Golden Triangle in Flames...Again

El Diario de Coahuila (October 19, 2014)

By Patricia Davila and Patricia Mayorga, translated by un vato for Borderland Beat

Aerial view of the southern mountains in Durango located in the Golden Triangle.

Golden Triangle in flames

GUACHOCHI, CHIH. (apro).-- Up until two months ago, in this and other municipalities bordering the drug trafficking Golden Triangle -- which encompasses parts of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango-- there was a relative calm: the young sicarios who defend the plaza for the Sinaloa Cartel seemed at ease.

Driving pickups and equipped with weapons intended for military purposes, with radio communications, they would carry out their jobs of guarding the area to prevent entry of Juarez Cartel members, just in case this rival group tried to retake lost territory. With the advent of the marijuana harvest season, this "peace" was lost.

However, this time, it was not the Juarez Cartel that ended the peace, but rather "Los Salgueiro" and "Los Chavez Matamoros", two Sinaloa Cartel cells that battled for control of the two drug smuggling corridors for drug grown in this area destined for the United States.

The arrest of Joaquin Guzman Loera, "El Chapo", who led the Sinaloa Cartel with Ismael Zambada, "El Mayo", did not cause strife in the area; the local cells, even in the middle of a fight, still call themselves "Los Chapitos".

In Batopilas, a municipality that borders Guachochi on the south, there had not been any confrontations until a month ago. Afterwards, it was clear that attitudes had changed between members of the organization. There are close to 100 men identified as "El Chapo" people, who work for "Los Salgueiro", who are now on permanent alert. They travel from there to other municipalities to provide reinforcements.

As in other Chihuahua municipalities, in Batopilas, some members of the municipal police help the criminal group. Most of them are young men no more than 25 years old and who are willing to die. To give themselves courage, they increasingly consume more drugs.

From the mountains in Durango, Chihuahua and Sinaloa, they bring down the marijuana and opium poppy that they take to the United States. Through the Chihuahua municipalities, the drugs are transported north by two routes; one runs through Janos and the other through Ojinaga.

burning amapola in the Golden Triangle

Third most violent area

In 2008, members of the Juarez Cartel were collecting extortion money from the residents,  traveling salesmen and indigenous artisans in the plaza.

On October 6 that year, when they killed Anicasio Cevallos, "El Cacho", chief of the Juarez Cartel in the area, violence broke out in Guachochi. "El Cacho" was one of the principal sicarios and drug traffickers in the mountains, who spread terror at the point of a gun in Guachochi and bordering areas in Durango and Sinaloa. Cevallos had been accused of masterminding the murder of 13 people in Creel a month before.

That was a year of terror, recall people in the area. Since then, people with the Sinaloa Cartel have maintained control, and they let the inhabitants know that. When they came in, they assured them they would no longer collect "cuotas" (protection money). They asked that anyone who was hassled should call them so they could take care of the troublemakers. Nobody called them.

Young men and teenagers were recruited voluntarily or by force. This is how indigenous and mixed blood people swelled the ranks of the criminal organization.

From that point on, the violence intensified, to the point that by the first trimester in 2013, Guachochi was classified s the third most violent area in the world. Fifth place was taken by Guadalupe y Calvo. The two municipalities exceeded the murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants of Ciudad Juarez and the state capital. Localities in mourning multiplied. When the Sinaloa Cartel was able to settle in, the was some degree of tranquility.

But that respite was temporary: last month, on the 26th, beginning at 2:00 in the afternoon, armed groups entered the municipality and one and a half hours later the fighting began.

In the midst of the terror, a local resident who was passing by during the attack says there were many men and he was not able to count them. Another witness says hat he got there after the sound of gunshots stopped. He saw the bodies of 11 men killed by gunshots. At that time, none of the bodies had been burned, he claims.

The first to arrive were Army personnel based in the municipal seat of Guachochi. Personnel from the Attorney General's office and federal police joined them. The first report issued by Arturo Sandoval Figon, spokesman for the office of the Attorney General, stated that it had involved a clash between two organized crime groups that operate in the Sierra Madre Occidental (western range of the Sierra Madre).

The violence was mitigated

He (Figon) specified that more than one thousand cartridges were fired , in calibers .223, 7.69x39 and 9mm. When the authorities got there, they found four persons incinerated inside of pickups destroyed by the fire. The bodies of the other seven dead people were wearing tactical uniforms and ammunition vests. They had burns and were spread out in a small perimeter in the road that goes to Cerro Grande, town of Tonachi, in Guachochi.  

But the police and military patrols did not mitigate the violence. On the 28th, two days after that attack, towards the southwestern part of the state, outside of Santa Anita, there was another confrontation, in which eight people died, four of which were incinerated. 

