Cartel War in Guanajuato

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat POPlab

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Anatomy of war

All armed conflict maps are photographs of the moment. The displacement of troops, conquests of territories, retreats and offensives are subject to fluctuations due to the disposition of resources, reactions of the adversary, errors, successes and blows of luck, common in any armed conflagration. The radiography presented below is necessarily provisional. It is a first approach, by bird flight, of the current position occupied by the armies participating in the war for Guanajuato on the battlefield. Some tendencies can be established in the course of the cartel war. But they are that, tendencies that tomorrow can be reversed, accentuated or diluted.

Let's move on to a first conclusion

Because of the number of municipalities they control and the territories that occupy the main cartels (Jalisco Cartel New Generation -CJNG- and Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel -CSRL-) it is clear that it will take a long time before we can expect the end of hostilities . The cartels have accumulated too many troops, resources and consolidated many territories that are under their control. They have regular funding sources, recruitment schemes and alliances that allow them to remain active.

The only groups that truly face the possibility of being exterminated are La Unión de León, The Shadow Group and United Cartels. But both CJNG and the CSRL have sufficient resources to keep up the fight. Certainly the CJNG is the cartel that shows the greatest mobility. It behaves like an army of invasion. He is always in search of new territories. But the Marro unleashes furious and accurate kicks that stop the onslaught of Mencho.

For example, if the CJNG were to seize the city of Celaya, Marro's troops would take refuge in the city of Salamanca or march back towards San Miguel de Allende. From both cities they would try a counteroffensive to regain control of the cajetera city. The city of León has been at war for 4 years. Despite having a manifest superiority, the CJNG has not been able to break the alliance of the local mafias with the municipal police. That has been a decisive factor that has prevented them from exterminating the Leonese criminal gangs. Pénjamo is very large territory. 

From the impregnable Sierra Penjamense, criminal cells of the Marro are entrenched to wage a war of guerrillas against the armies of the Mencho, stationed in Cuerámaro, Manuel Doblado and the municipal capital of Pénjamo. The border of Pénjamo with Michoacán is very extensive. Groups of the Michoacan drug traffickers can enter Guanajuato in endless roads, bridges and gaps. They can enter, strike, withdraw at will and take refuge in Purepecha lands. In sum, the geography of the state of Guanajuato greatly hinders the termination of the war. This will not end soon.

Beach heads

The first phase of the plan for the invasion of the state of Guanajuato by the CJNG consisted of the installation of “beachheads” in the municipalities of León and Pénjamo. The Mencho outpost had the mission of landing in colonies and low-income communities, to fix in them a security perimeter that would allow the arrival of more contingents. Once full control of the "landing areas" was obtained, with a sufficient number of elements and adequate firepower, the offensive advances and the expansion of the cartel into more municipalities in the state would begin. 

In the case of León, the challenge was to co-opt or annihilate the local mafias. In the case of Pénjamo, the mission was to displace the cells of the Knights Templar that dominated Santa Ana Pacueco, the municipal capital of Pénjamo, communities settled on the federal highway Irapuato-La Piedad and in the area of ​​La Herradura. The war in León essentially involved applying urban combat tactics. 

The fight for Pénjamo had implicitly operate in a front of several kilometers of extension, including rural areas of difficult access. Several of the commanders who participated in the "landing" of the CJNG in León and Pénjamo, would eventually be chiefs of places in the municipalities that were conquering in the invasion of the state. They were forged in the heat of the battle and would receive as a reward comfortable positions in places that were left in the rear. The fight for Pénjamo had implicitly operate in a front of several kilometers of extension, including rural areas of difficult access. 

Several of the commanders who participated in the "landing" of the CJNG in León and Pénjamo, would eventually be chiefs of places in the municipalities that were conquering in the invasion of the state. They were forged in the heat of the battle and would receive as a reward comfortable positions in places that were left in the rear. The fight for Pénjamo had implicitly operate in a front of several kilometers of extension, including rural areas of difficult access. Several of the commanders who participated in the "landing" of the CJNG in León and Pénjamo, would eventually be chiefs of places in the municipalities that were conquering in the invasion of the state. They were forged in the heat of the battle and would receive as a reward comfortable positions in places that were left in the rear.

