His entire life is about the war on drugs. He knows it because he’s lived it. For the first twenty years of his professional career, Rusty worked to the top of his industry as the largest exporter of transportation equipment in the U.S. to destinations worldwide. At the same time he was climbing the ladder of success, he was juggling a costly addiction to alcohol and drugs.
By 1996 his addiction had cost him every material possession, his family, his dignity, and nearly his life. Rusty was reduced to living in a dumpster and eating out of trashcans in Nashville TN. After a lifesaving chain of events through his father, a year later Rusty emerged radically changed and a man on a mission.
In 2002 Rusty started making commercials, PSA’s and doing corporate work for hire.
The idea for his explosive documentary, “Drug Wars: Silver or Lead,” was conceived in 2005 while Rusty was working on a story about methamphetamines. Rusty came upon information relating to the origin of vast amounts of the drug in North Texas and two weeks later he was in Mexico getting an inside look into the most powerful drug cartels in the world. Since that time he has been getting to the truth about the drug war through credible sources and undercover informants from both sides of the border, on both sides of the law. The narco-insurgents that are fighting over control of the ports of entry in the United States and Mexico are creating a new level of corruption and have claimed more lives in the last year than the total number of soldiers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These drug trafficking organizations have well structured cell-based networks that stretch across the U.S. that include surveillance, intelligence gathering, money laundering, and the ability to enforce their operation with violence.
Adding to the Drug Wars franchise, Rusty has written a book entitled Drug Wars: Narco-Warfare in the Twenty-First Century available on Amazon.com. In addition he has started pre-production on a television series based on the documentary entitled “Embedded.”
National media and law enforcement agencies recognize Rusty as an expert on border security and the Mexican drug cartels. He is currently producing news documentaries and news segments for FOX and CNN and has produced episodes of “Gangland” for The History Channel.
Rusty Fleming
Latin America: The Invisible War on the Press
by Rusty FlemingA couple of weeks ago I was in New York, meeting with network television producers about a series they wanted to run about a story my production team and I have been reporting for more than five years: the narco-insurgency currently wreaking havoc on the U.S. and Mexico.
Just as we all sat down around the conference table, my cell phone rang. Given the importance of the meeting, I normally would have let the call go to voice mail, but when I looked at the number I knew I had to pick it up. This person would not be calling unless it was an absolute emergency. I opened the phone and didn’t even get the “Hello” out of my mouth before a shaken and somewhat scared voice said, “Rusty when can you be here?”
The caller was my most trusted source in Mexico. Slightly stunned by the abrupt nature of the call, I responded inquisitively, “Pretty soon, I should wrap up here in New York in a couple of days, why?”
“We have to talk right away, we have a huge problem down here and you’re in the middle of it,” he exclaimed. (more…)
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The Consequence of ‘Come On, It’s Just Pot’
by Rusty FlemingIt was a little after midnight when I crossed over the bridge from Laredo, Texas into the sister city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. After having my car searched I was cleared through the Mexican Customs’ check point where the military was staged and drove towards my destination. I had a source of mine, a local reporter, call me four hours earlier to tell me to meet him at a specific restaurant at 1 a.m. because he had some photographs and information I was looking for pertaining to a specific series of brutal murders that had taken place in the Laredo corridor.
This wasn’t all that unusual-most of the investigative journalists in Mexico work under intense circumstances given that they often come into information relating to the drug cartels that they either can not, or will not, report on because it would be a death sentence for them, so they give the information to someone like me who will get it aired or published in way that does not connect them.
I arrived early to the restaurant and since the weather was so pleasant, I decided to take a seat on the patio and have a glass of tea. I sat there for a few minutes when my source arrived and sat down, ordered a drink and handed me a large white envelope. He told me this was everything I had been asking his editor about the day before and that I should be careful how I use them. I thanked him, (by paying him) and we talked for about twenty more minutes and he asked if I could give him a ride home. (more…)
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Narco-Terrorism: American Style
by Rusty Fleming
On a hot summer evening, in a bar in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico just across the bridge from Laredo, Texas; a thirty year-old man, on his knees, surrounded by a dozen armed guards, can be heard begging for his life, he cries for one more chance to make it right with the boss, one more chance to see his family—one more chance at life.
His boss happens to be the man who dictates the life and death of every soul in the Laredo corridor, listens to the pleas but has already made up his mind. He stands as judge and jury in this court and it’s clear, he’s heard enough. So he pulls a diamond studded, pearl handled pistol from his belt and slowly hands it over to one of his newest recruits. He tells the recruit to put a bullet in the condemned mans head as he sobs uncontrollably—and so, without hesitation the young man pulls the trigger four times over. (more…)
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Without A Trace: Kidnapped from the Border
by Rusty FlemingAs she sat on her couch looking back at me, she wipes the tears from behind her glasses and tries to tell me about the night her youngest daughter of 18 years was suddenly and violently taken, never to be heard from again.