According to investigative and forensic sources with the Office of State Attorney General, one of the men and incinerated in Cerro Grande was Artemio Bernal Gonzalez, "El Temo", 43 years old who was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel group that operates in Yoquivo, Batopilas municipality. His brother, Ignacio Bernal Gonzales, 37 years old, died with him. Both of them were originally from El Ranchito, Chihuahua.

The Attorney General's Office, Southern Zone, indicated that the other partially identified man was Edgar Herrera Carrizosa, who was carrying several false identities with different names,  one of which is the one just mentioned. Also identified were Ignacio Bernal Gonzalez and Jesus Javier Lopez Mendoza. The only detainee who was injured was Gabriel Torres Hernandez.

According to the statements compiled by the attorney general, the dead men and the one who was injured worked for "Los Salgueiro". Apparently, "Los Chavez Matamoros" did not have suffer any casualties in their incursion into Guachochi.

By Tuesday night, September 30, the violent incidents reached the Bocoyna municipality, which borders Guachochi. The attorney general reported that an armed group intercepted members of the State Police while they were traveling on the highway. It was reported that the confrontation was as a consequence of an operation that took place that morning in a house in the town of San Juanito, in which Madday Sarahi Dominguez Carrillo, from the municipality of Casas Grandes, and Jesus Armando Cisneros Loya, born in Cuauhtemoc, lost their lives.....continues on following page

The authorities provide no support.

After the clash in Guachochi, on Thursday, October 2, the groups intensified their battle for the territory and took San Juan de los Iturralde, the town of El Vergel, Balleza municipality. They were searching for the murderers of two sicarios who were executed a week before.

Me wearing hoods were firing from the surrounding areas of San Juan de los Iturraldes. The area residents who heard the gunshots fled to a nearby hill. From there, they saw houses being burned. The attackers seized the town until Friday afternoon on the third. At the close of this publication, the Attorney General's office reported two men dead, identified as Othon Luna Lazos and Martin Payan Valencias, who apparently were the ones who killed the sicarios. 

The townspeople claim that there are more persons dead and at least 10 disappeared. Despite the fact that they reported this, neither the attorney general nor the Army have begun to search for them, they say.

Relatives of inhabitants from that area on October 3 demanded that the Army and the police forces provide aid for the people affected by the groups in the dispute.

"For 24 hours, we have been making calls to the Army and the state attorney general so they will help our family members who live in the San Juan (de los Iturbide) (sic) area, Balleza municipality, which is some 20 minutes from El Vergel", says an email message to Proceso.

Murdered for gathering signatures

Another person points out that a month ago in El Vergel, Norma Moreno was murdered while she was working in her family's restaurant. Days earlier, the military had withdrawn from the town, and the young 37 year old woman began to gather signatures asking for its return, and for it to be based there permanently. This angered the group who is present in that area and they killed her.

In addition, indigenous communities in Guadalupe y Calvo have had to move out in the face of these armed groups. These have seized the towns and the inhabitants prefer not to leave their ranches because the sicarios only allow those persons who do not represent any risk to them to leave.

Meanwhile, the violence in Guachochi seems unstoppable. On October 11, five men were picked up in Tonachi and their bodies were found the next day in a vacant area. The victims were Heliodoro Holguin Caro, Heliodoro Holguin Bustillos, Juan Holguin Moreno, Hipolito Cruz Holguin and Leoncio Holguin Bustillos. According to the state attorney general's office, one of them was identified as one of the attackers in the confrontation on September 26.

Internal reports from the state attorney general's office indicate that lieutenants known as "Los Chavez Matamoros" and "Los Salgueiro" are fighting for control of the municipalities of Guadalupe y Calvo, Morelos, Batopilas, Urique, Bocoyna and Balleza, located in the middle of the Golden Triangle.

Fighting for control

According to sources withing that agency, the confrontation in Guachochi began because members of the "Los Chavez Matamoros" were disputing over control of territory with "Los Salgueiro".

Adding to the dispute between these two Sinaloa Cartel cells, and taking advantage of the internal disputes among the local groups, other cells from the same organization, these based in the states of Durango and Sonora, are also trying to take control of the plaza.

In the state of Chihuahua, the Sinaloa Cartel controls the municipalities of Parral, Guachochi, Guadalupe y Calvo, Delicias, Camargo, Jimenez, Batopilas, Morelos, Bocoyna and a part of Urique. In this latter municipality (Urique), the story is that there are also cells from the Juarez Cartel.

Taking advantage of the split between "Los Salgueiro" and "Los Chavez Matamoros", the Sinaloa cell of Los Salazar is trying to extend its control over the southern part of Chihuahua.

Added to that is the fact that the Los Cabrera group, with the same organization, which controls the state of Durango, is also trying to take advantage of the Salgueiro-Chavez dispute to assume control of the Chihuahua municipalities located in the Golden Triangle.