Organized Crime in Mexico: Assessing the Threat to North American Economies

Organized Crime in Mexico: Assessing the Threat to North American Economies takes a hard look at the dire implications of the pervasive and powerful criminal enterprises in northern Mexico, comparing and contrasting the present threat to past issues, including drug and human smuggling of the latter half of the twentieth century. The criminal organizations operating in Mexico and the United States threaten the economic well-being of North America as well as the democratic freedoms of our neighbor. Author Cameron Holmes, an experienced organized crime prosecutor and anti-money laundering expert, shows how this shift in criminal activity is extremely damaging to North American economies and explains that in order to halt this economic erosion, U.S. policy requires a new strategy, demands change in thinking, and necessitates new and increased countermeasures.

Strategically, we have light years to travel and little time to do it. Without intervention, criminal activity will strangle legitimate business, degrade the Mexican economy, and, because the United States is so closely linked, undermine the U.S. economy in turn. Continued prosperity in both countries depends on our joint success in controlling these criminal enterprises. This book examines the new diversification and strategies of the organized criminal groups, suggests a series of countermeasures control organized crime in Mexico, and places these issues in a global context since what is transpiring in Mexico is part of a larger international problem where criminal enterprises are posing new and consistent threats to economies around the world.