Mexico Targets Cell Phones in Anti-Crime Bid

(April 13) -- Having failed to stymie the murderous influence of drug traffickers by bolstering the police force, scrutinizing bank movements or even deploying federal troops, the Mexican government this week is trying to get at them through their cell phones.

A controversial law requiring all Mexicans to register their mobile phones by April 10 -- last Saturday -- was meant to shine a light on shady communications among nefarious dealers. But with the deadline's passing, an estimated 24.7 million cell phones in use by up to 30 percent of the Mexican population have not been registered. In a colossal case of collateral damage, their owners could soon be left incommunicado -- and some experts insist the drug dealers aren't likely to be among them.

The Mexican government passed the law a year ago to get a handle on Mexico's ubiquitous prepaid cell phones. It requires Mexicans to register their cell phones by providing their name and CURP number, similar to a U.S. Social Security number. The intent was to curb organized crime in Mexico, such as kidnapping and drug trafficking, by making it harder for criminals to use anonymous or untraceable cell phone lines. Few doubt that the situation is dire: More than 18,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since Felipe Calderon became president in 2006.

But just how effective will this new law be in hampering crime and preventing more bloodshed? "It will be of virtually no use at all," said Neil Pyper of the consulting firm Oxford Analytica. "There will be any number of ways to get around it. I think members of [the Mexican] congress want to be seen as doing something because the war against drugs is ever intensifying."

Pyper said that it will be difficult for the government to stop people from registering phones under false names, for example. Already, Mexicans have admitted to registering their phones under deceased people's identities, according to the L.A. Times, which also reported that around 12,000 people have registered their phones under President Calderon's name. Pyper added that drug cartels are well resourced and use a host of other communication mediums, not just cell phones.

What's more, the nuisance level of the law for normal Mexicans is high. "The number of people who are actually using their phones for criminal or dubious use is tiny, so the risk of a political backlash if very large numbers of people have their mobile phones disconnected is strong," Pyper said.

But Tony Payan, a border scholar at the University of Texas at El Paso, points out that the Mexican public hasn't generally been supportive of Calderon's approach to combating crime anyway, so this law isn't going to greatly change public opinion. He says that many of the unregistered phones may no longer be active. "How do we know they weren't dead lines owned by people who weren't using them anyway?" he said.

Payan sees the Mexican government's efforts to make cell phones traceable as similar to those of the U.S."There are no anonymous cell phones in the U.S.," he said, noting that the U.S. investigators can easily tap into cell phone records in a way their Mexican counterparts have not been able to until now.

But that hardly leaves Mexican drug traffickers trapped. Fred Burton, chief intelligence officer at global intelligence company Stratfor and a former U.S. counterterrorism agent, says U.S. cell phones can pick up signals from U.S. cell phone towers near the border. "If you look at how these drugs are shipped and moved, one of the more classic scenarios is the drug runners bring it across the border and into a stash house very close to the border on the U.S. side," he said. "The drug runner with the U.S. cell phone is going to have complete communication at the most critical node, which is crossing the border into the U.S."

Nevertheless, Burton sees some value in the law providing "law enforcement and intelligence agencies a tremendous amount of data that can be cross-referenced."

"It's another tool in your tool kit against the cartels," Burton said. "You're dealing with a tremendous amount of intelligence gaps on any given day. ... This plugs in 50 million more numbers and people and addresses than [the Mexican government] had to begin with. It helps you weed through the white noise."

Mexico's top wireless operators, including America Movil, owned by billionaire Carlos Slim, voiced outcry against the law, fearing it would chip away at their revenues, according to Reuters. Wireless operators even asked the government to move the registration deadline back another year, but the extension was denied.

Telefonica, Mexico's second largest wireless operator, vowed last week that it would keep services running even on unregistered phones. But in the end, both American Movil and Telefonica, which respectively own 71 percent and 21 percent of Mexico's wireless market, have yielded to the Mexican government and agreed to observe the new law.

The government has pledged to give wireless operators time to process the tens of millions of cell phone entries so their customers won't be disconnected. Additionally, Mexicans who did not meet Saturday's deadline will still be able to register their cell phones by text message even after their service has been suspended.

Mexico isn't the only Latin American country to target prepaid cell phones. Brazil considered proposals to ban prepaid cell phones in 2002 because of a rise in organized crime. Elsewhere, Japan, South Africa, Nigeria and Greece have recently required people to register their cell phones.