"El Chapo" Guzm�n"s extradition clears the way for a new, more vicious round of cartel fighting

Posible FUGA de "El Chapo" Guzman en EU en vivo parte 1

Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman arrives at Long Island MacArthur airport in New York, January 19, 2017, after his extradition from Mexico. Reuters

Sinaloa cartel chief Joaqun "El Chapo" Guzmn has spent much of the last three years locked up in Mexico, jail time that culminated in his extradition to the US in January.

While those stints in Mexican prison ostensibly took Guzmn out of the picture, his presence, and influence, still loomed over the country"s narco landscape.

Now, however, with Guzmn in the USfor good, a new dose of uncertainty has been injected into relations between Mexico"s cartels, and with Guzmn out of the way, a new round of drug-related violence seems likely.

The Jalisco New Generation cartel, a relatively new cartel that blossomed from a former Sinaloa cartel factionand has never shied from violence during its rapid expansion, seems likely to seize on the moment.

Over the last two years, the CJNG, its initials in Spanish, has challenged the Sinaloa cartel in parts of Mexico, including in Tijuana, the crown jewel in Mexico"s drug-trafficking businesses.

The Sinaloa cartel "is still strong," Mike Vigil, the former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, told Business Insider in the days after Guzmn"s extradition, and the cartel"s horizontal structure, which has allowed it to endure personnel changes, may also help it survive in the near term.

Nemesio Oseguera, aka "El Mencho," the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Screenshot

"But I think that Nemesio Oseguera, "El Mencho," from the New Generation cartel, will perceive it as weakness," Vigil said, "and one of the things that Mencho wants to do is he wants to control the drug routes along the 2,000-mile border" between the US and Mexico.

Oseguera "needs to control as much of that area as he possibly can," saidVigil, author of "Metal Coffins: The Blood Alliance Cartel."

"They may decide to go on an all-out offensive on the Sinaloa cartel now that Chapo is no longer in the country," he told AFP.

In addition to Tijuana, where the CJNG"s partnership with an old Sinaloa cartel foe haspushed violence in Baja California to new highs, the CJNG and Sinaloa cartels are clashing elsewhere in the country.

In tiny Colima state, on Mexico"s west coast, the Sinaloa cartel reportedly showed up in late 2015, partnering with remnants of another cartel to challenge the CJNG for control of the state"s port and trafficking routes in the area. Since then, drug-related violence has pushed the body count in the state to new heights.

Colima"s homicide rate rose from just under 14 per 100,000 people in 2014 to over 23 per 100,000 in 2015. It then nearly quadrupled in 2016, hitting 81.55 per 100,000, nearly five times the national rate.

Mexican government data

Both groups appear to be involved in violence in Veracruz, on Mexico"s Gulf coast.

In that state, where the CJNG made a significant push several years ago, Vigil said, a panoply of cartels is vying for control over the state"s large port, which facilitates the import of precursor chemicals for synthetic drugs, as well as over the smuggling routes that criss-cross the state.

Recent violence in Quintana Roo, in Mexico"s far southeast, has also cast light on another area of CJNG-Sinaloa competition.

While two recent shootings don"t appear to have involved Sinaloa and CJNG, they were the latest in a series of violent events that CJNG and Sinaloa have contributed to.

As with the CJNG"s advance on Tijuana, its designs on Quintana Roo, home to tourist hotspots of Cancun and Playa del Carmen, are likely part of its north-south expansion efforts, as the statehas long been a major transshipment point for drugs coming from South America destined for the US.

The CJNG and the Sinaloa cartel also have home turf in adjacent parts of Mexico"s west coast. The Sinaloa cartel emerged from and remains dominant in Sinaloa state, while the CJNG has its stronghold in Jalisco, farther south.

Their geographical proximity and growing conflict appeared to come to a head in August last year, when at least one of Guzmn"s sons was kidnapped from an upscale restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, which is in Jalisco state.