The fight for Leon

The Jalisco Cartel Nueva Generación (CJNG) maintains a fierce fight with the local mafias for the control of the city of León for approximately 4 years. It is in fact the first municipality in the state of Guanajuato where the Mencho wanted to "sit down." Although there were reports of the arrival of Jalisco cells to the Zapatera city since the beginning of 2013, the force they began to accumulate up to two years later was not calibrated in its fair dimension.

When in 2015 the federal government carried out a capture operation in Jalisco to stop Mencho, one of the cities that joined the narcoblocks that the CJNG commanders ordered to prevent the arrest of their leader, was surprisingly the city of León . Trailers and taxis hijacked by the CJNG blocked the León-Lagos highway, the León-San Francisco del Rincón highway and the elevated bridge of Mariano Escobedo Boulevard. They subsequently set them on fire. 

It was known that there were Jalisco cells in the city, but not enough, nor with the capacity to generate these actions and at the same time to avoid the police siege of capture. Erroneously, Octavio Villasana, acting mayor of León, despised these facts by pointing out that it was a "thud" of what was happening in Jalisco. The same happened with state government. All belittled the demonstrations of strength of the CJNG in Leon that year.

 

It was not an isolated event. The CJNG cells that arrived at León outpost reported to their headquarters that there were favorable conditions for an invasion of the state. They failed in their diagnosis. It would not be so simple to seize Guanajuato, but from the headquarters of the Mencho the recommendation was taken for granted and the order was issued to advance inland.

Upon arrival in the city of León, the CJNG used the double strategy of hitting and negotiating. He seized territories in the hands of local mafias, but also invited some Leonese lords to join the crusade. The majority declined the invitation. It did not seem very attractive to give up newcomers the lucrative businesses and black money that had taken years to generate, defend and expand. But the CJNG would not accept a refusal. In fact, the possibility of joining them was not an option as such. It was an order.

On the other hand, the CJNG perceived a certain level of weakness in the local Leon mafias. Despite having decades being the absolute masters of the city, they had not expanded drug use. There was no local cartel as such, but an amalgam of small bands dedicated to different turns: drug trafficking, theft of vehicles, theft of cargo transport, card cloning, etc. Their lawsuits and disputes were ancestral. The only thing that could unite so many egos, and protagonists, was the growing awareness that they had to join forces to face a common enemy, who had every intention of erasing them from the map. Either they would join or the Jalisco would crush them completely.

The Union of León arises

That was how the war began for the city of León. The CJNG began killing local narcoenudists who refused to sell the coca, marijuana and synthetic drugs marketed by Jalisco. He first threw himself against small-scale distributors, but then began killing the historical leaders of the local mafias.

Characters such as Agustín Álvarez Gutiérrez (a) El Guty, were killed by professional hitmen brought from the north to do clean, accurate and accurate jobs. He was executed while dispatching at the Olive Garden restaurant of the Plaza Mayor Shopping Center. Another surgical blow would be countered against Gustavo Sánchez Reynoso, aka "El Jari ", dedicated for decades to drug trafficking, extortion and theft of vehicles. He was killed along with one of his brothers in a family reunion. Two years later, his brother José Carlos would suffer the same fate. A year earlier his son was killed while driving his BMW in broad daylight.

 

El Jari, El Guty, El Bule, Luis Daniel García Oropeza (a) El Naranjero, Daniel and Salvador Campos, Aurelio Aguayo, etc., all of them drug trafficking leaders in León, were falling under the fire of the CJNG machine guns. Placed from a position of strength the commanders of Mencho sent a new guideline. As documented by the journalist Sofía Negrete, from Milenio León, the local capos had only two options: leave Guanajuato or die.

But several groups of drug trafficking in Leon decided to fight. They formed the Unión de León, a kind of confederation of local criminal groups that would resist the invasion of the CJNG. They made themselves known through a tragicomic video, with a set design and speech with which they claimed their origin Leon and made a call to defend the city. Since then, local drug gangs and the CJNG have killed police and lawyers, drug dealers and taxi drivers, drug trafficking partners and drug lord owners.

