Word: bordered
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...BRONFMANS. As the undisputed kings of the North American liquor business following America's Prohibition era, the Bronfmans were among the pioneers of cross-border investment. Their main company, Seagram (1985 sales: $2.9 billion), is now the world's largest distillery. Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Sr. shuttles regularly between the firm's Montreal headquarters and the New York offices of its U.S. subsidiary. An American citizen since 1959, Bronfman has engineered Seagram's purchase of 22.5% of the outstanding shares of Du Pont, the huge oil-and-chemicals company (1985 sales: $29.5 billion). Seagram now owns more of that firm...
...raid last February was one of a mounting number of armed encounters along the Texas border between lawmen and well-organized, well-financed narcotics rings. As authorities have cracked down on smuggling in Florida, the Rio Grande valley has emerged as the hot corridor for drug runners. One-third of all the cocaine, marijuana and heroin now entering the U.S. from Mexico is believed to come across the valley...
...drug trade is controlled by perhaps a dozen Mexican "mafiosos," some of whom live south of the border. The mafiosos are assuming new muscle as Mexico's economy declines and illegal aliens pour into Texas. Drug gangs have enlisted wetbacks as couriers, paying them $150 or more to float sacks of pot across the Rio Grande. Many illegals stay on to become full-time drug runners...
...lure of fast cash is powerful in a county battered by 34% unemployment. Like other border areas, Starr depends on commerce with northern Mexico, and the peso's plummet has forced some stores to close. Yet overall retail sales are up 10%, and bank deposits have leaped 198% in five years -- a cash transfusion that Customs officials attribute to the dope flow. The new money, concedes Mayor Jose Saenz of Roma-Los Saenz, a border town of 3,700, "indirectly benefits us all." That touch of prosperity, according to Customs Agent D'Wayne Jernigan, has "created a wall of reluctance...
Cocaine has given Starr's brown landscape a dash of affluence. Ornate brick homes protected by iron fences and snarling Rottweilers are popping up along U.S. 83. Investigators say that Colombian operators are paying the mafiosos huge sums to fly drug loads north from makeshift strips. The border patrol has arrested 1,437 Colombian illegals in the valley this year...