I'm not exactly "regional", but will comment if I may...
Guy in San Diego writing about Texas.
(Not that he's all wrong. The entire Texas Border is like that.)
It is a good article, IMO, but geographical errors are what tip you off the writer ain't exactly "local".
" Once into Texas your choices of nearby major cities are limited. Head northeast and you can reach Midland-Odessa in around four hours. Back to the northwest you can reach El Paso in about the same time. Heading away from the border, Fort Worth and Albuquerque are both about an eight hour drive."
I was in Presidio/Ojinaga last Fall, and posted about it here. The driving times to the various Texas cities are off by a bunch, and make transporting dope by automobile thru Presidio a not very attractive proposition.
For instance, going NW toward El Paso means that you leave Presidio on a Ranch Road which runs alongside the river. It goes 48 miles thru the village of Ruidosa, and ends at Candelaria, another small village.From that place, I went on a private road away from the river to a ranch 23 miles thru a few locked gates to the headquarters.
I noticed a dirt road [not gravel or caliche] going on upriver from Candelaria, but here were signs warning against using it, even with a 4WD vehicle. The ranch foreman told me it was usually completely washed out in a few places.
My point being that to move dope thru Presidio by vehicle means moving it thru Marfa.
The article is about the Big Bend Park, but to assess the dope smuggling thru public land better, you'd have to add in the BB Ranch State Park on the West and the Black Gap WMA on the East side of the park.
The favored way of transport in the Big Bend Sector is mules on foot. The favored corridor starts in Reagan Canyon and then other corridors branch off out of it varying from NNE to NNW.
They used to terminate at pickup spots along Hiwat 90, but, as I pointed out in my thread about "Raul", they now often go on across Hwy 90 to be picked up on private land.