Her trembling hands and shaking legs speak volumes of the pain she suffers day-in and day-out, wondering about the fate of her little girl. “Is she alive? Is she dead? Is she cold and hungry? Have they hurt her? If they did kill her, where is her body?” These thoughts race through the grief stricken mind of this single mother a hundred times a day.
Consuelo (not her real name), a 49 year-old mother of four, can hardly speak her daughters’ name before her face flinches with pain and her eyes fill with tears again. “Today is my baby Paula’s 20th birthday [not her real name either]. It’s been over two years and we’ve heard nothing.” With a breath of exasperation, frustration, and more than a hint of resentment she exclaims, “And no one has helped us. No one.”
As horrific as this sounds, this story has been played out hundreds of times in the last five years all across the U.S./Mexican border. Sometimes it ends with the return of the loved one, in some cases alive but in most cases not. Sometimes, like in Consuelo’s case, it never ends. (more…)
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Change? Not so Far: Our Border Drug War Still Rages
by Rusty FlemingThe year 2009 has been hyped by the media and political elites as the year of “change” in America. I’ve been filming and reporting on the drug war being waged in Mexico and along our southwest border for over four years and as far as the first six months of 2009 go, even though a lot has happened in that time, not much has changed. On the surface it would seem progress has been made and indeed positive steps have been taken by both the U.S. and Mexican governments. But looking beyond the stories and stats reveals something uglier and more severe that has even the experts questioning the current strategy.
One thing I’ve learned in documenting the drug war is that statistics alone don’t tell the story and for a true picture you have to dig beyond the numbers and the hype to draw a real conclusion of whether progress is being made or not.
The current death toll for this year in Mexico’s war against the cartels just peaked over 2,400. This is about the same number of narco-executions as last year at this time and at this pace we will probably exceed last years toll of 5,400. No real change there. But if you drill down on this number what you find is staggering as it relates to the number of law enforcement officials in the execution tally. Though the exact number of local municipal police is not known for certain because many of the narcos dress up like police to conduct operations, it is reported by intelligence sources that over 1/4 or 600 of these executions have been local, state and federal law enforcement agents. Since the first of the year, thirty-one active federal agents alone have been killed in Mexico. (more…)
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“The Greatest Organizational Threat to the United States”
by Rusty FlemingThat statement ought to be a wake-up call for every citizen and politician in America today. Even though the mainstream media has only recently pounced on this statement, you should know that it has been posted on the DEA website since 2005 where I found it while researching my “Drug Wars” documentary. The “greatest organizational threat” the Department of Justice is referring to are the men who make up the four primary cartels operating in Mexico and the United States today: the Gulf cartel, the Sinaloa cartel, the Juarez cartel and the Pacific cartel.
Now, it is important to understand that these organizations are primarily in the business of selling narcotics. You have to look at this the way they do—it’s like any other multi-billion dollar business, in that it seeks to make a profit on the manufacture and distribution of goods. The making, growing, selling, and delivery of their products are all part of their internal operations. Pretty much everything else they do is ancillary operations to support that end, and those are the operations they outsource. That includes most of their dirty work—the collections, kidnappings, torture, and assassinations—which they contract out to paramilitary gangs,which are put together piecemeal or recruited directly from gangs such as MS-13, los Zetas, and others. (more…)
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Drug Wars: Deterioration Turns to Demoralization
by Rusty FlemingIn times past there was a prevailing wisdom that the violence stemming from the drug war equated to just one drug dealer killing another and after they finished killing each other off, things would go back to being peaceful and all would be well— this theory is no longer valid. The escalated violence and corruption the cartels are exhibiting today are quickly eroding Mexico and its democratic institutions to the point that they have caused a serious shift in the entire geopolitical landscape and represent the greatest threat to national security to both the U.S. and Mexico.
One of the more disturbing aspects of the narco-insurgency in North America is the effect it is having on the free press in Mexico. Our own history has proven that exposing the truth in a free press has done more for positive change in government and corporate accountability in our nation than perhaps any other single component, but that simply does not fit in the world of terror that the narcos create and perpetuate. Hardly a single Mexican media outlet in the country operates freely and without fear when it comes to reporting on the narcos and their activities. (more…)
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‘Scarface’ For Real On The Border
by Rusty FlemingI’ve been documenting the Mexican drug cartels and their operations in Mexico and the U.S. on film and in print for the past four years. I’ve contributed to magazines, newspapers and presented segments on network news, I’ve written a book on the subject and meet regularly with intelligence agents from every three lettered agency in the alphabet. I’ve had a front row seat to one of the most violent and brutal uprisings in the history of our two countries and still I am amazed that so few people, especially within our government comprehend this problem and haven’t a clue as to the true effects it is having on our own society, economy and geopolitical landscape.
The flow of illicit narcotics into the United States from Mexico is nothing new and neither is the fact that the Mexican DTO’s (Drug Trafficking Organizations) are running the entire show. Up until recently it was believed that they were earning somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 billion dollars a year from that enterprise and for the past two decades the U.S. government has been content with the lackluster results of their interdiction efforts evidenced by the fact that nothing has really changed in that time span. (more…)
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