Newspaper El País Alleges RCQ Took Over the BLO Five Years Ago, Had Meetings With Mayo & Ivan Guzman

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Newspaper El Pais alleges that they received access to federal intelligence which reveals that Rafael Caro Quintero took over the Beltrán Leyva Organization five years ago and held meetings with El Mayo, Ivan Guzman, and El Guano. 

The following article is a direct translation of a story that was originally written by Elena Reina and published by El Pais on October 04, 2022.  

Army emails accessed by EL PAÍS reveal the narco's moves to shore up his criminal control five years before his arrest.

Five years before he was arrested by Mexican government forces at the request of the U.S. justice system, Rafael Caro Quintero closed important deals in the Sinaloa highlands to shore up his power. 

An Army document, which is among the millions of leaked emails from the Ministry of Defense to which EL PAÍS has had access, reveals that while the Narco of Narcos [RCQ] was on the run, the institution was aware of a key meeting where the drug lord "assumed control" of a rival organization and became lord and master of the coveted northern highlands. 

The Army recorded this and other movements of the drug lord in the years leading up to his capture in July of this year.

In the file called Reunion of Caro Quintero in Sinaloa de Leyva and Guasave -- two municipalities in the sierra -- there is a terse mention of how one of the founders of the Sinaloa group in the 1980s and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman's boss had regained power after being freed in 2013 by a scandalous court decision. 

Despite doubts that the old narco had dodged the remaining 12 years of his sentence –for the murder of a US Drug Enforcement Agency agent– just to truly retire from the criminal business, the Army now had solid evidence of how he was increasing his control over his territory. 

In 2017, in a hotel in Bacurato, in the municipality of Sinaloa de Leyva, Caro Quintero "assumed control of the Beltran Leyva organization," the document states. The narco's alliance with one of his historic rivals came during a time of power struggles following the extradition of former Sinaloa Cartel leader El Chapo Guzman, with his sons and former collaborators vying for control of the country's most powerful drug empire.

According to the report by the Ministry of Defense (Sedena), Caro Quintero established an alliance with Fausto Isidro Meza Flores, better known as El Chapo Isidro, the leader of the Beltran Leyva and a bitter enemy of the Sinaloa Cartel. The Narco of Narcos betrayed the agreements of the cartel he and his associates founded in the 1980s to expand his dominance in the mountainous area bordering the border state of Chihuahua, a strategic location for the cultivation of marijuana and poppy, the installation of fentanyl and methamphetamine laboratories and the transfer to the north.

The SEDENA organizational chart, as published by El Pais.

The file shows an organizational chart of the two criminal groups. The leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel (or the Pacific Cartel, as it is officially called) include the Guzman family -- with son Ivan Archivaldo and El Chapo's brother Aureliano, alias El Guano -- and the historic leader of the group who has never been arrested, Ismael El Mayo Zambada. 

In the middle, Caro Quintero, who was associated in that meeting with the Beltran Leyva heirs, where, in addition to El Chapo Isidro, Ávaro Guadalupe Carrillo Fuentes, alias La Lapa; Jesús González Peñuelas, alias El Chuy Peñuelas; Ignacio González Peñuelas; and Mario Alberto Lugo Lara, alias Mario El Calabazas are listed as leaders. The latter controlled the mountainous area of Sinaloa de Leyva in 2017.

After Caro Quintero's capture on July 15, it was learned that the historic capo never left his homeland and did not change his trade. His power, in fact, increased while he was on the run, according to the Mexican Army, although he did not make it public and his name was not among the most wanted or powerful drug lords in the country.

Despite the silence surrounding his return, other SEDENA documents acknowledge that the capo's emergence played a key role in the violence unleashed during those years in Sonora. 

On the other hand, the U.S. justice system continued to warn of the strength of the new Caborca cartel he led, and even so, it was the DEA's thirst for revenge for the 1985 murder of one of its agents, Kiki Camarena, that landed him back in prison.

The United States never forgave (nor forgot) the crime and they pressured Mexican authorities to recapture him. The US launched the highest reward for a criminal in history, 20 million USD. And now he is waiting in a maximum security Mexican prison for the final decision on his possible extradition.

Sources: Elena Reina for El País