Phone Extortion in Mexico Continuing to Rise Despite Low Success Rate

 A new report claims the success rate of phone extortion is dropping in Mexico, but the fluid nature of this crime makes it difficult to prove.

Between 2013 and 2019, the number of businesses in Mexico receiving such extortion calls increased by nearly 22 percent, but total payouts diminished by over 15 percent, according to a recently published investigation by Mexico Evalúa, one of Mexico's leading public policy think tanks.

SEE ALSO: US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl

With a focus on the northern state of Baja California, the report looks at why the frequency of phone extortions has continued to rise at the same time that their success rate has seen a consistent drop.

Amid this context, Baja California ranked as the state with the fourth-highest level of extortion in the country, but with a success rate of just 6 percent.

Extortion attempts by phone often see business owners threatened by criminals, who demand payments of between 500 to 10,000 pesos ($24 to $480), the head of a Tijuana-based business association told El Universal. These schemes often involve revealing sensitive information and intimate details of recent activities to create the illusion that the victims were being followed.

InSight Crime Analysis

One of the longstanding criminal economies in Latin America, phone extortion may be seeing a drop in its effectiveness – a change that could be due to several factors.  

Mexico Evalúa notes the difficulty of accurately measuring the success rates of phone extortion, given the relatively anonymous nature of the crime. Authorities readily acknowledge that the number of victims may be far higher, since reporting this crime remains infrequent. Additionally, the percentage of victims paying up has long been pretty low, as those behind the extortion attempts, often prisoners calling from inside jail, make millions of such phone calls a year. One 2018 study showed that 3.7 million extortion calls had been made from just seven prisons.

The government has taken steps to reduce this type of extortion by simply blocking cell phone signals around Mexican prisons.

The public's awareness of how phone extortion schemes work may also explain the drop in the success rate. Traditionally, calls to victims involved threats of physical harm or kidnapping, but the Mexican government, and others around the region, have carried out prolonged media campaigns to raise awareness regarding extortion threats and how to report them.

Extorters, however, are changing tactics. According to authorities in Baja California, the threat of physical harm to business owners is being replaced by the threat of spreading fake news online about their company – most often by publishing false information about the businesses on a website called Noticias de México until victims give in and pay.

SEE ALSO: Coronavirus Affects Extortion Payments in Mexico and Central America

Authorities have also had some success going after the bank accounts used for these crimes. Mexico’s state Financial Intelligence Unit (Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera - UIF), which traditionally seizes bank accounts used for money laundering and drug trafficking, has made it a priority to track bank accounts used to receive money from extortion victims.

The strategy, though, may have spurred a new extortion scheme, which sees the criminals posing as UIF officials to try and obtain sensitive financial information used to extort victims.

While the success rate of extortion calls may be declining, Mexico's citizens will continue to be plagued by criminal gangs seeking ransom or extortion payments via unregistered cellphone numbers. The number of such calls has climbed rapidly, with nationwide earnings from this crime now estimated at over $500 million a year.

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Rafael Caro Quintero disagrees with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo over business

 

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Cartel Gunmen Take Out Surveillance Cameras in Sinaloa, Mexico

 

Cartel Gunmen Take Out Surveillance Cameras in Sinaloa, Mexico

In Mexico, gunmen have gone on a shooting spree of police surveillance cameras in the city of Culiacán – attacks that not only blind authorities but reinforce cartel control.

The shootings have become such a concern that agents with the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office gathered shotgun casings after the latest incident on October 9, news outlet El Debate reported. That shooting, on a bridge outside the city center, followed a September 28 attack in which armed men shot 84 cameras across the city.

Residents reported hearing gunshots at about 5 a.m. that day. Videos were soon posted on social media of shots being fired, which some mistook for a gunfight. Authorities said the gunmen moved around the city in at least eight vans. They also dropped spike strips in the roads to puncture the tires of police vehicles, according to a report by Revista Espejo.

According to city and state security officials, municipal police possibly aided in the security camera shooting spree. Culiacán Security Secretary Mauricio García Ramírez said at least four elements of the police’s prevention unit are under investigation for possible links to criminal groups, Revista Espejo reported.

Following the September attack, some 150 people employed in businesses around the city center did not show up to work out of fear, El Debate reported.

In early October, only 45 of the city’s 300  surveillance cameras were operating. Since being introduced in 2017, more than 1,000 cameras have been destroyed by criminal groups, according to Revista Espejo.

