Alduondo was accused of being a central figure in an operation laundering millions obtained through transactions in the business of drug trafficking.
The year 2014 had barely come to a close when the local press in Puerto Rico displayed the headlines of the arrest of the lawyer and real estate entrepreneur, Juan Ramón Zalduondo, a donor to the governing party and a member of several of its boards and committees. He was charged with being a key figure in a multi-million dollar drug money laundering operation. Far from being an isolated incident, Zalduondo’s arrest points to just one link in the chain that joins Puerto Rico to the drug trade headed by cartels based in Colombia and Venezuela, running through the distribution network in the Greater Antilles, and, finally, ending in the northeastern seaboard of the United States.
Zalduondo’s arrest has precipitated disclosures of new connections between the trafficking in narcotics and the local political class. It confirmed statements made four years ago by the ex-superintendent of the police and today Senator in the colonial government of Puerto Rico, Miguel Pereira.
At the time, Pereira underscored that “The drug trade affects every sphere of life in Puerto Rico. It influences every branch of our government, every level of our society, everyone,” adding, “we stopped being a state to become a narco-state.” It should be noted that these remarks reflected the fact that already by 2004 Puerto Rico was considered a bridge for the trafficking of some 85 tons of cocaine originating in South America (45%) and the Dominican Republic (30%) and destined for the United States (95%) and Europe (5%). In fact, Puerto Rico then stood out as the major base for the drug trade in the Caribbean basin, closely followed by the Dominican Republic, in a list of 11 nations and regions. Coming back to today, in January of the new year, federal police operatives seized millions of dollars worth of drugs and arms from the so-called Vieques cartel. Vieques is the most important island municipality of the Puerto Rican archipelago. It was also revealed that the “Vieques cartel” is directly affiliated to the Venezuelan cartel known as “Los Soles”.
The first question to ask is why Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony controlled by the overwhelming military and police security apparatus of the USNA state, plays such a prominent role in the multimillion-dollar drug trade? How is it that within such a controlled political and military environment there’s talk of a Puerto Rican narco-state? What other significance and political and economic ties does this apparent “war on drugs” have to the massive jailing and criminalization of a growing number of Puerto Rican youth? What relation is there between the economics of the drug trade and the increasing exclusion of young people from the so-called formal job market?
The answer to these and similar questions must be sought in the context of how the USNA state and capitalist corporations operate and control the lives of the citizens and, ultimately, of the ideology and political structures that justify and perpetuate the entire system. We will discuss these questions in the upcoming articles of the series.
