ENGAGING THE NEW MEXICAN ADMINISTRATION ON LAW

C O N F I D E N T I A L MEXICO 003297 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/14/2016 TAGS: PREL KCRM SNAR MX SUBJECT: ENGAGING THE NEW MEXICAN ADMINISTRATION ON LAW ENFORCEMENT REF: MEXICO 3296 Classified By: AMBASSADOR ANTONIO O. GARZA, JR., REASONS; 1.4(B/D) ¶1. (C) Summary: This is the second in a series of six cables on transition issues in Mexico. We suggest three overarching messages on law enforcement for the new administration. First, the steadily improving cooperation over the last six years represents a baseline, not an aberration. Second, we still have not come far enough. Finally, Mexico must accept that it faces a crisis in narcotics-related violence and react accordingly. We propose a law enforcement summit with the incoming administration where we can discuss all of these issues in depth at a senior level. End summary. Preserving Our Gains -------------- ¶2. (C) Law enforcement cooperation with Mexico is better today than it has ever been. We are doing things together that would have been unthinkable before the Fox administration. Particularly if the transition is to a different party in December, we face a very real risk of backsliding. This could even happen if Fox's party remains in Los Pinos. Decision-making in Mexican agencies is done at the top and much depends on personal relationships. Changes in leadership have even more far reaching consequences here than in the U.S. If we want continuity in policy, we are going to have to help create it. ¶3. (C) Engagement: This Mission plans to devote considerable energy to briefing incoming Mexican officials on existing programs, and the message from Washington should be that we expect these programs to continue. We can and should spin it positively but should make it clear we are not prepared to return to the old ways of doing business nor are we willing to put law enforcement cooperation on hold while a new administration gets it bearings or reviews existing bilateral cooperation mechanisms. The criminals are not going to pause for the transition. The new administration will be anxious for favorable U.S. comment on its initial efforts and needs to understand that this requires that they continue to cooperate in the ways to which we have become accustomed. ¶4. (C) Activities: -- We should encourage retention of career law enforcement personnel, particularly those below the director general level. -- We should push for continuing the strong working relationship between DEA and the Office of the Attorney General (PGR) Organized Crime Division (SIEDO) and Federal Investigative Agency (AFI). -- It is vital that we maintain the excellent cooperation between FBI and USMS and the National Institute for Migration (INM) and AFI, which has resulted in the deportation of hundreds of fugitives. -- We should make clear our interest in preserving coordination with the Financial Intelligence Unit of the PGR in combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and narcotics trafficking and in maintaining the momentum in financial investigations ICE has achieved with the PGR and Mexican customs. -- We need to signal our interest in cementing the rapidly improving relationship with the Mexican Navy (SEMAR) on interdiction; and encouraging the opening on cooperation that we have seen with the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA). Moving to the Next Level -------------- ¶5. (C) In underscoring our desire to preserve the gains we have made, we should not imply that the status quo is satisfactory. We can do so much more. There remains a tendency to view bilateral cooperation in antiquated terms. For example, too many here see a threat to Mexico in a joint U.S.-Mexico law enforcement operation but not in the stranglehold that criminal organizations have on some parts of Mexico. We are convinced, and there is poll data out there to support the belief, that the Mexican Government lags behind its people on this issue. Despite what many of those who write editorials for Mexico City dailies would have us believe, Mexicans seem more worried by criminals than by fancied infringements on Mexican sovereignty by U.S. law enforcement. ¶6. (C) Engagement: We need a commitment from the new administration to sit down with us in the early days of the administration to find ways to remove the remaining stumbling blocks and work past outdated notions of sovereignty. Our shared goal should be a law enforcement relationship that is worthy of the North American partnership. For example, the U.S. and Canada have joint law enforcement teams working on the border. Why not the U.S. and Mexico? We need to encourage the new administration to move boldly in its early days. ¶7. (C) Activities: -- The Fox administration has done much to professionalize law enforcement, nevertheless, corruption remains an obstacle to nearly everything we are trying to do here. This is true at the federal level and more so at the state and local level, particularly in border states where the pressures from narcotics traffickers are especially strong. We should encourage the