Guzmn"s son was released unharmed several days later, and while that kidnapping appears to have been orchestrated by low-level members of the CJNG, the incident shows that the Jalisco cartel is within striking distance of the Sinaloa cartel.

Footage of gunmen entering a Puerto Vallarta restaurant during the kidnapping of "El Chapo" Guzmn"s son, August 2016. Omar Gonzalez/YouTube

In addition to external threats, internal clashes seem be a threat to the Sinaloa cartel"s stability and cohesion, and in turn to the security of the areas it operates in.

Despite his prominence, Guzmn was not the only Sinaloa cartel leader. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada andJuan Jose Esparragoza Moreno, aka "El Azul" both reclusive and the latter rumored to be dead have long been considered Guzmn"s peers at the top of the cartel.

Now Zambada andGuzmn"s sons are believed to be vying for control, reportedly competing with Guzmn"s brother for control of Sinaloa state itself.

Zambada "continues being the principal director of the [Sinaloa] federation and he is the most important narco in Mexico," Mexican security analyst Alejandro Hope told El Pas in October, "but right now it is not known what is his position" in the cartel.

Screenshot via D.E.A

"I still say that Ismael "Mayo" Zambada has literally been running the Sinaloa cartel," Vigil told Business Insider after Guzmn"s extradition.

"This conflict (between the cartels) will continue," Hope told AFP. "But it could accelerate with an internal conflict."

According to security officials who spoke with Mexican news site El Debate, Guzmn"s sons appear to be the cartel"s current leaders, but Aureliano Guzmn Loera, aka El Guano, their uncle and Guzmn"s brother, actually has the most power within the cartel.

El Guano is considered most violent and reportedly controls several key territories in Sinaloa state, including the La Tuna municipality, where Guzmn was born and where his mother lives.

He was reportedly involved in an ambush on September 30 that left five Mexican soldiers dead.

That attack is now thought to be an effort by Zambada"s faction to stir up trouble in territory control by Guzmn"s sons, his rivals for control of the cartel.

Other former Sinaloa members and former allies have taken aim at the cartel in recent months as well, likely emboldened by Guzmn"s arrest.

While the CJNG looks set to grow in power, and may perhaps soon eclipse Guzmn"s organization, the Sinaloa cartel"s internal disputes, which have boiled over into bloodyconfrontations in recent months, may be the most proximate cause of the cartel"s eventual demise.

Internal rivals, like external foes, are all likely to see Guzmn"s extradition, as well as the continued uncertainty aboutfigures like Zambada, as opportunities to pursue control, which is sure to escalate the violence.

"So there some internal dissension, and a lot of that is driven by like plaza bosses that are not happy, and then you have "Mayo" Zambada and then you have "Chapo" Guzman"s sons, and they"re all vying for power," Vigil told Business Insider. "So unless something breaks, the disintegration of Sinaloa, if you will, will not be external. It will be internal."

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-guzman-extradition-effect-sinaloa-jalisco-cartel-fighting-2017-1

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"El Chapo" Guzm�n"s home turf is becoming a hotbed for synthetic-drug production

Matan a juez que suspendió extradición de "El Chapo", Prohíben disfraces de policía; EN SÍNTESI

The northwest Mexican state of Sinaloa where cartel boss Joaqun "El Chapo" Guzmn was born and lived has become a focal point of the country"s growing production of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine.

Parts of Sinaloa state, along with areas of Chihuahua and Durango states, make up Mexico"s "Golden Triangle," an area so-named for intense marijuana and opium cultivation that also take place there.

And the recent rise in synthetic-drug production indicates the continued expansion of Mexican criminal organizations" presence in the drug trade, likely driven by changing drug-consumption habits in the US.

Drug laboratories discovered in Sinaloa, around the state capital of Culiacan in particular, appear set to double in two years, according to details shared by Rogelio Tern Contreras, commander of the local military zone.

In 2014, 47 labs were discovered, followed by 80 in 2015. Thus far in 2015, authorities have come across 55 such labs, according to official statistics cited by El Universal and noted by Insight Crime.

