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Sinaloa Cartel

Sinaloa Cartel

By Paul SmithPublished about a year ago 8 min read
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Sinaloa Cartel

The Sinaloa Cartel is an association of some of Mexico's top capos and is frequently referred to as the biggest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere. The members of the coalition work together to protect themselves, utilizing their connections at the highest levels and corrupting elements of the federal police and military to preserve an advantage over competitors.

By Paul Smith

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History

Along with being a hub for illegal trade in Mexico, the state of Sinaloa is also where marijuana and poppies are grown. The region is where almost all of Mexico's trafficking organizations have their roots. They were essentially a tiny group of farming families that resided in the state's rural areas. They transitioned from the illicit trade to narcotics, mainly marijuana, in the 1960s and 1970s. Pedro Aviles, who later recruited his friend's son Joaqun Guzmán Loera, alias "El Chapo," into the operation, was one of the first to smuggle marijuana in large quantities.

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In 1978, a shootout with the police resulted in Aviles' death. The numerous families expanded into transporting cocaine for traffickers in Colombia and Central America in the later half of the 1970s, shifting their activities to Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. Rafael Caro Quintero, Miguel l Félix Gallardo, and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo served as their leaders. The men got into contact with the Medellin Cartel of Colombia while cooperating closely with the Honduran Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros. Part-time resident of Colombia, Matta Ballesteros served as the primary go-between between Mexican and Colombian traffickers, mainly the Medelln and Guadalajara Cartels. They created the patterns that are still in use today: massive shipments of cocaine are transported by boat and airline to Mexico and Central America, then by land into the United States. When they killed undercover Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique Camarena in 1985, the Mexican traffickers' brazenness was made clear.

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The Guadalajara Cartel's demise began with Camarena's passing. The cartel bosses fled as Mexican authorities were pressed into action by US pressure. The remaining groups established themselves as bases throughout Mexico. In Tijuana, the Arellano Félix brothers set up residence. The family of Carrillo Fuentes relocated to Juarez. Héctor Luis Palma Salazar, a collaborator of El Chapo, also stayed in the Sinaloa region.

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The conflict between these groups started nearly right away. Nine persons were killed when El Chapo dispatched 40 gunmen to attack a Tijuana Cartel party in Puerto Vallarta in November 1992. In 1993, the Tijuana Cartel attempted to assassinate El Chapo at the Guadalajara airport but killed a Mexican cardinal in the process. After escaping to Guatemala, El Chapo was apprehended there two weeks later. In 1995, Palma Salazar was detained.

El Chapo's brother Arturo Loera, Ramon Laija Serrano, and Hector, Alfredo, and Arturo Beltran Leyva continued to oversee the operations. El Chapo communicated with his lawyers to keep some control while he was imprisoned. After making his prison break in 2001, he took on a crucial leadership position within the company. Chapo's infamous recapture, escape from prison, and subsequent recapture in Mexico in 2016 only served to further his reputation as a criminal.

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El Chapo was returned to the United States in January 2017. Due to internal conflicts within the Sinaloa Cartel and efforts by rival criminal organizations to grow their operations in the capo's absence, his detention and extradition have ignited a wave of violence.

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Since then, Ismael Zambada Garcia, also known as "El Mayo," and El Chapo's sons, also known as "Los Chapitos," have been engaged in an internal power struggle. Although Zambada Garca continues to serve as the Sinaloa Cartel's commander, local bosses wield significant decision-making authority, making it challenging to determine the overall impact of the violence on the organization

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Leadership

.El Chapo became the most well-known leader of the Sinaloa Cartel when the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) split in 2008, albeit he was seated at the top table with Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno, also known as "El Azul," and El Mayo. El Azul allegedly passed away after a heart attack in June 2014, despite claims to the contrary.

There is no hierarchy inside the Sinaloa Cartel. El Chapo, El Azul, and El Mayo each maintained their own independent but collaborative organizations, while the cartel frequently contracted local partners to carry out its business operations abroad and even within Mexico.

