Jerry Langton: Gangland: The rise of the Mexicandrug cartels from El Paso to VancouverMississauga, Wiley, 2012, 276 pages

Samuel Logan

Published online: 11 July 2012# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Iconic Mexican president Porfirio Diaz once stated, “Poor Mexico, so far from God,so close to the United States.” His statement neatly encapsulates a strained relation-ship between two neighbors. But there is an important third actor. In the largerdiscourse over what has happened to public security in Mexico, very few voicesfrom Canada have emerged within a discussion largely driven by observers fromMexico and the United States. Though Gangland: The Rise of the Mexican DrugCartels from El Paso to Vancouver falls short in focus and skips some importantelements in the narrative, the distinctly Canadian voice resonates in a refreshing waythat carries the reader away from the—at times—myopic focus on the US-Mexicoborder, or the larger issues that encompass the two neighbors. The net effect is anarrative that gently but consistently reminds us that there are more stakeholders inMexico’s current public security challenges.

The author’s perspective is most salient in the case study presented in chapter 6,Trouble in Paradise, which begins on page 86. Domenico and Annuziatta Ianierovacationed in Cancun, Quintana Roo state, to celebrate the marriage of their daughterLiliana in 2006. To the daughter’s horror and the other guests’ surprise, unknownassailants murdered the couple in their resort room in February 2006. The murder oftwo Canadian citizens while sleeping in an assumed secure room inside the guardedwalls of a well known resort reportedly shocked the small community of familymembers, observers, investigators, resort staff, and international officials chargedwith unraveling the mystery. The author unfolds the story with detail and strongprose in a way that presents this homicide as one of the most important publicsecurity transgressions in a year when many began counting Mexico’s current50,000-plus homicide toll. Yet in the telling, Chapter 6 takes the reader much fartherthan simply dismissing the local authorities as corrupt and incompetent, as othersmight have done.

Trends Organ Crim (2013) 16:242–244DOI 10.1007/s12117-012-9172-2

S. Logan (*)Southern Pulse, Annapolis, MD, USAe-mail: samuel@southernpulse.com

The author takes an appreciated amount of space in Chapter 6 to carefully explainwhere and how the local authorities may have made the wrong decisions, includingexamples of evidence contamination, “hurriedly mopping up blood,” and question-able professionalism: “Much to the Canadians’ surprise, the Mexican police did nottake notes during their initial questioning instead relying on their memories.”

President Vicente Fox also appeared to be in on some sort of cover up conspiracy.“Even [President Fox]— a leader much hailed for his anti-crime and anti-corruptioncampaigns— joined in and accused nameless Canadians of committing the crimedespite absolutely no evidence to support that theory.”

More important, however, is the author’s presentation of a perennial concern thatreceives very little attention. Precisely due to evidence contamination, low levels ofprofessionalism of police in some parts of the country, and an overall law enforce-ment focus on local not international criminals, Mexico is a fertile ground for foreignoperatives who seek to conduct their dirty work abroad. “But while the mainstreammedia thought the Mexican claim that the Ianieros had powerful enemies in Canadaabsurd…they also pointed out that during the Quebec Biker War of the 1990s, at leastthree assassinations were carried out in Mexico because it was easier to get police tocooperate and have evidence ‘lost’ there.”

As a counter balance to this book’s interesting case studies that provide a refresh-ing focus on the Canadian experience and perspective, the introduction of a longhistorical section after an engaging introductory chapter is misplaced. If the intent isto educate the reader on the activities of Mexican criminal organizations from “ElPaso to Vancouver,” as stated in the subtitle, blocks of history that take the readerback to when Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés landed in the “Yucátan,” asmisspelled in a Chapter 2 subtitle, douse interest despite smooth prose. These blocksof history in chapters two and three, while of service to provide context for Mexico’smodern day reality, are perhaps best presented with the occasional, short digressionfrom the main narrative—to be digested when most relevant across the length of thediscussion and not forced upon the reader in the first 50 pages.

Of additional concern is organization. Though at times very detailed and precise indelivery, the book’s progression and jumping back and forth in time, and acrosscriminal groups and geography, could leave readers new to Mexico and her currentchallenges wanting for a timeline. Some sections lack important context whenpockets of structured research and clear hard work in the field present pages of detailhung on one or two lines of backdrop, or when broad brush strokes of context moveahead to the next theme without diving into important detail.

Yet within these mild concerns with history and organization, the author presentspassages in several sections across the narrative that connect disparate pieces of localreporting and investigation that tightly lace together otherwise distant correlations.Salient lines of analysis surface in several places across the book, such as: “Whileacknowledging that some weapons come from north of the border, those criticsremind the Mexicans that at least 160,000 soldiers defected from their militarybetween 2003 and 2009 – many of them with their weapons – and that cartels andrebel groups from Guatemala to Colombia regularly trade in heavy weapons fordrugs.” These minor points rise to the occasion when the author presents them withinthe discussion of the political and strategic focus on weapons flowing south from theUnited States into Mexico. And again, the author makes a subtle Canadian viewpoint

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known, by parenthetically inserting that Canada has 520 “legal firearms dealers” tothe 54,000 he states are operating inside the United States.

Finally, this book presents itself on the bookshelf side by side with several othertitles that attempt to capture the same narrative, essentially that Mexico is riddled withorganized crime. The usual suspects for close followers—La Familia, the PacificCartel, the Tijuana and Juarez Cartels, Los Zetas, and the Gulf Cartel— are allcovered in varied ways, and should be, but where the book reveals the possibilityof a follow on publication is in the author’s ability to capture the nuanced relation-ships between the established organizations and the growing number of smaller ordergroups. By dissecting the breakdown of Nacho Coronel’s meth production and exportorganization, or the disintegration of the Beltran-Leyva’s operations in Acapulco, theauthor may find material for a Gangland: Part II, that leverages his clear prose andability to conduct field research while adding an important element to this growingbody of work: a distinctly Canadian voice that provides a third perspective on a nowclichéd “violence” in Mexico that even President Diaz didn’t see coming.

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