Since the end of June, Mexican troops have discovered a suspected synthetic-drug lab near Cosal in Sinaloa, a suspected lab in Culiacan, and another lab about 30 miles outside of Culiacan.

"The principal problem in the jurisdiction is organized crime ...," Tern Contreras told El Universal. "The units of the ninth military zone are bound for, practically, the eradication of the ... aspects of of organized crime."

A suspected drug lab discovered in Mexico"s Sinaloa state.Mexican Naval Secretariat

"Mexican traffickers have achieved this booming meth production by adapting their labs, switching recipes, and finding new sources of precursor ingredients," journalist Ioan Grillo reported in early 2015.

Mexico"s Pacific coast, on which Sinaloa sits, has long been a major production and transit point for drugs, and that dynamic has continued with the growth of synthetic-drug production. Sinaloa and Guerrero state, farther south, are known to be hubs for opium and heroin production.

Sinaloa and Michoacan, another state on coast, have now become the sites of superlabs for synthetic-drug production. A report earlier this year from the International Narcotics Control Board found that 131 such labs were dismantled in 2014, the majority of them located in Guerrero, Sinaloa, and Michoacan.

"As well as running some big labs, the crime syndicates now often cook meth known here as "hielo" (ice) in clusters of small labs scattered over hills and valleys," Grillo reported in January 2015. "Traffickers with capital buy raw ingredients in bulk, then subcontract producers ... to do the dirty work."

A Marine stands next to ingredients of crystal methamphetamines at a clandestine laboratory discovered by the police and military in the municipality of Badiraguato, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, June 12, 2009.Reuters

One such producer who spoke with Grillo said the workers who cook the meth will set up makeshift labs of plastic barrels and generators in secluded areas, packing the final product into plastic containers.

Ports up and down the Pacific shore are believed to be arrival points for the precursor chemicals needed to make synthetic drugs and departure points for the finished product. According to the INCB report, Mexico is a source country for crystal meth found in East and Southeast Asia and throughout Oceania regions no doubt served by shipments from Mexico"s western coast.

"Historically the states of Sinaloa, Colima, to a lesser extent Nayarit, but also Guerrero ... historically maritime smuggling in these areas has always been important," David Shirk, a professor at the University of San Diego, told Business Insider this summer. "And the physical infrastructure and transportation infrastructure from the coast to the center of Mexico, to Mexico City importantly, is vital to all kind of trade, including illicit trade."

A map of suspected areas of influence for Mexico"s drug cartels.DEA 2015 NDTA

Competition over ports in this area has driven up violence, particularly in Guerrero and Colima states, both of which currently have homicide rates many times higher than the national average.

Two major cartels, the Jalisco New Generation cartel and Guzmn"s Sinaloa cartel, are suspected of causing most of that violence. Those two organizations, along with various other regional criminal groups, are believed to be clashing up and down Mexico"s west coast, including in Guerrero state (Acapulco in particular), Colima state, and in both Baja California Sur and Baja California, especially in Tijuana.

The Jalisco and Sinaloa cartel are believed to dominate the crystal-meth market in the US, with the Jalisco group gaining a boost from local expertise and from knowledge it took with it when it split from Sinaloa in about 2010.

"They have a Ph.D. in drug trafficking thanks to the education provided by the Sinaloa cartel and other cartels," Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, told Reuters of the Jalisco cartel.

A soldier takes a photograph while standing near boilers at an outdoor clandestine drug-processing laboratory discovered in Chiquilistlan in the state of Jalisco, December 7, 2011.Alejandro Acosta/Reuters

The proliferation of drug laboratories has created a significant strain on Mexican authorities" resources.

Investigative work and the dismantling of each lab can cost the Mexican attorney general"s office about $50,000 to $100,000, and the manpower needed to take apart the labs pulls soldiers away from other duties for as long as three months. This distraction comes as production of other drugs in Sinaloa appears to be rising, too, with 5,300 poppy plantations seized so far this year, up from 1,070 seized during 2014.

