The Sinaloa Cartel and the 'Shark Case'

 Steve C Borderland Beat  El Universal

Through the company Corporativo Pesquero Velázquez, owned by Martín Velázquez Cuevas, the Sinaloa Cartel was transporting cocaine from Costa Rica in frozen sharks that were filled with the drug and transferred from Central America to the Port of Progreso, Yucatán, to later be transported to Jalisco. This operation, for which they slaughtered tens of thousands of sharks, lasted several years, at least since 2009 when a first shipment of sharks containing cocaine was seized in Progreso, by the Secretary of the Navy, until 2017, the year in which he was arrested. and accused the fishing businessman Velázquez.

This operation, in which drugs were also sent to Houston, Texas, and other parts of the world was called the "Shark Case" and is part of the arrests and blows to the Sinaloan cartel, documented by the Mexican government. The fishing company that worked for the Sinaloan drug traffickers reported deposits of 272 million pesos from 2007 to 2019 and withdrawals in the same period for 1,783 million pesos, while in its tax returns, the Corporativo Pesquero Velázquez only reported the accumulative income of 6.4 million pesos to the SAT, from 2014 to 2018. According to financial investigations from the federal government, this company received in its accounts transfers of 139.2 million pesos between 2018 and 2019, resources that it triangulated by sending them to the accounts of an individual identified with the Sinaloa Cartel.

In an official report of the Mexican government, prepared by the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Ministry of Finance, details of the blockades of 1,354 bank accounts of 401 people linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, who had amounts of 233 frozen million 300 thousand 578 pesos and 77.8 million dollars. There are 77 family members on the list and the rest are businessmen linked to Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Juan José Esparragoza Moreno “El Azul”, all indicated on the OFAC lists (Office of Control of Foreign Assets of the United States) and in the Lists of Blocked Persons of the FIU.

Of a total of 871 targets that were related to the Sinaloa Cartel, 273 were identified by OFAC, 165 by the Lists of Blocked Persons, 250 through criminal complaints, and 77 relatives of the three Sinaloan capos. 

Del Chapo included 29 family members, among his 10 children (one of them Edgar Guzmán López, executed in 2008), his 3 wives, 4 brothers, 11 nephews, and a brother-in-law; by El Mayo21 family members were reviewed, including his 3 brothers, 1 partner, 7 children, 1 grandson, 2 brothers-in-law, 2 nephews, 2 daughters-in-law, and a legal representative of a company, all of them linked to 14 companies that were investigated; While "El Azul" they investigated 13 relatives, 2 spouses, 6 children, 1 daughter-in-law, 1 son-in-law, a wife of his nephew, and 1 sister, in addition to 23 financial operators and name men who ran 23 companies linked to the boss.

The report reveals that only 3,184 individuals with operations in the financial system were identified for Chapo Guzmán and that they had links with the drug trafficker imprisoned in the United States, while the Cartel as a whole had significant financial operations for 30 million pesos in the system banking national, international transfers 11.3 million, 69 million purchase of vehicles, 2 million in jewelry and watches and 88 million pesos in the purchase of property. Joaquín Guzmán mentions in an official document in the possession of this column that "He was considered the most powerful drug trafficker in the world, according to various international accounts," when he was arrested in 2016, then his extradition to the United States in 2017 and the trial and conviction to life imprisonment.

Financially - the report continues - Joaquín Guzmán Loera is referred to in more than 800 operations on behalf of other subjects, due to a customs operation in which the preliminary inquiry number 4058 / DGI / 93 dated March 3, 1998 refers, without requiring more data. Regarding the activity and the reports of Chapo before the federal treasury, he points out: "No fiscal or corporate information."

In the case of Ismael Zambada García, the report says, his name has not appeared in the financial system since 1997, despite the fact that he has two registered checking accounts and no annual tax or informative or third-party returns are located. He is mentioned as “leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, partner of Joaquín Guzmán Loera. In 2104, after the arrest of "El Chapo", he occupied the leadership of the cartel, controlling a large part of the heroin production in Mexico to traffic it to the United States ". They cite six different nicknames and aliases: "Zambada", "El Mayo", Zambada García Ismael Mario, Loaiza Avendaño Jesús, García Hernández Javier, Higuera Renteria Ismael andLópez Landeros Jerónimo, as well as 3 possible dates of birth in 1948, 1951 or 1952, and three places of birth: Costa Rica; El Salado in Sinaloa, and Guadalajara, Jalisco.

