La Linea vs Gente Nueva

By Buggs for Borderland Beat

After the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, El Señor de los Cielos and the escape of El Chapo Guzman from the Puente Grande Prison in Jalisco, the relationship between the leaders of both groups was fruitful for business. Vicente Carrillo Fuentes El Viceroy and Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes El Niño de Oro, joined the cartel federation led by Chapo Guzman with the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel that included, Mayo Zambada, Nacho Colonel, El Azul and the Beltran Leyva brothers.

But soon a friction began between Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and El Chapo Guzman. El Chapo accused the youngest of the Carrillo Fuentes of ordering the murders of people related to El Chapo and Mayo. Rodolfo Carrillo continued to take contemptuous attitudes toward El Chapo. Rodolfo was partying in Culiacan like nothing was happening, something that did not sit well with the people from Sinaloa. It is said that a Sinaloa state judicial police provided protection to Rodolfo Carrillo. Something that made Rodolfo feel untouchable.



At a meeting that was held in Monterrey, the capos of the Federation were summoned and one of the points was that El Chapo would file down the rough edges with the Carrillo Fuentes. At the meeting, El Chapo Guzman tried to shake hands with Rodolfo Carrillo, but Rodolfo left El Chapo hanging, refusing to shake his hand. This angered El Chapo, so much that on the same day he planned the death of Rodolfo Carrillo "The Golden Boy." El Chapo asked his bosses of the Federation Nacho Colonel and El Azul for permission to kill Rodolfo and El Azul gave the green light. Mayo Zambada assisted in planning and supporting the logistics of the murder.

Rodolfo Carrillo was a marked man, he no longer had a future in the world of drug trafficking. On the afternoon of September 11, 2004, Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes was with his wife and children in one of the movie theaters in the Plaza Cinepolis in Culiacan.  As Rodolfillo was leaving with his wife and children while being escorted by Pedro Perez, a commander of the judicial police and various other police officers that served as bodyguards, he was attacked. They were caught off guard by several sicarios who were staged in several strategic points with the aim at Rodolfo, who was not to come out alive. The sound of automatic gunfire raining on the intended target was immediate. El Niño de Oro and his wife Giovanna Quevedo were killed instantly as well as a car keeper. The children were unharmed in the attack. The commander made a call seeking help and a large segment of the judicial police arrived at the scene. There was a prompt reaction by the police that resulted in several operations, that resulted in confrontations with a group of gunmen in the city. At the end, the group surrendered but later, in formal statements given to authorities, it is said that the sicarios were executed by elements of the judicial police.

This created a controversy revealing the relationship between drug trafficking and police authorities. The corruption was starting to sink in known among the society.  Culiacan experienced a wave of violence due to this event. Deaths and abductions could be seen daily in cities in Sinaloa. In one of the meetings afterward, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes demanded of El Chapo Guzman the head of the sicarios that killed the Golden Boy, El Chapo refused.

It was then that the retaliation against El Chapo Guzman and his associates started. A good friend and collaborator of El Chapo, Miguel Angel Beltran Lugo El Ceja Guera was shot to death inside La Palma prison in October of 2004. The Revenge did not end there, on December 31, 2004 Arturo Guzman Loera El Polco, the brother of El Chapo was executed. At the beginning it was said that it was revenge by Osiel Cardena Guillen of the Cartel del Golfo who was in alliance with the Arellano Felix brothers, but sometime later it was discovered that Vicente Carrillo Fuentes El Viceroy ordered the execution for revenge for the death of his brother.

An assassin who had been sent to execute Vicente Zambada Nieblas El Vicentillo and one of Mayo Zambada's wives were also arrested. Mayo took her precautions by taking her son and family out of town. The confrontations returned to the city and the executions did not stop.

The drug cartels agreed that there would be no more violence between the organizations, the pact was carried out in Cuernavaca in 2007.

