San Diego: Mini Lic lieutenant pleads guilty to trafficking from Sinaloa to Tijuana

Mini Lic associate lieutenant pleads guilty to trafficking from Sinaloa to Tijuana 

As Damaso Lopez-Serrano adjusts to live in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego, a looming structure overlooking the city, and the bay, his close associate  Jesus Manuel Salazar-Nunez has pled guilty, on the day he was scheduled to go to trial, in the court of Dsitrict Judge Dana Sabraw, who is overseeing prosecutions against Chino Antrax, and Serafin Zambada-Ortiz. He pled to a three count indictment, conspiracy to import cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin.

All these cases, the flow chart of how drugs are trafficked across the country through San Diego, stem from Operation Narco Polo, which will be the defining investigation that brought down the Sinaloa Cartel, as we knew it from 2006 to 2015.

From Narco Polo, prosectors assembled indictments against 60 members of the Sinaloa Cartel, starting in 2011, and ending at the end of 2015, though the resounding round of indictments will likely be against what leadership remains, including Ivan and Alfredo, though Ivan is named in the primary case of Narco Polo.  

For now, there is Lopez-Serrano, who enjoyed the fans, the glamour, the success of a narco-junior, from his father, the friend of Joaquin Guzman Loera. Lopez-Serrano self surrendered at the Calexico port of entry late last month, the US Attorney's office in San Diego, described him as the highest ranking cartel member to do so.  

He had been hiding in Mexicali, in safehouses, assumedly on the run, and lacking in resources, though his surrender may have been recommended by his father, as the only way to save his son's life.  His one time friends and compadres, Ivan and Alfredo, after securing El Dorado, and the rest of Los Damaso's territory, would have killed him eventually.  

Behind Lopez-Serrano, but first to be captured, and first to plea, is Salazar-Nunez, 35, of Sinaloa.  He was arrested at the Hatfield-Jackson international airport in September 2015, by federal task force agents, on the OCEDTF, Organized Crime Drug Trafficking Task Force, which handles many cases in San Diego, including Operation Luz Verde, which returned indictments against dozens of CAF members and affiliates in July 2010, and had prepared a sealed indictment against Salazar-Nunez in early 2015. 

In Salazar-Nunez possession was a Blackberry, that being intercepted by the task force, who had been listening and watching, as they seized his and Lopez-Serrano's drug shipments, and watched their reactions.  Court documents do not indicate how they infiltrated their operation, but it is noted it came from previous Narco Polo cases, and likely informants, as well as common wiretaps.    

Salazar-Nunez and Lopez-Serrano organized drug shipments send by tractor-trailer through Sinaloa, to safe houses in Baja California, Tijuana, and then trafficked to San Diego.  It is unknown if the product was then sent out of San Diego or distributed locally.  The amounts are interesting, and may indicate the product was for a certain customer.  The first to fall was a tractor trailer in Sinaloa, which US agents directed elements of SEDENA to intercept.  

The load was 285 kilos of methamphetamine, 11 kilos of cocaine, and three of heroin.  The next was in April 2015, in Los Mochis, at the Culiaican/Guasave Navy checkpoint.  The load was hidden in 19.2 tons of shrimp, 422 kilos of methamphetamine, 38 kilos of heroin, and 3 kilos of cocaine.  The next was in August, 165 kilos of methamphetamine. 

Agents arrested Salazar-Nunez flying into Atlanta, and he has been in custody ever since.  It is likely he had direct dealings with Mini Lic, and could be able to testify, if he decides to cooperate.  He is facing a life sentence, based on his plea, and the quantities involved.  

This answers some questions about Mini Lic's and his fathers operations, and where, and how much they trafficked, and who passes the most product through the Tijuana plaza.  Mini Lic was charged in a similar indictment, filed in August 2016, 11 months after the arrest of Salazar-Nunez, for the same drugs described in the indictment against Salazar-Nunez.  The redacted indictment also charges Nahum Abraham Sicarios, "El Quinceanero", detained days after Mini Lic's surrender in Calexico. Sicarios was detained in a Mexico City condo complex, similar to where Damaso Lopez Sr was arrested, in late May 2017.

From Mexico City, to Sinaloa, to Tijuana, to San Diego, and across the country to Atlanta.  The flow of traffic, of product, of money, is revealed, and exposed.  There is more to tell.  More to explain, and to compromise, if Mini Lic decides it will be in his best interests to tell his lifetime of secrets.  

Mini Lic, represented by Michael Littman, prominent San Diego attorney, has pled not guilty to the charges, and waived his right to bail.  And, now they wait. He is in good company, though through bars and walls, and floors, they are worlds apart, MCC houses Chino Antrax, Serafin Zambada Ortiz, among dozens of others Sinaloa traffickers, who can sit and remember, la vida mafia.  The girls, the parties, the shipments, the houses and cars, maybe they will see it again some day.  And maybe not. 

Sources: US Attorneys Office Press Release