Narco-millienials: the sons of the Mexican Capos take control

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

Subject Matter: Sons of Mexican Capos
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

The new generation of narcos are unpredictable and volatile

The detention or assassination of the big Mexican capos has obligated the next generation. Now their sons are fighting for control of the organizations.

More than the sons of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, there are a series of narco junior millenials, some in prison and others at liberty, that maintain the leadership and conserve the relation of power, that for their fathers would not be so easy.

The behaviors of this new generation will be unpredictable and volatile, affirms Carlos Flores, expert in criminal organizations and an academic of the Centre for Investigations and Social Anthropology.

They are unpredictable because they don't know who really has the power among their fathers. They don't know properly about leadership and agreements.


They are volatile because its uncertain the time they can maintain control of their cartels while large internal disputes wage by the disappearance of the historic leaders.

Generation narco millennial, those born in the 1980's and 90's, are considerably less skillful than their parents and therefore are more violent, despite having greater academic preparation.

Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, one of the sons of El Chapo, while the evolution of the business was accompanied by the maturity of the main actors: parents, specifically in Sinaloa, now they have all these technological tools of knowledge, but have no knowledge of the field, the rural part and there are few who have been forged from below, said Carlos Rodriguez Ulloa, an analyst on security issues.

As good millennials are more public and use social networking in which they boast about their luxuries and successes.

What is to be decided is how much they are willing to stop being the star of youtube, Instagram and social networks, he says.

Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, one of El Chapo's sons, with actress Kate Castillo. In Mexico 75% of family businesses do not pass to the third generation because the latter fail to lead them and, in the case of cartels, Rodriguez predicts that the same will come to pass as the millennials seek the immediacy, even in the narco families.

They are taking for granted that they will inherit the networks of corporate and government power that their parents sowed. Natural heirs, have a feel for the work their parents have put in and the risks they took to establish power in the corporations of this country.

In the list of succession are the children of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, from the Beltran Leyvas, the Cartel del Golfo and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion. Some are in prison but there is no guarantee that they will remain there.

Alfredo Beltran Guzman, El Mochomito, is part of the Beltran Leyva family, is the son of El Chapos cousin, and has been in prison since last year.

The narco lineage

Within the Sinaloa Cartel, a strong organized crime dispute is being waged at this time. Two of its four leaders are in prison, El Chapo and Damaso Lopez and the two that are free, Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Juan Jose Esparragoza El Azul, who is not confirmed as dead, are born of the 70's.

But El Chapo's sons, Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, born in 1983 and 1985, respectively, who allegedly have given their support to El Mayo to become leader of the organization. There is also his half brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez, born in 1991, who has managed to maintain a profile lower than that of his brothers. In 2012, he was designated by the Government of the United States as being part of the criminal organization.

In the list is also Damaso Lopez Serrano, El Mini Lic. The DEA has a psychological profile on him that designates he mentally has surpassed 30 years of age. He is considered a young seducer, with a certain tendency to sociopathy. He likes to travel to beautiful places, in which he conquers women and uses multiple businesses to launder money from the sale of tons of drugs.

The children of El Chapo accused his father, Damaso Lopez, of ambushing them in Sinaloa last February, to push them aside to make an alliance with the CJNG. Mini Lic does not have a good relationship with Los Chapitos allegedly because Ivan Archivaldo considered that his narco corrido that the one composed about him.

Lopez Serrano led a network of youths in the service of the cartel, known as Grupo Antrax or Los Antrax. He is known for filling his life full of luxury and excesses. Some analysts arrived at the consideration that he will be the true successor of El Chapo.

The detained

In the line of succession of the big cartels, there are also narco junior millenials that are currently behind bars, but nobody can guarantee they will stay there, as happened with Ivan Archivaldo Guzman who was arrested and released, warned Francisco Jimenez Reynoso an analyst at the university of Guadalajara.

The highest ranking is Ruben Oseguera Gonzalez, El Menchito, son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho, leader of the CJNG.

Ruben Oseguera Gonzalez, El Menchito, was arrested in 2014, but in February of this year a judge granted him an amparo to order an arrest warrant for the crime of organized crime.

El Menchito was born in 1990 in San Francisco, California. According to reports by the Attorney Generals office, he has ordered executions of antagonistic groups and could be related to the crimes of more than 70 victims exhumed in clandestine graves in November of 2013 in the municipality of La Barca, Jalisco.

He is also accused of venturing into the production and distribution of crystal, as well as sales of stolen fuel taken from Pemex pipelines.

Osiel Cardenas Jr, is the son of the former head of the Gulf Cartel chief Osiel Cardenas Guillen, and was arrested on December 31st of 2014, in the United States, charged with arms trafficking to Mexico. He was initially sentenced to 10 months in prison, but judicial authorities decided not to release him, he was then 23 years old.

His mother defined her son as immature and lacking in experience, in a letter she sent to the courts. She asked that they punish her son mistakes so that he would receive a lesson and not forget it. The decision you make will be the right one for my sons life.

Original article in Spanish at Noreste