After several meetings, the quarrels between El Viceroy and El Chapo continued. Vicente Carrillo did not appear at the meetings he only spoke on the radio with Arturo Beltran. There was a rumor that El Chapo Guzman was bringing people to chihuahua with a plan to destabilize the state. El Chapo Guzman was claiming that an operator of the Juarez cartel by the name of Jose Luis Ledezma El JL, who was the second in command in the Juarez cartel and Vicente's right arm, was killing people of El Chapo on the borders of Sinaloa and Chihuahua. This is how one of the bloodiest wars in Mexico history began.

El Chapo Guzman sent a regiment of sicarios to Ciudad Juarez led by Noel Salgueiro Nevarez El Flaco to fight for the plaza and the entire state of Chihuahua. The first confrontations started around 2008 in the state of Chihuahua. El JL was to defend the front, he founded the group of Los Linces and Los Condors, from it, the armed wing of the Juarez cartel known as La Linea emerged.

From 2008 to the end of 2012 the city experienced one of the most waves of violence in the state. Both cartels engaged each other in firefights in the streets, murders in bars, restaurants, dismembered bodies outside schools and executions in funerals and churches were news every day. The violence was so intense that they ended up exterminating each other. Both cartels lost high-ranking figures, something that eventually led to a more discreet war, but something that most recently has come to light again.

In the first weeks of January 2008, the war in Chihuahua began to materialize. The high-impact attacks and murders were swift. Commanders, captains, directors as well as elements of the state and municipal authorities were executed on suspicion of belonging to the different groups.

They began to leave writings or narco-messages in mantas claiming or separating themselves from the incidents, some signed by La Gente Nueva while others by La Linea.

In 2008 Felipe Calderon sent military and federal forces to chihuahua to maintain the peace of the state, this only added to more violence, the confrontations between sicarios and the military raised the deaths that included sicarios, military forces and federal police.

The cartels started recruiting street gangs to carry out their dirty jobs. The Sinaloa cartel recruited Los Mexicles while the Juarez cartel recruited Los Aztecas, both groups had strong roots in the united states.

The Massacres of the War Between Gente Nueva and La Linea.

2008

• August 1 in Ciudad Juárez: 9 people riddled in the CIAD rehabilitation center.
• October 9 in Chihuahua: Attack in the Río Rosas bar in the Central Zone costs the life of 11 people.

2009

• March 4 in the Juárez prison, 20 inmates are killed during 150 minutes of a riot.
• September 2, a commando broke into the "Aliviane," a rehabilitation center, located in the Bellavista neighborhood in Juárez, where 17 people were shot dead while another died while being treated in a hospital.
• September 16 at the “Anexo de Vida AC” rehabilitation center in the Plan de Ayala neighborhood in Juárez, 10 people were killed.

2010

• January 30, an armed group attacked people at a party in a house in the Villas de Salvárcar subdivision, where 15 people, mostly teenagers - were shot dead.
• June 10, a commando entered the "Fe y Vida" center, located in the Villa Nueva neighborhood in the city of Chihuahua, and killed 19 residents.
• October 22, 15 people were killed in a house in the Horizonte del Sur neighborhood in Juárez.

2012

• February 4, at the "Far West" nightclub in Chihuahua, nine people were killed when attacked by an armed group.
• April 20, 2012, in the “Colorado” bar in the state capital, another attack was registered with a toll of 15 people killed.

2013

• March 28, at the “Mogavi” bar in the Central Zone in the city of Chihuahua, a commando broke in and killed seven people.
• September 22, 11 people - most members of a baseball team - were shot and killed in the town of Loma Blanca, near Juárez, where they were celebrating a sporting victory.

After these violent acts, an exodus of more than 230,000 people fled the Chihuahua cities, as well as more than 33,000 houses and businesses that were abandoned by the wave of violence.

The groups were fighting for the plazas of Ciudad Juarez, Batopilas, Guachochi, Nuevo Casas Grandes, Casas Grandes, Janos, Asencion, Ignacio Zaragoza, Galeana, Guadalupe and Calvo, Praxedis, Villa Humada, Madera, Urique, Cuahtemoc, Parral and El Valle de Juarez.

Members of La Linea Over Time and Plazas of Chihuahua.

