A member of the new Tourist Security Battalion of the National Guard stands guard at a beach in Cancun, Mexico, December 2, 2021.
ELIZABETH RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images
Deadly attacks this fall have heightened concern about organized crime in Mexican tourist hotspots.
Recent shootouts are signs of what experts and officials say is a growing turf war in Mexico’s Riviera Maya.
MEXICO – Three recent armed attacks on Mexico’s top tourist beaches reveal a new turf war involving Mexican gangs, Russians, and local politicians, according to security reports and sources consulted by Insider.
At the end of October, an attack inside a bar in the popular city of Tulum killed two foreign tourists, including US-based travel influencer Anjali Ryot.
During the first days of November, tourists visiting Puerto Morelos, south of Cancun, were locked down in their hotels after gunmen opened fire on a beach and pursued a target into a nearby resort. The shooting left two people dead.
On the morning of December 7, three men riding ski-jets opened fire on a group of people at Playa Langosta beach, in the tourist hotspot of Cancun, according to news reports. No one was injured or killed, but another attack in only a few weeks spiked anxiety among tourists.
Mexican national guard members patrol in the center of Playa Del Carmen, November 6, 2021.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Tulum alone saw 65 homicides between January and September, an 80.5% increase compared to the same period last year, when just 36 homicides took place, according to statistics from Mexico’s national system of public security.
Mexican officials said the recent spike in violence is a consequence of a “turf war” among a dozen local gangs looking to control the street drug-dealing business.
Oscar Montes de Oca, the state prosecutor in Quintana Roo — where Cancún and Tulum are located — said “about 10 groups of drug dealers” are fighting each other, but the reality could be more complex.
Quintana Roo very recently had local elections in its 11 municipalities, including for mayor and most police chiefs. This could be a key factor in the uptick of armed attacks, according to Eduardo Guerrero, director of Lantia, a Mexican consulting agency specializing in criminal organizations and security analysis.
“Most gang leaders had agreements in place with the leaving administration, and with a new chief of police, new mayors, and city officials, they are fighting to be the ones breaking a permissive deal that allows them to operate their illegal businesses freely,” Guerrero told Insider.
Cartels, gangs, and the mafia
Mexican National Guard troops patrol the Tulum Ruins, November 10, 2021.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Currently there are six gangs affiliated with major Mexican drug cartels operating in the region. The main criminal activities for these gangs are drug dealing, trafficking, extortion, human trafficking, and money laundering, according to a recent report by Lantia.
“These gangs are fighting mostly for the beach area, where they want to operate freely offering all sorts of drugs and businesses to tourists. Another hotspot for them is the main streets inside the cities, clubs, and casinos,” Guerrero said.
The gangs described in the report are “Los Pelones,” which broke away from the Gulf Cartel and is responsible for the most recent attacks in Tulum and Puerto Morelos.
The gangs “La Barredora” and “Los Compich” are fighting against Los Pelones for Cancun, Tulum, and Puerto Morelos specifically. La Barredora is especially invested in generating business ties with local authorities and officials; “La Gente de Aquiles,” a group belonging to “Los Árzate,” with strong ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and responsible for most of the street drug dealing.
“El Cártel de Cancún,” which operates as a branch of the Sinaloa Cartel, is mostly responsible for the area of Benito Juarez and Isla Mujeres.
Mexican National Guard members patrol Playa Pescadores in Tulum, November 8, 2021.
Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
On top of these gangs, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel also has a strong presence through alliances with smaller local gangs that once worked under the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, according to the report.
“This could only explain a part of what is going in Quintana Roo recently,” Guerrero said. “Another big part is the presence of Romanian and Russian mafia operating mostly on money laundering and sex trafficking.”
In May, the Mexican government captured Romanian businessman Florian Tudor in Quintana Roo. Tudor is accused of being the leader of a Romanian mafia operating in several tourist hotspots in Mexico.
“Florian T. was captured by Mexico’s General Attorney Office complying with an extradition request by Romanian government for allegedly being involved in organized crime, extortion and homicide” the Attorney General’s Attorney Office said in a press release.
Originally from Craiova, Romania, Tudor moved to Quintana Roo with several close family members in 2014.
Adrian Enachescu, Tudor’s step-brother, opened a Delaware-based business with offices in New York and San Francisco, which were allegedly used to transfer money from illegal operations in Romania to Mexico, according to an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
Members of the new Tourist Security Battalion of the National Guard patrol a beach in Cancun, Mexico, December 2, 2021.
ELIZABETH RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images
The organization Tudor is accused of running, called the Riviera Maya gang, was unique among European criminal groups in that Mexico was its base of operations.
“Florian built a network of politicians, businessman, and criminals for more than 10 years that allowed him to operate massively in Quintana Roo and Baja California Sur,” Guerrero said.
According to Guerrero, Tudor was so high up he even met with current Mexico’s top police chief, Rosa Icela Rodriguez, by request of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Although he is in jail and faces several years behind bars, the operation he is accused of running is still alive for the most part in Quintana Roo.
“Its the same as with Mexican cartels. They captured the boss, but the organization is still operating under new leadership,” said Guerrero.
Last week, Mexico deployed 1,500 National Guard troops to Quintana Roo, basing them in Tulum, to patrol tourist beaches. As with previous deployments, the soldiers in full gear among the tourists enjoying the beaches has received international attention.
A Sinaloa state police officer at a clandestine lab producing synthetic drugs, mainly meth, in Sinaloa state, June 4, 2019.
Rashide Frias/AFP via Getty Images
A record-setting bust in October underscores how Mexico has become a hub for fentanyl.
The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generational cartels have increased production of the drug, a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic.
A flood of fentanyl into the US has helped drive overdose deaths to new levels.
Ciudad Juárez, México – In late October, Mexican authorities seized a record-breaking quantity of fentanyl at a single laboratory in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, landing a major blow to the Sinaloa Cartel, officials said.
But security analysts and cartel operatives say the bust was only proof of the “unstoppable” production of fentanyl in Mexico.
Mexican soldiers found 118 kilograms, or roughly 260 pounds, of fentanyl worth roughly $50 million in a lab on the outskirts of Culiacán, a city known for being Sinaloa’s Cartel stronghold.
Mexican officials said the lab and warehouses seized in late October 2021 were used to store precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.
Mexican Secretariat of Defense
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic similar to morphine but 50 to 100 times more potent, according to US authorities. Mexican drug cartels have relied on fentanyl more than any other drug to keep profits rising.
