Odd_nonposter
Bluelighter
Cartel builds own radio system across Mexico
The Mexican army and marines have begun attacking the radio network that stretches hundreds of miles across Mexico, a shadow communications system that lets the cartel coordinate drug deliveries, kidnapping, extortion and other crimes with the immediacy and precision of a military or law-enforcement agency.
Associated Press
Originally published Monday, December 26, 2011 at 7:18 PM
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
MEXICO CITY — When convoys of soldiers or federal police move through the scrubland of northern Mexico, the Zetas drug cartel knows they are coming.
The alert goes out from a taxi driver or a street vendor, equipped with a high-end handheld radio and paid to work as a lookout known as a "halcon," or hawk.
The radio signal travels deep into the countryside, hours by foot from the nearest road. There the branches of the 8-foot-tall rockrose bush conceal a radio tower painted to match. A cable buried in the dirt draws power from a solar panel. A signal-boosting repeater relays the message along a network of powerful antennas and repeaters that stretch hundreds of miles across Mexico, a shadow communications system that lets the cartel coordinate drug deliveries, kidnapping, extortion and other crimes with the immediacy and precision of a military or law-enforcement agency.
The Mexican army and marines have begun attacking the system, seizing hundreds of pieces of communications equipment in at least three operations since September that offer a firsthand look at a far-ranging and sophisticated infrastructure.
Current and former U.S. law-enforcement officials say the equipment, ranging from professional-grade towers to handheld radios, was part of a network that extended until recently from the U.S. border down Mexico's Gulf coast and into Guatemala.
The network let Zetas operatives conduct encrypted conversations without depending on the official cellphone network, which is relatively easy for authorities to tap into, and in many cases does not reach far into the countryside.
The Mexican army said on Dec. 4 that it had seized at least 167 antennas, 155 repeaters, 166 power sources, 71 pieces of computer equipment and 1,446 radios. The equipment has been taken down in several cities in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and the northern states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas.
...
The radio system appears to be a "low-cost, highly extendable and maintainable network" that shows the Zetas' sophistication, said Gordon Housworth, managing director of Intellectual Capital Group, LLC, a risk- and technology-consulting firm that has studied the structure and operations of Mexican cartels and criminal groups
Read More: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017100734_drugcom27.html
The Mexican army and marines have begun attacking the radio network that stretches hundreds of miles across Mexico, a shadow communications system that lets the cartel coordinate drug deliveries, kidnapping, extortion and other crimes with the immediacy and precision of a military or law-enforcement agency.
Associated Press
Originally published Monday, December 26, 2011 at 7:18 PM
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
MEXICO CITY — When convoys of soldiers or federal police move through the scrubland of northern Mexico, the Zetas drug cartel knows they are coming.
The alert goes out from a taxi driver or a street vendor, equipped with a high-end handheld radio and paid to work as a lookout known as a "halcon," or hawk.
The radio signal travels deep into the countryside, hours by foot from the nearest road. There the branches of the 8-foot-tall rockrose bush conceal a radio tower painted to match. A cable buried in the dirt draws power from a solar panel. A signal-boosting repeater relays the message along a network of powerful antennas and repeaters that stretch hundreds of miles across Mexico, a shadow communications system that lets the cartel coordinate drug deliveries, kidnapping, extortion and other crimes with the immediacy and precision of a military or law-enforcement agency.
The Mexican army and marines have begun attacking the system, seizing hundreds of pieces of communications equipment in at least three operations since September that offer a firsthand look at a far-ranging and sophisticated infrastructure.
Current and former U.S. law-enforcement officials say the equipment, ranging from professional-grade towers to handheld radios, was part of a network that extended until recently from the U.S. border down Mexico's Gulf coast and into Guatemala.
The network let Zetas operatives conduct encrypted conversations without depending on the official cellphone network, which is relatively easy for authorities to tap into, and in many cases does not reach far into the countryside.
The Mexican army said on Dec. 4 that it had seized at least 167 antennas, 155 repeaters, 166 power sources, 71 pieces of computer equipment and 1,446 radios. The equipment has been taken down in several cities in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz and the northern states of Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, San Luis Potosi and Tamaulipas.
...
The radio system appears to be a "low-cost, highly extendable and maintainable network" that shows the Zetas' sophistication, said Gordon Housworth, managing director of Intellectual Capital Group, LLC, a risk- and technology-consulting firm that has studied the structure and operations of Mexican cartels and criminal groups
Read More: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2017100734_drugcom27.html
