Lola La Chata, Grandmother of Mexican drug trafficking Part 2

Written for Borderland Beat by Otis B Fly-Wheel

Subject Matter: Lola La Chata
Recommendation: Read part 1 of this article see link

Reporter: Otis B Fly-Wheel

You have bewitched me, body and soul

The quote above is from pride and prejudice, but never can it have been more accurate than Lola La Chata's effect on men of the time. It was her gift, she was not the most beautiful woman ever born, she was not a slim model figure, she did not come from noble family whose names meant something. But very few women have been able to bewitch men like she could.

Apart from her husbands, many authority figures fell in love with her, as did a lot of other men who simply could not resist her charms. Dr Leopoldo Salazar Viniegra, whose arguments for the treatment of addicts led to the legalization of drugs in Mexico for a 6 month period, was the cause of hardship in her life but even he was bewitched by her and he wrote to her.

"This, I must tell you for your own satisfaction, has not diminished my admiration for you. I consider you to be a perfect product of our time. For you, a drug addict is merely a good customer and nothing more. For me, he is an unhappy person dragged in the dust by civilization".

"As it is, you as a drug dealer have had better luck than those of us entrusted with incorporating the addicts into active, social, and living people. You have accomplished a marvel, and this is a real compliment to your talent and ability, of knowing how to maintain position and gaining always the goodwill of the whole police force".

"You are a dispenser of graft, a national emblem. No one every resists your bribes which, according to what I am told is very grand indeed. One thing is surely clear, you, old in the custom know how the business can produce even if sometimes the demands are heavy and excessive, with a little more bicarbonate in the heroin and a little more pressure on the client, you are able to make ends meet".

In addition to your business ability, you have a very acute sense of psychology, you know the "when", the "how' and the "how much" of the bribe to be given; you know how to tell if the person involved has his teeth sharpened."

He further expressed himself about her business acumen, " she has great skill in knowing what her clients want as well in knowing how to protect herself, she embodies the businesswoman who has matured in the highly competitive and political and informal economy, she created a plague of addicts , who I tried to help against the growing tide, like many prostitutes and street vendors , this uneducated mestiza from a poor family had few options in life."

Lola and William Burroughs

The American beat writer Williams S Burroughs travelled to Mexico to escape a drug charge in New Orleans, while in Mexico city he sought out drugs and prostitutes, both of which Lola could supply. William became bewitched by her and used her as a character in his books under the name Lupe, Lola or Lupita.

Burroughs loved Lola's wild side and he found these behaviors together with her body an intoxicating mixture. Based on an actual meeting, in his book Red Night, Burroughs describes a rendezvous with Lola using a pseudonym as himself, Mr Snide.

"He arrived at her warehouse which was guarded by a skull face pistolero (Otis: they are still doing that today), Lola La Chata sat in a huge wooden chair, three hundred pounds cut from the mountainous rock of Mexico, her graciousness underlining her power, she extended a huge arm, ah Mr Snide, El Puerco Particular, the private pig, she was shaking with laughter."

He was paying homage to her, fascinated by her body and her physical presence. He based his written adventures on reality, he describes her as gracious because of her power and presence, her visible wealth and celebrated her as deviant and sexual, to Burroughs she was the essence of Mexican culture , an Aztec earth goddess who gave her clients packets of heroin from between her hugely well endowed breasts, and Burroughs viewed her chest as a site that nurtured his addiction for both the drugs and sexuality.

Enemies

As well as a long list of admirers, Lola also had enemies in law enforcement, particularly on the USA side of the border who were not so much inclined to be bribed by her. Harry Anslinger was a thorn in her side for most of her reign as drug trafficking queen. Anslinger believed in his own superiority and was a known racist often using racist language. He once put out an A.P.B that described a suspect to be arrested as a " ginger - colored nigger ", which enraged a lot of civil rights groups as well as others in the law enforcement community. He was also particularly against any woman who was employed in drug trafficking.

Anslinger was also very much against the Mexican train of thought with regards to drugs and addicts. To him they were just criminals, and not people who deserved treatment by medical practitioners, and his assertions that drugs use was a crime and not a sickness, and fell out with doctors and their ideas on both sides of the border because of it.

His influence with James E Ruffin who was Special Assistant to the USA Attorney General led to the conclusion that Lola's crimes were extraditable under the Supplementary Extradition Convention of July 1st, 1926, which stipulated that crimes and offences against the laws for the suppression of the traffic in and use of narcotic drugs were extraditable.

It was decided that if Lola was caught north of the border, she would be arrested under the Harrison act, and tried for drug trafficking. The USA authorities had always underestimated her role, seeing her as a drug mule, that would personally deliver large loads of heroin, rather than the reality of her distancing herself from exactly that for self protection.

