St Lucia: The Order of the MTTOs and the Decent and Respectable Drug Smugglers

In St Lucia the focus is on Gangland and gun violence as crime and violence in St Lucia is acutely politicized, which is an ongoing attempt to mystify reality on the ground to mask the complicity of the decent and respectable people, their involvement in and sale of impunity to the Colombian Capos of Bandas Criminales. The fact that the son of a Capo walked out of Bordelais Correctional Facility taking his entourage with him was a message to all and sundry on the impunity they wield in St Lucia. What has to be understood is the Colombian business model created by the Valle Norte organization which allowed citizens of St Lucia to purchase a load of kilo bricks and then pay Colombian smugglers to move it to Europe where the owner sold it to European cocaine brokers. These loads were moved via St Lucia and the rest of the Caribbean. These smugglers are shakers and movers in St Lucia, decent, respectable and outstanding citizens whilst their Colombian business model spawned a form of gangland noted for endemic violence as there was no Order, no discipline driven by a war for supply and dominance. The Mexican Transnational Trafficking Organizations (MTTOs), not no CARTELS as this is a white mystification of reality as the Medellin Federation and the Cali Organization were both under the Rule of the MTTOs with Mexicans on their Board, moved into the Caribbean took control as they have their own supply in Colombia and they control entry to the European market. They don’t sell their product to persons outside of their organization and their affiliates and the globalized organization includes European transnational organized crime that controls entry to Europe. The smugglers of St Lucia are then faced with a grave problem of supply and more importantly of entry to the favored European market. The MTTOs faced with an adversary noted for indiscipline and individual interest before organizational interest, they simply apply the rapacious strategy of informing on the whereabouts of their enemies’ shipments at the ports of entry and outside the ports of entry in Europe. This is the extent of this grave crisis that has has now enveloped the decent and respectable drug smugglers of St Lucia and drives the violence in Gangland. The MTTOs don’t need the services of these drug smugglers of St Lucia, they are of no strategic importance to the MTTOs, they are now dinosaurs as a failed order is replaced by the most potent order ever erected in the history of smuggling in the world. The change is now apparent in the emergence of the new Gangland in St Lucia where the Gangland affiliates of the MTTOs will grow rich and powerful through smuggling within this globalized transnational organized crime networks. The threat posed is organically different and unique in the history of drug smuggling in the Caribbean and the politicians are now faced with a new reality as this threat is simply not interested in purchasing impunity, as state capture is much more sustainable in the long run.

Covid-19 Didn’t Change the Homicide Terrain of St Lucia

In 2019 the St Lucia murder rate per 100,000 persons was 26.80 and in 2020 it accelerated to 30.49 which indicated that realities of the illicit trades continued impacting St Lucia’s illicit trade and its gangland deeply destabilizing an old order based on the Colombian model on its way out. From all indications the trend continues in 2021 as the Colombian model crumbles under the pressure of the business model of the MTTOs. The first reality to be appreciated is the fact that the volume of the trades in the Caribbean exploded under the lockdowns of Covid-19 heading to Europe. The volumes of product moving Northwards and then across the Atlantic along the ECTP impacted St Lucia in a specific way as only affiliates of the MTTOs had access to this product. Those outside of this closed circle had to find product from the Colombian paramilitary Capos not affiliated to the MTTOs. The long standing trade between St Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe was also disrupted as the ECTP flowed directly into these French overseas departments with those not affiliated to the MTTOs in these islands squeezed out of MTTOs supply. The issue then is supply between the haves and have nots, the gun violence that follows.triggering tit for tat violence. There are now new overlords of the trade in Martinique and Guadeloupe as transnational organized crime groups affiliated to the MTTOs have moved along the dual flow pipeline between France and its overseas departments to control the trades. Moroccan transnational organised crime affiliated to the MTTOs dominate hashish and small arms smuggled from France and are now dominating the cocaine pipelines to France. They bought influence by trading hashish for cocaine and guns but now they control the cocaine, hashish and gun trades passing product to their structure of affiliates in Caribbean gangland. The old St Lucia dual flow pipeline to Martinique especially is now facing extinction and in its death throes the violence in St Lucia is magnified and is also apparent in Martinique. The violence in gangland St Lucia will continue until such time the MTTOs decide that St Lucia is a strategic asset worthy of intervening and enforcing their order on the trades and gangland as they did in T&T in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. If not then then the reality continues.