Page:Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community Unclassified 2016.pdf/15



Some US Drug Threats Are Growing
Transnational drug trafficking poses a strong and in many cases growing threat to the United States at home and to US security interests abroad. Supplies of some foreign-produced drugs in the United States are rising, and some criminals who market them are growing more sophisticated.


 * Mexican drug traffickers, capitalizing on the strong US demand for heroin, have increased heroin production significantly since 2007. US border seizures nearly doubled between 2010 and 2014. Some Mexican trafficking groups—which collectively supply most of the heroin consumed in the United States—have mastered production of the white heroin preferred in eastern US cities and have been boosting overall drug potency by adding fentanyl. Fentanyl, which is 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin, is sometimes used as an adulterant and mixed with lower-grade heroin to increase its effects or mixed with diluents and sold as “synthetic heroin” with or without the buyers’ knowledge.
 * Mexican traffickers have probably increased their production of the stimulant methamphetamine for the US market. US border seizures of the drug rose by nearly half between 2013 and 2014.
 * Traffickers in the Andean countries have increased their manufacture of cocaine. Producers in Colombia—from which most US cocaine originates—increased output by nearly a third in 2014 over the prior year. Cocaine output will probably rise again in 2016 as previously planted coca crops fully mature.
 * US availability of some new psychoactive substances—so-called “designer drugs” typically produced in Asia—has been increasing; UN scientists have identified more than 500 unique substances.

Transnational Organized Crime Groups Target Vulnerable States
Transnational organized crime groups will pose a persistent and at times sophisticated threat to the wealth, health, and security of people around the globe. Criminal groups’ untaxed and unregulated enterprises drain state resources, crowd out legitimate commerce, increase official corruption, and impede economic competitiveness and fair trade. On occasion, transnational organized crime groups threaten countries’ security, spur increases in social violence, or otherwise reduce governability.


 * Profit-minded criminals generally do not seek the reins of political power but rather to suborn, co-opt, or bully government officials in order to create environments in which criminal enterprise can thrive.
 * Foreign-based transnational criminals are increasingly using online information systems to breach sovereign borders virtually, without the need to send criminal operatives abroad to advance illicit businesses.
 * Organized crime and rebel groups in Africa and elsewhere are likely to increase their involvement in wildlife trafficking to fund political activities, enhance political influence, and purchase weapons. Illicit trade in wildlife, timber, and marine resources endangers the environment, threatens good