The latest map about the drug-trafficking drafted by the Attorney’s General Office of Mexico (PGR) places the States of Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, Guerrero, Coahuila and Baja California as areas of influence of the Cartel del Pacífico (Pacific Cartel). The State of Mexico, the entity where the jailbreak of Chapo Guzmán happened is under dispute between the Caballeros Templarios Organization and the Familia Michoacana. Dated on the 23rd of April 2015 the report reveals that the criminal group –to which the drug-trafficker could have returned- is being conformed by other eight criminal cells. In total the Attorney’s General Office (PGR) identifies that 52 cartels, cells and gangs operate in Mexico. An increase of the criminal violence is foreseeable because of the jailbreak of the most wanted drug lord of the United States of America.
The latest report of the Attorney’s General Office about the drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico reveals that the Cartel de Sinaloa (Sinaloa Cartel)-to which the drug-trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias Chapo could return- commands eight criminal organizations.
There are La Gente Nueva, La Barredora, Los Cabrera, Cártel del Poniente and/or La Laguna, El Aquiles, El Tigre, Los Artistas Asesinos and Los Mexicles. These organizations are said to be present in six entities of Mexico.
In the new map three changes can be perceived in the structure of the groups after the detention of Guzmán Loera which occurred on the 21st of February 2014. The most relevant one being the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (Jalisco New Generation) Cartel, that “got independent” and became a big organization-according to the PGR-, with a presence in nine entities, including the Federal District.
The two other changes consisted of the alleged disappearance of the Comando del Diablo and the Mata Zetas, a group identified as allies of the Sinaloa Cartel in the first report that was produced by the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto back in 2013, when Jesús Murillo was the head of the PGR (Contralínea Issue No. 337).
Now the Attorney’s Office states that the Pacific Cartel has the influence in Chihuahua, where the people of La Gente Nueva, Los Cabrera, the Artistas Asesinos and the Mexicles operate; Sinaloa, with the presence of the Gente Nueva; Guerrero, with La Barredora, Baja California with El Aquiles and El Tigre; Durango with Los Cabrera and the Cartel del Poniente and/or La Laguna; and in Coahuila controlled by the latter.
In addition to this the US Government has detected a relevant presence in Sonora, an entity which is qualified as one of the main areas of drug-trafficking controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel. This “
plaza is used to hide and traffic drugs, money and arms”, refers the
Presentation of the Budget for the fiscal Year 2015 of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Thus it can be concluded that the also called Pacific Cartel and its cells do not have the direct influence in the State of Mexico where the evasion of Chapo Guzmán happened last 11th of July.
On the contrary this state is under dispute of the Caballeros Templarios and what remains of the Familia Michoacana Cartel, discovers the report of the PGR made public on the 23rd of April 2015 as a response to the citizen’s information request folio 0001700107815.
The major cartels
In the new map of drug-trafficking the Sinaloa Cartel is one of the nine greater organizations dedicated to drug-trafficking. The other ones are the Gulf Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (a splinter group of the Sinaloa Cartel), the Arellano Felix, the Familia Michoacana, the Carrillo Fuentes Cartel, the Beltrán Leyva, the Zetas and the Caballeros Templarios. According to the report of the PGR, out of these other 43 criminal organizations break away.
In regard with the power accumulated by the drug-traffickers and their criminal enterprises, the researchers of the Center for Investigations and Superior Studies of Social Anthropology, Carlos Flores, states: “The thematic analysis of the history of drug-trafficking in Mexico, during the twentieth Century and until today shows us that the smart people, with the capacity of composing this type of organizations are not enough [to support these criminal structures]. The question being the difference is the institutional backing: those organizations and those people that could have had such type of institutional support are the ones that have managed to establish organizations of very large dimensions, able to operate throughout time in a significant way”.
This could explain why nine major criminal organizations that are referred to by the PGR have survived the 9 years of alleged war against drug-trafficking withheld by the civil security apparatus and the Mexican military forces, a war that has costed the lives of over 150 thousand civilians.
