THE BORDER REPORT

That's what the Feds are saying anyway. Look at these blusterings by top DEA officials celebrating the death of Botas Blancas. In Arizona, lead DEA cop Beth Kempshall tells the Arizona Republic that the flow of drugs "could decline as Beltrán's gang struggles to sort out its chain of command and re-establish contacts with Colombian cocaine suppliers." Would Mrs. Kempshall have us believe that Arturo Beltrán was the only one with the cellphone number to Diego Espinosa's frontman within Colombia's Norte del Valle Cartel? Does she truly believe that El General, Hector, Mario and Carlos along with Sergio Villarreal and Sr. Barbie are frantically looking through big brother's Address Book for a supplier? Or trying to friend the guy on Facebook? Sadly, this is very much what the DEA either believes or wants the rest of us to believe. Here's Anthony Placido, chief of intelligence for the DEA, talking to The Associated Press yesterday: "Nobody left out there has the extensive contacts that Arturo had. He moved thousands of metric tons of drugs into the United States, including cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin," Placido said. Really, Mr. Placido? And here I thought his MoreExpress S.A. de C.V. transport company, with offices from Tapachula, Chiapas to Ensenada, Culiacán and Hermosillo was in the tomato shipping business. Nobody left out there has his magnitude of contacts, eh? Not Chapo Joaquín Guzmán, Mayo Ismael Zambada, La Tuta Servano Gómez, El Viceroy Vicente Carrillo, El Ingeniero Fernando Sanchez Arellano; El Azul Juan Diego Esparragoza, Nacho Coronel, nadie. For years, at least dating back to 1997 and Amado Carrillo's death, the Mexican traffickers have dissipated the old power structure that brought men like Carrillo and Pablo Acosta to power. Too much investment, too much centralized influence. That structure is dated and archaic; which is why we have fragmented hyper-local organizations with blurred boundaries, like the Sinaloa Cartel, who've proven vastly more effective at transporting narcotics and feeding the monster. I'm no fan of Arturo Beltrán Leyva; I've lost two colleagues, one a good friend, to his brand of murder and seen a third exiled from Mexico for the crime of reporting on his transgressions. However, I'm also not going to play up his influence in the drug business. As recently as 2007, he was little more than a supporter to Joaquín Guzmán. In 2001, it was he and Barbie who hid Chapo out after his escape from Puente Grande "max security" prison. In fact, they helped him recover from an extreme drinking binge over the following two years. The turn happened somewhere around the end of 2007, then Mochomo's fall and the war began. This is a man who dominated the narco-scene headlines for, ostensibly, two years. Bad move, that. Not interesting; people who make too much noise never are. It's the quiet ones, El Azul, Macho Prieto (nice work on the six dead bodies outside Puerto Peñasco last night. You should be proud), El Mayo, who hold sway; the ones who learned early on, don't talk too much and for God's sake, keep out of the public view. Get your business done. Mayo's name is whispered in the mountains of Sinaloa, part respect, part mystery, fear. When a reporter was killed in southern Sinaloa, late 2004, Mayo sent a crew after the man who did him, punishing Antonio Frausto in public for bringing heat to the Pacific Coast. The result: He's lasted nearly three decades as a powerhouse in the narcotics business. When Frausto was arrested in Oklahoma in early 2009, his family threw a party in Rosales, Sinaloa, telling everybody Frausto was there. Such is the fear of El Mayo. Got off the phone with Phoenix detectives a little while ago. They're telling me what folks from Las Vegas to San Diego are saying, "Maybe now they'll get back to business instead of this chaos." In Phoenix, bajadores working for the Beltrán associates have taken to ripping off jewelry stores, nightclubs and small businesses. Some may be fronts for the Sinaloans, others, cops aren't sure about. But the level of brazen stupidity is causing panic within the Phoenix community and panic is not a good foundation to lay a stable economic business model upon. Them boys needed cash. It is indicative of the problem of Phoenix that Beltrán people have been popped with three primitive homemade grenades in the past month. By homemade, I mean over-the-counter grenades like what you'd buy to use as a paperweight and stuffed with regulation gunpowder and a blasting cap. "You're not gonna kill a group of people ten feet away with these things," I'm told. "But I'd hate to be the one who catches it." There was an arrogance in the Beltrán dynasty that is, in my opinion, the drug world at it's worst. It leads to foolishness and poor decision-making. That's why State Department was able to con Misael Beltrán Cital into coming north to Phoenix last week on a visa. He thought they were holding the door open for him. They were. In a sense. So, no, DEA. I will respectfully disagree with your assessment. You're talking too much. You and the government of Mexico have taken out a vicious supplanter with a poor business plan. He was able to move as much dope as he moved because of your mutual governments' ineptitude, one that borders dangerously close to collusion. One detective put it succinctly Thursday night when she heard the news of Beltrán's death. "Awesome," she says. "Now he can answer to God." The border wars may be over. We don't know yet. The border business remains unchanged.