by Elaine Carey
WOMEN DRUG TRAFFICKERS
Diálogos Series
KRIS LANE, SERIES EDITOR
Understanding Latin America demands dialogue, deep exploration, and frank discussion of key topics. Founded by Lyman L. Johnson in 1992 and edited since 2013 by Kris Lane, the Diálogos Series focuses on innovative scholarship in Latin American history and related fields. The series, the most successful of its type, includes specialist works accessible to a wide readership and a variety of thematic titles, all ideally suited for classroom adoption by university and college teachers.
Also available in the Diálogos Series:
Searching for Madre Matiana: Prophecy and Popular Culture in Modern Mexico by Edward Wright-Rios
Africans into Creoles: Slavery, Ethnicity, and Identity in Colonial Costa Rica by Russell Lohse
Emotions and Daily Life in Colonial Mexico edited by Javier Villa-Flores and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera
Native Brazil: Beyond the Convert and the Cannibal, 1500–1900 edited by Hal Langfur
The Course of Andean History by Peter V. N. Henderson
Masculinity and Sexuality in Modern Mexico edited by Anne Rubenstein and Víctor M. Macías-González
Modernizing Minds in El Salvador: Education Reform and the Cold War, 1960–1980 by Héctor Lindo-Fuentes and Erik Ching
A History of Mining in Latin America: From the Colonial Era to the Present by Kendall Brown
Slavery, Freedom, and Abolition in Latin America and the Atlantic World by Christopher Schmidt-Nowara
Cuauhtémoc’s Bones: Forging National Identity in Modern Mexico by Paul Gillingham
For additional titles in the Diálogos Series, please visit unmpress.com.
WOMEN DRUG TRAFFICKERS
Mules, Bosses, and Organized Crime
ELAINE CAREY
© 2014 by the University of New Mexico Press
All rights reserved. Published 2014
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5 6
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Carey, Elaine, 1967–
Women drug traffickers : mules, bosses, and organized crime / Elaine Carey. — First Edition.
pages cm. — (Diálogos Series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8263-5198-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8263-5199-9 (electronic)
1. Drug dealers—Mexico—History—20th century. 2. Female offenders—Mexico—History—20th century. 3. Drug traffic—Mexico—History—20th century. 4. Drug abuse and crime—Mexico—History—20th century. I. Title.
HV5840.M6C37 2014
363.45082’0972—dc23
2014002206
Cover photograph: Woman in a Sinaloan marijuana field.
Photo by José Carlos Cisneros Guzmán.
Cover design by Catherine Leonardo
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
Selling Is More of a Habit: Women and Drug Trafficking, 1900–1980
CHAPTER ONE
Foreign Vices: Drugs, Modernity, and Gender
CHAPTER TWO
Mules, Smugglers, and Peddlers: The Illicit Trade in Mexico, 1910s–1930s
CHAPTER THREE
The White Lady of Mexico City: Lola la Chata and the Remaking of Narcotics
CHAPTER FOUR
Transcending Borders: La Nacha and the “Notorious” Women of the North
CHAPTER FIVE
The Women Who Made It Snow: Cold, Dirty Drug Wars, 1970s
CONCLUSION
Gangsters, Narcs, and Women: A Secret History
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
And we were too young to be hippies
Missed out on the love
Turned to a teen in the late 70s
In the summer of the drugs
—VICTORIA WILLIAMS
IN 1982, I RETURNED TO THE UNITED STATES FROM EUROPE TO FINISH high school. I arrived just in time for the escalation of Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs. The “Just Say No” campaign of his wife, Nancy, connected to the sleepy beach and military town of Pensacola, Florida, in a number of ways: signs around schools claimed the establishment of “Drug Free Zones,” while, inside, locker inspections for marijuana became common. Overhead, the sounds of low-flying aircraft could be heard, routine aerial surveillance of Florida highways and rural areas. During this period, some of my friends disappeared from school, their parents sent to prison and their homes sold at auction after a series of cocaine arrests in the early 1980s. As the war on drugs raged, I became more familiar with the consequences of addiction and criminalization. When a friend became an intensive-care foster parent, I held the HIV-positive crack-addicted babies that she fostered, most of whom never lived beyond three years of age. My friend, a former Peace Corps volunteer and nurse, routinely provided information about safe sex to the mothers of her foster children; she was their only HIV counselor in a time when few existed anywhere.