As in Celaya or Salamanca, the consumption of illegal substances has skyrocketed in the city of León. To finance the war, the groups in dispute have increased their activities. Although the cartels are the ones at war, the citizens are the ones who finance them. Large shipments began to arrive in the city. The number of investigation folders for drug-related crimes skyrocketed. León became another place in the hands of the narco.

 

But the conquest of the city of León has taken much longer than what the CJNG commanders had initially contemplated. Local mafias have three undeniable advantages. First, they know the terrain well. All neighborhoods, colonies, alleys, wineries and hiding places, know them as the palm of your hand. Second, many sector commanders and police officers maintain a historical relationship with the Leon mafias. Not only do they charge bribes, but several commanders are members with full rights to the cartels themselves. 

They defend the local mafias because they themselves are part of them. Finally, removing local mafias, in many cases involves annihilating families and entire neighborhoods. Lions do not like external control. The presence of an invasion army from the state of Jalisco is odious. There is a regionalism and a spirit of independence that prompts to take up arms against the invaders. They have not prevented the invasion, but they have hindered it.

Adolfo Enriquez

Against this background, the CJNG did not wait any longer and launched its hosts to occupy new territories. In the end, the Leon narcos were making strictly defensive maneuvers. They did not put the supply lines or the control of the city at risk. They are a permanent nuisance, but even many of the malicious murders that are committed in León are no longer the product of the CJNG war against local drug traffickers, but they are casualties that rebel Leon gangs are willing to have to resist the army of occupation.

However, in recent months the CJNG has scored many successes in the murder and extermination of narcomenudists from rival groups. The above as an unexpected and collateral result of the brave campaign of denunciation carried out by the activist Adolfo Enriquez Vanderkam. Adolfo is an activist who has put his considerable media skills at the service of different citizen causes. The last one has had an unexpected success. Using his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts, he has invited Leon citizens who have been victims or witnesses of a criminal act to provide details of them. Protecting the identity of the victims, he has put together the best database of criminals that plague the city of León. Publish on their social networks the names, nicknames, crimes they commit,

Citizens actively participate in the elaboration of this unique “crime map”. In any case, it surprises the passivity of the authorities to retake all this information that would serve without any doubt to put behind the bars at least the 100 main criminals of the city. But if for the State Attorney General's Office (FGE) or for the Leon police, Adolfo Enriquez's information went unnoticed (or was conveniently ignored), there were those who were not going to waste such valuable information. The CJNG has begun for weeks to retake the data that uploads to the social networks the network of citizens who collaborate with Enriquez. They detect individuals, activities and addresses and go for them.

Indeed, no one can blame Adolfo Enriquez for having links to organized crime. But it is a fact that the information that goes up to their social networks is an input to which the CJNG gets all the possible juice. They are the road maps that guide many of the night raids of the CJNG death squads.

We're coming to Pénjamo

The second beachhead that the CJNG established in the state of Guanajuato was in the municipality of Pénjamo. The arrival of the Jalisco people in the area coincided with the arrival of a PRI extraction mayor, Jacobo Manríquez Romero. To date he is remembered as the worst mayor who has ruled the municipality that Pedro Infante immortalized in a song. For the facts that concern us, we will only refer to one of your worst decisions. That is, the appointment of Hugo Tinoco as deputy director of the Pénjamo police.

Before arriving in Guanajuato, Tinoco held several positions in border cities in the north of the country. According to Jesús Blancornelas, journalist and director of the legendary weekly Zeta, Tinoco spent several years on the payroll of the bloodthirsty brothers Arellano Felix, leaders of the Tijuana cartel. 

Although it is true that in the final stretch of the triennium of the panista Eduardo Luna, there was an increase in the crime incidence, during the time of the binomial formed by Jacobo-Tinoco, a long night of violence and death for the Penjamenses began.

From 2012 to 2015 the municipal police underwent a transformation rarely seen. At the start of the government of Jacobo Manríquez, the Pénjamo police worked for drug traffickers and Michoacan groups. It began to be infiltrated little by little by the CJNG. For the last year of the government of Jacob, the Penjamense police were already working for the CJNG, although there were elements of the municipal police that remained faithful to the Michoacan cartels. A radical 180 degree turn.