InSight Crime Analysis

Though there’s continued debate about the effectiveness of camera surveillance in deterring crime, there’s no doubt that taking these cameras out of service helps to intimidate businesses, hamper law enforcement, and assert criminal control over Culiacán’s residents.

The cameras serve as “the eyes of the police,” Security Subsecretary Carlos Alberto Hernández Leyva said in 2019 when a series of shootings left just 400 cameras in operation.

Their destruction hinders patrols and drains the state’s security budget.

Since 2013, the government of Sinaloa has purchased more than 2,600 cameras, investing some 236 million pesos (about $11.5 million) in the police surveillance system, according to Revista Espejo.

SEE ALSO: US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl

Despite the number of cameras destroyed, only one person has been arrested in connection with the attacks on the city's surveillance system.

The destruction of Culiacán’s security cameras certainly appears to be systematic. For this reason, it’s most likely the work of the Sinaloa Cartel, or gangs contracted by the criminal group.

Residents of Culiacán are no strangers to these type of power moves by the cartel. In October 2019, the city fell under siege as gunmen forced the release of Ovidio Guzmán López, son of kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera.

The ongoing destruction of surveillance cameras in the city serves as a reminder of the group’s omnipresence.

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US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl

 

US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl

The United States has sanctioned four suspected members of Mexico’s powerful CJNG cartel, alleging that they controlled drug operations at a Pacific port that is a crucial entry point for fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals from Asia.

Aldrin Miguel Jarquín Jarquín, Jose Jesus Jarquín Jarquín, César Enrique Diaz de León Sauceda and Fernando Zagal Antón are alleged to be members of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generació – CJNG) operating out of the Manzanillo port and surrounding areas in the state of Colima, the US Treasury Department said in an October 6 news release.

Treasury officials say the men “coordinate CJNG’s drug trafficking operations through the port of Manzanillo” and maintain contact with cocaine suppliers in Colombia.

The Jarquín Jarquín brothers, as well as Diaz de Leon Sauceda, are allegedly among the most senior members of the CJNG operating out of Manzanillo. They report directly Julio Alberto Castillo Rodriguez, the son-in-law of CJNG boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” according to the Treasury Department.

The CJNG’s “criminal success is partly due to its influence over strategic locations such as Manzanillo,” said Andrea M. Gacki, director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“This Pacific coast port serves as a significant gateway for Colombian cocaine and precursor chemicals imported from Asia, including those used to synthesize fentanyl,” she said in the news release.

It’s not just fentanyl products moving through Manzanillo. In early July, 50,000 kilograms of benzyl chloride, used in the production of methamphetamines, were seized at the port.

InSight Crime Analysis

Control of the port of Manzanillo is crucial to CJNG’s efforts to dominate the lucrative synthetic drug trade into the United States and the group’s expansion across Mexico.

A report, "Mexico’s Role in the Deadly Rise of Fentanyl," published in February 2019 by InSight Crime and the Wilson Center found that the port of Manzanillo accounted for the lion’s share of seizures of fentanyl precursor chemicals entering the country.

The CJNG, though, wasn’t always the dominant player in what had once been a sleepy port. In 2016, violence surged around Colima in a three-way battle among the CJNG, the Sinaloa Cartel and a faction of the Zetas. The CJNG was ultimately able to consolidate its control of Manzanillo by forging alliances with local gangs.

The CJNG was also positioned to deal in fentanyl, given its background in methamphetamine trafficking.

The group’s control of the port has been crucial to its swift rise as one of Mexico’s main fentanyl traffickers into the United States, according to a January 2020 US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intelligence report.

Combating smuggling at the Manzanillo port has become a priority of Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who visited Manzanillo himself as a show of commitment.  In January of this year, he gave the Mexican Navy, direct control of the country’s seaports.

The US and China have also worked together to crack down on the supply of fentanyl and fentanyl-related compounds. But halting the smuggling of fentanyl and its precursors is not likely to happen any time soon.

The shutdown of the Chinese city of Wuhan – an epicenter of fentanyl manufacturing – amid the COVID-19 pandemic led to the sourcing of fentanyl and its precursors from other countries. Meanwhile, criminal groups like the CJNG ramped up their manufacturing capabilities.

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In the Riviera Maya, Cartel Extortion Schemes Know No Limits

 In the Riviera Maya, Cartel Extortion Schemes Know No Limits

Despite the pandemic’s economic fallout being felt throughout the Riviera Maya, cartels have continued their extortion schemes in Mexico's popular tourist destination, where their operations have grown to target everyone from local vendors to large businesses.

