MEXICO CITY - A U.N. anti-narcotics agency, citing a worrisome rise in shipments of increasingly pure Mexican heroin to the United States, said in a report Wednesday that Mexican cartels are an increasing threat in Central America.
The International Narcotics Control Board says Mexican cartels are displacing Colombian traffickers, the usual suppliers of much of the heroin consumed in the United States, and opium poppy production is on the rise in Mexico, said board member Jorge Montano.
Montano told a news conference that as much as 12,355 acres of opium poppies in Mexico "are basically intended for the United States."
The rise also had been noted by the U.S. Justice Department, which said in a 2010 report that Mexican cartels had more than doubled their heroin production in the preceding year.
Mexico had long been a transit route for processed Colombian heroin, while Mexican production remained mostly semi-processed paste or "tar."
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But the board said, "There are some indications that 'white heroin' of greater purity is being illegally produced in Mexico" and sometimes mixed with Colombian heroin.
The Mexican government recently released figures showing that poppy eradication in Mexico has fallen dramatically since President Felipe Calderón launched an offensive against drug cartels in December 2006.
While the government destroyed about 53,000 acres of poppies in 2005 and 32,000 acres in 2006, that fell to 28,000 acres in 2007.
The Mexican army, which does most of the country's eradication work, apparently has shifted its efforts to other activities, such as raiding gang strongholds, patrolling cities and manning checkpoints.
Federal security spokes-man Alejandro Poire said eradication is again increasing, reaching 33,000 acres in 2008 and 37,000 in 2009, the last year for which figures are available.
But Montano said heroin production has been shifting toward Mexico "because the Colombians were very effective in 2008 in eliminating a large number" of poppy fields.
The report also said 90 percent of the cocaine entering the U.S. flows through Mexico, though Mexican cartels get most of their money from marijuana sales: $8.5 billion annually, or 61 percent of their estimated annual income.
Mexican cartels are flexing their muscles in other ways as well.
After Mexico cracked down on imports of chemicals used to make methamphetamines in 2007, the cartels began importing them through Central America, often from front companies in Bangladesh.