The turning point occurred in 2014. Federal forces, led by a Navy squad, captured Martín Soto Chávez (a) El Pony, top leader of the Michoacan Family, in the vicinity of Mitad de Noria. On the ranch of his property there was a racecourse, where horse races were held on weekends that members of the first circle of Jacobo Manríquez came to attend. The arrest of El Pony made it known at a press conference in Mexico City and before national media, the head of the National Security Commission (CNS), Monte Alejandro Rubido García.

However, this "blow" to drug trafficking structures was not due to the intelligence work carried out by the federal government. The arrest of El Pony was achieved thanks to information that the CJNG leaked to the PGR about the location, properties, routines and protection that El Pony enjoyed in the municipality of Pénjamo. Rubido hung the medal for the arrest of one of the last leaders of the Family. The CJNG gained control of the southwest of the state of Guanajuato. It was a good exchange, mutually beneficial.

At the time, the fight for control of Pénjamo placed the municipality as the one with the highest rate of malicious homicides in the state. To date everyone remembers how hostilities began. On the roundabout of the Lázaro Cárdenas Boulevard, an ice cooler with the head of a person who had been beheaded was found from the municipal seat. A few meters away was the rest of his body with traces of torture. The clean of the Jalisco had begun, a situation that did not push back the subsequent cells of the Family and the Knights Templar. Quite the opposite.

Attacking the CJNG rearguard

As in the municipality of León, the CJNG, although it managed to control a large part of the municipality, never managed to pacify it completely. When they were defeated, the Michoacán cells went into the Pénjamo mountain range, waiting for reinforcements, weapons and supplies. In the mountains, the Michoacán had been able to install narcolaboratories several times. When they were cut off the withdrawal by that flank, they undertook the flight to La Piedad, Numarán and other municipalities of the long border that Pénjamo has with the state of Michoacán.

It is necessary to recognize that the PAN governments had planned and prepared to avoid an invasion of drug cartels from the south. They resisted by all means to build an infrastructure that would allow greater mobility from Guanajuato to Michoacán. They built neither bridges nor roads for many years in the region. In the triennium of PAN Erandi Bermudez, they installed a SEDENA base on the federal highway Irapuato-La Piedad. 

But, above all, they built a “political wall” between the cartel of Los Caballeros Templarios and Pénjamo, financing and supporting the campaign of panist Ricardo Guzmán to the mayor of La Piedad, Michoacán. To get to Pénjamo and Guanajuato, the Michoacan drug traffickers had to seize La Piedad before. 

Once elected, Ricardo Guzmán did not yield to the recurring threats of the narcos. During the almost 4 years that his mandate lasted, he managed resources for large-scale works (two 4-lane highway drafts), cleared the municipal administration and had a government close to the people. The chief of the Knights Templar square, exasperated by the resistance offered by a popular and honest mayor of the PAN, ordered his death. With its physical disappearance and with the arrival of the PRI to the Pénjamo government, the invasion of the Michoacán into Guanajuato territory accelerated. 

But that did not last long, because soon the invasion of the CJNG began. The Michoacán had not waited so long to let their prey go, just like that. When they lost control of the municipality, they waged a war of guerrillas, harassment and attrition against the CJNG in Pénjamo. In addition, when the CJNG was braided in a fierce battle against Marro's troops, in the area of ​​Salamanca, Celaya and the Apaseos, the CSRL leader undertook a skillful military tactic. He began attacking the rearguard of the CJNG.

At the height of the war in the so-called “huachicol triangle”, Marro began attacking the rearguard of the CJNG in San Francisco del Rincón, Cuerámaro, León and Pénjamo. This temporarily relieved the pressure on the areas controlled by the CSRL. At first the Marro sent cells of armed men, but later began to open a system of "franchises." 

El Marro began recruiting criminals from the areas dominated by the CJNG who had not bowed in front of the Jalisco. He gave them weapons, park and money to start harassment maneuvers against the CJNG. They did not stop the advance in Marro territories, but they made it slower and more tortuous.

Pax narca, just a promise

The CJNG has flatly failed in the promise that it makes in a recurring manner, in narcomantas and videos. In them he says that he will kill local criminals, that he will annihilate thieves, kidnappers and extortionists. As part of his war propaganda he insists that under the domain of the CJNG, the desired peace will come for Guanajuato families. It has not been like that.