The breadth of cartel extortion schemes in the Riviera Maya was the focus of a report published in late September by Mexico Evalúa, one of Mexico's leading public policy think tanks. The report highlighted a sting in which Quintana Roo state policemen posed as employees and security guards of a business to uncover an extortion ring.

Officials investigated a group that collected derecho/cobro de piso (user rights), one of the 12 forms of extortion recognized by state authorities. The operation resulted in police stopping a van, designed to look like public transportation, carrying the group's members. All were arrested on charges of extortion.

From costumed characters to high-end hotels and restaurants, everyone is a target of this widespread extortion. According to James Tobin, a member of the National Public Security Council, the extortion prices range from around 200 pesos (about $10) a day for individual vendors to anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 pesos ($1,200 to $4,900) for larger businesses.

According to Mexico Evalúa, the primary groups responsible for extortion in the area are the country's two most powerful criminal groups, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación - CJNG), as well as local group the Pelones. However, common criminals have also been known to pose as cartel members to shake down local businesses.

Additional extortion-related arrests in Cancún and Playa del Carmen underscore this scheme's prevalence throughout the Rivera Maya.

In recent years, the Riviera Maya has seen a rise in the extortion of resorts, along with a variety of other methods of extortion, including one of the world’s largest ATM scams.

InSight Crime Analysis

While the pandemic has slowed the tourism-based economy throughout the Riviera Maya, cartel extortion schemes have not only continued to grow but spread to target nearly all local businesses.

In Quintana Roo, derecho/cobro de piso ranks among the most common extortion methods, according to the state’s Secretary of Public Security, Lucio Hernández.

The state of Quintana Roo had the second highest rate of extortion complaints per 100,000 residents in 2020, according to the Quintana Roo Security and Gender Observatory (Observatorio de Seguridad y Género de Quintana Roo - Osege). In the first semester of this year, cases have been reduced by 62 percent, but 911 calls related to this crime in the same period have increased by 49 percent.

Yet, almost 99 percent of extortion cases go unreported.

The reasons for the lack of reports by victims of extortion are two-fold: a fear of reprisal and a distrust of the authorities. In this context, testimonies collected by these Mexico Evalúa investigations provide significant insight into the victims of these extortion schemes.

They also illustrate how these extortion schemes are being carried out – from threats over the phone to in-person visits to businesses, often involving intimidation or violence toward employees.

However, the prevalence of extortion schemes is not just unique to Quintana Roo, as Mexico Evalúa has also investigated and analyzed extortion case studies in the states of Chihuahua, Michoacán, and Baja California.

Nationally, there were nearly one million cases of extortion recorded in 2020 – with 1,821 out of every 10,000 businesses victimized. It's estimated that extortion costs the Mexican economy an average of 226,000 million pesos ($11.3 million) annually, or approximately 1.25 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

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Cyclones, Scorpions and Old School Killers - The War for Tamaulipas

Cyclones, Scorpions and Old School Killers - The War for Tamaulipas

It was so simple once. The Gulf Cartel and its ancestors maintained control of Tamaulipas for eight decades.

In the 1930s, Juan Nepomuceno Guerra smuggled whisky across the Rio Grande during Prohibition. The enterprise swiftly grew to all types of contraband. By the 1980s, this business had been formalized in the Gulf Cartel (Cartel del Golfo – CDG).

Federal prosecutors. Border agents. Police officers. All of them answered to the group’s leader, Juan García Abrego. Guerra’s nephew, Abrego, was the first Mexican drug trafficker to be included in the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted List in 1985.

This marked the birth of the US-Mexico border cartels.

It couldn’t last.

In the 1990s, the Zetas, a paramilitary-style group of former Mexican special forces, were hired to guard CDG leadership. The story of how the Zetas grew in influence and membership until outsizing the CDG – as well as the war that ensued and its ongoing impact on violence in Mexico today – has been well documented.

The Zetas’ betrayal began a pattern of units created as bodyguards or enforcers eventually trying to supplant their own leaders. As the Cárdenas Guillén family, which led the CDG and had recruited the Zetas, fractured and struggled to maintain control, different “units” were created across Tamaulipas, ostensibly to guard specific leaders or cities. In Reynosa, the Metros; in Camargo and Mier, the Rojos. In later years, the Ciclones (Cyclones) arose in Matamoros. The Escorpiones (Scorpions) were the private guard of Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, alias “Tony Tormenta.” After he was killed in 2010, the Scorpions went to ground in Matamoros and are now allied to the Cyclones.

