Narco Labs: Relocate Closer to Metropolitans

"Mica/DrivingMSSQL" for Borderlandbeat.com Cartels cook drugs closer and closer to the country's big cities.

Of the 107 narcolaboratories insured by the Army so far this year, at least 20, that is, 18 percent, were located between 10 and 40 minutes from cities such as Culiacán, Ensenada, and Chilpancingo, not in mountain areas as is regularly the case.

In a review carried out by El Sol de México to the communiqués of the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) from January to September 2022, it appears that 17 of these laboratories were located in the vicinity of the capital of Sinaloa and were used for the production of synthetic drugs.

Two more drug laboratories were located and dismantled in the town of San Antonio Necua, 20 minutes from Ensenada, Baja California, and another in the community of Acahuizotla, 15 minutes from the capital of Guerrero. In the last quarter of 2022, the Army did not report laboratory insurers.

In previous years, the clandestine laboratories operated by the Sinaloa Cartel in that entity were characterized by settling in very difficult areas of access in the Sierra Madre Occidental, in the so-called "Golden Triangle" (between Durango, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua). Today, they are settling closer and closer to the city of Culiacán.

According to a report by the National Center for Planning, Analysis and Information for the Fight against Crime of the Attorney General's Office (FGR), which is part of the documents extracted from Sedena by the group of hacktivists Guacamaya, in the period from December 1, 2012 to July 30, 2019, 801 clandestine laboratories were secured in the country and 38 were yet to be confirmed

88 percent of these were in hard-to-reach areas, mountains and ravines, six percent in homes, ranches or wineries, three percent on public roads and the remaining three percent on dirt roads, gaps or places.

Of the 95 laboratory insurances in Sinaloa so far this year, 48 are located in the municipality of Culiacán and 17 in places that are 10 to 40 minutes from the state capital.

The towns near the capital of Sinaloa in which elements of the Army have carried out operations to dismantle clandestine laboratories - where substances such as fentanyl and methamphetamine are produced - are Palo Verde, 15 minutes from the center of Culiacán to the northeast.

The community of Carrizalejo, 10 minutes from the center of the capital of Sinaloa, to the west, and five minutes from the Ninth Military Zone.

The Army has also dismantled laboratories of the criminal group headed by Ismael Zambada García, El Mayo, and the sons of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, El Chapo, known as Los Chapitos, in the town of Sanalona, 30 minutes from Culiacán to the north.

Other communities where these operations have taken place are San José, 15 minutes from the center of Culiacán de Rosales and 10 minutes from the Military Zone, and in Alcoyonqui, 20 minutes from the center of Culiacán and 10 minutes from the Ninth Military Zone.

Data from the FGR that it publishes in the National Transparency Platform (PNT), indicate that drug laboratories have been dismantled in the community of Los Naranjos, 20 minutes from the northwest of the capital of Sinaloa and 15 from the military region.

In Imala, 30 minutes from the center to the northwest and 20 minutes from the Army barracks, as well as in Los Becos de Costa Rica, 15 minutes from the center to the south and 20 minutes from the Ninth Military Zone.

Also in the town of La Carbonera, 30 minutes from the center of Culiacán to the south and 20 minutes from the Military Zone, and in the community of Cucuyachi, half an hour from the center of the capital of Sinaloa, to the west and 20 from the Army barracks

The Army also ensured drug laboratories in the towns of La Estancia de los García, 30 minutes south of the center of Culiacán, and El Limón de Tealleche, 40 minutes from the center of the Sinaloa capital, to the west and half an hour from the military region.

In the report Traditional and synthetic drugs in Mexico, presented by General Luis Cresencio Sandoval, Secretary of National Defense, on March 31 at the President's morning conference at the National Palace, it is pointed out that the chemical precursors with which synthetic drugs are designed in Mexico come from the Asian continent and are transported by sea.

He explained that these substances mainly reach the ports of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán; Mazatlan, Sinaloa, and Manzanillo, Colima.

The most commonly used chemical precursors by drug cartels, he said, are phenylacetic acid; phenyl-2-propanone, acetone, hydrochloric acid, methylamine, toluene, ephedrine, and caustic soda.

In the narco laboratory insured by the Army in the town of Los Naranjos, 20 minutes from the center of Culiacán, according to data from a contract signed by the FGR with the company Comercializadora Ecológica de Occidente S.A. de C.V., for the destruction of these substances, 57 liters of benzyl cyanide were insured.

In addition, 810 kilos of diphenylacetaldehed, 920 liters of acetone, 250 liters of toluene and 500 kilos of tartaric acid, among others.

In the case of one of the two clandestine laboratories insured in the community of San Antonio Necua, 20 minutes from Ensenada, eight organically synthetic metal reactors with a capacity of 200 liters were confiscated; six metal burners and two cylindrical metal structures.

The narco laboratory secured by the Army in the town of Acahuizotla, 15 minutes from Chilpancingo, contained five kilos of "a yellow pasty substance", three reactors for organic synthesis, four tubs with a capacity of 500 liters and 13 drums with capacities of one thousand, 200 and 50 liters.

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