El Diego

• Jose Luis Ledezma El JL or El Dos Letras. His whereabouts are unknown, it is said that he died between 2009 or 2010. The PGR (attorney general office) had him listed as an active element up until 2014 within the Juarez prison. He was the founder of La Linea and also of Los Linces group, the elite of the Juárez cartel.
• Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, El Diego, head of La Linea was arrested in July 2011. He ordered the massacre of the villas in Salvacar where 16 people were killed, as well as the attack on a rehabilitation center where 19 people were killed for belonging to the Sinaloa cartel. He was also responsible for the death of elements of the American consulate, the car bombs against federal forces and the murder of 1,500 people during his activity within the cartel.
• Jesus Armando Acosta El 35, operational leader of La Linea detained in Ciudad Juarez in July of 2010.
• Rogelio Segovia Hernandez El Royser, lieutenant of La Linea was arrested in July of 2010. responsible for homicides and kidnappings in the vicinity of Juarez, chihuahua. He received his orders from El Monico.
• Javier Gomez Rios el 8, leader of La Linea in the city of Chihuahua, arrested in July of 2010.
• Luis Carlos Vasquez Barragan El 20, operator of La Linea and of the same rank of JL. El 20 was arrested in July of 2010.
• Mario Hernandez Cazares El Cachitas, operator of La Linea, began to work with the JL in drug trafficking. He was detained in Lomas de Chapultepec in Mexico City.
• Luis Guillermo Castillo Rubio El Pariente, founder of La Linea. Together with the JL, he was captured in Cancun in 2012. He was a direct boss of El Diego.
• Pedro Sanchez, Arras El Sol or El Tigre, was arrested in 2008. He was the head of the plaza in Villa Smoky, right hand man of El JL.
• Juan Pablo Gijarro Fragoza El Monico or El H1, head of La Linea and of the same rank as El JL.

Following the arrests of lieutenants and high-ranking leaders, the Juarez cartel was weakened. After the arrest of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes El Viceroy, Vicente Carrillo Leyva, El Ingeniero, son of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, and the death of Rodolfo Carrillo, there are no longer any renowned leaders within the organization.

Members of Gente Nueva over time and plazas of Chihuahua.

El Flaco

• Noel Salgueiro Nevarez El Flaco, founder of Gente Nueva, was arrested in Culiacan in 2011 by Sedena.
• Jose Salgueiro Nevarez El Che, he stayed with the leadership of the Gente Nueva group after the arrest of his brother El Flaco but was arrested in Parral Chihuahua in 2012.
• Mario Nuñez Meza El M10 or El Mayito, head of the Gente Nueva who supported the activities of Chapo Guzman in Ciudad Juarez. Ele Mayito separated from the Sinaloa cartel to organize his own group, he was arrested in 2013.
• Enrique Lopez Acosta El Cumbias, head of sicarios for the Gente Nueva, was responsible for the attack in Creel. Chihuahua made that was videotaped and shown nationally. He was arrested in Chihuahua in 2010.
• Jose Fidel Mario Nuñez Meza El M12, brother of the M10 was arrested in October of 2013.
• Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo El Jaguar, operator and leader of a faction of the Gente Nueva, betrayed the Juarez cartel for quarrels with El JL.
• Efren Salgueiro González El Maniaco, leader of sicarios for the Gente Nueva, was arrested in February of 2012.

After an endless war, after 12 years from its beginning, the violence does not stop, the points of war remain in the Chihuahua plazas, as well as the Chihuahua border with sonora.

Currently there is a close relationship between the factions that face each other.

Today La Linea is currently directed by Jesus Sala Aguayo El Chuyin boss of the plaza in Villa Ahumada, he is the powerful source behind the cartel. El Chuyin took over the plaza after the death of Rafael Chavira Renteria El Borrego and the arrest of El Tigre. While the Chuyin was detained, Julio Cesar Olivas Torres El Sexto and Carlos Arturo Quintana Quintana El 80 maintained the leadership of the cartel. The cartel joined the new wave of the "new generation" and new appointments emerged, now known as the Cartel de Juarez Nueva Generacion.