During the raid, authorities arrested Armando Bátiz Camarena, aka “El Inge,” a known Sinaloa Cartel leader in charge of fentanyl production and shipment to the US, along with four of his men.
Authorities also seized four bags of fentanyl precursor in paste form, over 4 pounds of Inositol, a powder used as a cutting agent for drugs, five firearms, and more than $14,000 and 160 Venezuelan bolivars.
Although this was the biggest fentanyl bust in Mexico’s history, it might not have any effect on the drug trade. It also may only be a sign of how Mexico is becoming the biggest player in fentanyl production.
“If Mexican authorities seized more than 100 kilograms, it means criminals are producing at least several tons,” Manelich Castilla, former commissioner of Mexico’s Federal Police, told Insider.
Mexican officials said the lab and warehouses seized in late October 2021 were used to store precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.
Mexican Secretariat of Defense
Fentanyl is easier to produce than cocaine or heroin since it requires just a few chemicals and some very rudimentary equipment, Castilla explained.
“It is very easily produced and 20 times more profitable than any other drug. You only need a very small dosage to create addiction,” he said.
Manelich said that the fact that small doses of fentanyl could provide such intense effects means it’s easier to smuggle.
“To transport fentanyl you don’t need big shipments. Now you can hide a very profitable load inside a trailer container and it would be almost impossible to find,” he said.
Mexico’s defense secretary said earlier this year that fentanyl could be made in a few hours and was worth about $5,000 a kilogram in Mexico — a price that rises to about $200,000 in the US.
In a sign of the scale of production, US authorities intercepted 17,584 pounds of meth and 389 pounds of fentanyl in a tractor-trailer crossing into the US near San Diego on November 17. Both amounts would be the largest seizures of either drug in the US in 2020 or 2021, US officials said.
Potent product
A chemical specialist in a protective suit with pills seized at a clandestine lab processing fentanyl, in Mexico City, December 12, 2018.
Attorney General’s Office/Handout via Reuters
A Sinaloa Cartel operative in Culiacán who asked not to be identified told Insider that the busted lab was “very small” compared to production around Sinaloa.
“They busted one, and immediately some other 10 started operating not very far from that one,” the operative said.
The operative said fentanyl labs operate on a “mobile basis.”
“Some years ago the old bosses used to set established fentanyl labs inside warehouses or abandoned houses, but we learned that once they busted that lab, the loss was too much,” the operative said. “So now we set up mobile labs in the middle of the woods and cook only small batches in several labs at the same time to build a big shipment.”
“The cook learned from a Chinese man brought all the way here” by the cartel, the operator told Insider, adding that the cook “is the only one who knows the recipe.”
“But many started dying because we still didn’t have the right recipe, and some of them were not aware of the potency of the new product,” the operator added.
Mexican authorities examine a clandestine lab suspected of producing synthetic drugs, in Sinaloa state, August 2016.
Mexican Naval Secretariat
According to Manelich, most of the precursors needed to make fentanyl come from “the Asia region” but not exclusively from China. Shipments arrive by sea “inside one of many, many cargo [containers] processed at the port” in Colima state on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
A leaked 2019 DEA report called the Sinaloa cartel “a prominent producer and trafficker of Mexico-based fentanyl” into the US. The powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel has also ramped up its production of fentanyl.
The US Treasury Department recently sanctioned four men it said were CJNG members “operating through the port of Manzanillo in Colima” to import fentanyl precursors and other drugs.
“It is impossible to search all these shipments arriving into Mexico. What we need is a list of priority targets to know by name who are we looking for, who is in charge of these operations,” Manelich said.
Fentanyl seizures in Mexico have risen over the past year, according to Mexican officials. In 2020, authorities seized 1,300 kilograms of the drug, compared to 222 kilograms in 2019 — an uptick of more than 400%.
Manelich said the only way out is a “coordinated agenda regarding addictions and security.”
“Today Mexico does not have a policy or a campaign to point out the traffickers and the producers. The present administration’s vision is very limited when compared to how things are done in the US,” Manelich said.
The arrest of the wife of CJNG boss El Mencho is being interpreted as a win against the cartel.
But El Mencho has endured as head of the CJNG even as many in his family have been arrested.
The arrest of the wife of CJNG boss El Mencho is being interpreted as a win against the cartel and a significant blow to the group’s money laundering ability. But is her capture truly that significant?
On November 15, troops arrested Rosalinda González Valencia, wife of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” one of Mexico’s most powerful drug traffickers and leader of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), according to a government press release.
Officials said in the release that her arrest — which occurred in Zapopan, Jalisco — was considered a “significant blow to the financial structure of organized crime in the state of Jalisco.”
González Valencia, alias “La Jefa” (The Boss), has a significant reputation in the Mexican organized crime landscape in her own right.
González Valencia is the niece of Armando Valencia Cornelio, alias “El Maradona,” founder of the now-extinct Milenio Cartel. González Valencia and her brothers were present from the very early days of the CJNG, as many Milenio members joined with the cartel, according to El País.
Her brothers also founded the criminal group known as the Cuinis, which was reportedly responsible for much of the cartel’s finances and money-laundering operations. They were considered to be a sister organization of the CJNG for several years until the arrest of numerous members of the González Valencia clan led to the Cuinis no longer functioning as a separate group.
González Valencia was previously arrested in Jalisco in May 2018 on money-laundering charges but was freed three months later due to a lack of evidence. She paid a fine of 1.5 million Mexican pesos ($72,000).
InSight Crime analysis
A CJNG organizational chart constructed by the US Treasury Department.
US Treasury Department
The González Valencia family was instrumental to the growth of the CJNG, taking control of the financial aspect of the cartel. At the same time, El Mencho led the group in its territorial expansion and feuds with other groups such as the Zetas.
The Cuinis amassed a veritable empire of assets through which to launder millions in criminal profits for the CJNG, including shopping malls, hotels, real estate agencies, restaurants and a tequila company. Their activities were not just limited to Mexico, as the arrests of several González Valencia family members revealed alleged money laundering connections to Brazil and Uruguay.
The wedding of Oseguera Cervantes and González Valencia was another instrumental step in ensuring the early power of the CJNG and the Cuinis.
However, as the CJNG expanded to become a national force across much of Mexico, the Cuinis have not kept up. The arrest of two prominent leaders, Abigael González Valencia, seen as the second-in-command of the CJNG, in 2015 and José González Valencia, alias “El Chepa,” have left the group weakened.
