Mexican cartels are making their presence known in the Midlands region of South Carolina, according to DEA officials.
There has been both a change and an increase in the way that illegal drugs are produced and sold in the region. Robert Murphy of the South Carolina DEA has said that “It was mainly local people, people born and raised in South Carolina that were our drug dealers,” according to WLTX 19.
Mexican cartels are entering the state and taking the profits back to Mexico, but leaving the drugs in South Carolina. Marijuana is the most popular drug in the area, but heroin is increasingly on the rise due to cartel production and its profitability.
CDC statistics show that heroin use is increasing not just in South Carolina but across the country. More than 90 percent of heroin users have used other drugs and young people are using heroin at twice the rate they did a decade ago.
The aforementioned national CDC trends have been confirmed at the local level by Allison Atkins of LRADAC, a local non-profit that tackles drug addiction. Atkins told WLTX 19 that “We know that heroin is affecting every population and for whatever reason we are seeing an increase among young people who are usually white and middle class.”
Murphy says he fears that the rising presence of drug cartels will affect families, in particular children. While Murphy has admitted to being alarmed by the situation, he is not worried according to WLTX 19.
Another worry which Murphy has is that the rise in Mexican cartel activity in the Midlands will result in blow back against law-abiding Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. It is possible that cartel operatives will try to intimidate and become a part of Mexican communities in the Midlands as a cover for their activities.
Mexican cartel activity has been on the rise in South Carolina for years. A May 2015 investigation by WISTV 10 revealed that money services businesses in the state are laundering billions to Mexican cartels, Colombian drug traffickers, and even Hezbollah operatives based in Latin America.
Bill Knowles who at the time of the May 2015 investigation was in charge of the 15th Circuit Drug Enforcement Unit of the Georgetown County Sheriff’s Office, has stated that $571 million was laundered out of Horry County. He went on to state that a cell phone vendor wired $2 million out of the store towards out-of-state cartel activities without selling any actual cell phones.
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