The 42 Criminals That Brutalize The Capital

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

With the homicides multiplying, amid criticism for the lack of control and poor coordination to avoid the bloodbath in the Valley and the unstoppable entry of "Los Chapitos" into Baja California through the Mexicali area, authorities integrated into the Mesas of Coordination identify the main generators of violence: 39 men and three women, the majority belonging to two criminal cells. Only three of the alleged criminals have arrest warrants

The entry of "Los Chapitos", Jesús Alfredo and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, into the struggle for the territory criminally controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexicali, increased the homicidal violence in the Baja California capital.

Of 149 murders perpetrated in 2019 in Mexicali, they reached 211 violent deaths in 2020, which meant an increase of 42%. The number of corpses continued to grow by 38% the following year, reaching 292 homicides in 2021.

The current year does not look better, when comparing the first quarter -from December to February- of the administration of Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda, the 77 murders are 50% more than the 51 victims recorded in the same period of 2021. In fact, the first eight days of March, the agents already counted six deaths.

Although the conflict between cells of the Sinaloa Cartel covers all of Mexicali, the bloodiest confrontation is taking place in the Mexicali Valley, where the drug routes exist through flights, because the strongest attack of "La Chapiza" comes from Sonora. Many of the homicidal operations are from entry to exit, through San Luis Río Colorado.

The areas with the highest levels of homicide incidence detected by the Coordination Table for Peace and Security are the communities of Durango, Hidalgo, Pátzcuaro, Tula and Puebla. As for the neighborhoods with the most deaths, Amplification Santa Isabel, Barrio Álamo, Castro, Centinela and Eligio Esquivel were identified.

Two of the leaders of the main cells were captured in this quarter.

On December 27, 2021, Mexicali municipal police arrested Felipe Eduardo Barajas Lozano "El Omega", identified as the ringleader of assassins for Alexander Sánchez Félix "El Ruso". The incidental capture occurred because the delinquent, intoxicated and conscious, started shooting in the air near the governor's house.

Luis Alfredo Garibay Félix “Güicho” was detained in an operation that began on the night of January 31, 2021 and ended on the morning of January 1, 2022; He clashed with his captors and was injured at his uncle's ranch, where high-caliber weapons were seized.

Prior to these arrests, the confrontation between the cells of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and "Los Chapitos" had caused a crisis for the state government of Jaime Bonilla Valdez and the prosecutor's office of Guillermo Ruiz; after thugs from the cell of "Los Rusos" from Zambada, in the border area of ​​San Luis Rio Colorado with the Mexicali Valley -on the agents side- wounded, in an incidental attack, on April 23, 2020, the escort of a businessman and member of the State Security and Investigation Guard (GESI). And the next day, on April 24, they killed the operator of "Los Salazar-Chapitos", Jorge Humberto Maya Siqueiros "El Vampiro", and injured the bodyguard Marcelino Monreal Ayala, when the alleged criminal was transferred by ambulance to Mexicali, after surviving an armed attack.

In this context, and in the midst of exchanges of criminals between cartels, the authorities integrated into the Security Tables, as part of the coordination work, identified the main generators of violence. Some were identified since the beginning of the year 2000, leaders who have not been apprehended, or, worse still, some who have been captured and released to continue committing crimes with impunity, but there are also new faces.

The corporations divided these generators of violence into three groups:

THE GARIBAY CLAN

They control the transfer and retail in the South Zone of the Mexicali Valley.

With several members in prison, this family with criminal activity since the eighties, has allied with all the cartels: Arellano, Sinaloa and, recently, supported by Los Mayos. According to the authorities, in this group, 12 are the generators of violence, and the recently arrested "Güicho" Garibay Félix was the most visible face of the cell, because he served as the "operational arm" for the brothers Manuel and Jesús Garibay Espinoza.

The first identified as a trafficker since the 1980s, arrested in 2010 and released in December 2014. He allegedly had a disagreement with "El Güicho" in the first quarter of 2021, for remaining impartial in the confrontation that his nephew had with "Los Rusos". ”.

