffin. Blown away by gang on the payroll of Colombian cocaine capos. Seventeen- year-old Juangia Mel Lora (ph) was at the school gate, a bullet in the head, another in the neck. His aunt says he wasn't part of any gang.
MARIA DEBORAH OSPINA, AUNT OF MURDER VICTIM (through translator): He wanted to be somebody in life and help his family progress. He wanted to study at university, become a great lawyer, and win justice.
PENHAUL: A couple of cops who escort us into this hillside slum tell a different tale. They say Lora (ph) he was from a bad family and his brother's doing a prison stretch for murder. Fallen gang fighter, or innocent victim? His aunt blames his murder on turf wars that are once again gripping Medellin.
OSPINA (through translator): I guess he was killed because of the gang wars. You cannot go into certain places and cannot cross certain lines. They hit you where it hurts the most. They kill your family.
PENHAUL: Many at the wake do appear to be gang members. Some are packing guns. Mourners hoist the casket. Then carry off their dead down narrow alleys.
I head out across Medellin to try and figure out why drug violence is spiraling. High up here in the northeastern commune, there's a statue of the Virgin Mary of Con (ph). Catholics believe she protects souls in purgatory. Maybe they should have put up an effigy of Cerberus, the hound that guards the gates of hell.
Life here revolves around two things, guns and drugs.
"CHIEF" (through translator): Here it's the rules of the street. The rules don't change. They will always be the rules here, or anywhere else.
PENHAUL: He's the gang leader. They call him Chief. My sources say he's made so many enemies he can't step outside his patch.
"CHIEF" (through translator): We're all human, and we all get afraid. I'm afraid my life will end suddenly before I can do anything to get out of this war.
PENHAUL: Everything comes to an end, chirped the lyrics of a Salsa classic on the radio. But for now, there's work to be done. Gang members roll marijuana, or pose with their firepower. By nightfall they'll have 1,000 joints to deal on street corners they control.
Colombian authorities say drug peddling in Medellin is worth $6 million a month. Cartel capos believe that's worth fighting for. The day before we met, Chief buried one of his own.
"CHIEF" (through translator): I couldn't bear to look in the coffin. They killed him downtown. We don't know who did it, but a girlfriend of his took him down there. So the day they brought his body back up here, we killed that crack head bitch.
PENHAUL: That conversation's cut short with news the drug boss who sponsors this gang has sent a delivery. Lookouts are posted in case police or rivals try to muscle in.
(On camera): So the gang members are telling us that the kilo of cocaine they've been waiting for all afternoon has now arrived. So we're going to follow them to a different location and see how they cut it.
(Voice over): They've raided mom's kitchen for the tools they need. The job now, to break down a brick of pure cocaine. And cut it with caffeine and dentist's anesthetic. They sell a gram for as little as a dollar. Depending on how heavily they cut it.
Business mixes with pleasure; their biggest pleasure, inhaling the cloud of pulverized cocaine from the liquidizer.
(On camera): So they've been cutting cocaine now with a fruit juicer for about the last hour. And there's dust going everywhere. Everybody's as high as a kite. They've been smoking marijuana. They've been doing lines of cocaine. They've been drinking beer. So now might be a good time to leave.
Before I go, I'm curious if Chief ever thought of getting out of the drugs, the guns, and the violence.
"CHIEF" (through translator): I dream of sailing away in a sailboat, alone and far away.
PENHAUL: But before he can live that dream, he first has to survive the nightmare of a cocaine war. Karl Penhaul, CNN, Medellin, Colombia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: Amazing report by our Karl Penhaul. Let's bring back in Sam Quinones of "The Los Angeles Times".
Sam, as I said, it's a great report. And it is really impossible to talk about drug trafficking in Mexico without getting back to Colombia. What is the history between the Mexican drug cartels and the ones in Colombia?
SAM QUINONES, "LOS ANGELES TIMES": Well, for a long time, you remember back in the '80s, when Miami was the murder capital of America. Well, that was largely due to wars between the Colombians trying to bring their dope, the South Florida route was the route into the United States for all that cocaine.
Through the '80s and into the '90s, the federal government did a very good job of kind of stopping that. Some still gets through, but mainly it's not the route that it once was. The route shifted, then, to Mexico. Before then -- before that time Mexicans really had trafficked mainly black tar heroin and marijuana. Along come the Colombians with their tons of cocaine. The Mexicans realized that they've got, you know, the route into the United States. And so this allows them to become strong.
They begin to create deals with the Colombians saying we don't want money. We'll take half of your product, this kind of thing. And it also, you know, you've got 2,000 miles of border essentially with the United States. A lot of which is culture of smuggling already going back -- back to really to prohibition and before. And so you've got kind of a culture of corruption, a culture of smuggling. The Colombians come in with cocaine.
At the same time, you know, you've also got another arrival in the drug-smuggling product. And that is methamphetamine, which is now being made in Mexico and smuggled across. And Mexicans used to be the boy, so to speak, for the Colombians. Now they are the men who handle it.
LEMON: How profitable now, since you bring up methamphetamines, is that becoming profitable?