With much of the Cuinis membership behind bars and the US government offering up to $10 million for the capture of El Mencho, it may be that the González Valencia was one of the last links between the two.
Oseguera Cervantes has endured as head of the CJNG while many in his family have been arrested, including his son, brother and brothers-in-law. But the arrests don’t appear to have had much impact on Oseguera Cervantes’ life.
Dairo Antonio Usuga with Colombian military personnel after his capture.
Reuters
Colombia’s president compared the recent capture of the kingpin known as Otoniel to that of Pablo Escobar.
Escobar’s death was a blow to his cartel, but many smuggling groups have emerged to replace him.
That dynamic leads some to worry about more bloodshed after Otoniel’s arrest.
Mexico City – The same day Colombia’s armed forces captured Dario Antonio Usuga, known as Otoniel, Colombian President Ivan Duque said the arrest was “only comparable to the fall of Pablo Escobar.”
Otoniel’s capture is a major blow to a powerful drug-trafficking group, but many feel it is not something to brag about and fear that, as after other major arrests, the country could plunge into something worse.
Otoniel, first a member of the guerrilla organization Ejercito Popular de Liberación and later a prominent paramilitary leader, rose to be the most wanted cartel boss in Colombia, with the US offering a $5 million reward for him.
US authorities say the group is the main Colombian ally of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel, partnering with it to profit from drug-trafficking and human-smuggling rings worth millions of dollars.
He now faces charges related to drug trafficking, the killing of police officers, recruitment of minors, and sexually abusing children, according to US and Colombian authorities.
Who’s next
Colombian anti-drug police inspect packages of cocaine seized during an operation against Clan del Golfo near the Gulf of Uraba, September 12, 2011..
REUTERS/Fredy Builes
The vast quantities of cocaine that Otoniel smuggled drew comparisons to Escobar and the infamous Medellin Cartel, but many Colombians saw Duque’s pronouncement as a media stunt, as Escobar’s involvement in terrorism and national politics sets him apart.
“It was a political stunt to get some press attention and legitimize [his] administration,” Carlos Bohorquez, a Medellin resident, said of Duque.
“To me, having lived through the Escobar years, Otoniel has nothing to do [with it]. But it doesn’t mean it was not a good thing that he was arrested and put behind bars,” Bohorquez said.
The operation that led to the arrest – which involved 500 Colombian special-forces personnel and 22 helicopters and in which one police officer died – received major attention from Colombian politicians and diplomats.
“Congratulations! To our Police and to our Military Force. Many years of persecution of this individual who has done so much damage to the country,” Juan Carlos Pinzón, Colombia’s ambassador to the US, wrote on Twitter.
A solider and a policeman patrol near a wreckage of a passenger bus torched by Clan del Golfo members, in Medellin, April 1, 2016.
REUTERS/Fredy Builes
While many in Colombia celebrated Otoniel’s arrest, others now expect rough times.
“The market has diversified immediately after Otoniel’s arrest. His detention has thrown away a monopoly, opening the doors to new players,” said Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a Colombia-based security and risk-analysis firm.
Guzmán said this has happened in the past, first with former Medellin cartel boss Carlos Lehder and later with Pablo Escobar.
The AGC was the most powerful of those latter groups, and Otoniel was a demonstration of their resilience. Pinzon noted that Otoniel took over when his brother was killed in 2012.
“What is worrisome after the arrest of Otoniel is not if he was bigger than Pablo Escobar or not. [It] is who is next,” Guzmán said.
‘Progressive fragmentation’
Dairo Antonio Usuga, drug lord who has been captured by Colombian military.
Reuters
Otoniel’s arrest and the power vacuum it creates could lead to more violence as criminal groups fracture and compete, according to Colombian government officials.
Currently there are about 10 major criminal organizations operating in Colombia, according to Indepaz, a nongovernmental group that promotes peace and justice.
“A progressive fragmentation of the criminal organization is expected, since Otoniel … was the only leader with total command and control,” Gen. Fernando Murillo, who leads Colombia’s judicial police, part of the National Police force, said in an interview with local media.
Differences that “transcend” internal disputes could arise among AGC members seeking control, Murillo added, predicting the group’s “atomization” into smaller, less capable factions.
Colombian police guard an under-construction submersible seized from Clan del Golfo, in Puerto Escondido, October 18, 2011.
REUTERS/John Vizcaino
Murillo listed Wilmer “Siopas” Giraldo Quiroz; Jobanis de Jesus Avila, aka “Chiquito Malo”; Jose “Gonzalito” Sanchez; and Orozman Osten Blanco, aka “Rodrigo Flechas” as Otoniel’s potential successors.
“Siopas” is considered AGC’s second-in-command and is wanted for his involvement in organized crime. “Chiquito Malo” is in charge of production and shipment of AGC’s tons of cocaine to the US. Colombian authorities have a bounty of $133,000 for his capture.
“Gonzalito” is considered “a brother” to Otoniel, according to media reports and a prominent member of the AGC. “Rodrigo Flechas” is one of the most violent criminals in Colombia, responsible for killings and kidnapping in the Cordoba municipality.
The AGC’s main business is cocaine – cocaine production in Colombia rose 8% between 2019 and 2020, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime – and its main blocs still control some of Colombia’s most important cocaine-producing regions.
But the group has found other lucrative enterprises.
Stranded migrants from Haiti at a makeshift camp in Necocli, Colombia, September 24, 2021.
RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP via Getty Images
Before his arrest, Otoniel was making millions from smuggling US-bound migrants through Colombia. His smuggling ring out of Necoclí in northern Colombia transported migrants toward the border with Panama, demanding payment for all sorts of things along the way.
An AGC operative said after Otoniel’s arrest that his capture hadn’t affected business, telling Insider that “the organization has continued working under a new administration.”
Colombian officials have said they’re working on extraditing Otoniel to the US and made clear they will keep going after whoever replaces him.
“We will continue to combat the Clan del Golfo and will not rest until this organization is finished. We’re going for Siopas, for Gonzalito, for Chiquito Malo,” Murillo said.
A Mexican marine carries packs of cocaine after a drug bust aboard a ship in the port of Manzanillo in Colima state, November 5, 2007.
REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar
This month, the US sanctioned suspected Jalisco cartel members, accusing them of controlling drug operations at the port of Manzanillo.
Manzanillo is a crucial entry point for fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals from Asia.