Neither in León, nor in Pénjamo, its two beachheads, the CJNG could impose a cessation of hostilities. On the contrary, both municipalities for several years show a high rate of malicious homicides that remains constant. The massacres continue. Only in a few municipalities under his control (Cuerámaro, Manuel Doblado, Huanímaro, Romita) have there been periods of peace that are suddenly interrupted by high-impact crimes.

The CJNG can live with municipal governments of different parties (this is not the case of the CSRL). But the Roman pax of its narco-imperium remains an unfulfilled promise, which leaves one of the few arguments that the pragmatists use to defend the war of conquest that the Jalisco undertook in Guanajuato.

Without being able to completely pacify the territories that it conquered, but with reasonable control over them, the CJNG set up its armies. From León, with a flank handle, they seized Purísima and San Francisco del Rincón. From Pénjamo, they undertook the conquest of Abasolo, Cuerámaro and Huanímaro. A third column advanced on Manuel Doblado and Romita. Except for Abasolo, they were relatively easy places to conquer. The problems started again when they reached Silao and Irapuato. The first outpost cells that came to explore the terrain were annihilated.

Shadow Group and United Cartels

It has been discussed for some time if there are more cartels fighting in Guanajuato territory. The detention of different capos of the Gulf Cartel, the Beltrán Leyva Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel in the cities of León, San Miguel de Allende and Irapuato is usually offered as evidence. For example, the excellent study carried out by LANTIA CONSULTORES (Overview of criminal organizations in Guanajuato) identifies 11 criminal groups operating in the entity.

Should not confuse "contacts and relationships" with "presence." 

The Union of León continues to receive drug shipments from the Sinaloa cartel. The CSRL receives drugs from Michoacan cartels and from the Gulf Cartel. It is common to find hitmen from Sinaloa in war zones, guarding shipments and arms shipments. That is, unless spectacular journalistic research proves otherwise, Guanajuato does not produce the drug it consumes. It mostly comes from outside. To supply the cities and metropolitan areas of Guanajuato, regular cargoes and a transport, storage and distribution network are required. But today the presence of other cartels in Guanajuato is aimed at supplying weapons, ammunition and drug shipments.

That is, there are two levels of participation in cartel warfare. On the one hand, there are the “fighters” (CJNG-CSRL), who carry several rounds above the ring, but in their “corners” are the managers (Michoacanos, Pacific Cartel, Zetas, Gulf Cartel), who attend the contestants, healing wounds, giving water,  and giving advice.

Even to distinguish "the drug itself" from the others, the cartels have already begun to use "brands" and badges. The first were the Michoacán. The piracy products that they sold among the tianguistas of Santa Ana Pacueco were marked with the logo of a butterfly, which allowed recognizing their "authenticity". Similarly, for some time, CJNG marijuana and cocaine have already been distributed in properly weighed and labeled packages.

The only documented presence of foreign cartels operating in Guanajuato is with the Cartels United group and the Shadow Group, from the Gulf Cartel that controlled Silao and Irapuato, respectively. Cárteles Unidos and Grupo Sombra form the foreign legion that supports the CSRL in its war against Mencho. They hit CJNG hard at times. They even questioned and tortured some CJNG drug dealers who gave information about safe houses and cargo. To defeat them, the Mencho was in need of sending one of its elite groups that had proven to be mortally effective in past orders in other entities.

With rapidity and forcefulness the CJNG Elite Corps arrested, tortured, killed and dismembered the leaders of the United Cartels and the Shadow Group. He revealed the complicity of the Silao police and Irapuato ministerial agents with El Marro. To top it off, he distributed the videos of the interrogations and the confessions of his members made under torture.

Silao and Irapuato are still on fire, but if they follow the direction of other municipalities such as Abasolo, San Luis de la Paz and Guanajuato capital (where the number of homicides has dropped significantly) little by little the pax narca imposed by the CJNG it will allow the inhabitants to return to the activities they carried out before the war. But if the scenario that is lived in Salamanca and Celaya is replicated, the medals that the elite group won in Silao and Irapuato, will have to be endorsed by new operations to finish the work they left unfinished.

Celaya, besieged city

As already mentioned at another time, the CJNG launched a direct attack against the city of Celaya for months. He not only sent an army of invasion, which arrived from Salamanca. He attacked the Marro cells stationed in that city, with a wide arch and rodeo that his troops made to attack from the Apaseos area. 