To this regard the expert on national security defense Jorge Retana Yarto thinks that the security bodies of the State of Mexico have not substantially made any progress in controlling the drug-trafficking phenomenon. He adds that “nothing indicates that [the government] could have in its favor a military defeat of the criminal groups that we have in the country, and that they have in front of them”.
For the researcher of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the current strategy is an exceptional type of war: “as both parties not being asymmetrical, [these] develop a type of war where the social cost is extremely high”.
Retana Yarto observes that there is a systemic flaw in the Mexican security apparatus that has prevented it from effectively fighting the organized crime. “The main intelligence information that is used in the armed bodies of the Mexican State [to combat crime] is not necessarily generated in Mexico, it has to do with the support they produce, for example, the intelligence and security agencies of the United States, i.e. there we have a fundamental flaw. There the training is being held; the devices come from there, etc.”
The researcher adds that the changes in the strategy that the government of Enrique Peña Nieto started intended to improve the coordination among the agencies, however this did not occur and the lack of coordination is self-evident.
The Chapo Cartel
Considering that one of the most powerful criminal organization of the American continent, the Sinaloa Cartel consolidated as a transnational enterprise between the years of the “war” against drug-trafficking that allegedly the PAN-affiliated Felipe Calderón Hinojosa started.
The criminal group is present in the five continents and is said to be present in over 50 countries. According to reports of the United States and the European Union, this group became the main provider of cocaine and methamphetamines worldwide; likewise it handles heroin and marihuana to the northern neighbor.
This is the size of the cartel that Joaquín Guzmán Loera could be leading once again, according to the hypothesis derived by the fact that the recent evasion of the maxim-security prison of the Altiplano, located in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico.
Another hypothesis is that the capo has retired from business and looks for a quiet life for the rest of his lifetime, as observes Dr. Carlos Flores, researcher at the Research and Superior Studies in Social Anthropology.
For the book author of the book The State in crisis: organized Crime and politics. Challenges for the consolidation of democracy (El Estado en crisis: crimen organizado y política. Desafíos para la consolidación democrática), the jailbreak of the drug kingpin could be announcing a new escalation of violence, because of the changes that could suffer the criminal organizations with the return of Guzmán Loera in business.
The Master’s Degree Retana Yarto, author of the book Transnational Mafia and the criminal economy: Mexico in the orbit of parastatal power (Mafia transnacional y economía criminal: México en la órbita de un poder parastatal), states that the evasion of Chapo Guzmán shows the level of crisis in the strategy to combat transnational crime in Mexico.
“Beyond the weaknesses of the [Mexican] penitentiary system, that are many and serious, it shoes how the used strategy is totally outdated, and thereby we are observing failure after failure. This is a serious crisis of strategy and of the conception behind it becomes lesser precisely with the media coups of the capture, as the one of Chapo, but the operating, financial and paramilitary structures of the organizations remain practically intact. Then is when the relevance to the media part is given but the structures stay absolutely unchanged. This is a very serious flaw of the current strategy.”
In the case of the Sinaloa Cartel the detention of the main leader does not mean the drought of the business. According to the Communiqué Lafo-2015-03, the Department of Treasury of the United States, on the 16th of January 2015, an investigation of 3 years concluded that “the alleged leaders of the cartel import to Mexico huge amounts of cocaine, methamphetamines, and other drugs, such as the chemical products required for the production of methamphetamines, from Asia and countries of Central and South America, including Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala”.
He adds that the Mexican drug lords “use several methods to move the drugs, such as cargo airplanes, private planes, submarines and other submersible and semi-submersible vessels, container ships, supply ships, boats, fishing ships, buses, railway carriages, tractor tows, vans, cars and private commercial transportation and foreign transport”.
The allegation of the Department of Treasury 14CR0658-DMS (against Ismael Zambada García, alias Mayo; Ismael Zambada Imperial, Mayito Gordo; Ismael Zambada Sicarios, alias Mayito Flaco; e Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, son of Chapo), refers to the fact that the Sinaloa Cartel launders the obtained resources with the illegal drug traffic throughout bulk money smuggling; the structured bank deposits; the electronic transfers; the currency exchange transfers; the systems used to transfer money without the use of cables and other traditional ways; the purchase of vehicles and luxury planes, as well as different real estate properties.