Control of Manzanillo is vital to CJNG’s efforts to dominate the synthetic drug trade into the US and the group’s expansion across Mexico.
The United States has sanctioned four suspected members of Mexico’s powerful CJNG cartel, alleging that they controlled drug operations at a Pacific port that is a crucial entry point for fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals from Asia.
Aldrin Miguel Jarquín Jarquín, Jose Jesus Jarquín Jarquín, César Enrique Diaz de León Sauceda and Fernando Zagal Antón are alleged to be members of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generació – CJNG) operating out of the Manzanillo port and surrounding areas in the state of Colima, the US Treasury Department said in an October 6 news release.
Treasury officials say the men “coordinate CJNG’s drug trafficking operations through the port of Manzanillo” and maintain contact with cocaine suppliers in Colombia.
The Jarquín Jarquín brothers, as well as Diaz de Leon Sauceda, are allegedly among the most senior members of the CJNG operating out of Manzanillo. They report directly Julio Alberto Castillo Rodriguez, the son-in-law of CJNG boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” according to the Treasury Department.
The CJNG’s “criminal success is partly due to its influence over strategic locations such as Manzanillo,” said Andrea M. Gacki, director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
“This Pacific coast port serves as a significant gateway for Colombian cocaine and precursor chemicals imported from Asia, including those used to synthesize fentanyl,” she said in the news release.
It’s not just fentanyl products moving through Manzanillo. In early July, 50,000 kilograms of benzyl chloride, used in the production of methamphetamines, were seized at the port.
InSight Crime analysis
Navy members patrol the coast in Manzanillo, Mexico, May 2, 2020.
Control of the port of Manzanillo is crucial to CJNG’s efforts to dominate the lucrative synthetic drug trade into the United States and the group’s expansion across Mexico.
A report, “Mexico’s Role in the Deadly Rise of Fentanyl,” published in February 2019 by InSight Crime and the Wilson Center found that the port of Manzanillo accounted for the lion’s share of seizures of fentanyl precursor chemicals entering the country.
The CJNG, though, wasn’t always the dominant player in what had once been a sleepy port. In 2016, violence surged around Colima in a three-way battle among the CJNG, the Sinaloa Cartel and a faction of the Zetas. The CJNG was ultimately able to consolidate its control of Manzanillo by forging alliances with local gangs.
The CJNG was also positioned to deal in fentanyl, given its background in methamphetamine trafficking.
The group’s control of the port has been crucial to its swift rise as one of Mexico’s main fentanyl traffickers into the United States, according to a January 2020 US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intelligence report.
Combating smuggling at the Manzanillo port has become a priority of Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who visited Manzanillo himself as a show of commitment. In January of this year, he gave the Mexican Navy, direct control of the country’s seaports.
The US and China have also worked together to crack down on the supply of fentanyl and fentanyl-related compounds. But halting the smuggling of fentanyl and its precursors is not likely to happen any time soon.
The shutdown of the Chinese city of Wuhan – an epicenter of fentanyl manufacturing – amid the COVID-19 pandemic led to the sourcing of fentanyl and its precursors from other countries. Meanwhile, criminal groups like the CJNG ramped up their manufacturing capabilities.
Mexican soldiers on patrol in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state, November 22, 2019.
ULISES RUIZ/AFP via Getty Images
Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación is widely seen as Mexico’s asendent cartel, rivaled only by the Sinaloa Cartel.
But the group’s ambitions are not limited to controling the drug trade in Mexico.
According to sources and documents, the CJNG is stretching its empire into Central and South America with alliances and threats.
Mexico City, MEXICO – Mexico’s ruthless Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) is stretching its criminal empire south into Central and South America by making alliances, threatening authorities, and appropriating drug routes, according to documents and sources who spoke to Insider.
Originally based in the central Mexican state of Jalisco, CJNG has spread operations to almost every state in Mexico and most recently to countries like Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Chile.
Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación has been described by US officials as the “best armed” criminal organization in Mexico and “one of the most dangerous transnational criminal organizations in the world.”
US authorities have said the organization is attempting to operate in the US through local gangs, but CJNG is looking to own the drug routes and the supply chain throughout Latin America.
A recent report from Chile’s Attorney General’s Office describes how CJNG is trying to establish operations inside the country for “large-scale production of high-concentration marihuana.”
Chilean police arrange packs of confiscated marijuana in a display for the media in Vina del Mar city, November 26, 2009.
REUTERS/Eliseo Fernandez
Chilean Attorney General Jorge Abbott addressed the issue at a recent press conference, saying Chile had gone from being a transit country for drugs heading north “to be a country where very well known Mexican cartels are looking to settle.”
The cartel’s expanding operations are also troubling Guatemala, where its members recently threatened Guatemala’s National Police for “stealing” a load of drugs belonging to the leader of CJNG, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” for whom US authorities are offering $5 million.
In a video posted online in early September, supposed members of the CJNG threatened several Guatemalan police officers.
“No one messes with Señor Nemesio’s people. Those things have an owner, and the owner is Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación,” an unidentified man said in the video.
Guatemalan police later confirmed the identity of the officers mentioned in the video and detailed the seizure of a drug load that could have been what the video was referring to.
An operative with the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación detailed the areas of operation in Guatemala for Insider.
The man, who asked not to be identified to avoid retaliation, said CJNG is currently fighting in Central and South America against the Sinaloa Cartel, specifically “Los Chapitos” and “Los Mayos” factions, linked to “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons and to the alleged active leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
“We are mostly concentrated in Sinaloa’s plazas, like all the Pacific coast of Guatemala, San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, Santa Rosa, Jutiapa, but also Petén, Melchor De Mencos, Alta Verapaz, and Huehuetenango,” the operative said.
Anti-narcotics and military police officers prepare to incinerate more than 200 kilos of cocaine seized in Honduras near the border with Nicaragua, August 5, 2016.
ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP via Getty Images
An active member of the Nicaraguan military also confirmed to Insider the presence of Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación in Honduras and Nicaragua.
The military member, speaking anonymously because they did not have authorization to talk to the media, said they have found bases of operation and “training camps” mostly in the region near the Nicaraguan and Honduran border.
“The Fonseca Gulf is widely used by the CJNG to operate, but also Puerto Lempira in Honduras [and] Corinto, Puerto Sandino and the Caribbean side of Nicaragua,” the military member said.
The Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación is allied with several gangs involved in shipping cocaine to Europe, according to the operative.