La Linea suffered an internal fracture that generated the confrontation between Carlos Quintana El 80 and Cesar Raul Gamboa Sosa El Cabo, it is said that El Cabo left the cartel months ago and was looking for an alliance with Cartel de Guadalajara Nueva Generacion and try to take the plaza of Chihuahua from the hands of the Cartel de Juarez Nueva Generacion.

An escort of El 80 was beheaded and he was left in an ice chest on the road between Rubio and Cuahtemoc, this brought a series of confrontations between both factions. In one of the confrontations died Raul Gamboa Sosa El Cabo. El Cabo was ambushed along with three of his bodyguards. Snipers from the nearby hills are said to have been used, causing blockades and the use of heavy-caliber weapons left the bodies strewn on the road from Rubio to Bachiniva. The confrontation occurred on March 27, 2017.

After this attack people changed sides, the group eventually joined the Sinaloa cartel that founded the Gente Nueva del Tigre led by a lieutenant of El Cabo, his name is Julio Cesar Escarcega Murillo El 109 or El Tigre in charge of the plaza in Cuahtemoc, Chihuahua and Carichi by order of the cartel. The leadership was given to him by the El Cabo's brothers, Edgar Alfredo El 11 and Luis Enrique El Mulatas who helped in the confrontations in search of recovering the lost territories of El Cabo.

El Tigre was detained on October 29, 2017 in Cuahtemoc and thus Luis Enrique El Muletas was detained in Puebla by federal police and army forces. The group's leadership is controlled by Edgar Alfredo Gamboa Sosa El 11.

Meanwhile El 80 maintained a war on the border of Sonora and Chihuahua with the group of La Gente Nueva Salazar. This is for the control of plazas controlled by El 80. Los salazar sustained confrontation with El 80 in Urique, Nimiquipa, Bocoyna, Moris and Chinipas with the objective of displacing La Linea, for better control of drug trafficking routes. Los Salazars tried to blame the murder of the journalist Miroslava Breach to 80 but a informant in the witness protection program told otherwise.

Another group that came out of El Cabo was La Gente Nueva del Jaguar, commanded by Francisco Arvizu Marquez El Jaguar. El jaguar fights for the plazas of Madera, Zaragoza, Gomez Farias and Temosachic. On the other hand, El 80 has Roberto Gonzalez Montes El Mudo or El 32 who leads La Linea Madera and Nuevo Casas Grandes. In July of 2017, one of the largest confrontations between these two groups occurred, in the farming community of Las Varas that left more than 14 sicarios killed, vehicles and houses burned was the result.

The group of El Jaguar is supported by the group of Gente Nueva del M100 that operates in Agua Prieta, Sonora. His leader is Marco Antonio Paredes Machado and his son Marco Antonio Paredes El Junior. They provide support with weapons, sicarios and money to ensure they keep La Linea out of Sonora.  Martin Siqueiros El Tin Tin supports from Agua Prieta, while in Yecora Elmer Cordova El Plunas and Nacori chico supports Freddy Calles El Tolteca.

In March 2018, Carlos Aguayo El Chupon of the plaza in Yecora was executed in an ambush in Moris, Chihuahua. El Chupon belonged to the group of Los Salazar.

On May 17, 2018, El 80 were arrested in Namiquipa, that same day a great confrontation broke out in Yecora between the groups of La Linea and Gente Nueva.

The leadership of La Linea fell to Julio Cesar Olivas Torres El Sexto but months later he was arrested in Ciudad Juarez in an operation by the federal police and elements of the army.

The war included other points of confrontation in this case between Ruperto Salgueiro Nevarez El 37, Eddy Zafiro Ibarra El Zafiro, Antonio Leonel Camacho El 300, Lorenzo Antonio Morales Perez Tony Tormeta and El Chapo Calin against the Manjarrez brothers; Alonso, Cesar Daniel El H2, Homero El H7, Jose Alfredo El Harry and Eduardo. They are leaders of the group of Los H associated with La Linea fighting Cuauhtemoc, Bocoyna, Ocampo, Casas Grandes and Nuevo Casas Grandes associated with El 32. They fight the groups of Gente Nueva del 300 and Gente Nueva del Tigre of Edgar El Tigre Blanco or El 11.