Pensacola is known for its laid-back Florida lifestyle combined with brimstone evangelical Christianity, and I frequently returned there, avoiding the latter but relishing the former. In 2003, I discovered that one of my favorite beach bars, the Sandshaker Lounge and Package Store—home of the original Bushwacker—became the site of a federal sting. Operation Sandshaker ensnared wealthy and successful business owners along with resident beach bums.1 All had entered the business of cocaine, running it from Miami to Pensacola for personal use and for distribution within the Florida Panhandle and the greater Gulf Coast region. Operation Sandshaker and the loss of a favorite haunt happened just as I began to envision this book project. Federal agents arrested more than thirty people, but most intriguing to me were the women: lawyers, business owners, and even the creator of the Bushwacker and owner of the Sandshaker.2 Was the risk worth it, I wondered? And for successful women, why did they take such a risk? Was it the money, the glamour, the adventure, or just simply timing? I cannot separate my experiences growing up in Florida during the war on drugs from my interest in the history of narcotics.
Over the years, that interest in gender and the history of drugs led me to seek out others with similar research agendas. Even though historical academic writing often lacks creativity, it is a collaborative process, and collaboration adds creative elements. As this book progressed, I traveled across borders in an effort to uncover the lives of women whose business models, and whose very lives, rested upon their anonymity and ability to avoid detection. Many people—scholars, librarians, archivists, journalists, filmmakers, and former police officers—in the United States, Mexico, Colombia, and Canada have assisted in this project since I began the initial research in 1997. Thus, I would like to thank a number of people who have influenced my own conceptualization of the history of Latin America, narcotics, and crime by offering their time, analysis, and criticism: Felipe Aljure, Peter Andreas, Luis Astorga, Sam Brunk, Nancy Campbell, Isaac Campos, Ric Curtis, George Díaz, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Sterling Evans, David Fahey, Richard Friman, Michelle García, José Guarnizo, Joe Heyman, Hermann Herlinghaus, Lyman Johnson, Regnar Kristensen, Fernando Lebrija, Victor Macías-González, Dan Malleck, Andrae Marak, Marcel Martel, Jocelyn Olcott, Diego Osorno, Tony Payan, Pablo Piccato, Margaret Randall, Joe Spillane, Barry Spunt, Elijah Wald, and Glenn Weyant. W. Clark Whitehorn has long been a proponent of this project. Jennie Erin Smith shared information about Griselda Blanco’s final days. Howard Abadinsky, a St. John’s University colleague whom a Mexican student recommended that I seek out, helped me understand the complexities of organized crime and various structural models. I also benefited from many cont
acts in the New York Police Department who helped me understand the evolution of police work with respect to narcotics control. In particular, I would like to thank Kathy Burke, Paul Chu, and Thomas Ong for their insight.
Throughout this project, I worked more closely with librarians and archivists than I had in the past. All expressed interest in the project, provided guidance, and pushed me in directions that I had not considered. I would like to thank a number of archivists and librarians: Gene Morris, Fred Romanski and John Taylor at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, Maryland; Jessica Schmidt at NARA, Kansas City, Kansas; Joe Sanchez at NARA, San Bruno, California; Monique Sugimoto at NARA, Riverside, California; and Christopher Wright at NARA, Fort Worth, Texas. Kyle Ainsworth at the East Texas Research Center graciously went through files looking for information regarding Alvin Scharff and Garland Roark.
Closer to New York City, my early work with Karen Anson, Robert Parks, and Marc Renovitch at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Charlotte Strum at the Rockefeller Archive Center proved to me that this topic was feasible. Barbara Traub, Astrid Emel, and Bill Manz at St. John’s Rittenberg Law Library gave me crash courses in legal research for this project. Dorothy Beck at St. John’s University Library provided a regular fix of books and materials acquired through interlibrary loans. Ismael Rivera-Sierra and Alyse Hennig at STJ’s Davis Library introduced me to the concept of social history through insurance claims, something I now refer to as “Insuring Addiction.” Jim Quigle at the Special Collections at Pennsylvania State University is an expert on the history of narcotics in the United States and assisted me with the Anslinger papers. I met Idilio Peña in his role as the chief archivist of the Dominican Studies Institute and Archives at the City University of New York while working on another research project. Previously, he was the deputy commissioner of the New York City Municipal Archives. He introduced me to the rich collection in New York that had transnational ties. At the Lloyd Sealy Library of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Larry Sullivan, Ellen Belcher, and Ellen Sexton, experts on crime, endlessly discussed the history of crime with me and gave me an “office” in the city.
