03.31.09
Drug Violence and Latin America — Implications for Businesses
Hillary Clinton’s visit to Mexico last week centered around ways to deal with the violence surrounding the trade in illegal drugs. The Mexican government has been cracking down on the cartels, resulting in open conflicts with the authorities and among the drug runners. Now the violence has landed on our doorsteps. In the past, there have been drug wars on the streets of major cities (remember Miami Vice and more recently CSI Miami?) but the spill over effect along the border is something new. And the Mexican authorities did raise a valid point with Secretary Clinton that the US was the source of the high powered assault weapons.
My first international posting was in Colombia at the beginning of the “War on Drugs.” We had about 160 US prisoners in Northern Colombia (I was stationed in Barranquilla and our Consular district covered the northern coast). The attitude among many Colombians was that drug use was an American problem and if their impoverished country made money off of the stupid “gringos” then no harm was done. The problem was that the corruption that accompanied the drug trade poisoned every aspect of Colombia’s society and the country was been locked in internal strife for the past thirty years. The Mexican authorities learned from that lesson but the cost of attacking drugs will be very high.
What has this to do with business? When you are conducting business in a country that is riddled with drug corruption, you need to be very careful of vetting whom you are doing business with. The “families” of the drug cartels will have the money in the country. I would recommend strongly against using as an importer or agent anyone involved with the trade. If you can’t find any reliable agent not involved with the trade, I’d consider skipping that country. Consider what the impact would be if it appeared on the front page of the New York Times that your company was involved with drug traffickers. If you need help in vetting an agent, use your usual sources — other businesses, banks, internet searches and Embassies. I always found that the US Embassy is good about telling you who you should be careful about, even if they can’t tell you exactly why.
In addition, if you are operating in a country where there is considerable drug violence, you need to take the advice of your security advisers or Embassy very seriously. You don’t want to get caught in the middle of random violence or worse involved as a target of the cartels.
