El Mayo and Los Chapitos Consolidate

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Zetatijuana article

Subject Matter: Sinaloa Cartel
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

The war led to his downfall, the events of the week leading up to his capture marked the route to his arrest in Mexico City, during his battle with the children of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera along with their uncle Aureliano Guzman Loera, El Guano, they sent a letter which accused him of treason and attempting to murder them in the company of Ismael Zambada Garcia, began to set the conditions for this coup. Authorities expect the violence to decrease in Sinaloa, where more than 550 executions have happened since this internal conflict in the Sinaloa cartel broke out in 2017.

Reporter: Zeta Investigations
Damaso Lopez Nunez, El Lic, was hiding among many. In Mexico City he was living in a condominium in one of the most luxurious places in the Anzurles Colonia, in the Miguel Hidalgo delegation. There the capo enjoyed the good life, a great apartment, gymnasium with areas for spinning and aerobics, steam rooms and the like.

Until elements of the Federal Public Security arrived to detain him on the morning of Tuesday 2nd of May, the bloody history of Sinaloa, started to change. The Governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel hopes that the violence that cost 548 lives so far in 2017 in this region will now start to decrease.

The apprehension of Damaso Lopez has re-ordered the criminal organization of the Sinaloa Cartel. It has consolidated the leadership of Ismael El Mayo Zambada and with him, the sons of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, against whom Lopez Nunez maintained a confrontation since the extradition of their father to the United States.




However, the criminal cell that was led by El Lic has elements that have not been degraded, starting with his son, Damaso Lopez Serrano, El Mini Lic, who fled Sinaloa since the start of the conflict between his father and sons of El Chapo, when his father faced off with Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, the man who took over the operations of El Chapo.

Both narco juniors would have claimed at a party at the beginning of 2016 the rights to lead the Sinaloa Cartel, who were once friends, were not now.

As well as El Mini Lic, the authorities have detected that El Licenciado works with his two brothers, Adolfo and Alvaro Lopez Nunez, of whom the older was closer to him and consequently controlled part of the family business. Adolfo they knew, was an agent of the defunct State Judicial Police in the 90's, and according to the archives, was assigned to the El Saldo, where El Mayo Zambada originates from.

Alvaro, is the younger brother of El Licenciado and had no relation to the family business in which Damaso worked for 16 years, since the Guzman clan were reunited after his escape from Puente Grande prison, Jalisco in 2001.

Another of the trusted men of Lopez Nunez is Javier, known simply by the nickname El Javi, who was his personal secretary and was also entrusted to be in charge of the logistical operations of the organization.

The criminal heirachy of Damaso in Sinaloa, lies in these four persons: Damaso Lopez Serrano, Adolfo Lopez Nunez, Alvaro Lopez Nunez and Javier "N" El Javi.

There are also integrated sicarios known to the Sinaloa authorities by the following nicknames:

*El Quince, chief of security for Damaso and his son
*El Tigrillo, area of Navolato, leader of Los Tigrillos
*El Solitario, area of Elota, head of Los Solitarios
*El Montana, area of Navolato, commander of Los Montana.
*Arely Perez, Sicario, previously singer of narco corridos.

Of all these, according to security sources, El Mini Lic, and his uncle Adolfo could be absorbed within the structure of Sinaloa, because during the months of all out war, especially in the municipalities of Culiacan, and Navolato, and extending to Elota, were struck hard by Los Chapitos.

It was these zones precisely that according to the Attorney General of Justice, is where Los Damaso ruled with an iron fist of criminal control, and where most of the executions summarized took place and kidnappings, in which most cases the victims have been disappeared.

In the area of Villa Juarez, which was shared with other areas of Navolato with Cesar Carrillo Leyva, El Cesarin, also the areas of Culiacan, El Dorado, Emiliano Zapata, Higueras de Abuya and Chiqueritos, as well as the towns of Elota and part of San Ignacio and Mazatlán.

The restructuring of the cartel without El Mini Lic

In the organogram devised by the Group for Coordination after the capture of Damaso Lopez, and the momentous withdrawal of his operators, its Ismael El Mayo Zambada who still is the outright leader of the criminal Sinaloa Cartel.

Together with him, other operators of that level maintain a low profile, including three bosses that fled the Sinaloa prison on the 16th of March.

Intelligence reports of the PGR and from Sedena refer that in the Damaso - Chapos conflict, Zambada and his group had a pact not to take part. They remained neutral, even though El Mayo appeared to incline his favour more towards the sons of his friend El Chapo. In any case the war did not spill over into territory controlled by El Mayo.

These territories are limited to Culiacan, El Salado, Costa Rica, Tacuichamona, Pueblos Unidos, San Lorenzo as well as the sierras of Cosala.

On the Sierra Madre Occidental plain, the team of Zambada extends to Durango, where the Chaidez family in Santiago Papasquiaro are the predominant ones in planting of poppy and marijuana.

The organogram in Sinaloa has the clear criminal structure of the Cartel:

*Ismael  El Mayo Zambada Garcia, leader of the Zambada faction and seen as leader of the entire cartel
*Ismael Zambada Sicarios, El Mayito Flaco, second in command of the faction
*Alfonso Limon Sanchez, El Poncho, operator of the first order, escaped from prison with arrest warrants pending with extradition request.
*Rafael Guadalupe Felix Nunez, El Chango Antrax, financial operator, with arrest warrants pending with extradition request.
*Porfirio Diaz Medina, son of Baltazar Diaz Vega, friend of El Mayo.
*Jose Guadalupe Tapia Quintero, signalled by the United States as logistics coordinator for the transit of drugs.
*Jesus Pena Gonzalez, El Pena, chief of Sicario, escaped from prison without extradition request.

According to reports from the consultant sources, the structure of Los Zamadas hasn't changed.

