How Chapo Isidro initiated the downfall of General Cienfuegos

 By Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat

Mexico was not in partnership in the U.S. investigation and arrest of Mexican General Salvador Cienfuegos on Thursday night at LAX.

In the indictment, unsealed yesterday, albeit bare bones and will be superseded, it charges that Cienfuegos during the years of December 2015 to February 2017 with drug trafficking and money laundering in collusion with Beltran Leyva’s H2 cartel.  

During those years H2 was led by Juan Francisco Patron.  Patron was killed in February 2017, interestingly, killed the very month and year the U.S. seemingly alleges Cienfuegos stopped his criminality. 

Since he is charged with steering his military away from H2 and notifying H2 of any operations, he obviously betrayed the cartel.

Yesterday I posted the story of H2 who they were and their violent end in 2017 in an all-out effort by the military both land and air killing the leader and a dozen of his men (image below).

Chapito Isidro

According to the NYT the initiation of the investigation by the U.S. stems from the 2013 investigation of apparent BLO heir; Fausto Isidro Meza Flores, commonly known by his moniker El Chapo Isidro.

Isidro in the opinion of this contributor is the most intelligent, calculating leader ever in the drug war of Mexico.  It is his skills that have allowed BLO to continue with a heartbeat and profitability. He is BLO.

And he was proven to be fiercely loyal.  His loyalty has always been with BLO and the Beltran Leyva brothers.  When his loyalty was tested after the split and war between Sinaloa Cartel and BLO, both sides asked Isidro to stay with their side, he chose BLO.

The decision to side with BLO against CDS became a huge sword in the side of CDS, both figuratively and literally, as he led several victorious bloody match ups defending the last major BLO routes in Sonora.

Isidro and his enforcers Los Mazatlecos had the responsibility of protecting Sonora, Morelos, Guerrero and the Guasave region of the sierras for other groups allied in "La Oficina" such as Zetas and BLO, primarily against the advance of El Chapo. 

One famous battle occurred when El Chapo was making a fierce run for the territory in the battle known as the “Tubutama Sonora Balacera”.

Chapo had sent a large convoy of 40 vehicles with 80-100 gunmen on a cleansing operation.  Each vehicle in the convoy bore painted “X”s apparently to identify vehicles belonging in the convoy, ironically and inadvertently identifying Chapo's men for Isidros men.

In a cunning move, Isidro organized groups of gunmen, which included El Gilo and his men, that blocked the only entry and exit of the rural, tapered road on which the convoy was traveling.  When the convoy neared the city of Saric, the town adjacent to Tubutama, Isidro’s group opened fire on enforcers sent by Chapo Guzman.

The official number of dead was “21" at the scene, with 6 later dying from injures, although Mexican media sources set the number as high as 50.

Monterrey

For three years, the usually invisible Isidro had been living in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon in 2013.  Isidro’s family was not hiding, they attended church, school functions of his children and lived a normal family life.  His children attended a private school.

In January 2013 the US Treasury Designated Meza Flores cartel as an additional Sinaloa-Based Drug Trafficking Organization, images of the group were published with the U.S. announcement.

His family is spotted at a school basketball game, where another parent took cell phone video of Isidro’s wife and mother.  Both women were recognized after they were named and their images published in the Kingpin announcement by the U.S. treasury office.

The family left Monterrey overnight.  Isidro and his family have never been seen again. family.

Investigation

It was during the 2013 investigation of Isidro that agents, using wiretapping, learned about General Cienfuegos collusion with BLO’s H2 faction.  

The Times reports that although Cienfuegos was identified by agents, there was pushback from both the Obama and Pena administration who stalled the investigation.

But by 2015, the official said, the pressure to do something about General Cienfuegos increased. 

At least two separate American wiretaps began to pick up chatter about a powerful underworld figure who was referred to as “Padrino”,  connecting the dots agents concluded Padrino was General Cienfuegos.

From NYT:

“The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn has in recent months become ground zero for cases related to official corruption in Mexico.

Prosecutors there have not only charged Mr. García Luna and two of his former associates, Ramon Pequeno and Luis Cardenas Palomino, but have also prosecuted Edgar Veytia, the former attorney general of the state of Nayarit. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison last October for conspiring with the H-2 cartel.”

To read the full article I wrote about Isidro in January 2013 please use this hyperlink

Below air attack that resulted in the killing of  H2 leader Juan Francisco Patron