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Cover us!
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In 2019, the Mexican drug lord
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman
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was sentenced to life in prison
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after a decades-long effort
to extradite him to the US
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to stand trial.
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The long road that led Chapo Guzman
from the mountains of Sinaloa
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to the courthouse behind us today
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was paved with death,
drugs, and destruction.
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Convicted Mexican drug lord El Chapo,
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a federal judge right here
in New York City today
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sentencing Joaquín Guzman
to life in prison plus 30 years.
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The capture of El Chapo
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was hailed as the biggest apparent
victory in the war on drugs
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since the fall of Pablo Escobar
in 1993.
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Guzman had risen to power as
the figurehead of the Sinaloa Cartel,
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thought to be Mexico’s
and perhaps the world’s
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biggest drug trafficking network.
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But what actually is
the Sinaloa organized crime group?
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We kill people.
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But with a reason.
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Move in!
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Pure Sinaloa!
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This is how the biggest
drug trafficking empire
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in the world operates
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and why, despite all the millions
of dollars spent capturing him,
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its power has only continued to grow
since the fall of El Chapo.
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[THE WAR ON DRUGS SHOW]
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[THE SINALOA CARTEL]
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Drug smuggling
in Mexico’s Sinaloa state
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goes right back to
the roots of the war on drugs itself.
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When the US first banned
cocaine and heroin in 1914,
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it was farmers in Sinaloa
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who first spotted
the new black market opportunity
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and began growing opium,
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a trade that continues to today.
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This is the ball that provides
the gum and the heroin.
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This gets scratched with a blade,
and the heroin comes out.
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But it was America’s
cocaine explosion of the 1980s
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that fundamentally changed the
Mexican drug trafficking business.
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This is crack cocaine.
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It’s as innocent-looking as candy,
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but it’s turning our cities
into battle zones.
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In 1985, the giant Guadalajara Cartel
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was broken up into
three smaller operations—
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based in Tijuana,
Juárez, and Sinaloa—
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who immediately began
violently competing
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for control of Mexico's drug trade.
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The Sinaloa Cartel
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came under the broad control
of El Chapo Guzman
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and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
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But the Sinaloa groups
always operated
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less as a rigidly organized
command structure
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and more as a loose
network of drug traffickers
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who can work together and collaborate
as the situation demands.
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All the drug traffickers
in Sinaloa chip in.
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They know that the shipment
is going to arrive on a given day.
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The amount of money is enormous.
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From what I gather,
there were 50 kilos of fentanyl
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to distribute in
the whole state of Sinaloa.
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Their structure is more complicated
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and perhaps more usable
for adaptation
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than the structure
of other criminal groups.
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So the structure is one that
on the one hand
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has clear lines of command,
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but at the same time,
there is enough flatness to it
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that losing a particular branch
or particular segment of the network
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doesn’t bring
the whole organization under.
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Sinaloa were able to use this highly
adaptable entrepreneurial structure
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to outcompete and outlast
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rival criminal groups
who challenged them.
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Perhaps the best example of
this was when, in 2010,
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a new cartel called Los Zetas
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challenged the established
trafficking groups,
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bringing almost paramilitary levels
of violence to the Mexican drug war.
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Los Zetas is a powerful and violent
criminal syndicate in Mexico.
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The cliché is plata o plomo.
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That is, silver [plato],
take the money,
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or plomo, take the lead.
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The group was formed by
soldiers who defected from
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the Mexican army’s elite
air-mobile special forces.
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The Zetas’ military-style approach
of seizing and holding territory
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allowed them to grow extremely fast.
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And for a time, they even appeared
to challenge Sinaloa’s dominance.
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But the Sinaloa Federation
had more established networks
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in international drug trafficking.
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And in the world of organized crime,
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nothing can compete with
the profits from drugs.
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These are members of
the Sinaloa Cartel.
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They’re picking up
packages of chemicals
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that have been left floating at sea.
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These are the raw ingredients
to cook fentanyl and other drugs.
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They find the floating packages,
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then haul them ashore.
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By 2017, even as El Chapo
was being extradited to the US,
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the Zetas were already falling apart,
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while the Sinaloa Cartel
was using its adaptability
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and capacity for innovation
to increase its criminal power.
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Once we reach land,
the merchandise is unloaded.
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We leave it.
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We don’t really know
who owns the merchandise.
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Everything is confidential,
even among us.
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The Sinaloa Federation
was also helped by the fact that
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authorities in the US
seemed to misunderstand
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the loose network style
of their organization.
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This is made clear by
the staggering resources
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and attention poured into
the decades-long hunt for El Chapo.
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We need to have the concerted effort
of both the Mexican government
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and the US government
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in recapturing Mr. Guzman.