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El Mayo and two of El Chapo's sons were attacked in February 2017 and it was claimed that El Chapo's former right-hand man, Dámaso López Néez, alias "Licenciado," was behind the attack. This attack is evidence that El Chapo's capture and subsequent extradition to the United States appears to have sparked an internal struggle for control of the organization.

El Licenciado and his son, Damáso López Serrano, also known as "Mini Lic," were both detained and are currently being held in US custody. El Mayo, the last surviving member of the Sinaloa Cartel's old guard, and El Chapo's sons, Joaqun Guzmán Lopez, Ovidio Guzmán Lopez, Iván Archivaldo, and Jess Alfredo, also known as "Los Chapitos," are now left to oversee the general direction of the cartel's operations while it maintains its horizontal structure. El Chapo was convicted in the United States in 2019

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As reported violent skirmishes between their supporters and the mysterious murder of a former top Sinaloa Cartel hitman occurred in 2020, tensions between Los Chapitos and El Mayo appeared to intensify. El Mayo's sons, on the other hand, either appear to be hiding out or have all been detained and imprisoned in the United States.

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Geography

From New York City to Buenos Aires and nearly every major city in between, the tendrils of the Sinaloa Cartel reach. The cartel, which has operations in 17 Mexican states and, according to some estimates, up to 50 nations, was established in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

Partners and Opponents

The main tie that binds the Sinaloa Cartel is blood. By marriage or birth, many of its members are linked to one another. The cartel also frequently behaves more like a federation than a close-knit group, though. In 2008, the BLO, the group's core, separated from the rest. Since then, the Sinaloa Cartel has formed new ties with the Gulf Cartel, the Familia Michoacana, and what's left of the Tijuana Cartel. It also appears to have struck a deal with them.

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By forging close ties with Mexico's political and economic elite, the Sinaloa Cartel appears to have borrowed a page from Colombia's Cali Cartel. Everywhere it operates, it has managed to infiltrate security and governmental agencies. It frequently chooses to use bribery instead of violence and alliances over direct conflict, but it is not above assembling its soldiers to occupy territories it intends to take by force.

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The National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, or PAN) has historically housed the cartel's most influential contacts, which, according to certain sources, contributes to the organization's expansion during the past ten years. Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon of the PAN conducted a number of offensives against trafficking organizations, and significant figures like Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the head of the Gulf Cartel, and Benjamin Arellano Félix, the head of the Tijuana Cartel, have been apprehended. The impression that the PAN supports the Sinaloa Cartel is so widespread that Mexican justice officials dispelled it in a news release in 2010, and the Calderon administration followed suit with a video in 2011.

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The Sinaloa Cartel's main adversary now is the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG). In 2010, following the passing of former Sinaloa Cartel commander Ignacio Coronel, alias "Nacho," the CJNG broke away from the organization. Since then, the CJNG has rapidly spread across the nation, engaging in a variety of criminal operations, most recently the trafficking of synthetic substances and potent opioids like fentanyl, which the Sinaloa Cartel is also involved in. The Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG currently share the title of Mexico's two most powerful organized crime organizations, while it is to be seen if the Sinaloa Cartel can reclaim its former position as the nation's most powerful cartel.

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Prospects

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The Sinaloa Cartel has been involved in a number of bloody territorial disputes in recent years. After a brutal conflict with the Juarez Cartel in 2012 over control of Ciudad Juarez, the cartel prevailed. But the conflict with the Zetas, a rival cartel that in some areas has joined forces with the BLO's surviving members, has stretched throughout the nation and raged through the states of Sinaloa, Durango, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Jalisco, even reaching Guatemala. The advantage in the war has fluctuated across the territories, but with the Zetas becoming a more dispersed force, the Sinaloa Cartel appears ready to solidify its place as the main organization in the Mexican underworld.

The Sinaloa Cartel is still one of Mexico's most potent organized crime organizations despite El Chapo's prison sentence. Big cartels may be on the decline in Mexico, though. It's uncertain if and how conventional cartels will be compelled to adapt as the criminal environment of the nation continues to become more dispersed.

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About the Creator

Paul Smith

I love writing stories on things that inspire me, I love to travel explore

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