Las Moicas

Reuters photo

By

Ricardo Swire

Las Moicas is a powerful, invisible, drug trafficking entity headquartered in Michoacán state on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Members primarily cook Methamphetamine and Heroin, then hide the drugs in either vehicle engine or transmission parts, smuggled across Mexico’s border with America.

Since 2009 Las Moicas transported more than US$17 million worth of Heroin. The same year America’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) classified Las Moicas as a “Drug Cartel.”

Mexico’s Attorney-General Office told an official March 2016 VICE interviewer that local authorities had no records on Las Moicas. Yet for years Mexico’s specter drug trafficking organization enjoyed a close relationship with defunct Familia Michoacan Cartel, before the Knights Templar captured territorial prominence in 2014. Las Moicas’ official “Drug Cartel” label was attached after a July 2009 US coordinated law enforcement operation that intercepted fifty kilos of Heroin and US$250,000 cash.

Prior to the seizure Las Moicas successfully moved two hundred kilos of Heroin worth US$17.5 million to San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Palo Alto, Hayward and San Leandro. An eighteen month DEA operation electronically monitored several phone calls and tracked drug consignments from San Francisco back to point of origin in Mexico. Las Moicas concealed Heroin shipments, destined north to California and cash heading south to Michoacán, in vehicle parts.

In May 2015 the DEA listed eight menacing Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations operating in America. Las Moicas joined heavyweights CJNG and Sinaloa Cartel on the list. According to other intelligence briefs Las Moicas supplies Methamphetamine and Heroin to northern and central California, Reno and Nevada. Representative dealers also function in San Francisco, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Orange, San Ysidro and Imperial.

On March 15, 2017 the DEA’s Los Angeles, California Spokesperson advised that Las Moicas has successfully expanded in Mexico. In 2016 the neophyte gang’s growth attracted deadly turf wars with Sinaloa Cartel on the West Coast, CJNG and Jalisco Cartel in other districts. On January 23, 2016 Mexican Federal Police made the macabre discovery of a decapitated human head stuffed inside a black toolbox. No corpse was found on the vacant lot in Colonia Amparo Sanchez, Tijuana. A poster read; “Sir Mencho and his people are cleaning Baja, this will happen to all the people of Aquiles and La Rana.” Signed, CNGT (Tijuana).

CNGT represents the alliance created by CJNG (Cartel Jalisco New Generation) and The Arellano Felix family, to get rid of the Sinaloa Cartel and increase controlled territory. Today these Mexican trafficking organizations are more visible in Chicago, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Washington heroin markets, with a growing presence in New York. Early March 2017 reports updated that along the Mississippi River’s west side Las Moicas’ dealers profit from sales of cooked “Black Tar” or “chocolates like” sub-standard heroin.

Ricardo Swire

Ricardo Swire is the Principal Consultant at R-L-H Security Consultants & Business Support Services and writes on a number of important issues.