“The Sinaloa Cartel used to have a strong hold of the ports in Nicaragua, but lately we have found many operations and arrested some of them [CJNG], which leads us to think they now have more control over drug trafficking than the Sinaloas,” the Nicaraguan military member said.
The Sinaloa Cartel and now Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación are posing new threats to all of the region, according to Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, a Colombia-based security and risk-analysis firm.
“These Mexican organizations used to be partners with other criminal organizations in South and Central America, but during the past few years they have been playing a more active role, to the point where they are now making decisions in many other countries,” Guzman said.
Mexican criminal organizations have had a growing presence in Colombia since the late 1990s, when major Colombian groups like the Medellín and Cali cartels fell from power.
A farmer sprinkles cement over mulched coca leaves to prepare them to make coca paste at a small makeshift lab in the mountains of Antioquia, Colombia, January 7, 2016.
AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd
In the DEA’s first formal investigation of the CJNG, done in 2007, the agency accused “El Mencho” of shipping cocaine from Colombia through Guatemala to the US. In August this year, Colombian authorities arrested Néstor Tarazona Enciso, an alleged member of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación accused of money laundering, indicating that the cartel has an active physical presence in Colombia.
Guzmán also detailed how the alliance between Mexican criminal organizations and the Clan del Golfo in Colombia, which is now in charge of the cocaine trade from Colombia to the US, could soon change.
“These two organizations, Cartel de Sinaloa and Cartel Jalisco [Nueva Generación] are trying to get closer to the chain of supply, specifically cocaine,” he said.
In 2019, Colombia’s anti-narcotics chief said Mexican criminal groups were shipping an unrefined form of the drug called coca base out of Colombia in and processing it in Mexico, reflecting those efforts to control more of the cocaine supply chain.
Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación’s exponential growth is a direct threat to all of Latin America and should be addressed “by all countries involved,” Guzmán said.
“I see a dangerous gap in the collaboration between countries where these criminal enterprises operate. There is no coordination, and that is what these groups are exploiting to their own benefit,” he said.
A Coast Guardsman from the cutter Munro introducing himself to the crew a narco sub in the Pacific Ocean, June 18, 2019.
US Coast Guard
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a wide array of military hardware hit the black market.
For Colombian traffickers, flush with cash, Soviet submarines were appealing ways to move multi-ton loads of drugs.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a shady effort to acquire such a sub unfolded, drawing in smugglers, Russian mobsters, and Soviet officials.
In 2019, footage of a US Coast Guard interdiction of a homemade drug smuggling submarine took the world by storm, and for good reason.
As we watched one of the baddest dudes we’re ever apt to see anywhere outside of a movie pounding on the hatch of the mostly submerged sub, many of us were shocked to learn that drug cartels actually have their own submarines.
What may surprise you more is that these amateur submarines were really a consolation prize for drug smugglers out of Colombia.
Their first choice? An actual Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine. What’s even crazier, however, is that the Russians seemed to be more than happy to sell them one.
The Soviet legacy of desperation
The Cold War that erupted between the United States and Soviet Union immediately after World War II came to an end prompted a massive build-up of military hardware in both nations. The Soviets, championing their communist political and economic model, secured a number of early PR victories over the capitalist US, being the first nation to send a satellite, a dog, and a person into earth’s orbit.
This early lead created what some have taken to calling the “Sputnik Crises” in America and its Western allies. The Soviets weren’t just matching the technological might of the world’s first nuclear power. They were exceeding it and showing the world just how effective their governmental model could be.
For the United States and its allies, dead set on preventing the spread of communism around the globe, these technological successes were seen as a clear and present danger to the American way of life.
Those early Soviet wins led directly to the establishment of NASA, and the re-orienting of famed-former Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun away from the Redstone missiles he was tasked with building and toward the heavens. Von Braun’s work led to the development of the Saturn V rocket-a platform that took America to the moon and still remains the most powerful spacecraft ever constructed.
Russian diesel-electric submarine B-143 Foxtrot Type 641 at the Seafront Maritime Theme Park in Zeebrugge, Belgium.
Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
America’s eventual victory in the Space Race can be seen as indicative of America’s broad approach to battling the Soviets on technological and financial grounds. In fact, many credit President Ronald Reagan with effectively spending the Soviets into ruin, fielding increasingly capable military platforms and weapons, which forced the Soviets to respond in kind, despite their struggling economy.
Of course, the fall of the Soviet Union can really be attributed to a number of factors, including the will of its populous, but it’s tough to discount the dire financial straights the former superpower found itself in by 1991-the year the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and a new Russian government took its place.
It was during this transitional time that the former Soviet Union gained a reputation for offloading military hardware to the highest bidder. The new Russian state lacked the funds needed to operate or maintain its massive military apparatus, or even to sufficiently pay large swaths of its personnel. As a result, military officials participated in the sale of military assets as a means of survival amid the nation’s economic collapse.
In one instance, the Russian government themselves even traded the American soft drink company Pepsi a fleet of warships and submarines in exchange for a new shipment of soda. In another, members of the Russian Navy actually conspired to sell a diesel-electric submarine directly to drug cartels in Colombia for the purposes of smuggling as much as 40 tons worth of cocaine into the US with each trip.
In 1980, a Russian man named Ludwig Fainberg arrived in Miami with his sights set on the American dream. He quickly found work as an enforcer for the Gambino crime family, doing the sort of work we’ve come to expect from Russians with mob connections – beating money out of people.
Fainberg, who went by the name “Tarzan,” eventually made enough money to open his own strip club near the Miami airport that he dubbed “Porky’s!” after the sexploitation flick of the same name, which reportedly filmed in the same building. It wasn’t long before the strip club owned by a Russian with mob ties became the hangout of choice for members of Russia’s own organized-crime community who were operating within the opulence of 1980s Miami.
Tarzan’s crime-connections and booming business helped him meet a number of powerful or influential figures on both sides of the law. ’90s rapper Vanilla Ice was one such friend – and it was actually Mr. Ice himself who first introduced Tarzan to the man who would become his partner-in-crime: Juan Almeida.
Almeida was a prominent businessman and crook who dealt in high-end boats and exotic cars. Before long, Tarzan and Almeida were in business together, flying in and out of post-collapse Russia, and purchasing everything from motorcycles to helicopters for pennies on the American dollar, which they would then sell to customers for a tidy profit.
Before long, the exploits of Tazan and Almeida would lead them into a business-based friendship with a man who would go on to be the star of his own episode of “America’s Most Wanted,” Nelson “Tony” Yester.