The cajetera city is being attacked from two fronts. Successive incursions of the CJNG, so far, have not been able to break the "heroic" defense that Marro has made of what he considers his city. The arrival of 700 members of the National Guard will undoubtedly have an impact on the development of the conflict. With some ingenuity the authorities think that perhaps the FGE, the State Public Security Forces (FSPE) and the National Guard will achieve peace in the city.

It all depends on the type of activities that the National Guard develops. If the Guard performs intelligence, counterintelligence and objective location, the war will intensify. El Marro will launch a counterattack to undermine the capabilities of his opponents, either in Celaya or in cities under the control of the CJNG. 

But if the National Guard only arrived to conduct patrol operations and deterrent presence, then those who will be prevented from continuing the offensive would be the CJNG. The presence of the National Guard would allow the CSRL to reorganize taking advantage of the ceasefire and a virtual truce.

Under any scenario, it is not possible to appreciate how 1,200 troops could end or impose a decrease in shootings, executions, collections and extortion that plague the city.

What would have happened if ...

After this long journey through several of the battles and theaters of war dispute, it is inevitable to ask a counterfactual question: What would have happened if the state government had fought with all its firepower CJNG at the beginning of its invasion of Guanajuato?

In which situation would we find ourselves currently if Governor Miguel Márquez had eliminated the beachheads that Mencho established in 2013 in the entity? In light of the subsequent events, it is clear that if Guanajuato had an opportunity to prevent the penetration of the CJNG, it was very early in the war. That is, when the invasion was in its preparatory phase. Any attempt to do so later would be doomed to failure.

It is also worth asking the opposite question, why did Carlos Zamarripa allow the CSRL to grow so much in the area of ​​Villagrán, Celaya, Salamanca and the Apaseos? How is it that nobody noticed the strength that José Antonio Yépez was accumulating, to the degree of financing campaigns and buying candidates? Why was a combat-negotiation strategy not established with him, if there were no conditions to apprehend him? Was the amount of bribes for subprocurators and commanders of the FSPE really so great that it caused a level of blindness that prevented them from perceiving that they were incubating an unmanageable conflict in the medium term?

Until a few years ago, both the PGE and the FSPE had the capacity to keep at bay and limit the criminal activities of drug trafficking groups such as the Zetas or La Familia Michoacana. For example, at the time of Juan Manuel Oliva, the state government had slowed and fought the growth of the PRD in southeastern Guanajuato. In the Government Palace, it was always known that the triumph of the PRD candidates in Acámbaro, Santiago Valley, Santiago Maravatío, etc., would bring with them the installation of cells from the Michoacan narco, who were the ones who normally financed the campaigns of the candidates of the Aztec sun . Even to return the "courtesy", the PAN operated with money, pantries, lawyers and political operators in the municipality of La Piedad Michoacán. If the narco-perredistas conquered Acámbaro, Guanajuato panism would prevent them from winning at La Piedad. It was the policy of an eye for an eye.

Even in 2011, in the triennium of the PRD mayor Gerardo Silva, the State Attorney General apprehended the director and deputy director of the municipal police of Acámbaro, arrested and disarmed all the elements of the municipal police and was nowhere to begin the process of dismissal of the municipal president, for his alleged collaboration with La Familia Michoacana.

What happened next? Where was all that forcefulness, speed and reflexes to fight the Marro first and then the CJNG? Perhaps we will have the answers to some of this enigmas indirectly in the unwritten memories of many of the actors who lived and starred in these episodes.

But there is still a story to tell. Faced with all these movements, war plans, attacks and counterattacks of the cartels, there have been similar movements of the State Attorney General's Office, the Public Security Forces, the Navy and now the National Guard. Unlike the movements made on the board by narco generals, the responses of the public security forces have always had a strong dose of improvisation, media imperatives to appease public opinion and in general they have been essentially reactive.

Those who are setting the pace of war are the barons of drugs, extortion and kidnapping. To each movement of the cartels there is a mirror action and response. But about the comedy of entanglements and mistakes that state and federal forces have made, in their operations of capture, deployment of troops and recovery of territories, we will refer to in next installment.