What Would The Sinaloa Cartel Have Gained If AMLO Had Won The 2006 Election?

Mica for cartelinsider.com

Members of the Sinaloa Cartel delivered 2 million dollars to associates of current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in order to finance his electoral campaign in 2006, according to disclosures by Anabel Hernández on DW and Tim Golden of ProPublica.

Both investigations point to members of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) having documented meetings between individuals close to the current president and drug traffickers, mainly affiliated with the Beltrán Leyva organization when they had an alliance with the Sinaloa Cartel, in order to negotiate financing.

While Anabel Hernández talks about Arturo Beltrán Leyva, aka “El Barbas”; and Édgar Villarreal Valdez, “La Barbie”; on the other hand, the ProPublica investigation includes characters such as the former lawyer of the drug lord who became an informant for the DEA, Roberto López Nájera, who was protected with the identity of “Jennifer”; Nicolás Mollinedo Bastar, former driver for AMLO; and other operators of the Tabasco-born politician such as Mauricio Soto Caballero and Francisco León García.

In the report signed by Tim Golden, it is mentioned that it was Pancho León, son of a mining businessman who at that time launched his own candidacy for the Senate, who organized a meeting in January 2006 with drug traffickers at a hotel in the tourist center of Nuevo Vallarta, on the Pacific coast.

ProPublica’s investigation indicates that the agreement between AMLO and the drug traffickers included the possibility of them influencing the election of police commanders in key areas, while the future president would not appoint an attorney general adverse to them.

Along the same lines, journalist Anabel Hernández confirmed that one of the aspects being negotiated was for criminals to have a say in the appointment of the head of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR, now FGR).

In 2006, the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico, largely dominated various territories in Mexico and had a presence in many parts of the world. In Mexico, their areas of influence mainly included the state of Sinaloa, where this group originated from. Additionally, they controlled significant parts of the states of Durango, Chihuahua, Baja California, Sonora, and Jalisco.

At an international level, it expanded its operations to the United States, where it became one of the main suppliers of illegal narcotics. It also established ties in countries throughout Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, primarily for drug trafficking and engaging in activities related to organized crime.

Several governments in Mexico have faced accusations of alleged ties to drug trafficking throughout decades. One of the most notorious is that of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), under whose administration there was a significant expansion of drug trafficking in Mexico. Although direct ties to him have not been established, his period was marked by the growth of cartels and associated corruption.

However, the government of former President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa (2006-2012) was characterized by having a security strategy focused on a frontal combat against drug cartels in Mexico, known as the “war on drugs”.

During his term, Genaro García Luna served as Secretary of Public Security, becoming one of the central figures in this strategy.

The Calderon administration sought to dismantle the operations of the cartels, resulting in a significant increase in violence in various regions of the country. Confrontations between security forces and drug trafficking groups, as well as clashes between the cartels themselves, led to a dramatic increase in the number of dead and disappeared.

The controversy arose when accusations began to circulate that García Luna, in charge of leading the fight against drug traffickers, was linked to organized crime. These suspicions gained strength when he was arrested in the United States in December 2019, accused of conspiracy to traffic drugs and accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel to allow them to operate with impunity while he was in office.

On February 21, 2023, he was declared guilty of five charges in a court in New York. This trial offered a glimpse into the complex relationship between the Mexican government and drug cartels during the Calderón era.

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Mica

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