Independent Drug Boss 'La Comadre', Ex-Associate of El Chapo, Awaits Sentencing in US Courtoom

"Morogris" for Borderland Beat

Luz Irene Fajardo Campos, alias "La Comadre" or "La Jenny", was reportedly involved in drug trafficking since 1997. She was arrested in Colombia in 2017 before she was about to take a flight to Mexico City. She was extradited to the US later that year.

Just when the world was focusing on drug lords like Rafael Caro Quintero, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) declassified a file in which it revealed how a woman from Elota, Sinaloa, was actually one of the leading traffickers in the Sinaloa Cartel.

According to court document 1:16-cr-00154, filed in a federal court in the District of Columbia, the defendant is Luz Irene Fajardo Campos, alias "La Comadre" or "La Jenny", extradited to the United States at the end of August 2016.

After being presented before a US federal judge, the defendant pleaded not guilty. Just like El Chapo did, Fajardo Campos also decided to face the United States judicial system and go to trial. US prosecutors presented several charges against her, including cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana trafficking accusations.

USDOJ spokespersons confirmed that Fajardo Campos was found guilty of drug trafficking charges last December, and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is currently expected to issue a sentence.

La Comadre thus became the last low-profile Sinaloan drug kingpin on whom the US government fixes its eyes on. Last month, the USDOJ and the US Department of the Treasury charged Sinaloa-born capo Jesús "El Chuy" González Peñuelas and his network of multiple drug charges.

In the case of Fajardo Campos, US prosecutors have pictures, videos and protected witnesses who gave their testimony against the accused, in addition to a series of audios presented before judge Brown Jackson where La Comadre is heard giving orders to her subordinates on drug trafficking operations that she carried out together with her children, and which would have been decisive in finding her guilty.

Considering that this type of evidence would undeniably find her guilty in court, La Comadre filed on a motion on October 2018 alleging a violation of her rights, since she claimed that US agents did not have jurisdiction to carry out such practices in Mexico.

However, the judge denied the request, arguing that such practices were necessary to demonstrate the level of drug trafficking carried out by Mexican drug traffickers.

"It does not matter that it happened outside the United States, the reality here is that it seeks to demonstrate the criminal conduct of certain individuals," Brown Jackson refuted.

La Comadre while in custody at the El Dorado International Airport in Bogota, Colombia, in 2017.

'Low profile'

According to a US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation, which lasted "for several years," Fajardo Campos operated for the Sinaloa Cartel, although she did not directly received orders from them.

There is evidence of how the defendant communicated with her cartel partners via text messages sent through a Blackberry phone and there are messages that are in the possession of the DEA and that date from April 2013 to September 2015.

Unlike other high-ranking drug traffickers in the Sinaloa Cartel, Fajardo Campos operated with a very low profile, at least until the moment of her arrest.

According to the DEA investigation, she directly negotiated the prices of cocaine in Colombia, and she also organized its transfer in small planes from South America, to southern Mexico and then to Sinaloa.

As seen in Chuy Gonzalez's case, La Comadre had not been widely reported in media sources and was relatively unheard of even drug cartel circles. Although she operated for the Sinaloa Cartel, her role was more of an independent drug trafficker.

“We never heard from that lady; the cartel bosses barely knew of her .. here in Culiacán you only hear the same old names," said an independent drug trafficker from Sinaloa who pays cartel tax to Los Chapitos to move drugs in their turf.

Since Sandra Ávila Beltrán, alias "Reina del Pacífico" (Queen of the Pacific), the US had not located a female capo like Fajardo Campos.

There are more women involved in the drug industry, but La Comadre's case is unique in the sense that she held a leadership role in a male-dominated industry.

Sources: Riodoce; Infobae

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