The second, with various properties -a ranch, a gas station, some groceries, a place to stay-, has been pointed out by the prosecutors and secretaries of Security, but none has formally accused him. On July 9, 2020, Jesús Garibay filed an indirect amparo lawsuit against the state governor, under file 348/2020, for the state ecological tax that the Jaime Bonilla administration put on gasoline.

René Ledezma Jáuregui is the only one in this cell with an arrest warrant, he was the right-hand man of "El Güicho" and they are looking for him for "qualified homicide, qualified injuries, forced disappearance of persons committed by private individuals", committed on February 23, 2021 in the Colima and Chiapas I communities, in the South Zone of the Mexicali Valley.

The victims were four brothers named Martínez Camacho and José Fidencio Granados, who had decided to leave the Los Garibay cell. In the midst of criminal operations, a 6-year-old boy and a woman were shot. The crimes were committed with the support of Eduardo Molina Flores "El Zabe", head of hitmen of "Los Salazar-Chapitos".

As part of this criminal group, the government also identifies Javier Gabriel Mora Pino, classified as a cell leader, arrested in 2012 in possession of 2,900 doses of methamphetamine, 94 psychotropic pills, 78 doses of cocaine, 31 doses of crystal meth, and seven doses of heroin. In 2020 he was reported for not paying alimony.

In addition, as drug dealers and hired assassins, the following are being investigated:

* Erick René Contreras López “Bagre”. Arrested in 2012 with two other individuals for an arsenal in the Piedras Negras community, as a hit man for the late Manuel Garibay Félix "El Manuelón", who had ordered several deaths from prison, including those of some of his cousins. 

* Jose Carlos Camarillo Umaña "JC"

* Jose Roberto Contreras "Pelon"

* Gerardo Rodriguez Gonzalez

* Ricardo Rizo Rodriguez "Pelon"

* Jose Adam Curiel Lopez "Adancito"

* Oscar Parra Flores "Parra".

* Francisco Gabriel Campos Barraza "Cheeks"

THE RUSOS AND “OMEGAS”

In this cell, the Coordination Tables identified 16 members, headed by Jesús Alexander Sánchez Félix, alias Miguel Ángel Gaxiola Quintero alias “El Ruso”, who, according to the official report, has an arrest warrant for extradition purposes. Operator of "El Mayo", who heads the groups of the North Zone of the Mexicali Valley and maintains an internal struggle against "Los Salazar -Chapitos", confronted by Luis Alfredo Garibay Félix "Güicho" and the cell headed by Vicente Martínez González “El Guilo”, from which several members have been removed.

Its main operator, Felipe Eduardo Barajas Lozano "El Omega", was arrested earlier this year.

As head of the zone or corridor, but without further information and without arrest warrants in force, the security agencies refer to Nathanael Pérez Robles, while as cell heads and drug distributors, they have identified:

* Maximiliano Aispuro Álvarez "Max". Captured in December 2018 in possession of a long and two short weapons; he returned to the street, the same on January 11, 2019, when he was arrested with 500 grams of crystal meth. The most recent capture is from April 15, 2021.

* Edgar Genaro Olivas Beltrán, captured on January 12, 2019 with 250 grams of meth and a 9-millimeter weapon.

* Ricardo González Valles "El Corico". Former operator of "Guilo", arrested in 2008 and 2009 for vehicle theft, in 2012 for crimes against health, for qualified injuries in 2015, and injuries against minors and damage to a third party property in 2017.

* Cristian Alexis Mendoza Guillén "Plaga". Reported by his family as missing since 2018, in that year, the coordinated forces had him classified as part of the Sinaloa Cartel in the San Quintín area, in Ensenada.

* The sisters Tania and Blanca Cázares Rodríguez.

* Cristian Jael Barajas Lozano, brother of “El Omega”.

* Martin Elenes Araujo.

* Jesus Emmanuel Arreola Alcaraz.

* Felipe Eduardo Barajas Chaidez.

* Jonathan Pérez Arias “Indio”.

