Goodbye El Chapo, there is a new leader in Sinaloa

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from La Silla Rota

In their annual report on drug trafficking, the DEA places Caro Quintero as the leader of the cartel along with Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. 

                    

Rafael Caro Quintero, ”El Príncipe" or "El Narco de Narcos" is back according to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and came to stay in control of the Sinaloa Cartel in the absence of Joaquín "El Chapo "Guzmán Loera.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) called Mexican cartels the biggest criminal threat to the United States.

In the Annual Evaluation on the Drug Threat (NDTA), the DEA details that the distribution of drugs in The United States is not carried out directly by the Mexican criminal organizations but by local networks of distribution through gangs.

For the US authorities, there are six major drug cartels operating in the United States.

The main one is the Sinaloa Cartel, a criminal organization that has two of its four leaders identified, apprehension pending: Ismael "Mayo" Zambada and Rafael Caro Quintero.

While Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, as well as Dámaso López Nuñez, alias "El Licenciado" are in custody.

On August 24, 2016 the magazine Proceso conducted an interview with Caro Quintero in hiding. On that occasion he said: "I am not at war with anyone; El Chapo and El Mayo are my friends," he said that he dedicated himself to planting marijuana because "somehow we had to survive."

Caro Quintero was then 63 years old, a man six feet tall, with a tanned complexion and calloused hands.

For his capture, the United States government offered a reward of 5 million dollars, and in Mexico he is accused of rejoining the drug trade and unleashing a war against The Sinaloa Cartel

After 28 years in prison, in August 2013, he was released from the Preventative Prison of Guadalajara on the orders of a collegiate court.

Days later, the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) obtained two arrest warrants against him: one to extradite him to the United States and another to spend 12 more years in prison, which, according to the PGR, remains pending in Mexico.

Caro Quintero, son of Emilio Caro Payán and Hermelinda Quintero, was born in October 1952 at La Noria ranch in Badiraguato, Sinaloa.

Caro Quintero founded the so-called Guadalajara Cartel together with his friend and compadre Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo "Don Neto."

The Battle for the Sinaloa Cartel

Incarcerated for 28 years accused of drug trafficking and the death of a US federal agent, and released in 2013, Rafael Caro Quintero, capitalized on a struggle within the family of El Chapo disputing Sinaloa Cartel territory.

At that time, Alfredo Beltrán Guzmán, "El Mochomito" (now already detained), would have joined the 'R-1', Rafael Caro Quintero, former head of the Guadalajara Cartel, to recover the territory that today is in control of the Sinaloa Cartel.

In southern Sinaloa, outbreaks of violence - visible in massacres in the mountains and attacks of police chiefs in cities - reflect the rebirth of a new dispute between the Pacific Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel.

The old rivals return to dispute the control of a long natural corridor that crosses the mountain range, from the limit of Nayarit to the municipality of San Ignacio, they have allied groups that venture from the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Nayarit.

The long strip in which the municipalities of Escuinapa, Rosario, Mazatlan and San Ignacio are located has been the scene of continuous armed clashes.

From January to June of [2017], the number of homicides in Sinaloa grew 11%, increasing from 497 in 2015 to 555.

In May and June [of 2017] specifically, there was a rise in murders in Mazatlan from 17 last year to 29 in [2017]. Also, the municipality of El Rosario, to the south and the scene of the dispute, registered 3 homicides the previous year and in 2016 there were 8 in the same period.

On June 23, in a meeting with businessmen and media in Mazatlan, the commander of the Third Military Region, General Alfonso Duarte Múgica, identified the groups in conflict as the Pacific Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel. Officials from the state security area confirmed the version to LA SILLA ROTA based on data found in a criminal camp discovered in the community of Recreo in Mazatlan.

The Criminal Network

But the story goes much further than just the rebirth of a dispute between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltran-Leyva Cartel.

The type that circulates is that after his release from prison, Caro Quintero spoke with Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman about going back to business, which they did not like.

The one who did not react well was Caro after hearing that he would have to pay right of passage through the territory controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel.

Determined to seize the "Golden Triangle,” an area between Durango, Chihuahua and Sinaloa, Caro would have taken advantage of the arrest of "El Chapo " to infiltrate the cells of gunmen in different areas of Sinaloa and annul the rival cartel.

According to the available data, the Sinaloa Cartel fragmented after the arrest of Guzmán, initiating a dispute over absolute control between the three different heads.

Apparently "El Mayo" Zambada and Caro Quintero would have reached an agreement in the absence of "El Chapo "