Hispanic gangs that formed in the United States as a way of protecting themselves from racist attacks in the 1980s, are now playing a fundamental part in the drug trade. The gangs – which have expanded in number and territory - are now being employed by large drug trafficking organisations. They are now active in distributing narcotic drugs at a retail level as well as working as violent foot soldiers in the war to control the trafficking routes not only in the US but also throughout Latin America.
These gangs, which now have large followings in US cities, Phoenix, Los Angeles and El Paso, have spread to Latin America due to the policy of deporting suspected gang members to their country of origin. The majority of deported gang members have no real family support apart from their gang affiliations. This has caused the US street gangs to grow and prosper in Latin American countries as they take advantage of less adequate law enforcement and their geographical proximity to drug smuggling routes.
Members of these street gangs are merciless, many of them having grown up in the violent gang culture in impoverished US cities. These youngsters are some of the most vulnerable members of society; most are very young when they are recruited, come from very poor backgrounds and in many cases are addicted to drugs. They are treated as dispensable by the major drug cartels that have outsourced and now employ them to do their dirty work because it gives them an extra level of insulation from law enforcement.
One of the major street gangs that have integrated itself into the illicit drug trade is Los Aztecas or Barrio Azteca, a group founded by Mexicans living in Texas in the 1980s. They grew rapidly and expanded to the Mexican side of the border taking a foothold in the violent city of Ciudad Juarez. Los Aztecas now take orders from the Juarez Cartel and have been implicated in many recent assassinations linked to the drug trade. Many of the members consider themselves genuine Aztec warriors decorating themselves with tattoos of original Aztec symbols such as plumed serpents or the Aztec calendar. They also abide by a strict code that says that gang members must not consume “magic water” (heroin) because they might reveal secrets of the organisation and that they must not rob the people who live in the area that they control.
