Mexican Drug Cartel Violence Spreading To Rural U.S. As Police Crack Down In Big Cities

...from quiet areas in Minnesota, Oregon, South Carolina and across rest of the U.S. as Mexican drug cartels – and groups affiliated with them – move deeper into the country and bring with them their violent tactics.

A few years ago law enforcement didn’t see this as a problem for somewhere other than the border. What happens at the border doesn’t stay at the border. It makes its way to my county pretty soon...

In the last few years, Oregon has become a hotspot for drug trafficking and cartel-related violence as traffickers use the Interstate-5 corridor to run drugs from California up to Washington State and even into Vancouver. Just like on the East Coast with the Interstate-95 corrider, these drug organizations are finding it easier to operate in more rural and suburban areas as law enforcement officials in major cities crack down on organized crime groups...

“The main reason for moving to these areas is that the police in cities and along the border have become much more sophisticated in fighting the cartels,” George W. Grayson, an expert on Mexico’s drug war and a politics professor at the College of William and Mary...

A Justice Department report from 2011 found that Mexican-based cartels were operating in more than 1,000 U.S. cities between 2009 and 2010 and have expanded from marijuana and cocaine trafficking o heroin and methamphetamine as well as taking part in human smuggling operations...