They said they were going to inherit their father’s throne in an agreed succession, but they have had to fight to the death. Hunted by the United States, pursued by Mexican soldiers, attacked by the captains of the Mayo – and even by Uncle Aureliano –, besieged by enemies outside Sinaloa. The Chapitos still retain, despite everything, great firepower to fight for long months for the crown that they claim to deserve as sons of Chapo Guzmán.
Of the four dangerous brothers, only two remain at large, the most violent of the litter: Iván Archivaldo and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, aged 41 and 38. The most wanted ‘narco juniors’ for sending tons of fentanyl to the United States. Both have redeployed their troops to wipe out those who intend to accuse them of the betrayal of July 25, when their half-brother Joaquín handed over Mayo in the perimeter of El Paso, Texas, where he was imprisoned by the government of Joe Biden.
But the task hasn’t been easy. Since September 9, war broke out between both factions. The Sinaloa Cartel was blown up. Los Chapitos have begun a purge of dissidents throughout Culiacán with the goal of rising to become the future most important criminal group in Mexico. Both factions fight over the three most lucrative black markets on the planet: weapons, drugs and undocumented migrants.
DOMINGA had access to a list prepared by the National Defense Secretariat in the previous six-year term, which tracked down 10 leaders who lead the Los Menores gang, as they are also known, in the midst of a wave of violence that is ravaging Culiacán.
A few days ago, MILENIO published the story of the 11 captains of El Mayo who are fighting against Los Chapitos. Now we bring you the counterpart.
These 10 leaders lead fighters with the soul of martyrs, have roots in strategic areas, high-level contacts; and most importantly, they have millions to fund their partners’ war, according to a source who shared this document produced in military installations. In alphabetical order, by last name, we review the deadly dozen that shelter the power of Chapito and Alfredito.
‘Los Chapitos’ receive weapons and mercenaries from Colombia
South American Jobanis de Jesús Ávila Villadiego is on the list created by the Army. In our country his alias is seldom known, but in Colombia the name El Chiquito Malo causes terror, they place him as the leader of the Clan del Golfo, the largest criminal organization in that country; infamous for its attacks on civilians with grenades, massacres and extortion of universities under the guise of a “semi-annual war tax.”
Last year the United States Treasury Department included him on the blacklist of economic sanctions and people blocked from doing business on American soil, due to his massive shipments of drugs that end up in the United States.
Arms trafficking in the United States is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
The leader of the Clan del Golfo provides Los Chapitos with weapons and training
Specifically, he was identified as an ally of Los Chapitos for sending weapons, money and mercenaries trained by the Bacrim – a Colombian abbreviation for the “criminal gangs” that emerged from paramilitary groups – to Sinaloa to train Mexican bosses in military strategies such as ambushes, extractions and lightning assaults.
According to the Colombian National Police, a conservative estimate of his fortune would be between six and eight billion dollars. His assets would see a substantial increase if his investment in the triumph of Los Chapitos in Culiacán becomes a reality.
José Ángel Cannobio Inzunza, El Güero. Only four years older than Iván Archivaldo. Together with his brother, Jorge Abraham El Bronto, he is considered one of the most astute advisors of the faction created by the sons of El Chapo. He began working with the son of Azul Esparragoza –co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel–. El Azulito is said to have convinced him to leave the luxury car sales business to enter the illegal drug trafficking business.
“On this list there is only another individual more violent than Iván Archivaldo and that is El Güero,” says the source consulted by this reporter. “When you see something horrible in Culiacán and say ‘oh, wow, I’ve never seen that before,’ it was surely his idea.” The military describes him as a man educated in international relations, fluent in English, skilled in business outside of Mexico and a low-profile millionaire who has funded political campaigns throughout Sinaloa regardless of the political party.
Jorge Humberto Figueroa Benítez aka El 27. He is 33 years old and occupies third place on the list. Journalist Luis Chaparro assured that this leader was the one who tied Mayo Zambada in the back of a truck to transfer him without incident to a plane that would take him to an airfield in Texas. “A group of men assaulted me, threw me to the ground and placed a dark-colored hood on my head. They tied me up and handcuffed me,” reads a letter attributed to Zambada released by his lawyer Frank Pérez.
The man nicknamed La Perris rose in the organizational chart to head of security for Los Menores in November 2023, when Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas was captured by the Armed Forces and his position became vacant.
On the 27th, he remained at the head of the armed wing ‘Los Ninis’ in Culiacán, but on September 22nd he left the city to operate remotely, after almost being arrested following an operation that the Army launched in Tres Ríos. On October 4th he again escaped from the military’s sights, which deployed elements by land and air to arrest him in Angostura, Sinaloa.
“Armed, dangerous and reactive,” is how he is portrayed in the military intelligence document. But “elusive” could well be added to his description.
‘Los Chapitos’ keep their fortune in cryptocurrencies
Mario Alberto Jiménez Castro aka El Kastor. His capture is worth a million dollars. The National Defense added into his file the portrait that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made of him last April: cryptocurrency launderer responsible for fentanyl trafficking. Since 2022, he has been an operator of Los Chapitos in New York, Boston, Denver and other American cities.
He is the head of a group of criminals who collect thousands of dollars in cash on American soil and then deposit those bills in wallets with cryptocurrencies controlled by other high-level leaders. He makes up a part of an ant operation that moves every day so that Los Chapitos do not lack money to continue their offensive. His economic power is reflected in one fact: between August 2022 and February 2023, he withdrew almost a million dollars in bitcoins and other virtual currencies in a single movement.
