America's Ham-Fisted Attempt to Police Mexico's Drug Trade

The Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, may have been born in the sticky summer of 1973, but it certainly didn’t waste any time making itself known south of the border. Picture, if you will, the United States in the early 1970s: bell-bottoms flaring, muscle cars roaring, and Richard Nixon—chomping on the bit—declaring a “war on drugs” with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It was a decade of grandiose gestures and fervent proclamations, and when it came to the issue of narcotics, America was firing up the engines of its anti-drug crusade with a turbocharged dose of political righteousness.

Before the DEA strutted onto the stage, there were already federal agents skulking around Mexico like trench coat-wearing characters in a John le Carré novel. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) had been nosing about Mexican soil since the swinging '60s. In fact, the first U.S. office in Mexico City dates back to 1963, a time when Kennedy was charming the nation and the Beatles were on the cusp of changing music forever. The agents set up shop in the capital with a mix of optimism and suspicion, spreading out to other cities like Monterrey, Guadalajara, Hermosillo, and Mazatlán over the years, and often being stationed conveniently close to U.S. consulates.

The numbers, however, were modest. Think of it this way: if this were a covert anti-drug effort in a Bond film, you'd have about eight agents crowding around a single coffee machine in Mexico City and maybe two or three outposts per other location, each one manned by a couple of tired-looking operatives wearing sunglasses and ill-fitting suits. Yet, discretion was the name of the game. The BNDD’s early presence in Mexico was about as subtle as a whisper in a hurricane, and even when the DEA began inheriting these offices and expanding them, it did so under the radar, almost like a ghost slipping through a moonlit field.

Then came the 1970s—a decade that introduced a whole set of combustible ingredients to the drug war stew. First off, Colombia emerged as a key player in the narcotics game, churning out cocaine at an alarming rate and fueling America’s insatiable appetite for the stuff. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about smuggling marijuana or heroin; it was about the white powder that had captivated an entire generation of Studio 54 revelers and Hollywood elites. It was about supply chains snaking across continents and landing smack in the laps of a burgeoning criminal empire.

Enter the Guadalajara Cartel, a nefarious outfit that began as a loose confederation of ranchers and ex-Sinaloan police officers. If you’re imagining grizzled men in cowboy hats and aviator sunglasses, chain-smoking Marlboros as they plot their next shipment, you wouldn’t be far off. These weren’t garden-variety villains but ambitious criminals who sensed opportunity where others saw chaos. They based their operations in Jalisco, a state known for its tequila and mariachi music, and from there, they began weaving an empire that would eventually rival any in Mexico's tumultuous history.

Meanwhile, as the cartels were plotting and posturing, Mexico’s state institutions were having a bit of a crisis—namely, one of ethics and integrity. The police and intelligence organizations, most notably the Federal Judicial Police (PJF) and the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS), were busy collecting bribes that could fund small countries. Corruption, you see, wasn’t just a footnote in this tale; it was the secret sauce that made the whole operation run. The extraordinary profits generated by drug trafficking were intoxicating, and let’s be honest: no one ever went into Mexican law enforcement back then with dreams of stamping out corruption. No, they signed up for the windfalls, the wads of cash hidden in floorboards, and the lavish dinners with shady characters.

So there we were, by the late 1970s, with three elements mixing together to create a storm: an insatiable demand for cocaine in the United States, a well-organized criminal network operating out of Jalisco, and a Mexican government infrastructure that was as leaky as a sieve. When the DEA started really sinking its teeth into operations in Mexico, you could almost hear the tectonic plates of corruption and crime grinding together. By 1974, the DEA had 26 agents stationed in places like Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mazatlán, and Hermosillo. By 1978, that number had crept up to 37, though their presence remained modest and, at times, woefully insufficient given the scale of the problem.

But let’s not forget: this wasn’t just any old mission. No, the agents were expected to navigate a labyrinth of distrust, bribery, and, frankly, outright hostility. Imagine being an American DEA agent in 1970s Mexico: the food is fantastic, the weather is gorgeous, but your local counterparts may or may not be in bed with the very people you’re trying to take down. Welcome to the absurdity of the war on drugs, where alliances are as fluid as water and where even the most careful plans can go awry faster than a Ford Pinto exploding on impact.

