Unorganized Crime: Families Dedicated To Poisoning Their Consumers

They are criminals without scruples or loyalties, entire families dedicated to poisoning their consumer clients with drugs to enrich themselves; they murder, kidnap, torture, extort and steal from those who get in their way.

These are the Mexican mafias that since 1989 had tried to operate with a monopolistic system, under the criminal control of leaders who decided, approved or rejected the commission of crimes, according to the needs of the criminal cells, trying not to “affect their interests” in illicit business.

A model of organized crime that was structured from 1978, after the death of drug trafficker Pedro Avilés and the integration of the Guadalajara Cartel, headed by Ernesto Fonseca, now 93 years old, imprisoned in 1985 and released in 2017; Rafael Caro Quintero, 71, arrested in 1985, released in 2013 and recaptured in 2022; and Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, 78, imprisoned since 1989 with a sentence that ends in 2029.

It was precisely at the end of the eighties, on the eve of the fall of the Guadalajara mafia, that Félix Gallardo tried to maintain criminal hegemony, dividing the country into zones and leaving them in the hands of a few families.

The Arellano Félix brothers in Baja California and Baja California Sur; the Juárez Cartel with Amado Carrillo; the Gulf Cartel of Juan Nepomuceno and Juan García Abrego, all of whom are now dead or in prison.

Of the largest group, the Sinaloa Cartel, in June 2014 there was unconfirmed news of the death of Juan José Esparragoza (75 years old); Hector Luis Palma Salazar, who was arrested in 1995, extradited and tried in the US, where he served a sentence from 2007 to 2016, when he was deported to Mexico, where he remains in prison under trial; Joaquín Guzmán Loera, captured for the third and last time in 2016, extradited and sentenced in the United States five years ago; and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, 76 years old, arrested at a US airport on July 25, 2024.

35 years ago, the instructions were to establish themselves as the most powerful drug cartel, each in their area, all at the same level, avoiding territorial invasions and betrayals. But their criminal nature overcame them and so they faced each other, and fell.

In the midst of these territorial drug trafficking guerrillas, more than 535 thousand people have been murdered between January 1990 and July 2024, according to figures based on the latest report from Statista GmbH, a German online statistics portal, and the numbers from the National Executive Secretariat.

This is how the last two bosses of that criminal gang fell: In 2019, Vicente, the son of Ismael Zambada, testified and with his statements handed over Joaquín Guzmán in the United States trial; on June 25, 2024, Joaquín, son of El Chapo, physically handed over his godfather “El Mayo” to the United States Government.

After this latest capture, there are no longer “capos of capos”, the era of the Guadalajara Cartel ended and the criminal intention to lead the so-called organized crime, shaken and fragmented with the capture of various leaders during the Felipe Calderón administration (2006-2012), which resulted in the emergence of new criminal leaders, or cartelitos, as analyzed by the co-director of ZETA, J. Jesús Blancornelas.

Today, what persists is a generational change of criminals, with the children of the bosses and those who were their lieutenants; also minor criminals, thugs who rose in the mafia organization of their cartel at gunpoint and bloodshed; and others like the also bloodthirsty Nemesio Oseguera, who after being an employee and ally of various mafias for more than 10 years, founded the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

There are brothers, there are children of the founding criminals, but the reality is that the Sinaloa Cartel, the mafia with the greatest criminal presence in Mexico and abroad, is left without a head and the authorities expect greater chaos and a long period of readjustment that would affect society.

Various public crimes have made it clear that the second generation of criminals and the thugs who rise up, tend to show their power and impunity, and to capitalize, at various times they have decided to kidnap, extort, and steal the businesses and companies of honest citizens.

Given the presence of several cells and various commanders in the states, since 2010 the Sinaloa Cartel has already found it difficult to maintain control. As proof, the more than 190 thousand murders in the administration of the President of the “Hugs, Not Bullets,” strategy, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a figure that places his six-year term as the most violent of the last six-year terms.

When some authorities were consulted, they expect – they haven’t prepared – for the reaction to the capture of Zambada, they visualize a greater atomization of the criminal groups, the emergence of new local criminal leaders, invasions, an increase in territorial disputes and a rise in homicides.

A week later, the tense calm continues in disorganized crime.

Source: Zeta Tijuana