As noted by Insight Crime, Mexican criminal organizations operating in these areas have likely intensified production of opium and synthetic drugs to compensate for falling revenue from marijuana, demand for which is believed to have fallen with the spread of legal marijuana in the US.

"Methamphetamine in the United States originates primarily from clandestine laboratories in Mexico and is smuggled across the Southwest Border," the US Drug Enforcement Administration noted in its 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment.

Meth seizures were up all along the US border in 2014.DEA 2015 NDTA

"Methamphetamine availability will continue to increase as Mexican TCOs have adapted to restrictions placed on precursor chemicals and are able to continue producing large amounts of high-purity, high-potency methamphetamine," the DEA added.

"The increase in heroin abuse in the US is creating a significant surge of opium and heroin production by criminal groups in Mexico," Vigil told Business Insider earlier this year.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/sythetic-drug-meth-production-el-chapo-guzman-home-turf-2016-10

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"All of these guys ultimately snitch": "El Chapo" Guzm�n may be thinking about cutting a deal with the US

‘El Chapo’ Judge Gunned Down In Front Of His House In Mexico

Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaqun "El Chapo" Guzmn continues to wait on a judge"s decision whether to uphold or strike down his appeal against extradition to the US.

The legal gears are already turning in the US, where the Department of Justice and prosecutors are preparingto face the drug boss in court, and in Mexico Guzmn and his legal team may be getting ready for a different kind of showdown.

In an interview with El Universal published on September 20, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, one of Guzmn"s lawyers, said that while they would exhaust all the available means of avoiding his transfer out of Mexico, the legal team Guzmnhas in the US was prepared to open negotiations in order to make sure Guzmn spends as little time as possible in jail.

This is not the first time Guzmn"s representatives have broached negotiations with US authorities. In an interview in February, Rodriguez said that the kingpin had"suggested to me the possible option of reaching an agreement with the United States government to consent to the extradition."

According to Rodriguez, Guzmn was"willingto accept his culpability" for charges filed in the US if he were given guarantees that he would not be"held in a maximum-security prison where he would not have contact with other inmates or where he would not see the light of the sun for more than an hour a day" stipulations likely referring to the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

Those terms may be too ambitious for US prosecutors, however.

Mexican federal police guard a road leading to the Cefereso No. 9 federal prison in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, May 7, 2016, where "El Chapo" Guzmn was suddenly transferred from a prison in central Mexico.AP Photo/Raymundo Ruiz

"The government has no interest whatsoever in negotiating for any leniency vis vis Chapo Guzmn,"Peter Vincent, a former legal adviser at the US Department of Homeland Security, told Business Insider.

That would not preclude any negotiations, though. "However, what El Chapo Guzmn can do, and what he may likely do, is negotiate to protect certain members of his family from facing additional prosecution either in Mexico or the United States by turning on some of his former lieutenants," Vincent said, adding:

"And for all of the bravado, for all of the tough talk, for all of their viciousness, all of these guys ultimately snitch and provide information to law enforcement and intelligence agencies that compromise ongoing operations and the activities and location of their colleagues, cohorts, and lieutenants."

Guzmn is perhaps as close to a human-intelligence bonanza as US and Mexican authorities would have seen in recent memory.

He reportedly got involved in the Mexican drug trade in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and some of his relatives were members of a cabal of traffickers who formed a Sinaloa-state-based trafficking organization that would go on to spawn some of Mexico"s most high-profile drug cartels.

Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada in an undated photo.InSight Crime

Guzmn would eventually assume leadership of the Sinaloa cartel and go on to defeat many of those related organizations, including the Juarez cartel in a b****y battle centered on Ciudad Juarez.

His decades-long involvement in Mexico"s drug trade, as well as his ties to the powerful but shadowy Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who is believed to be Guzmn"s peer in the Sinaloa hierarchy, no doubt means "El Chapo" has deep knowledge of the cartel makeup in Mexico, though it"s possible his stints in jail and away from the cartel over the last two years has dated some of his information.