The sons of El Chapo

For the Los Chapitos faction, headed by the oldest son of the New York imprisoned capo, it has stayed the same. After the death of Francisco Javier Zazueta Rosales, Pancho Chimal, by the Marines, his place was taken by Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, El Nini, who head the cell of sicarios called Los Ninis.

The criminal cell of the sons of Joaquin Guzman Loera, are integrated in the following manner:

*Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar
*Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar
*Aureliano Guzman Loera, El Guano
*El Panu, chief of bodyguards and coordinator
*Ovidio Guzman Lopez, brother of Edgar Guzman (deceased)
*Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, El Nini, chief of sicarios
*Los Chimales

Their zone of control is also in Culiacan, Tepuche, Aguaruto, Jesus Maria, Badiraguato, Mocorito, Salvador Alvarado, and other mountain zones next to Durango, like Tamazula and Topia. They have a centre of operations in Mazatlán and other towns like Cosala and San Ignacio.

The power of the Guzman faction is centered on its enormous capacity for reaction of its cells of sicarios and its cooperation with local corporations.

In the estimation of the sources consulted, Los Guzman, including El Guano, will keep a large part of the territory that was eventually abandoned by Los Damaso after the capture of its leader.

Other cells from Sinaloa

Without forming part of the specific group one can find other members of the Sinaloa Cartel that, according to the PGR, can be called on when operations need them. Such is the case with Esparragoza Monzon, headed by the recently escaped from prison Jose Esparragoza Monzon "El Negro" or El Juanjo, or El Azulito.

The Guzman's

With them working in criminal association but independent, their inclinations lean towards the Zambada faction, with whom the intelligence information points to their having a close working relationship.

The difference with the Guzman clan, is the high levels of violence, as well as Los Damaso, while the group headed by Esparragoza maintains itself in the shadows. El Negro is known to circulate freely in Culican without bodyguards and is seen regularly in restaurants.

The Beltran Leyva group, according to Federal authorities is headed by Fausto Isidro Flores Meza as one of the last lieutenants of the dying criminal clan, after the capture of Alfred Beltran Guzman, El Mochomito, in December of 2016, and the recent deaths of Juan Francisco Patron Leyva, El H2, and his brother together with his compact cell in Nayarit.

Since August of 2014, El Chapo Isidro, has disappeared from criminal public activity.

The rise of a Lawyer

According to the Office of Control of Foreigners from the Department of the Treasury of the United States, Damaso Lopez Nunez, had his 51st birthday on the 22nd of February.

His sons, Damaso Lopez Serrano, and two adolescents Rocio and Martin Damaso Lopez Serrano, are studying. The three are sons of Rocio Serrano, who the PGR set free under the reserves of the law, once her husband had been transferred to SEIDO headquarters in the Mexico City then Ciudad Juarez. Unlike the other capos, El Lic is not known as a womanizer.

During his last birthday he didn't have much to celebrate with a war declared with those he saw born and growing since 2001 and who became integrated into the organization of Joaquin Guzman. According to the Spanish newspaper El Pais, Lopez Nunez graduated as a Lawyer at the University of Occidente of Culiacan. At the start of the 90's he found himself as an auxiliary in the Public Ministry in the Capital, and later transferred to the Attorney Generals office in the central zone.

With the years, he moved to the Judicial Police, getting promoted to Chief of the Logistics Department of the Judiciary.

In March of 1998, he was invited into the Federal System Penitentiary. He gave up his old job and in late March of that year worked as Chief of Inspections in the prison for mentally ill prisoners in Morelos.

One year later, in March of 1999, the Sinaloense Lawyer Marco Antonio Zazueta Felix, director of the Federal centres with Francisco Labastida in the Secretariat of the Government, was commissioned as assistant director of security at Puente Grande prison in Jalisco, where El Chapo Guzman was imprisoned.

Soon they had a working relationship and the security in the Federal prison was relaxed to the point where they had money, women, and drugs and parties. In the investigations of the PGR after the escape of Guzman that Damaso resigned from his post at the prison on 30th of September 2000, but returned to visit the capo on other occasions.

Of this friendship and complicity, according to the investigations carried out with the motive of evasion, Damaso was promoted to Lieutenant under El Chapo. Records show that the arrest warrant after the escape of Guzman was ineffectual. In 2008 after the discovery of more than 5 million dollars in a safe house behind the rectory building of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa in the central sector, the PGR found a credential with his name on it and his photo as well as pistol with the inscription "LIC".

In 2009 an arrest warrant for him was fought for the seizure of resources from illicit provenance but was thrown out by a collegiate court. It was then that it was known that Damaso was one of the principal Lieutenants of El Chapo. In 2007 his father, Damaso Lopez Garcia, was elected by the community of Portaceli, trustee of Eldorado, but died of heart attack in 2008.

With the years he converted into an indispensable man for El Chapo. To relax El Chapo used Damaso ranches to relax and hold business meetings. In 2010 he became the godfather of El Mini Lic, when he married Bernice Cazares.

No one doubted the alliance they had. In 2014 with the persecution of the Federal Government to hunt down Guzman Loera in Culiacan and capture him in Mazatlan, their trust was frayed.

Although Joaquin told his Lawyers that the organization's distribution was 50% for Damaso and 50% for his sons, they soon entered into a confrontation.

After the escape of the capo from Altiplano, relations were tempered. The priority was the protection of El Chapo, who was on the run, but again he was captured in Los Mochis in January of 2016. From there, the Guzman's gradually began to point the finger at El Licenciado as the agent of their downfall. The clashes between his groups of Sicario's, who had initiated limited skirmishes during the months of 2016, until February this year when the war exploded.

According to PGR sources, the children of the extradited capo left most of the organization in the hands of El Guano.

Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana