The saddest New Year for El Chapo: a murder, a loss and a betrayal

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat  Infobae

It was in August 2001 that Joaquín Guzmán Loera's brother,  was arrested in Mexico City. 

Better known as “El Pollo”, Arturo Guzmán Loera, had assumed the baton of the Sinaloa Cartel, starting in 1995, the year in which his brother was arrested. [correct year of arrest 1993]

Drug trafficking in its modality of collaboration to the promotion, production, traffic, and extraction of cocaine and amphetamines from the country to the United States, were the charges for which Arturo Guzmán was to be prosecuted. He was also accused of being a material author of the 60-meter narco-tunnel built for drug trafficking on the border between Tijuana and San Ysidro.

“El Chapo” escaped on January 19, 2001 from the maximum security prison in Puente Grande , Jalisco and it was not until September of that same year that the federal government got its first strong blow against the boss through the detention of Arturo Guzmán.

After his capture, Joaquín Guzmán looked for different ways for Arturo to be released as soon as possible and even devised a plan that was risky and implausible.

The plan was to fly over a helicopter through the courtyard of the prison where "El Pollo" was located, then lower a steel box so that would elevate Arturo to the helicopter for his escape.

El Chapo’s thinking is the steel box would serve to protect his brother from possible bullets that prison guards would potentially fire.

At the beginning of 2019 and as a key piece in the drug trafficking trial of “El Chapo”, it was Vicente Zambada aka “El Vicentillo” and son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who reported  to the Federal Court of the Eastern District of New York how Joaquín Guzmán managed to escape from the maximum security prison in Puente Grande hidden in a laundry cart.

He also narrated the escape plan that El Chapo had for his brother before Judge Brian Cogan at the Guzmán Loera trial, as he once confessed it in confidence.

However, the plan could never be carried out, since Arturo was killed with seven shots in the maximum security prison in La Palma, the murder of which José Ramírez Villanueva was reported as responsible, who was imprisoned there since 2002.

It was the Attorney General's Office of the State of Mexico who reported on the shooting of "El Pollo”, with the addition of three murders among the inmates of the prison, which  at that time was considered as one of the safest in the country.

The brother of "El Chapo" was shot with a 9 mm caliber weapon from which fragments were  found in his chest, abdomen and spine.

On December 31, 2004, Arturo Guzmán Loera, “El Pollo” died around 7:00 p.m. while he was talking to his attorney.

The case was turned to the former Attorney General's Office (PGR), being a fact that was perpetrated in a maximum security prison; therefore, the autopsy also occurred within it.

At that time, the prison in which "El Pollo" was located was one of the prisons that housed  500 of the most dangerous men in the country.

In order to determine how it was that the weapon that was used to kill Guzmán Loera entered the facilities of the penitentiary center, the Decentralized Administrative Body for Prevention and Social Readaptation, initiated an investigation in which it was confirmed that it was José Ramírez Villanueva who  committed the murder against "El Pollo".

La Palma

Arturo was considered a high-level criminal, primarily because he was alleged leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and his brother's liaison, "El Chapo", while he was in prison.

He was also considered dangerous because he was a participant in his brother's escape on January 19, 2001: and considered a “high-level assassin” by the United States authorities.

During his stay in La Palma, Arturo was segregated in a special detention area, which is why he participated in a collective hunger strike and after that, the authorities in charge of the detention center received an anonymous message that betrayed his escape plan.

His freedom was denied previously by the Unitary Court of Toluca when he was not allowed an amparo to be granted in 2002, which was against his formal prison order decreed by the Third District Court for violations of Federal Law in opposition to Organized Crime.

As for the fate of his murderer, José Ramírez Villanueva, he was sentenced to 42 years and three months in prison. He was found criminally responsible for the crimes of homicide and carrying an illegal firearm weapon for the exclusive use of the armed forces.

It is said that Ramirez Villanueva went to the bathrooms and took out the gun he had hidden in the bathroom  and then went to the cells  where the brother of one of the most dangerous capos in Mexico was and gunned him down.

One of the hypotheses about the murder of "El Pollo" rests with an alleged order of Osiel Cárdenas, who ordered his rivals to be executed, even while in prison and in order to continue to command the Gulf cartel.

[According to the information in the case, José Ramírez Villanueva was forced - through letters and direct threats against him and his family - to kill the younger brother of El Chapo Guzmán, and who was designated as the leader of the Sinaloa cartel during the time that his brother was imprisoned in the prison of Puente Grande, Jalisco, until he escaped in January 2001, when he left the leadership in the hands of El Chapo and became one of the main operators in Jalisco.]

Thanks to the site where Ramírez Villanueva murdered Arturo Guzmán, acts of corruption and coexistence were discovered between inmates of La Palma and prison authorities.

While this December 3, 2019 marked the 15th anniversary of the murder of his brother Arturo , Joaquin is isolated for life in a United States prison, after being convicted of 10 charges related to drug trafficking and organized crime, among other sentences.

As "El Ratón", Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Joaquín, enjoys freedom while remaining as leader of the Sinaloa Cartel , even after the operation of last October 17 in which he was arrested and then released "To avoid a major tragedy" after a series of mobilizations that took place by their allies.