QUINONES: Yeah, out of Mexico, what's happened in the United States, there's been a lot of laws that have created -- that have stopped kind of the rampant use of a chemical --
LEMON: You can't get certain things in stores, drugstores without a prescription.
QUINONES: Precisely. That's shifted production down to Mexico. And that's yet another product line essentially. If you think of these guys as businessmen, this is another revenue stream, another product line that they have bringing into the United States.
LEMON: I really want to get these two questions in. I have a very short amount of time. Is Colombia the key to winning this drug war, or will Mexico cartels find sources in other narcotics? I guess they will, as you said.
QUINONES: Well, they have three already. I mean, cocaine might be a problem, but they've got methamphetamine, they've got marijuana, which is really the big cash crop, if you ask me. And they've got black tar heroin.
LEMON: It's one player here. We've heard about Brazil. There are others involved. What's your assessment about who the major players are here?
QUINONES: You mean in trafficking into the United States?
LEMON: Mm-hmm.
QUINONES: Well, in my view, really, I mean, the conversation kind of begins and ends with Mexico and Colombia. That's pretty much it.
LEMON: OK. Real quickly, yes or no? Do you have a sense of how the drug war can be won? Is it legalization? Decriminalization? Is that a possible solution?
QUINONES: Well, you know, you're talking to a reporter, and we get into trouble when you start making an opinion like this.
LEMON: Well, if you've researched it, that is --
QUINONES: Let's put it this way.
LEMON: It's being looked at as a viable option.
QUINONES: Let's put it this way. Marijuana is a gateway drug for traffickers as well as for users. I mean, this is the way people make illegal marijuana is the way traffickers make their first money. And that's how they begin their trafficking career. So take it from there.
LEMON: Sam Quinones, "Los Angeles Times," great information. Thank you, sir.
QUINONES: My pleasure. Thank you.
LEMON: So what is fueling terrorism? In Afghanistan, at least, it is drugs. It's where poppy means a profit for farmers. Their buyer, the Taliban. We talk to a former DEA agent and a U.N. representative about how the drug trade is affecting the war on terror.
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LEMON: Back now to our focus on drugs this hour, illegal drugs. The U.N. has now confirmed what many people had suspected. The Taliban in Afghanistan is deeply involved in the production and trafficking of heroin. A new report details that it's not insignificant.
Afghanistan supplies about 90 percent of the world's heroin, and the U.N. estimates the Taliban now reaps about $400 million a year from those poppy fields, which are the source of the heroin.
So why is that important? First of all, it's causing a huge addiction problem within Afghanistan. And secondly, that drug money directly funds the Taliban's war against the West. With more than 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and more likely on the way, the heroin trade there has a potential to impact American lives everywhere.
So our guest tonight, Walter Kemp, spokesman for the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime, which issued the latest report linking the Taliban and heroin. He joins us by phone tonight from Vienna.
And from Los Angeles, Gregory D. Lee, a retired supervisory agent for the DEA, who has spent a lot of time in Central Asia.
Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
I'm going to start with you, Mr. Kemp. This report is very troubling. It paints a very troubling picture of what we call the worldwide war on terrorism. The report concludes that -- and this is a quote -- there is, quote, "Something basically wrong with the worldwide counternarcotics effort." What's wrong with it?
WALTER KEMP, SPOKESMAN, U.N. OFFICE OF DRUGS & CRIME: Well, the basic problem that we see is that almost all of the world's opium and heroin is being produced in one country, Afghanistan. And yet only 2 percent of the drugs are being seized there. We also see that the Taliban are making a lot of money from this trade, but also about $60 billion is being made once the drugs are leaving Afghanistan going to markets in Russia, Central Asia and Western Europe. And yet very few of those drugs are being seized along the way.
LEMON: OK, so listen. Also with the report, it says, "For Islamic terrorists, like the Taliban, it believes that killing the leadership is a key because leaders, who include those with technical skills, are difficult to replace here." So if those groups are destroyed within the country, then the violence may go down. Do you believe that?
KEMP: The report doesn't make reference to killing leaders. We talked about the importance of bringing drug traffickers to justice. Our main point is that if you obtain --
LEMON: Getting rid of leaders, I should say.
KEMP: I'm sorry?
LEMON: Getting rid leaders, either in jail or killing them, pardon me for saying killing them, but getting rid of them, putting them in jail, or what have you.
KEMP: Yes, it's a big distinction. We talk about the importance of bringing them to justice. Our basic argument is if you can do more to contain this problem in Afghanistan, as has been done in Colombia, then you will reduce the threat to health and crime, and insurgency, in Afghanistan and all along the drug routes.
LEMON: I was asking, you know, Mr. Lee if - during the break - which one is more profitable? I wonder if it's Afghanistan, or is it the Mexican or Colombian drug cartels? Do you know? Are they rival? Do they rival in how much profit is there?
KEMP: Well, the heroin market is worth about $60 billion.
LEMON: That question is for Mr. Lee here, Mr. Kemp. Sorry.
KEMP: I'm sorry.
LEMON: Go ahead.
