Posted on November 19, 2010

‘It’s a War on the Border’: The Undeclared Battles that Texas Forces are Fighting . . . Against the Mexican Drug Cartels

Daily Mail (London), Nov. 19, 2010

They fly helicopter missions, deploy tactical strike teams and gather field intelligence, but the battles they fight aren’t in the Middle East, they’re in America.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is engaged in an undeclared war with Mexican drug cartels, running militaristic operations day and night.

‘I never thought that we’d be in this paramilitary type of engagement,’ Captain Stacy Holland told Fox News of her work with the DPS. ‘It’s a war on the border.’

In recent years, the drug cartels have adopted increasingly terrorist-like behaviour.

The DPS is now flying missions in 16 state-of-the-art helicopters as they battle the Mexican gangs.

The gang members are armed with powerful AK-47s, are dressed in camouflage and they recruit ex-prisoners from America to do their dirty work.

They employ spotters to hide by the Rio Grande and alert to U.S. officials patrolling the border.

The cartels have executed more than 10,000 people since January, including American citizens, holiday-makers and innocent bystanders.

According to Texas DPS Director Steven McCraw, Mexican drug cartels move about $25billion from their US drug sales back into Mexico in a single year.

But, law enforcement have confiscated just $130million in illegal drug proceeds during the last four years,

‘It certainly is a war in a sense that we’re doing what we can to protect Texans and the rest of the nation from clearly a threat that has emerged over the last several years,’ said McCraw, who runs the undeclared war.

The Texas forces must constantly adapt new strategies, as the cartels try new tricks.

‘Recently they’ve adapted their tactics to utilize smaller loads, cross with rafts, stolen vehicles on our side,’ McGraw told Fox News.

‘To suggest the southwest border is secure is ridiculous,’ Holland said.