Instagram star gunned down in brutal Mexican shootout after posing with AK47

https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...aria-Guadalupe-Lopez-Esquivel-La-catrina

What a waste of life...She should have been home starting a family etc...Instead she'll leave two heartbroken parents

She was part of a hit squad of the infamous CJNG, Cartel De Jalisco Nueva Generación the most powerful and vicious cartel in Mexico.

Can't really call them most powerful and most vicious, Sinaloa is "most powerful", CJNG and Los Zetas are right under.

https://lasillarota.com/estados/cjn...-22-entidades-cjng-estados-drogas/290604

CJNG holds more territory over there and may be on top.

That’s what people don’t know, they’ve quickly climbed up the ladder & became the strongest cartel of them all. They instill extreme fear into the residents of the states they control.

Cartel Jalisco has definitely surpassed Sinaloa in terms of territory in Mexico. They are active in almost every state and have been leading a war against El Marro in Guanajuato, trying to take over Michoacán from the Nuevo familia Michoacán, After Chapo, they cut a deal to get into TJ with old AFO guys. Hence, el cartel Tijuana Nuevo generacion. They have a deal to move product with one of the metros commanders (formerly gulf cartel before the split). Zetas split from gulfos around 2010. Talibanes broke off from them and Z40 a few years later. After Z40 and his brother went down the Zetas basically split by their respective plazas. Ciudad Victoria is old school zetas and nuevo Laredo belongs to the Cartel del Noreste aka the Treviño family faction. So Zetas are nothing like they used to be. Originally, they were 15 or so special forces guys doing security for Osiel. Now, they are an army of cracked out teenagers who make more money of extortion and kidnapping than drug dealing.

As for who has more power....CJNG or Sinaloa. Depends... Every thought Chapo was the singular head of the Sinaloa cartel. Now everyone says it’s been El Mayo all along. To understand how it works think of the “Sinaloa cartel” as a conglomeration of about 15 different families in Sinaloa. Some factions are more powerful than others and each has its own area of influence. There really is no “one” boss. 15 different people split a load that gets captured doesn’t hurt as bad as one guy taking that loss. Are certain factions more powerful than others, yes. In Sinaloa there’s Chapitos, Mayos, y Azules. The children of the major three traffickers who have now taken over.

CJNG basically used to be an enforcement wing of the Sinaloa cartel comprised of ex milenio cartel guys called los matazetas “zeta killers.” They came on the scene years ago by dumping 48 bodies of alleged zetas on a highway in Mx. Nacho Coronel gets killed by the military because he was allegedly trying to break off from Sinaloa. They kill him, but his faction goes to war on one side El Molca and the old milenio guys and on the other side El Mencho, then the Puerto Vallarta plaza boss. Eventually, molca goes down and El Mencho and his faction takes over. When Mencho takes over he kicks all the Sinaloa operators out of Jalisco. He stops taking orders from Chapo and focus his efforts trafficking.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of fighting over every border plaza Mencho and los cuinis (faction head by his wife’s brothers) focus on trafficking to Europe. For a couple years while they’re getting their existing plazas on lock they become billionaires flooding Europe and Australia with meth and other drugs. Then when Chapo goes down the second time they start expanding. That expansion hasn’t stopped, and they have become one of the biggest threat to Mexican national security. They have shot down helicopters, massacred dozens of police, executed politicians, judges, directors of tourism, anyone and everyone. When Chapos children were celebrating in Puerto Vallarta, Mencho has them kidnapped. He sends a guy named El Cholo. Mayo calls mencho to negotiate. A lot of threats a lot of yelling. Mayo tells Mencho if he kills Chapitos, they will kill his son El Menchito who was in Altiplano, the prison chapo escaped from. Mencho backs down after some more negotiations, but Chapitos convince El Cholo to eventually betray Mencho. Now Guadalajara is at war. It’s mencho vs cholo.

So basically, they are equally powerful all things considered. They both have endless supplies of money, and therefore an endless supply of gunman. I think I remember hearing in TJ you can get somebody clipped for like 400 bucks or something absurd. Life is cheap, and with endless funds both organizations can cause a lot of heartache. I think Sinaloa currently has better control of their own territory, but I think that has more to do with the culture of Sinaloa. Everybody in Sinaloa has relatives in this business. Culiacan is basically Park Place in Monopoly. Tremendous advantage for traffickers born there.

Thanks for the great info, I don’t read a lot about Mexico’s criminals but that surely was interesting.

more widespread it doesn't mean more powerful anyway

Thank you for this post. Very informative.

I agree. It's extremely difficult to determine who is more powerful. Just thought the article was interesting considering their influence in those states.

I have come to understand that it’s the government of Mexico that is cartel #1. Is there any indication as to which one or alliance the government prefers?

Prior to his arrest it was rumoured to be Sinaloa, can Chopo’s arrest change that? The history of cocaine in Mexico started as a Republic amongst Narcos. There was no TJ, Juarez, Sinaloa separate. I believe they were all under one guy, I forget his name.