Samuel León Alvarado, El León, is the fifth leader, in charge of conquering Los Angeles, California, as well as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, a region plagued by smuggled fentanyl, but which has produced millions of dollars in profits for the Sinaloa Cartel. He represents the combination of power and money.
His arrest is also worth a million dollars for the DEA. In addition to being a skilled trafficker and warehouser of fentanyl, he is considered dangerous because of the social base he has around Culiacán: if the bosses are in trouble, his troops take to the streets.
Pedrito Loaiza N. Son of Don Pedro Loaiza, a drug trafficking legend and a man feared and respected, equally, in Sinaloa. Don Pedro is a distant relative of Colonel Rodolfo Tostado Loaiza, governor of Sinaloa between 1941 and 1944, as well as a trusted advisor to El Chapo in the battle to the death against Los Zetas between 2004 and 2008. He was a skilled drug trafficker by air and an old-school “philanthropist” who won the favor of neighbors by paying for their affection.
Pedrito Loaiza grew up with other children of Sinaloa drug lords such as El Mini Lic –son of Dámaso López– and Los Chapitos, with whom he forged a deep friendship. So close that in the trial against El Chapo, a former military man known as El Memín, Guzmán Loera’s private secretary, stated that this sixth leader was in high-level meetings to prepare the legendary escape of July 2015 from the Altiplano.
Pedrito not only operates in Sinaloa and maintains strict control over customs in Belize, he fights alongside Los Menores for the routes in the Sonoran Desert, which are also disputed by captains of the Mayo Zambada gang, such as Los Salazar.
The weapons that fuel the war of ‘Los Chapitos’
Juan Pablo Lozano N., El Camarón. The seventh leader and the only one on the list to have dual nationality. He is both Mexican and gringo. His capture is worth about 20 million pesos that would come out of the DEA’s checkbook. He is wanted for trafficking for Los Chapitos: he moves fentanyl, but his most important business is moving high-powered weapons so that the firepower of El Chapito and Alfredito never declines.
As the person in charge of the arsenal and ammunition, he has accumulated money and connections in American agencies. And thanks to his dual nationality, he crosses the border regularly with the help of corrupt officials in both countries. And if he doesn’t do it, his subordinates do, who sell weapons: Barret 50, M134 Minigun, AR-15, AK-47, grenade launchers, explosive drones and hand-to-hand combat weapons.
When he steps on Mexican territory, he supplies weapons to the other allies. Each armed wing is grateful for his arrival.
Óscar Noé Medina González, El Panu. Iván Archivaldo’s best friend, Jesús Alfredo’s protector, Joaquín’s former advisor –the chapito who handed over to El Mayo– and Ovidio’s former head of bodyguards.
El Panu, 41, is a security chief with a mission: to call on the social base to take to the streets in the event of a first-level arrest. In other words, he is the orchestrator of the “Culiacanazos” (a term used to refer to the chaos unleashed by organized crime in the capital of Sinaloa –or in any city– to force the government to release a Chapito –or any criminal– in exchange for not attacking civilians).
His power expanded when he adopted as his right-hand man his namesake Óscar Gabriel Martínez Larios, aka El Gabito or El 80, the leader of a regiment of young people who has adopted as personal enemies the other armed wings that defend El Mayo. He keeps a low profile, but he is just as bloodthirsty as his boss. Culiacán and Mazatlán are his stomping grounds. To such an extent that the singer of corridos tumbados, Luis R. Conriquez, has already dedicated a song to him that is part of his album Corridos Bélicos Vol 2: “El Gabito”.
Liborio Núñez Aguirre, El Karateca. The oldest leader – he is 67 years old – and ninth on the list. If El Mayo has Guano as an ally, Los Chapitos have El Karateca, who is in the Top 10 of the most wanted drug traffickers by the DEA.
His power is a bulging wallet, like most high-level fentanyl traffickers who do business in the United States. With his money he finances the activities of Los Chapitos, but his true strength is in his many properties in Mexico that serve as hideouts, safe houses, warehouses or decoys.
“The power of this man is very great. He can let them take away his houses or seize his warehouses in exchange for pacts with the government and nothing happens, he has a lot of money. He buys more, if the Army or the Navy takes them away from him. With his mansions he makes negotiations so that all his people are not touched,” says the consulted military source.
The last leader is a ghost. He has no name or surname, but he does have an alias: El Gavilán. The singer Peso Pluma recently dedicated a corrido to him in which he describes him as the leader of a group of ex-military operatives and dependent on “Los Guzmán”. There are versions about him, but not truths. The most accepted in Sinaloa is that he was trained in the ranks of the infamous Gil Acosta brothers, ‘El 200’ and ‘El 300’, whom the state prosecutor accuses of killing people as if Sinaloa were overpopulated. Some say he is a deserter from the elite areas of the Mexican Army; others that he has training as a kaibil.
His arrival reinforces the security of Los Menores in the capital of Sinaloa. The Mexican Army attributes to him that, hours after the last trip of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador to Sinaloa, a van appeared with eight corpses inside. On the white body the message “Welcome to Culiacán” was read.
A van with eight corpses was abandoned in the capital of Sinaloa
These are the supreme commanders of each armed and financial force of Los Chapitos in the most brutal fight they have faced so far. They represent the powerful arsenal with which they seek to win a war: people, money and weapons.
Source: Milenio
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