How the DEA Wreaked Havoc in Mexico

The numbers tell a staggering story. Back in June 1973, there were a mere 34 anti-drug agents stationed at key border outposts like Calexico, El Paso, and San Diego. Fast forward a year, and that number had exploded to 157, as if someone had yelled "all hands on deck" during a particularly boozy strategy meeting. These offices were carefully situated at drug trafficking hotspots, chosen with the precision of someone planning a casino heist. The agents stationed there were, in theory, supposed to restrict their work to U.S. soil. But when did theory ever dictate reality in the murky world of cross-border drug wars?

Here’s where things get delightfully complicated. On paper, these agents were meant to focus solely on activities in the United States. But paper, as we all know, can’t roll its eyes or issue an indignant cough when rules are bent. And bent they were, like the laws of physics in a black hole. These border agents would frequently cross into Mexico to participate in undercover operations, transforming into de facto narco-hunters, roaming the wilds of Mexico as if they were in some John Wayne film set south of the Rio Grande. And they didn’t need to be accredited by the Mexican government. It’s a bit like a guest showing up to a black-tie event in swim trunks and somehow getting away with it.

Beyond the border agents, the DEA had an arsenal of operatives known as TDY, or temporary duty agents. These were folks normally stationed in plush U.S. offices with decent coffee and perhaps an air of relative normalcy. Yet, when called upon, they’d pack their bags, say farewell to comfort, and head south to participate in the brutal, sweat-drenched campaigns to eradicate marijuana and poppy fields. And brutal is no exaggeration. This was the 1970s, a time when mustaches were thick and so was the air of American bravado. We’re talking about agents flying helicopters and planes over Mexico’s infamous Golden Triangle, establishing roadblocks in the middle of sun-scorched mountains, and patrolling rural dirt tracks with guns slung over their shoulders like cowboys of a new era.

They didn’t just arrest suspected traffickers. No, that would be too easy. They got themselves into full-blown shootouts, where bullets ricocheted off rocky hillsides and the stakes were measured in lives. Two American agents even paid the ultimate price, which, given the wildness of these operations, seems less like an anomaly and more like the inevitable result of such high-octane chaos.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Surely the Mexican government had a clue about these shenanigans,” well, you’d be partially right. Mexican authorities knew who the permanent DEA agents were—these were the ones formally registered as staff at the U.S. Embassy or consulates. But the short-term, border-hopping operatives? The ones who slipped in and out of Mexico like the wind? The Mexican government often had no idea who they were, nor did they grasp the scale of these incursions. In fact, according to files recently declassified (and scrutinized with the forensic enthusiasm usually reserved for a murder mystery), even the bigwigs at DEA headquarters in Virginia couldn’t always keep track of how often their own agents were crossing the border.

Let that sink in for a moment. Even the bosses, the ones supposedly running the show from the plush confines of their air-conditioned offices, were occasionally in the dark about just how rogue their agents were going. It’s like hiring a group of party planners who keep throwing surprise raves you know nothing about.

The files that have emerged from this period—dusty documents resurrected from government archives—paint a grim picture. We’re not just talking about overzealous law enforcement. We’re talking about accusations of torture, extrajudicial executions, and a level of extralegal brutality that would make even the most hardened of crime novelists wince. Yes, in the name of justice, American agents were allegedly involved in acts that defied the very concept of due process. If that sounds shocking, it should be. The DEA’s operations were not just a moral grey area; they were a moral abyss, a place where the supposed good guys often acted in ways that made you question which side was wearing the black hats.

And so, we’re left with a portrait of the 1970s that is anything but clear-cut. The decade wasn’t just disco balls and dodgy fashion choices. It was a time when the DEA waged a covert war on foreign soil, often with the kind of recklessness usually reserved for action film characters. The agents were gunslingers in helicopters, unwelcome guests in a nation struggling to contain a crisis that America, with its insatiable hunger for drugs, helped create.

It’s a story of ambition and overreach, heroism and villainy, and, above all, a reminder that in the war on drugs, the lines between right and wrong were often as hazy as the smoke rising from a poppy field.

In-text Citation: (Pérez Ricart, 2022, pp. 22-24)