Yester had strong ties to the Medellín drug cartel run by none other than Pablo Escobar. By all accounts, Yester was a serious criminal – more serious than the somewhat jovial (and notably less-murderous) Tarzan and Almeida.
Nonetheless, Tarzan and his new drug contact became fast friends. That friendship turned highly profitable when Tarzan and Almeida brokered a deal with Escobar’s cartel through Yester to purchase two heavy-payload Russian Kamov helicopters intended to transport drugs throughout Colombia.
That deal led to even deeper ties with Yester as a connection to Escobar, as the Russian mafia weren’t going to allow the helicopters to leave without getting a cut of the deal. In a turn of events that sounds like a movie, Almeida flew back to Moscow pretending to be Escobar and managed to broker another deal for cocaine distribution in newly minted Russia.
Do you want your drug submarine with missiles or without?
INS Kursura, a Russian-built Foxtrot-class submarine, on display in Visakhapatnam, India, July 25, 2009.
NOAH SEELAM/AFP via Getty Images
Having proven their value to the cartel, Tarzan and Almeida became the go-between of choice for sourcing Russian hardware. But the next request sounded crazy, even to the two men who had managed to charter a military cargo aircraft to smuggle their ill-gotten helicopters to Colombia.
A part of Escobar’s cartel known as the Cali Cartel had split from his organization and quickly became a significant player in the drug business. They wanted a better way to smuggle drugs into the United States, so they approached Yester to see if his new friends could purchase a working Soviet Navy submarine for the job.
Yester, shooting from the hip, told them it would cost him $50 million – a figure that gave the Cali Cartel pause, that is until Yester told them he could ship $40 million worth of cocaine with it in each trip. For the cartel, it seemed like an investment that was worth the risk.
Once he was given the green light from his sources within the Cali Cartel, Yester contacted Tarzan to have him reach out to his connections in Russia. According to Tarzan’s own statements, he reached out to inquire, but was told it would take a few days to find out for sure. Two days later, Tarzan got the call.
“Do you want the submarine with missiles or without?” Tarzan recalls his contact saying in a 2018 documentary about the ordeal called “Operation Odessa.” Just like that, the ball was rolling to equip Escobar’s former drug cartel with their own military submarine.
Diesel-electric subs are easier to spot than the nuclear variety employed by the United States while on the surface, thanks to their loud engines and the need to vent their exhaust. However, the submarines themselves don’t actually run off of diesel. The props that give the submarines their propulsion are run with electric motors that are recharged by diesel engines.
As a result, even diesel subs are incredibly tough to spot when submerged. In fact, in a series of war games held in 2005, the massive USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, was “sunk” repeatedly by a Swedish diesel-electric submarine that managed to sneak past the carrier strike group’s defenses.
The Russian sub in question was a Foxtrot-class, which had been in service since the 1950s. At 300 feet long, the sub had space to spare for all the drugs the Cali Cartel could want … as well as 10 torpedo tubes, in case things got dicey under the sea.
It goes without saying that a vessel of this sort would come in particularly handy for a drug cartel looking for a way to transport large amounts of cocaine into Miami – which is a well-known distribution hub for drugs smuggled in from South and Central America.
Instead of buying a sub, Yester ripped off the cartel
US Coast Guardsmen sit on a narco sub in the Pacific Ocean in early September 2016.
US Coast Guard
Tarzan and Almeida flew to Russia, where to their surprise, they were able to meet directly with a number of high-ranking members of the Russian Navy who took them to one of their secret submarine installations to tour a sub similar to the one they were offering to sell.
While the facility was a secret and the pending purchase would have been seen as highly illegal by just about every nation on the planet, Tarzan and Almeida felt they wouldn’t be able to secure the funds without proof that there really was a submarine on the other end of the deal. They asked if they could take pictures with the subs as proof, but the Russians refused to permit it for obvious reasons.
Undeterred, Tarzan offered one of the Russians $200 American, which was a significant sum in mid-’90s Russia. Money in hand, the Russian officer changed his tune and even posed in pictures with the duo. Tarzan and Almeida had done their job, now they just needed Yester and his cartel connections to do theirs.
According to Tarzan and Yester, the Russian’s even offered to sell them a nuclear weapon.
Warning: This video contains graphic language.
Of course, things weren’t actually moving as smoothly as they may have seemed. Unbeknownst to Tarzan, he had been under federal surveillance for months. They had even managed to introduce a mole into Tarzan’s circle of friends and co-conspirators – and it was that mole who first spotted the pictures of Tarzan posing in front of a Russian sub, left out carelessly on his desk.
That same mole even gifted Tarzan a phone he claimed had been jailbroken to allow for free international calls, so Tarzan wouldn’t have a paper trail reflecting his frequent contacts with Russian sources. Of course, the phone wasn’t jailbroken … it was bugged, resulting in thousands of hours of conversation for law enforcement to pour through.
That betrayal of Tarzan’s trust, however, wasn’t to be the last. Yester, who had told the Cali Cartel that they should pay for the submarine in bi-weekly payments of $10 million, also had plans of his own.
US Coast Guard Cutter Munro crew members inspect a self-propelled semi-submersible in the Eastern Pacific, June 19, 2019.
US Coast Guard photo
When the first shipment of money arrived in Europe for Yester to funnel to Moscow … he simply didn’t. Instead, he hid the $10 million in a friend’s home and paid that friend $10,000 to make himself scarce.
Soon, the Cali Cartel was in Miami – looking for Yester and their money. Of course, Tarzan and Almeida had no idea. Their side of the deal was done and besides, Yester had a habit of uprooting frequently, never living in any one country for too long at a time.
Ultimately, Tarzan, Almeida, and Yester all managed to avoid doing any hard time for the drug submarine deal, though both Tarzan and Yester would ultimately find their ways into prison for other crimes down the road.
Almeida was convicted of charges stemming from his dealings with the Cartel and Russians, based largely on Tarzan’s own testimony. However, Tarzan later recanted that testimony, resulting in Almeida going free.
Two years ago, Showtime premiered a documentary about the whole ordeal titled “Operation Odessa.” You can now watch it streaming on Netflix.
Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, center, arrives at an airport in Long Island during his extradition to the US, January 19, 2017.
U.S. law enforcement via AP
Mexico’s president recently a “mega raffle” with 22 prizes valued at $12.5 million, the proceeds of which will be used for COVID-19 vaccines.
