An American Side to the War on Drugs inside Mexico

By Karl J. Nøstvik

Freelance Journalist and Photographer

Recently, while in Juarez, Mexico, covering the recent increasing trend of cartel upon cartel violence, I stumbled upon an opportunity to see first hand, another side of that country’s war against drugs. The highly lucrative kidnappings, extortion, and in some occurrences, murder of innocent citizens and immigrants from Central and South America by these warring cartels has gut-wrenchingly become commonplace for cities like Juarez. The omnipresent threat of abduction by these cartels has created big business in private security and risk management firms. And for the foreseeable future, this dangerous business in Mexico will unfortunately only continue to increase in its demand.

I was eating a late diner at the restaurant in my hotel while going over my notes from an interview with a local police captain held earlier that morning when I noticed two very serious looking, American gentlemen take their seats at a table adjacent to mine, and it was clear to me that they were not part of the press corps. As a freelance journalist and photographer covering conflicts in many countries such as Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, and Mexico, I have gleaned the ability to be able to depict the personal presence of U.S. military special operations soldiers in a room of people in many ways. Not because of the obvious differences in uniform, kit, or special gear, but as there is a notable difference in how they each carry themselves while amongst most other soldiers or sailors. With my curiosity piqued as to what these two guys were doing down here in Juarez, I struck up a conversation about the sultry good looks of our mutual waitress, and eventually, several beers and a few jokes later, I joined them at their table.

It came to light that these two men (one ex-SEAL and the other, a former elite Army commando – they introduced themselves by first names only) were part of a four-man team that just several hours earlier, had completed a hostage rescue operation of a recently abducted Chinese business man. Evidently, theirs was only a three day operation because luckily, the business man had worn a watch with an internal GPS transponder that was somehow, not taken by the kidnappers. These men stated that they were able to locate the watch via GPS within minutes, but two days of surveillance and planning were required to pull off the operation with the least risk to the principal.

Over the course of a two hour diner, the men stated that they were “Tier 4” operators for the Houston, Texas-based, private military firm Hambright Protection Services, and that they perform a multitude of operations in Latin America all the time. The types of operations they claimed to perform range from executive body guarding services, asset and personnel recovery, military support services, unto property risk assessment, planning, and mitigation. The latter of the four services intrigued me the most. An example given to me of that service was another story of a recent operation performed in Honduras by these two men and one other.

Evidently, their firm was hired by an un-named, private, Houston-based investment firm to inspect for one of their clients, multiple hectares of land that was to be used for the cultivation and harvesting of teak trees. The team covertly entered the jungle enveloped property via sky diving operations, and while performing a preliminary reconnaissance of the property, came across marijuana cultivators, illegally squatting on their client’s land. The story went on to describe how they mitigated the threats of the illegal drug cultivators, and then performed a real-time analysis of the property, to include the manufacturing of hand-drawn, topographical maps, and ravine sounding and bottom topographical maps (in case the client wanted to use barges to take to market their lumber), and as well, an analysis of potential pools of labor from surrounding communities. 

I was amazed that jobs like this actually exist. I had never thought of these kinds of special trade demands, or that such a market for them existed. I was still in shock to see two white American faces in Juarez that didn’t have press cards clipped to a pocket or dangling from a neck lanyard. Then the former Army commando offered some more depth to the overall picture encompassing how it has become that these men do what job it is that they perform, and how so many others will come to do the same in the near future. He asked me a question. He asked if for 10 years I was in the special operations community in the military, and then after that 10 years had passed, I immediately retired from the military service to work the next 10 years for various private military firms (like Hambright Protection Services), performing for these firms and their clientele all of the skills gained and mastered over the course of the past 20 years, like so many, many other soldiers and sailors alike have done, when all of the wars come to an end, what skill sets do I believe I possess can be even remotely applicable in the civilian world?

He also reminded me, that when Blackwater was still known as Blackwater, private military operators in Iraq and Afghanistan were bringing home anywhere from $500.00 per day in wages up to $1,200.00 per day. The lifestyles these operator’s families stateside obviously increased due to the large sums of remuneration earned, and now that Iraq and Afghanistan are both rapidly winding down, and the demand for professional soldiers is decreasing too, however, the costs associated with the lifestyles their families are continuing to maintain are not changing. Therefore, as rates for professional soldiers have dropped in some cases to $450.00 per day due to a lessening of conflict, these professional soldiers will migrate to where ever the demand for their skills presents itself; hence, the fact that I was sharing diner with two former U.S. special operations operators in Juarez, Mexico. I was told to expect to start seeing an influx of guys just like the two men enjoying their meal right before me, both of whom, just hours before were rescuing a man from kidnap and torture. Whatever happened to the kidnappers I did not bother to ask, nor do I think I even needed to.

With our meal completed, the bill equally paid, and the exchange of handshakes and pleasantries of farewell and wishing them good luck on their next potential operation in some undetermined location in Africa, now hours past, I sat in my room and thought. I rummaged through my thoughts about the stories of the types of operations these mercenaries perform, and how global circumstances have created great oppression, in turn driving the exponential demands for the special skills these men and women bring to the table. It was, and still is, a daunting thought to me that with nearly no applicable commercial skill sets to enter the U.S. civilian employment market in any other level than that of a minimum wage entry position, some of these operators will remain highly trained soldiers for hire to the highest bidders out there. I am keenly aware that not all of these high bidders are our friends. In fact, only a mere fraction may be.

Taking everything in stride, I had to remind myself that I had just met these two men and that basically, I was taking in everything I was being told by them in good faith. I did like these guys and their larger than life individual presences and forthright demeanors while talking to me, and their intentional withholding of specific information from each operation they discussed with me for the protection of their clients, while maintaining discretion, also impressed me very much. They never bragged and only painted enough of a picture so that I could see and understand their story. I believe them. And just for the record, two days later before leaving Mexico myself, I spoke to a Chinese embassy contact in Mexico City via the telephone, and it was confirmed that a few days prior to my phone call, a Chinese citizen living and working in the city of Juarez was recovered by forces other than Mexican State police or Federal troops, and has since, safely returned to his country. In the only article I could find about the situation at hand, the local Juarez newspaper El Diario, simply reported that 8 heavily armed, suspected cartel members died in an early morning firefight when the house they were staying in was raided by unknown assailants, presumed to be opposing cartel members. There were no other casualties, or any mention of a hostage or the Chinese business man rescued at the mutually confirmed location of the operation. One more notch for the good guys.