The communiqué details that the investigation was started by the end of 2011: then small distribution cells of drugs were investigated in National City and Chula Vista, led by José Luis Iglesias, also known as José Bautista Samano-Molina.
Instead he indicates that “soon it was evident that the drugs were being supplied by the Sinaloa Cartel, and the case transformed into a massive multinational, multi-state investigation, that lead to a dozen of detentions in San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Francisco (California), Chicago (Illinois), New York (City), Detroit (Michigan), Nevada, Texas, South Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Kentucky, Georgia; and in the (following) countries, Mexico, Canada, Columbia, Great Britain, the Philippines, Guatemala and China”.
The former verifies that, despite the government of Felipe Calderón having started an alleged against drug traffic, that was continues by his successor, the international reach of the Mexican mafia, in particular of the Sinaloa Cartel, has not ceased. (With information of Erika Ramírez)
The 52 organizations of drug-trafficking
In Mexico operate nine big drug cartels, of which 43 organizations depend on, classified by the PGR as cells and gangs, as refers a report of the institution dated on the 23rd April 2015.
The report made public by the Transparency and Public Information Access Act, reveals that the map of criminality has been modified, with regards of what Contralínea revealed in June 2013 (Issue No. 337).
According to the PGR the nine major cartels are, the Pacific (or Sinaloa) Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Arellano Felix Cartel, the Familia Michoacana, the Carrillo Fuentes Cartel, the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, the Zetas and the Caballeros Templarios.
Among them the Gulf Cartel stands out in the report of 2013 as it being considered by the authorities as extinct, as it accounts with the major number of cells, 12 in total.
Nevertheless the number of allies does not affect the zones of influence, as 11 of the operate in the State of Tamaulipas (the Metros, the Rojos, the Lacoste Group, the Dragon Group, the Bravo Group,the Pumas Group, the Support Group Ceros M3, the Fresitas, the Sierra, the Pantera and Ciclones), and the twelfth (the Pelones), in the State of Quintana Roo.
By numbers of satellite organizations follow the Zetas, with nine organizations: in Coahuila and Nuevo Leon, Sangre Zeta; in Tamaulipas, Operative Group Zetas, the Zetas Commando, El Círculo and El Extranjero, Zetas Unity, Néctar Lima, Delta Zeta Group; in Guanajuato, the Negros; and in Tabasco, Quintana Roo and Tamaulipas, the Zetas Special Forces.
The Sinaloa Cartel, with its eight cells is in the third place, followed by the Beltrán Leyva Cartel with seven: in Sinaloa and Southern Baja California,the Mazatlecos; in Sonora, the 2 thousand; in Guerrero, the Granados, the Rojos, the Ardillos and the Independent Cartel of Acapulco; and in Aguascalientes and Baja California, the Office.
Under the command of the Arellano Felix Clan are El Chan, El Jorquera and El Kieto, all of them operating in Baja California. The Familia Michoacana counts on the Guerreros Unidos (in Morelos, Guerrero and the State of Mexico) and La Empresa (in the State of Mexico and Morelos).
Referring to the Carrillo Fuentes Cartel it is said to be leading the Línea and the Azteca gangs, whose area of influence is in Chihuahua. And concerning the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Caballeros Templarios, the PGR indicates that they have neither cells nor gangs.
To the former it is said that its plazas are in Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Guerrero, Morelos, Veracruz and the Federal District, meanwhile the Caballeros Templarios hold Michoacán, Guerrero, Guanajuato, Morelos, Estado de México, Jalisco, Colima, Querétaro and Baja California.
According to an article in the newspaper El Universal (Zorayda Gallegos, June 28), half of the cells have disappeared in the time being of the current administration. The data of the PGR indicates that these were 37 of the 80 Satellite Organizations.
(Translated by: Axel Plasa)