Among the goods being given away are mansions that belonged to two of Mexico’s most well known cartel bosses: Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
Ciudad Juarez, MEXICO – The million-dollar houses of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, formerly boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, and Amado Carrillo Fuentes, deceased boss of the Juárez Cartel, will pay for COVID-19 vaccines for Mexicans.
Mexican government recently announced it will hold a “mega raffle” on September 15 with 22 prizes and a total value of $12.5 million, including the two former drug lords’ seized mansions.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the money raised from the lottery will go “back to the people.”
“All of the money raised is going to be delivered to the people and help to buy [COVID-19] vaccines and medicines and to give away some scholarships” he said at his daily morning press conference on May 27.
The houses failed to sell when previously raffled by the Institute to Return Stolen Goods to the People, or Indep, which Lopez Obrador created to redistribute seized assets.
Amado Carrillo Fuentes, far left, in a photo found in one of his houses after a raid.
AP Photo/Reforma
Carrillo Fuentes’ former residence is located in the exclusive Mexico City residential neighborhood of Jardines del Pedregal and is valued at about $4 million, according to Indep.
The property, seized more than 20 years ago, is over 32,000 square feet and has an indoor pool, nine bedrooms, several Jacuzzis and saunas, a wine cellar, and a party salon. According to the listing, Fuentes’ house is fully furnished.
El Chapo’s property is located in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state on Mexico’s west coast and his cartel’s home turf. It was where Guzmán escaped arrest in February 2014 by using a secret tunnel under a bathtub. Public records don’t say if the tunnel is still there.
El Chapo’s house has two bedrooms, a living room, dining room, garage and a front garden, according to the public listing. Although more modest, it is valued at $200,000, a high price for Sinaloa’s real-estate market.
The lottery also includes a historic box at the Estadio Azteca, the iconic Mexico City stadium that holds over 87,500 people. The box has its own story: It is where then-President Miguel de la Madrid handed the World Cup trophy to Diego Maradona in 1986, crowning Argentina champion.
Mexico’s Estadio Azteca.
Reuters
According to the listing, the stadium box is “in an excellent location” and has a 20-person capacity, a bathroom, and four parking spaces. The box is valued at $1 million and would be held until 2065.
In 2019, Mexico offered six other homes seized from Guzmán. Only three sold, bringing in a total of $227,844. One of them, the steel-enforced safe house where Guzmán sheltered after his first prison escape in 2001, went for $107,530.
Lopez Obrador decided to hold another lottery where 100 winners would get $1 million in cash, but that also failed when only 30% of the tickets were sold. There have been no more attempts to sell the plane.
Drug lords’ mansions
A Mexican marine lifts a bathtub covering a tunnel in one of Guzmán’s homes in Culiacan. The tunnel leads to the city’s drainage system.
In 2009, Forbes magazine ranked Guzmán at number 701 on its annual list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of $1 billion. (A woman believed to be Guzmán’s eldest daughter has a fashion line called “El Chapo 701,” referring to his ranking.)
Guzmán owned six houses in Culiacan alone. Most are middle-class properties, but they all have one thing in common: a hydraulic system installed under the bathtub to lift the tub and provide access to the municipal sewage tunnels he used to escape.
He also owned an apartment in Mazatlán, Sinaloa’s most famous tourist beach. The property is part of the Miramar apartment complex and is where he was last captured. The complex became a tourist attraction and remains Mexican government property.
El Chapo also built a picturesque luxury hacienda for his mother, Consuelo Loera, in the town of Badiraguato in the mountains of Sinaloa, where Guzmán was born. The hacienda has four rooms, a large kitchen, and a small chapel in the back.
A billboard welcoming Lopez Obrador ahead of his visit to Badiraguato, February 15, 2019.
Carrillo Fuentes – known as ‘El señor de los cielos,’ or “the lord of the skies,” for using planes to smuggle tons of drugs into the US – died 1997 during plastic surgery to change his appearance.
Many of Carrillo Fuentes’ properties have met the same fate that Guzmán’s now face. His more luxurious residences – among them a 2,000-square-foot apartment and a 6,000-acre ranch – were in Argentina, where he lived for a year in 1996.
In 2018, Argentina auctioned his three properties there, selling them for a total of $14 million.
He had several other properties in Mexico, including an arabesque-like mansion in Hermosillo, in the northern state of Sonora, and a luxurious mansion in southwestern Jalisco state; the latter was known as “Casa Versace” after the Italian brand established its first Mexican boutique in 1994.
Coast Guard cutter Heriberto Hernandez crew members offload over 200 kilograms of cocaine, valued at over $5.6 million, at Coast Guard Base San Juan, March 2, 2021.
US Coast Guard
A surge in cocaine seizures indicates that routes through Puerto Rico are reactivating after pandemic-related dormancy.
Puerto Rico has strategic value for traffickers moving drugs to the US because of its status as a US territory.
Puerto Rico is seeing a surge in cocaine seizures, indicating that drug flows are being reactivated after months of dormancy amid pandemic lockdowns and that the island is on track to tally a record drug haul in 2021.
The latest seizure occurred on April 17, when the United States Coast Guard intercepted a speedboat traveling along the coast of Aguadilla that was carrying 400 kilograms of cocaine, El Nuevo Día reported.
According to Puerto Rican authorities, the total amount of cocaine seized was up by nearly half year-on-year through March and 64% through mid-April.
On April 8, Puerto Rico tallied a record cocaine haul, according to the Associated Press. Puerto Rican Police Commissioner Antonio López reported the seizure of 2.4 tons, valued at $50 million. López explained that the drugs were being transported in speedboats off the southeastern town of Yabucoa.
One month beforehand, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported the seizure of almost two tons of cocaine, also in Yabucoa.
According to InSight Crime’s press monitoring, around six tons of cocaine have been seized from January to late April along the island’s Caribbean Coast. This compares to 15.6 tons for 2019, already one of the highest totals on record, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
In its most recent National Drug Threat Assessment, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) mentioned that Puerto Rico is used as a transit point by Dominican, Colombian and Venezuelan drug traffickers, as well as Mexico’s Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG).
The island offers strategic value for traffickers moving drugs to the United States due to its status as a US territory. Once the drug shipments enter Puerto Rico, they are more easily transported to the continental United States, as Puerto Ricans can transit freely and do not have to go through customs controls.
InSight Crime analysis
Coast Guard crew members offload 302 kilograms of cocaine valued at $8.5 million in San Juan, Puerto Rico, January 28, 2021.
