Drug Cartels Exploit Fracking on Texas-Mexico Border

Texas’ obsession with underground drilling for natural gas has created a giant gap in the federal government’s border patrol defenses against drug smuggling.

 

Across a large swath of remote land stretching from the border into east Texas, drilling companies performing hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have opened up a network of new private roads—which smugglers are now using to ship illegal narcotics into the U.S.

 

Cartels also have stolen trucks belonging to energy companies, and bribed truck drivers and contractors working on the Eagle Ford Shale, which is 50 miles wide and 400 miles long.

 

Smugglers have even “cloned” Texas government vehicles to use for transporting drugs through the region.

 

Police seized about 18,000 pounds of marijuana in two trucks “on a private road leased to energy companies and carrying what looked like supplies used in oil field operations,” according to the Houston Chronicle.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Frack the Border: Cartels Using Oil Boom to Move Drugs (by Robert Beckhusen, Wired)

Gas Drilling A Boom For Drug Traffickers, Too (by Dane Schiller, Houston Chronicle)