RESEARCH NOTES: DRAGON CARTEL

The initial concept for DRAGON CARTEL was sparked by reports that the number of Chinese nationals arriving at the US-Mexico border went up 8500% between March 2021 and March 2024.

Add to that a rising number of Chinese nationals trying to infiltrate US military installations.

The 10^th Detective Emilia Cruz novel also returns to the theme of her hunt for Mexico’s missing.

But this time there’s a twist: she’s looking for a man in one of Mexico’s most difficult jobs. He’s a Customs inspector, a role increasingly under pressure from both corrupt officials and drug cartels.

Add an external actor and the situation explodes out of control.

CHINA’S OPPORTUNITY

According to the Migration Policy Institute, 24,300 Chinese nationals arrived “without authorization” at the U.S.-Mexico border in FY2023, and 38,200 arrived in FY 2024. The numbers of Chinese at the US-Canada border doubled to 12,400 during the same time period.

Although an increase of 8500% is eye-popping, the overall number of Chinese migrants is still a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated 6.3 million Border Patrol encounters with migrants of all nationalities at the US-Mexico border in the same time frame.

In mid-2023 reports about Chinese men of military age with military haircuts crossing Panama’s Darien Gap en route to the US southern border raised concerns.

The same year, the Wall Street Journal broke a story that the FBI has documented over 100 intrusions by Chinese nationals, some in the US illegally, to access restricted and sensitive US military facilities. The incidents appear designed to test US security.

Could Beijing, knowing how overtaxed US border officials were, purposely funneled Chinese spies into the migrant flow? Are those spies now trying to infiltrate sensitive military facilities and funnel information back to China?

Albeit not mainstream news, these are priority intelligence questions. Detective Emilia Cruz addresses them in fiction but I’m sure someone in Washington is trying to answer them for real.

MISSING IN MEXICO

PHOTO: Newspaper advertisement soliciting information about a missing women, clipped by the author

DRAGON CARTEL returns to the theme of Mexico’s missing persons crisis. This time she’s looking for a Customs agent who disappeared at the end of the work day at the commercial Port of Acapulco.

Emilia’s investigation in DRAGON CARTEL is informed by:

• Official incompetence/disinterest in searching for the missing,
• How families are taking it upon themselves to look for missing loved ones, and
• The ways word gets out about the missing.

MEXICAN COMMERCIAL PORTS

Acapulco is not a major commercial shipping port but it is big enough and well-situated enough to receive small shipping containers. Chinese chemical precursors are shipped into the port and are transported inland to drug labs producing fentanyl and meth for the US market.

Mexico’s two biggest Pacific coast ports are Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas.

PHOTO: Aerial view of the port of Lazaro Cardenas, the second largest Pacific port in Mexico. Courtesy https://www.apmterminals.com/en/lazaro-cardenas

Emilia travels to Lazaro Cardenas as part of her Customs investigation, giving the reader a glimpse of how huge the port is along with the complex wiring diagram of who runs commercial port operations in Mexico, including the Mexican Navy.

As part of the research, I also learned the correct way to open a shipping container from this video.