new government to take a very hard look at how it can accelerate anti-corruption efforts. This needs to be a priority if Mexico is to continue to advance. -- Extraditions have increased significantly in recent years but have still not yielded a truly "big fish." Pending reforms to Mexico's extradition law should be vigorously backed by the new administration. This would allow the temporary surrender of major traffickers so they can be tried in the U.S. before serving their sentences here. The administration needs to develop an additional set of reforms to cut down on the frivolous appeals and delaying tactics used by wealthy traffickers. -- We are working well with the Mexican Navy at sea, but the GOM continues to resist a formal maritime agreement. -- In many areas of law enforcement, we continue to run into the problem of providing intelligence but not getting any feedback on how it is used. We sometimes find fairly routine requests for assistance channeled back into needlessly complicated and bureaucratic mechanisms such as the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. -- We need a mechanism to facilitate the quick exchange of financial documentary evidence. Conservative estimates suggest six billion dollars a year may be laundered in Mexico -- We need permission from the GOM for international controlled deliveries of bulk cash to develop investigations in this area. -- The GOM should also begin opening asset forfeiture investigations against targets in Mexico designated under our kingpin statute. -- The GOM should move more aggressively against businesses violating currency exchange regulations. -- The GOM should consider establishment of working level inter-agency task forces to address drug interdiction at ports (land, sea, and air). -- The new administration should support the AFI Operations Center on Interdiction and Eradication. -- DEA could usefully expand its methamphetamine programs (e.g., training for first responders and development of clandestine laboratory response teams). --ATF has done much to address Mexican concerns about arms trafficking, but we need to move forward with ATF's Southwest Border Strategy to increase cooperation with the PGR, expand Mexico's firearms tracing capabilities (E-Trace),enhance training, and improve post-seizure analysis and intelligence sharing. Narcotics-Related Violence -------------- ¶9. (C) Mexico faces a crisis in narcotics-related violence. Nuevo Laredo is not unique. The level of violence all along the border is deeply alarming, as is the struggle among cartels in states such as Guerrero and Michoacan. We believe the GOM is acting in good faith, but it is trying to meet the threat using law enforcement tools that are hopelessly inadequate to the task. ¶10. (C) Engagement: We need Washington's help in impressing upon the new administration at the outset that it must recognize that it faces a crisis and act accordingly. It cannot win by sending detachments of federal police to the latest hot spot to set up checkpoints. ¶11. (C) Activities: There are many long-term institutional reforms that need to be made, and some are already in motion, particularly in the work that USAID is doing to support justice sector reform. These reforms at the state level need strong federal support, and federal reforms also need to be pushed vigorously. However, this problem will not wait. -- The new administration should be encouraged to move quickly to propose an emergency regulatory or, if necessary, legislative package to give law enforcement the tools it needs, at least temporarily. Current rules for employing electronic surveillance, protecting witnesses, dismantling criminal organizations, extraditions, controlling cartel leaders in prison, etc. are too restrictive. -- The U.S. of course can help with intelligence, training, expert advice, etc., but Mexico needs to act. Implicit in this (and perhaps not so implicit) is the signal that the new administration should not expect the USG to look the other way while border cities explode in violence. We want Mexico to take the gloves off in battling the cartels. Law Enforcement Summit -------------- ¶12. (C) Because of the overriding importance of the law enforcement issues, we recommend Washington consider what would in effect be a law enforcement summit with the incoming Mexican administration no later than January. Our proposal is to invite the new Mexican team (tentatively PGR, SSP, CISEN, SRE, SEDENA, and SEMAR) to the U.S. for meetings with the Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, Department of State, FBI Director, and DEA Administrator. This would be preceded by Embassy briefings here for the new Mexican players (to establish the all-important baseline). The public message would be that Mexico and the U.S. will lose no ground to the criminals because of the transition; the commitment to law enforcement cooperation transcends administrations. We need to signal that law enforcement cooperation will not only continue, it will increase. Visit Mexico City's Classified Web Site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/mexicocity GARZA