The Ariano Felix Bros and Chopo were part of it with others prior to being enemies.

Correct. The big boss was Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo. He along with Rafael Caro Quintero went down for their involvement in the murder of DEA Agent Kiki Camarena. The government stepped in and told him to do something to avoid his guys going to war. So he broke up the Guadalajara cartel into a bunch of small ones. Mayo and Chapo got sinaloa, the Arellano Felix brothers got TJ, Amado Carillo Fuentes got Juarez, and the Sonora corridor went to Miguel Caro Quintero. Allegedly, Chapo and Mayo started sneaking product through TJ without paying piso to the Arellanos. Arellanos found out and threatened Chapo. Then one of Chapo's guys, Rayo Lopez, showed up drunk to a party in TJ for one of the Arellanos and Ramon the hothead of the group shot him dead igniting a war that would ultimately culminate in the shooting a cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo at the Guadalajara airport. They plastered Chapo's picture all over the news after that. He fled to Guatemala where he paid a general 1 million dollars cash to help hide him. The general took the money, then tortured Chapo for fun and sent him back to Mexico.

Awesome, Lords of the Skies was part of this I believe, Santa Muetre is what the Zetas were using as a tactic, but I believe they got it from Military types or something in Silicon Valley. It seems that Santa Muetre has spread all the way up the Western Hemisphere.

The Mexican government is no longer one monolithic organization. Once the PRI lost power in 2000 after having a virtual monopoly for 70-something years over Mexico, the government has been a lot more divided... much like how the cartels are much more divided. The old systems of bribery and corruption began to break down because people didn't know who to bribe and different groups started competing for power. So there seems to be tons of infighting now and the corruption is a lot less under control and more chaotic than it ever was. Essentially, controlled corruption under the PRI until year 2000 to total anarchy corruption now.

So, "the government" can't really prefer any cartel so to speak because the government is not one specific group. It's safe to assume all of the major cartels have powerful politicians and government employees in their pocket.

But generally, a lot of the old guard PRI politicians seem to be aligned with the Sinaloa cartel, who tend to be looked at as the more old school smugglers, as opposed to the military-like groups like the Zetas and CJNG. But, it would be wrong to assume the entire government is behind the Sinaloa cartel. The situation is far more chaotic than there being some invisible hand pulling the strings behind the scenes, controlling everything.

Excellent post! The thing about the different families in Sinaloa is spot on... that's why the cartel is often referred to as "The Federation". Also, there's a lot of analogies to Sinaloa being the Sicily of Mexico... with their decades of banditry in the mountains, etc.

That’s so interesting, seems like there’s a huge opportunity for someone/group to solidify themselves. Do you know how close any of the Cartels are to Pemex or Hugo Slim??

Mexico is a mess. What is in it for the CCIIAA to manipulate that country into being run as a narco state? After reading that, it seems like the only way to clean house is a civil war down there, a war between....someone, and the cartels. But then the CCIIAA would probably like that as thousands and thousands of civilians would probably be killed. The cartels would not allow the people in their territories to simply evacuate before a crack down. They probably try to kill anyone who tried to escape, in effect using them as human shields. Trump building a wall is actually the best thing that ever happened to them. If the Mexican president publicly supported such a wall, the cartels would probably put a hit out on him and his family. The wall isn't good for the cartel's business. Unbelievable. Besides an all out war against the cartels, what is the solution?

Branded beer and baseball caps as drug lord El Chapo’s family cash in

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ng-family-drug-trafficking-cartel-mexico

A wall wouldn’t make even a slight dent in the cartels’ operations because 95% of the illegal drugs come through legal ports of entry. That means smuggled through vehicles and semis through land ports along the border. The rest come in via boats, planes, tunnels, etc.

There already *is* a war against the cartels. All the war has done is lead to more violence, more civilians getting killed, and less stability in Mexico. Look at Mexico’s homicide rates before and after 2006, when President Calderon started the war. Mexico was far safer before.

Arresting or killing a top cartel leader like Chapo Guzman leads to more violence not less, because it creates a power vacuum and different groups then fight for control. And if the state is able to wipe out a cartel like the Zetas, a new cartel fills the power vacuum like the CJNG.

The illegal drug market in the US is worth over $100 billion per year. As long as Americans want to get high and continue to buy illegal substances, people will be willing to supply our drug habit.

This is why some people support drug legalization. I used to, to an extent, but no more. I realize that anything that harms children directly or indirectly, is evil. But the drug legalization side says that the only way to break the drug empires and get rid of the drug addicts, is to legalize the drugs. You get the dealer out of the picture, collect taxes, and the addicts kill themselves off. It seems so easy, but there are many reasons why we haven't yet taken such drastic legal action.

Mexico is still a great country for a holiday lots of Europeans go there. I would more scared of police then cartels though.

The Mexican beaches are beautiful. And you can get great deals on resorts.

Yes! I visit every year, but to the central part of the country... which for the most part is pretty safe.