The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at the New York Public Library has become a second home. My former student Ray Pun helped me find resources and revise chapter 1. He also advised me about sources regarding the anti-Chino movement in Mexico. More significantly, Pun and I have worked closely together on historical methods classes for St. John’s University students. Working with an embedded librarian led me to reconceptualize my research methodologies, offered me an opportunity to know libraries and archives at a different level, and challenged me to continually mine sources whether ephemera, documents, or material culture. In the summer of 2013, we participated in the NCC Team Building Workshop on Japanese resources at Harvard University. The librarians and scholars at the workshop introduced me to an array of materials and methods that allowed me to pursue global networks within the history of narcotics, which will have an ongoing impact on my research.
The librarians, archivists, and curators of the NYPL had a profound impact on this project. Jay Barksdale has offered his insight into the workings of the NYPL and the beauty of silence in the Wertheim Study. Anne Marie Belinfante assisted in my better understanding of the Jewish community of Shanghai during the interwar years. Jessica Pigza and Tal Nadan introduced me to the vastness of the Rare Books and Manuscripts and Archives divisions, which offered another realm of material on narcotics, drugs, and crime. Katherine Cordes demonstrated the importance of maps in the study of transnational flows. Paul Friedman explained the black, green, red, and blue (as well as other hues) books that line the walls of the Rose Reading Room. Sachiko Clayton’s introduction of genealogical research assisted me in developing the familial past of U.S.-based drug traffickers. Ross Takahashi humorously described the realm of business and the unique collections of the Science, Industry, and Business Library. Michael Cambre and Gwinith Evans introduced my class to another place to find secondary sources and a quiet place to work on the fifth floor at the mid-Manhattan branch.
The final chapter of this book could not have been finished without the assistance of archivists and staff at the National Archives in New York. I particularly want to thank Sarah Pasquello, Trinia Yeckley, Angela Turdico, and Doug Cantelemo. Greg Plunges explained docket numbers, told me who to contact at the local courthouses, and tracked down complex legal cases that had been consolidated under one docket number. All explained the organization of legal documents (the difference between red and blue) and held materials for months while I read through the case files.
For the past three years, I have met a growing community of colleagues through the American Historical Association and its Tuning Project. They have had a profound impact on my teaching but also on my scholarship through their research, writing, and advocacy for the historical profession. Their examples led me to return to this manuscript with a more critical and focused eye.
In Mexico, the staff and activists at the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), in particular José Zavala of Referencia, Arturo Librado Galicia of Galeria 2, and Raymundo Alvarez García of Galeria 3, were invaluable. All three were helpful in this project and also had interesting anecdotes about working in the archive. At the Fototeca Nacional del Instituto Nacional de Antropología de Historia, Patricia Muñoz Arteaga, Pedro Edgar Guerrero Hernández, Diana Sanchez, and Mayra Mendoza assisted in the acquisition of images. They, too, pointed me in directions I had not considered. I would also like to thank the staff at the archive of the Secretaría de Salud. Carmen Juárez of the Biblioteca del Estado de Hidalgo “Ricardo Garibay” assisted in searching for material on local drug peddlers and smugglers. Lastly, at the Secretaría Relaciones Exteriores Archivo Histórico Genero Estrada, archivists Oscar Aquirre L and Hugo Martinez ran numerous searches, allowed me to use the phone, and let me photograph documents that will be part of my research for years to come.
Over the years, I received funding from two St. John’s University Faculty Summer Fellowships in 2004 and 2008; the Beeke-Levy Research Fellowship, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, New Hyde Park, New York, 2005–2006; a Fulbright–García Robles Fellowship, COMEXUS and CIES, Mexico City, 2007–2008; and lastly a Lloyd George Sealy Research Fellowship at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 2008–2013.
