La Jornada: The national security strategy begins at customs

If it weren’t mid-morning, and such a sunny one, the wilderness would be uncomfortable. Arriving at a facility without a direct anchor in Google Maps and where telephone reception is blocked as soon as you cross a gate, knocks your orientation. In theory, no signal enters that is not welcome, but inside the telecommunications is permanent.

The basic elements of a panopticon are met. Its location, beyond the reach of human vision, means that the “surveillance tower” stands on dozens of screens whose function is to transmit in real time what is happening in the country’s 50 customs offices. “We are against the clock, the times for us are minutes,” says an official dressed in black who injects all the police spirit into the Electronic Data Processing Center (CPED), an area of ​​the National Customs Agency of Mexico (ANAM) that has existed for 14 years, which seeks to enhance its raw material – data – to become an essential cog in the national security strategy.

The Day He was in this center, which receives delegations from national and international agencies for the exchange of information and practices. The objective of the work is the detection of contraband of all types, with one of its emphasis on fuel, known as huachicol fiscal.

Customs are also a source of revenue, almost a fifth of the country’s public revenue passes through them, but the sum of “atypical phenomena”, as the official defines them – he is not identified by name due to the nature of his work – has given them a centrality where the on-site review goes through canine binomials and laboratories, as well as high-tech scanners and video surveillance; These last two are replicated in real time from the CPED.

five minutes

All customs elements, both those on site and those stationed at the CPED, have only five minutes to identify any irregularity in the passage of goods, so that customs clearance is not interrupted. A preview of the massive nature of the operation are the more than 20,000 trucks and 5,700 pipes that, on average, cross the northern border into Mexico every day.

The “irregularities” at the doors of the country’s foreign trade range from money laundering, smuggling of everything you can imagine, as well as the trafficking of hydrocarbons, narcotics and precursors to people. The race against the clock is central; Once the vehicle passes customs “it is very difficult to stop it,” the official acknowledges.

Hence the redundancy in the review. The first happens at customs with the canine binomials, laboratories, scanners and video surveillance. The other is carried out at the CPED. Here, from the moment a vehicle begins to cross customs until it leaves it, the Command and Control Center (C2) has five minutes to detect any irregularity and notify customs to stop its transit.

Everything from an inconsistency in a vehicle’s license plate to a prior alert about the importer should be detected from here. The work of C2 is currently coordinated with another CPED room, the non-intrusive review room (RNI), where almost thirty analysts have three minutes – within the five minutes in which trucks or pipes transit – to analyze the images from the high-tech scanners.

Here, at RNI, we verify that trailers, ships, containers and others really transport what their import papers declare.

During the visit an irregularity is detected. A container brings two sets of heavy machinery, not one, as mentioned in its import request. The next step is to notify customs so that they stop its transit.

Until last year, the work in the CPED had a statistical and reactive purpose, “in the past.” Only when the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) had an ongoing investigation and requested evidence did this center deliver the material.

The nature of CPED changed. Until 2019, customs were completely civilian facilities and part of the Tax Administration Service. In the middle of that year, after an agreement with the National Defense, “retired” commanders began to take the reins of border customs and in 2021 the military presence was formalized when the General Customs Administration became the ANAM. The framework of this, as a deconcentrated body of the Treasury, was distributed as follows: the border customs coordinated by the National Defense; the maritime ones, by the Navy, and the interior ones, by the ANAM, as a distinct entity in its own design. Military cadres dominate, in accordance with the last administration, to eradicate corruption. The findings published by the current government, especially regarding hydrocarbon smuggling – the huachicol fiscal–, they realize that until 2025, the objective is pending.

The CPED is evidence of this combination in the ANAM. The same can be seen in a sailor in C2, as in a civil analyst in the RNI, and in a profile that seems like a judicial career in risk prevention. Beyond the entry of soldiers into on-site operations, a new shake-up occurred last year, according to personnel testimonies.

“The nature of CPED has changed. It no longer only pursues the smuggling of goods with parametric analysis (a type of statistics with which prediction models are created); it now integrates research in all areas and seeks a legal-criminal consequence,” comments the same official in black, who at one point adds that his “expertise “It is in public service (…) in areas of intelligence and investigation.”

Collection, not police

The new approach – which has been in place since last year – adds another official who participates in the conversation, has led to the CPED detecting cases of smuggling both in maritime customs and in those adjacent to the United States and, beyond notifying the FGR, the investigation is also followed up.

During the tour it is clear that the CPED has a base of civil analysts, with careers in customs, a collection agency. However, the police-judicial language prevails: “intelligence, investigation, field investigation, police operation, criminal legal consequence.”

“Customs are a collection entity, not a police entity,” one of the officials concludes when the conversation turns to the operational capabilities of ANAM. Another adds that, given the centrality of these facilities for security, “a new generation of video surveillance is arriving, some already criminalists.

“The objective is to have a tactical group on site, coordinated from here with the cameras and that has a response at customs to carry out operations on the spot,” he advances.