According to the UIF report, there are 14 companies that have direct links with El Mayo Zambada and his relatives: Autotransporte Jym, Business Administration Services, Leche Santa Mónica, Establo Puerto Rico, Estancia Infantil Niño Feliz, Fertilizer Saenz, Inmobiliaria Niebla, Jamaro Constructores, Lácteos Elaborados del Pacífico, Living 2030, Multiservicios Jevis, Nueva Industria de Ganaderos de Culiacán, Petrobarrancos, SA de CV, Production Pesquera Dona Mariela.

Of Juan José Esparragoza, whom the official report mentions as "the conciliatory narco " for promoting alliances between the cartels in the country, his birth in Chuicopa, Badiraguato, on February 3, 1949 is mentioned and on whether he is alive or dead, The FIU report says: "There are rumors of his death since June 2014, when it was said that he had died of a heart attack (information has not been corroborated)." Financially, they identified 3 bank accounts, one in Seguros Inbursa, which registered in 2013 and 2014 bank interest for 8,049 pesos, another in BBVA where direct debit payments of 1,010 pesos are observed in 2018 and in 2013 the sale of a property of 2.1 million pesos together with Maria Antonia Esparragoza Moreno, acquired by María del Rosario Arana Esparragoza and Nora Guadalupe Arana Esparragoza. Fiscally, it says, it began operations in October 1983 and has been suspended since December 31, 2009, without annual tax returns.

To the companies that the authorities of the Ministry of Finance relate to Esparragoza Moreno "El azul" and his two families, the Esparragoza Gastelum and the Esparragoza Monzón, there are a total of 23 and there are from the Agrícola y Ganadera Cuemir, Agropecuaria del Volcán, Agropecuaria Sánchez Loza, to Constructors such as Aquasum, SA de CV, Avicultura Al Detail, Bona Habitat, SA, Concretos TYG, Construcciones y Edificaciones Linsesa, Indus Development of Tijuana, El Baño de María, Canary Service Stations, Grupo Cinjab, Grupo Impergoza , Grupo Isayas, Gasodiesel and Ancona Services, Alamos Country Gas Station, Villabonita Gas Station and Services, La Villa Gas Station, Materials and Recycled from Los Mochis, Petrobarrancos, Chulavista Services and Northwest Waste Transporter.

Other companies that have been investigated and sanctioned with the freezing of their accounts and assets by the UIF for their links with the Sinaloa Cartel are Agua Mala, owned by agricultural businessman César Bueno Martínez, dedicated to the "planting, cultivation and harvest of grain corn" , which according to the UIF investigations, acquired vehicles for 2.1 million pesos, in 2014 two trucks (one 725 thousand pesos and another one for 539 thousand pesos) and in 2016 another for 883 thousand pesos. This small agricultural company made bank deposits for 2.3 million pesos between 2003 and 2017, while it withdrew 9.3 million pesos between 2002 and 2018. Comercializadora de Granos Patrón, SA de CV also appears, dedicated to the wholesale trade of grains and seeds, in the that Bueno Martínez and his wife Angélica Pérez Maldonado are here. This company was alerted for being part of a group of companies investigated for the September 2008 seizure of dollars in Culiacán, and received between 2013 and 2019 international transfers for 112 million dollars from the United Arab Emirates , while it sent 28.1 million dollars mainly To united states.

Finally, the FIU report shows three mining companies linked to the Sinaloan cartel, which according to the authorities were “used as a bridge because there was never a permanence of resources” and were dedicated to dispersing resources in a fractional manner. There is Golden Qu, SA de CV and Silver Qu, dedicated to the exploitation of mineral deposits and to the mining of zinc and lead, respectively. Between 2011 and 2013, these companies had cash withdrawals of 20.9 million pesos and never filed federal tax returns, so the origin of their resources is unknown. 

The shareholders mentioned are José Armando Quezada Silva , Pedro Ángel Quezada Silva and José Armando Quezada Rincon . Impulsora Aurum, SC de RL also appears, which they link with Ruth Maribel Figueroa Delgado for having triangulated 2.3 million pesos between their own accounts and then withdrawing 6.2 million pesos in cash. This company is linked with transfers to Víctor Manuel Félix Beltrán, the operator of the sons of Chapo Guzmán , who escaped on January 29 of this year from the South Prison of the CDMX along with two other drug traffickers.