In a potential negotiation with US authorities, Guzmn may have a more personal reason to talk. Recent events on and near his home turf in Sinaloa state suggest that, in his absence, his family and the Sinaloa cartel are being drawn into conflict with rival organizations and erstwhile allies.

Earlier this summer, an armed group mounted an attack on his hometown that forced his mother from her home. In August, at least one of his sons was briefly abducted from a posh restaurant in Puerta Vallarta, allegedly by members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, the Sinaloa cartel"s increasingly powerful rival.

Footage of gunmen in a Puerto Vallarta restaurant during the kidnapping of at least one of "El Chapo" Guzmn"s sons.Omar Gonzalez/YouTube

Most recently, Guzmn"s sons were implicated in an attack on a military convoy in the Sinaloa state capital that left five soldiers dead; the sons, speaking through Rodriguez, denied any connection to the attack.

"I have no doubt that in this case, as in every other case I"ve seen, "El Chapo" Guzmn trying to gain a better ... situation for his family in Mexico, having them placed in some sort of witness protection ...may actually turn a plea deal and not go to trial," Vincent told Business Insider.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/el-chapo-guzman-negotiate-deal-us-prosecutors-2016-10

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More bad news for El Chapo and his Sinaloa drug cartel

Inside El Chapo’s Escape Tunnel

US and Mexican drug enforcement authorities just announced that they captured several gang members in a raid that took place near the Arizona border with Mexico, according to Reuters, the Guardian, and others.

The operationdubbed Mexican Operation Diablo Express, per reportsbrought in about two dozen people allegedly connected to the deadly Sinaloa drug cartel. It took place in an area known for being a drug-running corridor. Reuters notes:

Operating around Sonoyta, a Mexican city along the border with the US state of Arizona, the Sinaloa cartel has smuggled millions of pounds of illegal drugs, millions of US dollars and weapons between the two countries, ICE said.

Two were killed in the raid, according to reports.

All this comes not long after Mexican authorities re-arrested Sinaloa leader Joaqun El Chapo Guzman, following his 2014 escape from prison and in the wake of his bizarre interview with actor Sean Penn that got him caught.

And while both Mexico and the US have been having larger and increasingly mainstream conversation about the decriminalization of drugs, the arrests show that those discussions arent happening in a vacuum.

Authorities claim to have recovered several automatic weapons; a failed effort earlier this month to recapture Guzman left five people dead, and Mexicos marine force recovered two armored vehicles, eight long guns, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Source: http://qz.com/606720/more-bad-news-for-el-chapo-and-his-sinaloa-drug-cartel/

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Mexican president says drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman re-arrested

Mexican Drug Lord "El Chapo" Guzman Recaptured

MEXICO CITY Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced Friday that fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was recaptured six months after he escaped from a maximum security prison.

A federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by name said Guzman was apprehended after a shootout with Mexican marines in the city of Los Mochis, in Guzman"s home state of Sinaloa. He said Guzman was taken alive and was not wounded.

Responding to what was seen as one of the biggest embarrassments of his administration Guzman"s July 11 escape through a tunnel from Mexico"s highest-security prison Pena Nieto wrote in his Twitter account on Friday: "mission accomplished: we have him."

"I would like to inform Mexicans that Joaquin Guzman Loera has been detained."

The U.S. Justice Department had no immediate comment on whether it would push to extradite Guzman to the United States, where he faces charges in multiple different jurisdictions across the country.

Five people were killed and one Mexican marine wounded in the clash.

Another law enforcement official said authorities located Guzman several days ago, based on reports he was in Los Mochis.

The official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said authorities had even searched storm drains in the area. In 2014, Guzman escaped arrest by fleeing through a network of interconnected tunnels in the city"s drainage system in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan.