H2 led confrontations against El Tigre, abducting and killing his father. These confrontations have brought terror and desolation for the inhabitants in the Taraumara region.

The war has made important changes, after the execution of El Chupon in Moris at the hands of Los Salazar for treason, this brought a fracture in the group of Yecora, of which El 80 and El Furcio were fighting for the leadership of the Bourne brothers and the Colorado.

The brothers Bournes, Noe 500 and Pepe Aguila joined the group of La Linea since Los Paredes and Los Salazar provided support to El 80 and El Furcio, who took charge of the group in Yecora. The Bourne brothers fight the plazas of Guaymas, Empalme, Ciudad Obregon and Hermosillo with Los Salazars.

After this fracture in 2019, once again there was an internal conflict, new alliances were made. In Agua Prieta, the fight between Martin Siquieros El Tin Tin and a Lieutenant Gildardo Nieblas Palomino El G3 arose, El G3 was expelled from Agua Prieta along with Freddy Calles El Tolteca. They then joined the group of the Bourne brothers of El 500 and El Aguila, at the same time El Tolteca formed an alliance with El 32 of La Linea to counter the attacks of the group of the Paredes.

El Jaguar suffered a blow when his brother was killed. Jorge Arvizu Marquez El Lobo was leader of Los Lobos that operate in Madera. He was executed together with his son Uriel Arvizu Ponce El Morito. They were caught off guard by a group of sicarios, there was a total of 19 people killed in the confrontation. The men responsible for the attack was El 32 and El Tolteca an old ally of El jaguar.

The pivotal point that symbolized this war was the massacre of the Lebaron family in Bavispe, at the hands of sicarios. Women and children were killed by gunfire directed by various sicarios positioned in the Chihuahuan highlands. The factor in the massacre really started on November 4, 2019 in Agua Prieta as there was a confrontation between three rival groups. It is said that the attack was perpetrated by Gildardo Nieblas El G3 and EL Tolteca, in retaliation for the actions taken by Martin Siqueiros El Tin Tin and the betrayal of Leonel Toscano Cuevas El Tigre. The active operations and confrontation sounded the alarms of sicarios in Chihuahua and Sonora that had been positioned in the surrounding cities of both states. The execution of the Lebaron family occurred because of a confusion of groups of sicarios who were moving on roads looking for adversarial targets, but as we know now, the SUVs were occupied by women and children of the family.

The group of Los Salazars, Los Jaguars and La Linea are to blame for this incident, but little has been said about the group that maintains control of that area, Los Paredes of Agua Prieta. Authorities took the initiative and an operation took place in Janos, Chihuahua in search for members of La Lina who participated in the execution. The boss of the plaza in Janos of La Linea was arrested along with 9 of their members, but so far, the investigations are supposedly ongoing, and ongoing by Mexican authorities and allegedly in support by the United States, FBI and DEA.

In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic experienced in the world, the drug trafficking groups united in support of the citizenry, so that members of the Gente Nueva del 300 distributed food pantries to people in the community, weeks later these same individuals were burned to death in a confrontation.

The last blow happened in Jimenez, Chihuahua where an alleged leader of the region named El Mocho or El Fresa was detained. This unleashed a wave of violence against state authorities in retaliation for the arrest. In Cuauhtemoc they executed two people after a confrontation. Both events were videotaped.

Both groups adopted strategies of terror, narco-messages painted on walls, video recordings showing their power of heavy weapons and the large amount of personnel, videos of incursions into enemy territories, videos of people being questioned and then executed, narcomantas that denounced the relationship of authorities with leaders of both groups.

Clashes, executions, uprisings, torture, beheadings have devastated the state of Chihuahua, the number of dead officers stands out during this war, the threats to city mayors and governors set the political climate in the state.

The endless war between the Sinaloa cartel and the Juarez cartel has resulted in the largest statistics of deaths worldwide, even more in comparison to the Iraq war.