Over time, the Zetas would also split, only worsening Mexico’s criminal fragmentation. But their successors have been fewer, with the Old School Zetas (Zetas Vieja Escuela) and Northeast Cartel (Cartel del Noreste) emerging as the main groups.

These names continue to haunt Tamaulipas to this day, engaging in a cycle of alliances and internecine warfare for control of what’s left of the united Gulf Cartel. Parts of Tamaulipas may seem calm for a while, only to fall into violence once again. Attempts to stop the violence are Sisyphean, with constant reporting of security forces arresting a leader of one faction or gunning down a commander of one another.

In recent months, Tamaulipas has been dealing with the aftermath of a June massacre that left 19 people dead in the city of Reynosa. The fallout has been confusing. The killings were allegedly carried out by the Cyclones and Scorpions to dislodge the Metros. One of those believed to be responsible was found murdered. The leader of the Metros was arrested by police, rescued in spectacular fashion by a commando of his own men and found dead weeks later. Then, the various warring CDG factions even signed a truce in July 2021.

Here, InSight Crime profiles the current status of the main players in the conflict with Tamaulipas:

Gulf Cartel Factions

Scorpions and Cyclones

The Cyclones are the Matamoros-based faction of the CDG. They have fought a long-running battle with the Metros in Reynosa, with both sides attacking each other’s strongholds at least since 2015. The Cyclones draw much of their influence from their control of the border crossing between Matamoros and Brownsville, Texas, along which drugs, weapons and contraband all flow, according to Borderland Beat. Since a flare-up of violence in 2015, the Cyclones seemed to have been pretty quiet until mounting the consorted attack, backed up by the Scorpions, on Reynosa in 2021. Five alleged members of this alliance have been charged with carrying out the Reynosa killings.

The Cyclones are also engaged in a war with the Northeast Cartel, a splinter Zetas group, for control of the municipalities of San Fernando, El Mante, Ocampo, Mendez, San Carlos and Ciudad Tula.

The Scorpions were founded after a fallout between two of the foremost CDG leaders, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, and his brother, Antonio Ezequiel. Created to stand up to the Zetas founded by Osiel, they were made up of former police and military personnel and stood out early on for their brutality and use of military-style tactics. After Antonio Ezequiel’s death in 2010, the group was believed to have been disbanded. But in 2015, in Matamoros and Tampico, a faction of the CDG emerged, calling themselves Scorpions Group (Grupo Escorpiones). They maintained their police connections as their leader was the former head of police of Madero, a city in Tamaulipas, before he too was killed.

Today, the Scorpions act very much in concert with the Cyclones. Some analysts describe the Scorpions as the armed wing of the Cyclones, viewing them as a single criminal threat. Their base is in Matamoros but messages left next to bodies confirm they have a presence in much of Tamaulipas. The June massacre, blamed on the two groups, marked the high point of a long and drawn-out conflict with the Metros, the CDG offshoot in Reynosa. This conflict has centred around control of the Pharr-Reynosa Bridge, an essential thoroughfare for drug trafficking between Tamaulipas and Texas.

However, the flurry of national attention and increased military operations in Tamaulipas seems to have contributed to a truce between the Scorpions, Metros and Rojos.

Metros

While the Metros were formed in Matamoros by Osiel Cárdenas Guillén back in the 1990s, their power base is now firmly in Reynosa and along Tamaulipas’ northern border in the towns of Camargo, Mier and Miguel Alemán. This control has lasted across several rivalries, as the Metros have been at the center of the CDG’s continued fragmentation. First, after the deaths and arrests of several Cárdenas Guillén family members, the Metros sided with Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sánchez, who assumed much of the control of the cartel. The Rojos, a rival faction that supported the Cárdenas Guillén clan were driven out of the border area toward the south of Tamaulipas in 2011.

In 2021, the Metros were the target of a campaign of violence by the Cyclones and Scorpions, culminating in the killing of 19 people in Reynosa last June. They signed a truce with the Cyclones, Scorpions and Rojos in July 2021 but alleged Metros leader, José Alfredo Hernández Campos, alias Comandante Calamardo, was found dead in September.

The Metros have also battled the Northeast Cartel for control of small municipalities between Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo. However, these appear to now be firmly in the hands of the Northeast Cartel.

Rojos

The split between the Metros and the Rojos in 2011 saw the latter come off worse. While their origins lie with the Cárdenas Guillén family, today they control less territory than their rivals in Tamaulipas. Their power base is in the very south of the state, along the border with Veracruz, centered in Altamira, Ciudad Madero and most importantly, Tampico.