The Mexican Navy said in a statement that marines acting on a tip raided a home in the town of Los Mochis before dawn. They were fired on from inside the structure. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested. The marine"s injuries were not life threatening.

At the home marines seized two armored vehicles, eight rifles, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Photos of the arms seized in the raid suggested that Guzman and his associates had a fearsome arsenal at the non-descript white house.

Two of the rifles seized were.50-caliber sniper guns, capable of penetrating most bullet-proof vests and cars. The grenade launcher was found loaded, with an extra round nearby. And an assault rifle had a .40 mm grenade launcher, and at least one grenade.

Some in Mexico had doubted Guzman would allow himself to be captured alive, and others doubted that Mexico given the successive embarrassments of his two escapes from prison would want to hold him again in a Mexican prison.

"Many people had doubted he could be recaptured," said Mexican security analyst Raul Benitez. "It is a big success for the government."

The United States filed requests for extradition for Guzman on June 25, before he escaped. In September, a judge issued a second provisional arrest warrant on U.S. charges of organized crime, money laundering drug trafficking, homicide and others.

Former Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam had bragged earlier that Mexico wouldn"t extradite Guzman until he had served his sentences in Mexico.

Benitez said such bragging "makes me ashamed."

"It would be better for the Americans to take him away," Benitez said.

___

AP Writers Mark Stevenson and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to say that the escape was six months ago.

Source: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5041458-181/mexican-president-says-drug-lord

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Mexican president says drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman re-arrested

El Chapo es detenido en Los Mochis, Sinaloa.

MEXICO CITY Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced Friday that fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was recaptured six months after he escaped from a maximum security prison.

A federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by name said Guzman was apprehended after a shootout with Mexican marines in the city of Los Mochis, in Guzman"s home state of Sinaloa. He said Guzman was taken alive and was not wounded.

Responding to what was seen as one of the biggest embarrassments of his administration Guzman"s July 11 escape through a tunnel from Mexico"s highest-security prison Pena Nieto wrote in his Twitter account on Friday: "mission accomplished: we have him."

"I would like to inform Mexicans that Joaquin Guzman Loera has been detained."

The U.S. Justice Department had no immediate comment on whether it would push to extradite Guzman to the United States, where he faces charges in multiple different jurisdictions across the country.

Five people were killed and one Mexican marine wounded in the clash.

Another law enforcement official said authorities located Guzman several days ago, based on reports he was in Los Mochis.

The official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said authorities had even searched storm drains in the area. In 2014, Guzman escaped arrest by fleeing through a network of interconnected tunnels in the city"s drainage system in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan.

The Mexican Navy said in a statement that marines acting on a tip raided a home in the town of Los Mochis before dawn. They were fired on from inside the structure. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested. The marine"s injuries were not life threatening.

At the home marines seized two armored vehicles, eight rifles, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Photos of the arms seized in the raid suggested that Guzman and his associates had a fearsome arsenal at the non-descript white house.

Two of the rifles seized were.50-caliber sniper guns, capable of penetrating most bullet-proof vests and cars. The grenade launcher was found loaded, with an extra round nearby. And an assault rifle had a .40 mm grenade launcher, and at least one grenade.

Some in Mexico had doubted Guzman would allow himself to be captured alive, and others doubted that Mexico given the successive embarrassments of his two escapes from prison would want to hold him again in a Mexican prison.

"Many people had doubted he could be recaptured," said Mexican security analyst Raul Benitez. "It is a big success for the government."

The United States filed requests for extradition for Guzman on June 25, before he escaped. In September, a judge issued a second provisional arrest warrant on U.S. charges of organized crime, money laundering drug trafficking, homicide and others.

Former Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam had bragged earlier that Mexico wouldn"t extradite Guzman until he had served his sentences in Mexico.

Benitez said such bragging "makes me ashamed."

"It would be better for the Americans to take him away," Benitez said.

___

AP Writers Mark Stevenson and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to say that the escape was six months ago.

Source: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5041458-181/mexican-president-says-drug-lord

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