As well as Anslinger, some from the law enforcement community who were working for her also turned against her. Captain Huesca de la Fuente emerged along side Lola as one of Mexico's major traffickers. He was Chief of the Anti-Narcotics squad in Mexico City and had been shaking down Lola for a long time. With legalization and Salazar supplying legal heroin, Lola and Huesca forming a drug trafficking triangle, the Mexican press outlet La Prensa exposed them to the the nation, at least those not involved in drug trafficking or law enforcement in the capital city who all knew all to well who and what the three did.

The subsequent arrest of Huesca, and imprisonment of Lola and the open letter to Lola written by Salazar that opens part 2 of this article all served to alert the USA anti drug authorities that this problem was institutionalized in Mexico and was a political hot potato that had to be handled carefully so as to not upset diplomatic relations that were tender after the end of the Mexican Civil War.

The pressure put on the Mexican Government by the United States did lead to her being arrested and she was imprisoned several times in the middle of the decade of the 40's. Even though Lola turned this to her advantage and those in the know, knew it would change little for her narco trafficking network, in that her ability to bribe, and the operational astuteness of her Lieutenants would assure that her business would suffer little if she were imprisoned.

She was imprisoned in both Lecumberri and Islas Marinas prisons, anyone who is familiar with the Netflix series "Narcos" or the life of Pablo Escobar will know that he built his own prison for him to be housed in where he enjoyed nearly all the perks of being at liberty.

While on Isla Maria Madre, and in the prison there, Lola did pretty much the same thing and turned it into her own establishment, building an airport so her children and other visitors could fly in to see her, and which later became the bona fide airport for the Island.

The Prison at Isla Maria Madre where Lola was imprisoned

Lecumberri Prison

When Lola was imprisoned, her sophisticated network continued to work at full speed ahead, her contacts were flown in to her prison on Isla Maria and business conducted as usual, and she continued to supply heroin, morphine, marijuana and cocaine, it made no difference whether she was in prison or not, (Otis: this is something the USA law enforcement authorities today still have problems in understanding, apart from with El Chapo it seems).

The fact that drugs were flowing into the USA from Mexico in ever greater numbers even with Lola in prison caused consternation in both the USA and Mexican law enforcement communities with their repeated attempts to arrest and imprison her. Avila Camacho made a presidential decree against her in 1945, and she successfully fought that off like swatting away a fly that was annoying her, a testament to her ability to retain influence among the powerful.

With Lola in prison the USA authorities turned their gun sights on Dr Salazar and launched a waged campaign to discredit him and all the work he had done with addiction. Salazar had said that marijuana was not responsible for people wanting to commit crime and that it was not the cause of insanity in people who smoked it. This around the time USA was launching "reefer madness", and the hysteria around marijuana smoking that prevailed until just recently, when several states repealed State but not Federal law regarding marijuana possession.

Salazar was the only one who knew that prison would not curtail Lola's activities, again he wrote about her " You are in spite of your popularity a factor of little importance in the vast network of drug trafficking, your stay in the penitentiary would only greatly increase the traffic therein, without really affecting the traffic outside as you would leave your deputies and temporary substitutes in charge. Moreover and above all, there are your colleagues who, while they do not sell quick lunches, have airplanes at their disposal and descend from the clouds with their infamous cargo". (Otis:La Senora de Los Cielos! many years before Armado Carillo Fuentes).

As well as the airport on Isla Maria, Lola had a hotel built so her daughters could stay for extended periods, and Lola also received conjugal visits. She was released and returned to front her organization avoiding the police until they came for her for the last time in 1957.

She was arrested at home, while processing heroin. She lived under heavy guard like El Chapo Guzman or El Mencho. the Police broke into her home and captured her along with one of her cohorts, Luis Oaxaca Jaramillo, in addition to 10 servants/bodyguards. The subsequent search of her home netted equipment for making heroin from opium, a large amount of cash and jewelry and weapons and ammunition.

She was taken to jail again, and with a huge media circus present made one telling statement.

"Yes ill talk, but first question all of the Police agencies, all they wanted to do was arrest me and get me out of the way, however don't implicate any more innocent people. I am the only one responsible for the narcotics traffic and business that I established".

Her disassociation of the people arrested with her has been judged a strategic move to ensure that her Lieutenants could continue to operate with no repercussions. In attempting to protect the men that ensured her safety, she challenged the male dominated concept of Patriarchal society.

She had confirmed that she was the Madrina of the organization, and was publicly open about the power she wielded in a field utterly dominated by men. After being found guilty she was sent back to Carcel de Mujeres and died of a heart attack in September of 1959. Over 500 people attended her funeral who were made up of fully one third Police officers. She was an enigma.

Such was the importance she had in drug trafficking, La Prensa ran a series of articles in their newspaper announcing the " The end of drug trafficking in Mexico".

Coming soon "La Nacha, Ignacia Jasso la viuda de Gonzalez"