They have engaged in sporadic violence but have seemed to mainly stay out of the recent violence focused on Reynosa. They were part of the Gulf Cartel truce in July 2021.

Panthers

Little has been reported of late on the Panthers (Panteras), a smaller CDG offshoot based in southeastern Tamaulipas. They were formed and led by Eleno Salazar Flores, alias “Pantera 6,” and were also made up of former police officers used mainly for assassinations. Following Salazar Flores’ arrest in 2014, the group went quiet. Their area of control currently covers the municipalities of Abasolo, Soto la Marina, Aldama and González. These form a crucial corridor to move drugs from Veracruz up to the border.

As few outbreaks of violence have been reported there, it can be assumed the Panthers maintain a neutral collaboration with other CDG factions in the state.

Zetas Splinter Groups

Northeast Cartel

The legitimacy of the Northeast Cartel (Cartel del Noreste – CDN) as the heirs to the Zetas is unimpeachable. When Zetas founder Omar Treviño Morales, alias “Z-42,” was captured in 2015, his brother Juan Francisco, pounced on the opportunity. The newly minted Northeast Cartel has become one of Mexico’s prime criminal threats, with a presence in key northern and central Mexican states where it is fighting prominent enemies, including the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG).

But the core of the Northeast Cartel’s power and revenue comes from its control of Nuevo Laredo, a key crossing into the United States, where eye-watering quantities of drugs are regularly seized. To the southeast, it has a presence in Mier, Camargo and Ciudad Alemán, where it has taken on the Metros.

The CDN’s armed wing, known as Tropa del Infierno (Hell Troop), rose to notoriety in 2019 and 2020 for a number of violent attacks on the CJNG and clashes with authorities.

However, drawing so much attention has not been a good thing. In 2021, Mexican security forces have hammered the CDN, killing a number of its members and arresting the leader of Tropa del Infierno in August.

It will also likely now come under pressure from more united CDG factions, which signed a truce in July and may choose to face off with a common enemy, the CDN.

Old School Zetas

While none of the Zetas splinter groups can hold a candle to the ferocity and membership of the originals, the Old School Zetas (Zetas Vieja Escuela) have tried their best. Beginning from a base in northern Veracruz, they have gradually spread across much of central and eastern Mexico in recent years, with operations in as Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Quintana Roo.

But one of their main objectives, much like their rivals from CDG, has been the control of Tamaulipas border towns. The Old School Zetas have been operating in the municipalities of Rio Bravo, Valle Hermoso, San Fernando, all of which area a straight shot up the Pacific coast from their Veracruz headquarters.

Their presence in Tamaulipas, to date, has been somewhat understated compared to their rivals. The Northeast Cartel, another Zetas splinter group, has been more proactive in carving out territory in the northern tip of Tamaulipas, especially in Nuevo Laredo.

However, that may change as it appears the Old School Zetas may have crossed the aisle and allied themselves with the Cyclones to take the fight to the CDN.

It is uncertain how the Old School Zetas will be affected by the truce between CDG splinter groups, which also seems focused on ousting the CDN

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'Narcos' Wagner Moura On His Role As Pablo Escobar | Los Angeles Times

 

 

Wagner Moura of 'Narcos' put on 40 pounds to play Pablo Escobar. Shedding the weight was part of purging the character. Credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it5FFr9EscE

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Accusations against Mexico’s Former Top Cop Grow in US Courts

Accusations against Mexico’s Former Top Cop Grow in US Courts

Evidence and accusations are piling up against Mexico's former top security official Genaro García Luna, as US prosecutors proffer new records in their case alleging he pocketed bribes from drug traffickers and Mexico demands the return of millions of alleged illegal assets.

In a September 29 filing in a New York federal court, prosecutors said they would provide Luna's defense lawyers with new evidence to be used in the trial against him, including Mexican government documents, US State Department records, photos and bank records. García Luna, who served as Mexico's secretary of public security from 2006 to 2012 under then-President Felipe Calderón, is accused of accepting multimillion-dollar bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for letting the group traffic multi-ton loads of cocaine into the United States.

The filing comes a little more than a week after Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera - UIF) announced its “first civil lawsuit abroad to recover assets related to illegal financial operations carried out by Genaro García Luna."

