“I don’t think the United States has done enough to stop guns and money from going south into Mexico,” McCaffrey said. “President [Barack] Obama and this administration have walked away from the issue. It’s not the public focus.”
The former drug czar criticized the Obama administration for failing to address the role of the United States in stemming the southern flow of US weapons and money into the drug cartels and transnational criminal networks responsible for the majority of the flow of drugs within the Americas.
Bringing criminal prosecutions against individuals and institutions who launder drug money could help prevent the drug cartels from reaping the immense profits associated with the drug trade, McCaffrey argued.
“We have to use criminal prosecution against the white collar criminals, just as much as we would against a 20 year old boy selling drugs on the street,” he said.
The vast majority, approximately 87 percent of the weapons seized in Mexican drug cases were of US origin, according to reports by the US Government Accountability Office.
Mexico ranks among the top 25 countries with the highest rates of intentional homicide, according to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime data.