In the range of drug dealers and assassins, the coordinated group lists the following objectives:

* Eduardo Medina Perez

* Carlos Ivan Favela Cabrera

* Jose Carlos Astorga Nunez

“EL GUILO” AND THE AIRCRAFT ROUTE

Another of the cells, permanently mentioned in the Coordination Tables, is that of Vicente Martínez González, with a pending arrest warrant for robbery in 2005, and included among the main generators of violence.

He is a criminal leader with operations in the North Zone of the Valley, a strategic site for the landing of light aircraft. His field of influence includes Ciudad Morelos, Pachuca, Guadalajara, Mérida and Los Algodones.

As of May 2017, "El Guilo" began to feel the internal onslaught of Los Rusos, which is why there are unofficial versions that he has recently received and rejected invitations from "Los Salazar" and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel to leave the support of "El Mayo".

Currently the BC authorities do not have any of his group among the most wanted.

OUT OF STATE OPERATORS

The same investigation on insecurity in the Capital of Baja California included, as “local” criminal leaders:

* Luis Fernando Castro Villa "El Checo". Cartel leader, identified in the six-year term of former governor José Guadalupe Osuna Millán, after a failed capture operation carried out in 2013, in one of the neighborhoods with high purchasing power in Mexicali, in which only his family was located . He was never heard from again.

* Luis Enrique Fernandez Uriarte “Kiki. His criminal activity was exposed in the declarations of Jesús Vicente Zambada Niebla before the United States government.

And as group leaders and drug dealers:

* The brothers Jorge Alberto, Miguel Ángel and Aracely Fuentes Madueño. "El George" was arrested in 2009 in a drug store in the Vista Hermosa subdivision, accused by the Federal Government of Mexico as an accomplice of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. He was released and there is no further public information.

* Samuel Ibarra Peralta "Pia". Banished by Los Rusos, allied to "Los Chapitos". He operates the unloading of light aircraft from the Gulf of Santa Clara to La Puerta, and the Nayarit, Zacamoto, Durango and Cucapah communities. He executes extortions and fee collections.

* Eduardo Alarcon Guillen "Colorado"

* Israel Leonel Trigueros Munoz

* Emmanuel Everardo Serrano Salazar “Botas”

Also, as leaders of drug distributors and hired assassins, without public arrests or current arrest warrants:

* Jose Manuel Felix Aispuro

* Edgar Omar Amaya Ruiz "Seven"

* Armando Ojeda Rios

* Mauricio Alarcon Fiscal

AND THE UNWANTED CRIMINALS

In Baja California, the criminal activity of "Los Chapitos", Jesús Alfredo and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, dates back to before 2011, when the Southern District Court of California began the investigation that allowed them to file charges against the brothers in 2014. And a few dozen criminal associates, including the father, “El Chapo” Guzmán.

They place them in Mexicali as twenty-somethings from 2005, when the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control raised alerts against subjects they accused of "launderers", who were not arrested, such as Alejandro Flores, Luis Ibarra Cardona and Blanca Aguirre, a woman residing in Tijuana -with a history of fraud-, sister of Víctor Emilio Cázares Salazar -extradited to the US in March 2016-. The family was accused of moving drugs to Calexico, Imperial Valley, San Diego and Los Angeles, and of laundering money with companies in Mexicali and Tijuana.

Despite the fact that they are not used to being in the mountains like their father and they like to party, there is no further information or accusations in Mexicali against “Los Chapitos”, except for the alleged ownership of land that is currently no longer in their names.

The Guzmán Salazars didn’t make the news again in BC until they opposed the groups protected by their godfather “El Mayo” Zambada, after the extradition of their father in 2017. The assassins at their service began to try to maintain, recover and take criminal territories that the Sinaloa Cartel already had, although for his group.

The thugs of "Los Chapitos" -headed by Néstor Pérez Solís "El Nini"- and "Los Salazar" -led by Crispín Salazar Zamorano and his chief hit man Eduardo Molina "El Zabe"- decided to enter through the only criminal plaza identified as exclusive to the Sinaloa Cartel and, as of December 15, the United States government offers a reward of 20 million dollars for information that leads to the capture of four of the sons of "El Chapo": Ovidio Guzmán López; Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar; in addition to Joaquin Guzman. Five million each.

Zeta Tijuana