GREGORY D. LEE, DEA SUPERVISORY OFFICER, (RET.): I would venture to say that I think in the long-term -- or with the history that we've seen in the war on drugs so far, I would suspect that the Colombians are making more money than you would see in Southwest Asia.
However, you've got to keep in mind, with just the U.N. report itself that just came out the other day, it mentions, like, a half a trillion dollars worth of heroin sales worldwide. That is something that is -- that could easily surpass what the Colombians are doing since the demand for cocaine seems to be down worldwide. So they're going to look for other ventures than when they first encountered heroin.
LEMON: So, Mr. Lee, the U.S. policy had been to try to destroy the poppy fields, and now they've decided against a different -they're using a different strategy there. That is not working. So explain why the strategy has changed, and what is it now?
LEE: Believe me, it's a very complex situation over there. What you've got on top of everything else now is you're in the midst of a war, which complicates matters. You have the resources, the military, everybody there's in place that can do something about eradicating the drugs. However, for a long time, the military's been resistant of that. The leadership has always said, hey, I'm a soldier, not a drug agent. I'm not here to do that. I'm here to kill the enemy and break things. The drug people -- drug agents, such as myself, have always advocated, take out the poppy fields. Take out the farmer.
For God's sakes, why would you not take out the farmer and the source of revenue for your enemy the same as you did during World War II, when we bombed factories that made planes that were dropping bombs on London? To me it's the very same thing. So, you can't break one from the other.
When you've got an enemy that's being funded almost exclusively through the drug trade, then you'll have to do something about that drug trade. And while you're in place, I think it's a good idea, crop substitution is never going to work in Afghanistan. The only thing they understand is who's in charge, and what do you want me to do?
LEMON: Tell us how this works. Tell us how this harvesting opium to refining it, from growing the poppy seeds, smuggling it in and out of the country, tell us how this works. I'm not sure if Mr. Kemp -- who is better to talk about this? Is that you, Mr. Lee?
LEE: I can tell you with certainty that they start seeding around November, and they start harvesting in April. And with zero enforcement apparatus in place in Afghanistan you have this constant turnover and crop production, bumper crops every year, because there is absolutely nobody there to tell them otherwise.
The U.N. has tried valiantly trying to get them to go with crop substitution. They are not going to take less money when they are in with the traffickers and the Taliban. It is just common economic sense to them. And if you are willing to build roads and dig wells and all these things for them, in the hopes of doing a crop substitution, all they are going to do is use the water to grow the opium, and use the roads to take it to market. That is what's been happening for the last 20 years now.
LEMON: I'm going to give the last question to Mr. Kemp, who is in Vienna, right now. I think it's like 2:00 in the morning in Vienna. It is either very early or very late for him.
So probably the most important question of all, Mr. Kemp is, with so many U.S. troops in Afghanistan, what does the heroin trade mean for them? Their lives and their safety may depend on whether this problem can be solved. What do we do here? KEMP: Well, there are a number of factors. I think the most important is to reduce demand for the drugs in the first place. There is something strange in the case of Afghanistan and that is that there is much more supply than demand needed in the world for heroin or morphine. We have about 12,000 tons of opium, which is unaccounted for. We are not sure who is holding on to that and where it is going. We are talking about three things, first, reduce demand, second reduce supply, by eradicating poverty as well as crops. And thirdly improve law enforcement to keep the drugs in the country and reduce that supply and knock out those stocks.
LEMON: All right. Walter Kemp, spokesman for the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime and Gregory Lee, a retired supervisor agent for the DEA.
Thank you, both.
KEMP: Thank you.
LEE: You bet. Thanks for having me.
LEMON: CNN's Christiane Amanpour will have much, much more on this fascinating topic tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. We'll be right back.
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LEMON: Weather is a problem causing some delays and other things, and also in the sports world as well.
Jacqui, I will let you give them the news.
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LEMON: It looks like a scene from "Reno 911" right? How in the world did this happen?
And we've been taking your comments this hour on the drug trade. We're going to read some of them just ahead.
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LEMON: Step aside, "Die Hard." Hollywood cops are getting a run for their money from a sheriff's deputy in Washington State. An airborne cruiser, abandoned above power wires, with its wheels still spinning, above hungry flames. Hungry flames? Who wrote that?
The deputy was reportedly speeding to an emergency, with sirens blaring, when he came upon another car in an intersection, forcing the cruiser to swerve. And boy, did it ever swerve. We are told everyone is OK, but the power and gas lines are in pretty bad shape. Glad everyone is OK.
Let's look at some of your feedback now. We have been asking you about the drug cartel. Let's see. One viewer says, "Don Lemon: Legalize marijuana. Feed the tax coffers, not the drug cartels. Time to end the war on drugs and cut off criminal enterprises. People are going to get high no matter what they do."
I appreciate it.
This one, that says, "Good to see Jacqui back. Did she go on vacation? Let her know that your viewers miss her. What is up with Josh Levs?"
I don't know. I'll ask him what's up with Josh Levs.
All right. So, I'm Don Lemon. I'll see you back here at 10 p.m. Eastern. Thank you for joining us. CNN's Special Report, "Latino In America" with Soledad O'Brien begins right now.
