SPECIAL INVESTIGATION
He Patrols Cartel-Blighted Badlands of Arizona
Tim Foley watches in frustration as endless waves of humans and drugs slip across southern border.
A BY HEATH HANSEN AND JAMES VARNEY
s blazing sunlight ebbs to a star-studded sky along the U.S.-Mexico border, members of the Arizona
Border Recon (AZBR) group peer through fi eld glasses from the Coronado National Forest at a trio of men on the southern side in camoufl age fatigues and carrying pistols and AK-47s. The men, almost certainly mem-
bers of Sinaloa cartel factions, are using their own binoculars to scan random gaps in a roughly 30-foot-high wall of thick metal bars that stretches for miles along a fl atland carved by arroyos and dotted with rocks, sagua- ro cactus, and high grasses. At times, a solo gunshot echoes on
the Mexican side, a sound the AZBR group knows from experience is a sig- nal to people to start moving north. There are chiefl y two types of peo-
ple they have encountered fi ltering into the United States. Some of them carry packs fi lled with canned food, cookies, and blankets.
62 NEWSMAX | AUGUST 2023 But others trek lugging much
larger packs and no such rations or equipment — indications their cargo is illicit. The AZBR is a private group with
no authority to arrest the mules, but for years its members have run patrols and cameras along the hundreds of trails and washes that web an area the group has dubbed Baby’s Head Gap. It is so named for a Mexican doll’s
head atop a spike in the desert, an apparent warning that crossing that passage is by cartel permission only. The uneven landscape, with ravine
ridges marked by trees and bushes running along the top, off ers low vis- ibility for Sinaloa cartel agents car- rying fentanyl, as well as for AZBR teams out on days-long operations during which they share intelligence and photos with U.S. offi cials. The presence of U.S. authorities in
this open, gashed wasteland is light; on a recent operation AZBR members saw an occasional Blackhawk helicop- ter dart across the sky, but there were
no foot patrols. Because they have no law enforce-
ment power and carry weapons only for self-defense, AZBR members are more witnesses to the disintegrating border than a force of deterrence. The group was founded in 2011 by
Tim Foley, 64, a former 82nd Airborne paratrooper and recovering addict whose endless gulping of cans of Red Bull and chain-smoking of American Spirit cigarettes put a modern twist on Spartan habits. “I live almost solely on caff eine, nic-
otine, and an occasional Pop-Tart,” he said. Foley knows cartel members con-
trol the Mexican land he watches because in January 2022, he says, they contacted him via a phone call from a federale, a Mexican state police offi cer. The caller initially off ered to fur-
nish AZBR with “any gear or weap- ons, gifts,” which would mean “you wouldn’t be our enemy then.” Foley declined and two weeks later
the man called again, this time off er- ing $15,000 a month if AZBR would cease operating. Again, Foley said, he declined, at
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