US Coast Guard
Puerto Rican authorities believe that the spike in cocaine transiting the island is due to the months of restrictions on transit amid the pandemic, the testing of new trafficking routes and the backlog of accumulated drugs.
“[Due to the confinement], drug traffickers had difficulties in moving merchandise. The consequence may have been that the drugs accumulated and they are looking for ways to enter the drugs,” Lt. Felícita Coreano, director of the Puerto Rico’s United Rapid Action Force (Fuerzas Unidas de Rápida Acción – FURA), told El Nuevo Día.
According to the DEA, cocaine shipments enter Puerto Rico almost entirely by sea. The shipments are mostly sent by speedboats and fishing vessels from Colombia and Venezuela. These boats usually make a stop in the Dominican Republic, where the drugs are collected by criminal networks who then move them to other destinations, including Puerto Rico.
However, in its latest report, the DEA warned of a new speedboat route directly connecting Venezuela to Puerto Rico and bypassing the Dominican Republic. This route could be behind the increasingly large shipments found in the US territory.
“[The drug traffickers] are looking to expand and find new shipping routes,” Habib Massari, a drug policy expert in Puerto Rico, told El Nuevo Día.
Investigations conducted by InSight Crime in the Caribbean indicate that a number of criminal networks in Puerto Rico provide logistical services for international traffickers, especially Dominican groups.
Dominican groups are responsible for coordinating drug shipments from Puerto Rico to the United States - particularly to northeastern states – via shipping containers, messenger services, private planes and “mules.”
Ciudad Juarez, MEXICO – The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently released its annual National Drug Threat Assessment, in which it maps out the states where Mexican drug cartels have gained “influence.”
Asked about that depiction of cartel presence in the US, security experts and cartel sources told Insider “it’s bullshit.”
The DEA’s report says Mexican transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, “maintain great influence” in most US states, with the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion showing the “biggest signs of expansion.”
A map included in the report shows the Sinaloa Cartel, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Cartel del Golfo, Organización de Beltran-Leyva, and Los Rojos as the most “influential” drug organizations with presence in Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Chicago, New York, Florida, Kansas, Colorado, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, among other states.
“Mexican TCOs continue to control lucrative smuggling corridors, primarily across the SWB [Southwest Border], and maintain the greatest drug trafficking influence in the United States,” the report says.
Major Mexican organized-crime groups’ areas of influence in the US, according to the DEA’s 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment.
2020 National Drug Threat Assessment
But operatives for the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion interviewed by Insider said their criminal organizations maintain “only clients or helpers” across the border and “not members of our organization.”
“You would never see anyone in the US saying they are part of the organization [Sinaloa Cartel], because that is bulls—. The members and leaders of the organization are in Mexico, not in the US. What we have there are clients or associates, people helping transport, or gang members working with us,” a Sinaloa Cartel operative told Insider.
The operative explained that most of the gangs or “associates” in the US work as independents.
“We wholesale to them and what they do to that merchandise is their problem. We don’t give a f—. They can loose it, sell it, snort it, whatever, as long as they pay up,” he said.
One of the most prominent cases used to prove Mexican cartels’ presence in the US was that of Pedro and Margarito Flores, two brothers from Chicago accused of importing cocaine for the Sinaloa Cartel.
Pedro Flores, left, and his twin brother, Margarito Flores, in undated photos from a wanted poster released by the US Marshals Service.
AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service
The Flores brothers admitted to smuggling at least 1,500 kgs of cocaine for the Sinaloa cartel into the US every month between 2005 and 2008. According to their guilty pleas, they also sent more than $930 million in “bulk cash” back to the cartel in Mexico.
US authorities allege the brothers were part of the Sinaloa Cartel, but a phone call of a negotiation with then-Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman that was made public during Guzman‘s trial in 2018 revealed Flores brothers bargaining over the price of a 20 kg shipment of heroin.
“Do you think we can work something out where you can deduct five pesos from those for me?” said a man identified as Pedro Flores.
“How much are you going to pay for it?” said the other man on the call, allegedly Guzman.
‘It just doesn’t make sense’
A fraction of the cocaine seized from a ship at a Philadelphia port on display at the US Custom House in Philadelphia, June 21, 2019.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico and former official with CISEN, Mexico’s top security intelligence organization, said the DEA warns of Mexican drug cartels being active in the US in order “to keep asking for money.”
“It’s DEA’s bulls—. They have been doing this for years, and it just doesn’t make sense. Cartels today are not structured [like] a hierarchy organization, but more like a decentralized network,” Hope told Insider.
“The logic behind the DEA [report] is to argue there is an invasion of external forces so they can justify more budget and support from the US,” he said.
Neither DEA headquarters nor its offices in Texas and Arizona responded to requests for comment on the map.
The report describes the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion as “one of the fastest growing cartels” and says the organization “smuggles illicit drugs into the United States by accessing various trafficking corridors in northern Mexico along the SWB including Tijuana, Juarez and Nuevo Laredo.”
“The cartels dominate the drug trade influencing the United States market, with most cartels having a poly drug market approach that allows for maximum flexibility and resiliency of their operations,” the report states.
The report doesn’t describe how these organizations maintain their presence in the US.
“The DEA has a problem with semantics. What does influence actually mean? What does presence even mean? An associate is no other thing but a client,” Hope said.
The cartel areas of influence map from the 2016 National Drug Threat Assessment.
DEA NDTA 2016
An operative for Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion said the organization maintained a large group of members in Mexico who are “mostly on the armed side of the operations,” while most contacts in the US were clients.
“Most of what we can call members of the Jalisco organization are on the arms [side], like sicarios, and some producers that are on a payroll, but everyone else is either a client we are selling to or an association to have access to certain route” for distribution in the US, he said.
Some intelligence officials believe Mexican cartels do have a real presence on US soil but function differently there.
“The substantial difference is that drug criminal enterprises are not displaying force at the border with the US because it is not needed. We should take into account that keeping a low profile is good for their activities and business, just as any other corporation,” said a high-level foreign intelligence official in Mexico who asked for anonymity.
The official said cartel associates in the US have something like membership, even if they aren’t part of the cartel structure, and “are using the brand” to prove their drugs’ quality.
“We need to consider that they act just as another transnational company, with their level of organization, distribution, reach, and territory control. They do have a presence in the US in how their drug has a brand backing up certain quality,” the official said.