I have also benefited from the scholarly community at St. John’s University. My students read the chapter on Lola la Chata and endlessly tolerated my ongoing discussion about women and dope, particularly Andrés Bermudez, Tiffany Bal, Ray Devries, Pablo López del Oro, Kevin Lubrano, Tiara Moultrie, and Candace Rowser. Sharmina Akhtar, Elise Barbeau, Jennifer Caputo, Daniel Kelly, Greg Lubrano, Josh Powers, and Xiaochun Wang helped me with the digital images, finding materials, communication, and photocopying documents. Yesenia Bran graciously and humorously watched narco B-flicks and explained the Salvadoran angle to me. Melvyn Threatt Peters, my research assistant, read through many of the court cases, digitized countless documents, and wrote brief biographies of people and summaries of complex conspiracy cases. My colleagues have tolerated ongoing dope conversations, contributed their own ideas, and assisted in translations or explanations on an array of information: Dolores Augustine, Mauricio Borrero, Tracey-Anne Cooper, Betsy Herbin, Flora Kesheshian, Jeff Kinkley, Tim Milford, Phil Misevich, Susie Pak, Nerina Rustomji, Susan Schmidt-Horning, Kathy Shaunessy, Ben Turner, Konrad Tuchscherer, and Lara Vapnek.
I have benefited from a large group of scholars, writers, and writing workshops. The outline for chapter 5 began at the Faculty Writers Retreat in Rome, Italy, in 2007. I would like to thank Derek Owens, Harry Denny, Anne Geller, and Tom Philopose for coordinating the retreat, for their feedback, and for the great tours, company, and food. Additional sections were further developed through the Faculty Writer Initiative; a big thanks to Maura Flannery and Anne Geller for numerous writing retreats. I would also like to recognize the members of the Colloquiu
m on the History of Women and Gender in Mexico, the New York City Latin American History Workshop, and the St. John’s University Junior Faculty Research Colloquium participants who contributed comments on earlier drafts. Jonathan Ablard, Howard Campbell, Nancy Campbell, Bob Chessey, Froylán Enciso, Paul Gootenberg, Lyman Johnson, Andrae Marak, Alejandro Quintana, and Joe Spillane read and commented on drafts. Evelyn Schlatter, a comrade for over twenty years, makes me yearn to be a better writer, and I long for the day when I can jot down a jingle, joke, sentence, paragraph, essay, or monograph like her. Harrison Reiner’s interest in my research, his crash courses in creative and screenplay writing, as well as his input on the manuscript and “the story arc” inspired, I hope, a better style. Through our friendship, he has demonstrated his skills as an exceptional historian.
For their hospitality, I want to thank the extended Alvarez Isasi family, particularly my father-in-law Javier, the Ruiz Morales family, Roger Magazine, Lucia Rayas Veleasco, and José Agustin Román Gaspar. Enrique Semo and Margarita Arévalo continue to be advocates of my research and work, and offer insight into Mexico. My work with Sinaloan ethnographer José Carlos Cisneros Guzmán further expanded my knowledge about contemporary women in the drug trade, and his research and our collaborative project forced me to make modern connections.
My trips to Pensacola have also been a joy as the family grew. Andrea, Dan, Brian, Erin, Sophelia, Xavier, Roardan, and Jeremy have offered good company and hospitality, and their location in Pensacola inspired the broader work. My extended family in New York and New Jersey has participated in the entire project with humor and jokes, particularly offering feedback on cover art. I owe a special thanks to Ryan Carey for perusing contracts and giving me legal advice. My Queens family have added their own takes on the subject: Angelina Petiton McKenna and Alexia Eroglu; Michele, Dana, and Danielle Viscosi; and the Bellerose-Floral Park Wine and Book Club: Trish Deely, John Kouri, Gigi Lavaud Gately, Kathy Mavrikakis, Kathy O’Malley, Karen Reiter, Carolyn Telesca, and Rex Whicker. Javier Alvarez Isasi continues to be a source of support, good humor, and wisdom, if not an occasional voice of trepidation that I only pretend to ignore. Lucas accompanied me into the field and to libraries and archives with an inspiring sense of wonder and awe.