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There's no doubt that El Chapo
is a fascinating figure.
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Born into a poor family in Sinaloa,
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he rose to control
a drug trafficking empire
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estimated to turn over
upwards of $3 billion a year.
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But it was a series of
dramatic prison escapes,
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one involving a mile-long tunnel
dug straight into his cell,
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that turned Chapo into
a sort of Mexican folk hero
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and the most important target
for international narco enforcement.
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This morning,
a massive international manhunt
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for one of the world’s
most powerful and deadly
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drug trafficking kingpins
is underway.
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This is the opening of the tunnel
from which authorities say
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Joaquín El Chapo Guzman
managed to escape from
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the Altiplano federal prison.
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El Chapo became perhaps
the world’s most famous criminal.
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The fact that he twice
escaped from prison,
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including maximum security prison
in Mexico,
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clearly with the help of
corrupt government officials.
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He was very purposeful
in cultivating the Robin Hood image
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of bringing drugs to the gringos
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and bringing resources
to poor communities.
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But of course, it is very rare
that toppling, arresting,
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or killing the leader
of a criminal group
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will bring down
the drug trafficking network.
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In fact, El Chapo’s imprisonment
changed almost nothing.
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For one thing, the Sinaloa Cartel’s
co-founder, Ismael Zambada,
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who always kept
a much lower profile than El Chapo,
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remains at large.
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And while there have been
power struggles
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between various factions
within the cartel,
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these don’t seem to have affected
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their ability to traffic thousands of
tons of drugs across the US border.
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Nothing has changed here.
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Drug trafficking will never end.
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They caught El Chapo,
but there’s already someone else.
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If they catch him,
someone else will take his place.
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This doesn’t have an end.
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In 2019, when the Mexican Army
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tried to arrest
one of El Chapo’s sons,
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the Sinaloa Cartel
took to the streets
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with military-grade equipment,
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effectively taking over
the state capital, Culiacan,
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until the Army backed down
and released him.
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Violence paralyzed the streets
of a Mexican city yesterday
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as security forces traded gunfire
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with heavily-armed
members of a drug cartel.
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The son of the notorious
drug kingpin El Chapo
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was taken into custody,
then let go.
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The ability to calibrate violence,
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to apply it when necessary
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but not go over the top
in the style of the Zetas,
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is also central to how the Sinaloa
maintain their cash flow.
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And the Sinaloa Cartel
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under El Chapo’s leadership
from the late 1980s
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made the choice to rule through
having support among local people,
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that, yes,
you will kill your rivals,
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but you are not going to shoot up
a disco full of people in doing so.
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People will prefer brutality
that is predictable and restrained
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to brutality
that doesn’t give anything back.
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The crucial skill that
set the Sinaloa Federation
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apart from other cartels
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is that while some
were buying heavy weaponry,
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the Sinaloa Cartel
were buying politicians.
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Do the police ever come by here?
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Once in a while, they pass by,
but they just go on their way.
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Many times,
we just give them some cash.
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Other times, they just ask for food,
and sometimes they want women.
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The current mass bloodshed
in the Mexican drug war
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originates in 2006,
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when the government launched
an all-out war on the cartels.
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The man largely responsible
for organizing that offensive
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was Genaro García Luna,
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Mexico's secretary of
public security.
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In 2019, García Luna
was arrested in the US,
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accused of taking
tens of millions of dollars in bribes
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directly from El Chapo,
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specifically to protect
the Sinaloa Cartel
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and target other traffickers.
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And Luna is accused of taking bribes
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from especially drug kingpin
Joaquín El Chapo Guzman
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while providing protection for him.
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US prosecutors say the bribes
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could be in
the tens of millions of dollars.
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So what does the immediate future
look like for the Sinaloa Cartel?
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They’re incredibly effective
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at capitalizing on
the opioid crisis in the US,
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expanding the supply of fentanyl
brought over from China.
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At the same time,
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they’re rumored to be expanding
meth export and production
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in both Europe and Asia.
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Since the transition post-Chapo,
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an innovator in building networks,
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relations in East Asia
with the Triads
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and now in competition
with the Triads
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in places like New Zealand
and Australia as well as in Africa.
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Things can explode.
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We use liquids and chemicals
that are extremely dangerous.
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An explosion can injure
or even kill someone.
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It can make you faint.
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It keeps you out of breath.
It attacks your breathing.
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Though they do face
new competition in Mexico,
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particularly from
the Jalisco New Generation Cartel,
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it does look like,
that for all the fanfare
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around the capture of El Chapo,
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the Sinaloa Cartel have adapted
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and will simply
go on making billions.
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We’d like to congratulate drugs
for winning the war on drugs.