After leaving office, García Luna -- along with a former high-ranking Mexican government official, several business associates, a network of companies and his wife -- illegally obtained at least $250 million from the Mexican government between 2012 and 2018 through a “complicated unlawful government-contracting scheme,” officials alleged in the lawsuit filed in a Florida court on September 21. Those funds were then allegedly transferred out of Mexico using an “extensive” network in order to “hide the stolen funds in numerous assets” located in the United States.

US authorities arrested García Luna in the state of Texas in December 2019 on cocaine trafficking conspiracy charges and making false statements. He pleaded not guilty to the charges last year.

Shortly after his arrest, UIF Head Santiago Nieto filed two complaints against García Luna with anti-corruption prosecutors in Mexico. The agency alleged he used tax havens around the world – including the United States, Barbados and Hong Kong – to conceal more than $50 million in bribes he is suspected of accepting from drug traffickers.

InSight Crime Analysis

As the evidence in García Luna's drug case mounts, the latest allegations levied by the Mexican government point at suspected criminal activity exceeding what occurred during his time as a security official.

While US prosecutors allege García Luna used his role atop Mexico’s security forces to act as a key conduit for one of Latin America’s most powerful organized crime groups, Mexican officials said his misconduct extended to being the "principal architect" and one of the "ultimate beneficiaries” of a vast “money laundering empire” they dubbed “the Enterprise.”

Through suspected bribery, bid tampering and corruption in Mexico, officials allege he “used his influence with the Mexican government to override Mexican government contract and bidding procedures, and to ensure selection of his coconspirators for multiple government contracts,” according to the lawsuit.

Between 2015 and 2019, Mexican authorities identified at least 30 transfers totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars of allegedly stolen government funds deposited by the network into accounts in the United States that were then routed to accounts in Barbados. All of those accounts, according to the complaint, were supposedly controlled by García Luna and his associates.

What’s more, the group “engaged in additional racketeering activity” by using the stolen funds to “manage and maintain” the money laundering network through “international wire transfers, property tax payments, fee payments, and other payments to maintain, upkeep, and manage the Enterprise,” officials said.

García Luna was never charged with any wrongdoing in Mexico during or immediately after his time as a top security official. Only after almost a year of being detained in the United States did Mexican authorities even issue an arrest warrant for him on illicit enrichment charges.

The scale of alleged corruption, if proven, is not only egregious – it is shocking for a man once entrusted with designing and executing Mexico's assault on organized crime and drug trafficking.

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Narcos: Mexico Diego Luna & Michael Pena on the complexities and modern parallels in Season 1

 

Diego Luna & Michael Pena are interviewed for the Netflix American drug crime TV series Narcos Mexico, created by Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro. It was originally set to be series 4 of Narcos, but has been set up as a companion/sister show focusing on an undercover investigation into the illegal drug trade in Mexico rather than the Pablo Escobar cartel in Columbia. The series stars Ant-Man’s Michael Peña and Star Wars Rogue One’s Diego Luna, Matt Letscher, Tenoch Huerta, Joaquín Cosío, Teresa Ruiz, Alyssa Diaz, and José María Yazpik. They talk about binge-watching, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things and how they establish the world of Narcos. They also talk about this being a new beginning and how this new series fits in the Narcos timeline. Deigo Luna talks about the complexities of the situation - the politicians, the police and the military on both sides of the border - affect the world we're living in today. Pena talks about the legacy of 'the mob' and how we're seeing a return to that in the modern world - notably Donald Trump's wall. The series goes into depth about the nuances of the problems concerning the drugs trade and the health issues. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iEk7w9sf78

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Mexico's Geoduck Clams Latest Casualty of Asian Demand

Mexican geoduck clam populations are suffering as legal harvests are threatened by rampant poaching, which has driven the species onto the endangered species list.

The legal geoduck clam industry is steadily being pushed out by poachers who operate with little fear of repercussion, according to La Jornada, quoting Mexico’s chamber of commerce for fisheries (Canainpesca). At the same time, Mexican fishing authorities assert that the clam’s status as a luxury seafood dish in Asian markets is fueling a perhaps irreversible decline.

Sergio Guevara Escamilla, Canainpesca’s representative in the northwestern state of Baja California, blamed “a network of corruption” threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of families to fuel the demand for this seafood dish in Asian markets.

To curb exploitation, the Mexican government announced temporary moratoriums on fishing the clams every year. These ran from April 16-30, 2021, and will take place from January 25 to April 30 in the years to come.

Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing has ravaged northwestern Mexico, making the clam one of the most threatened marine species in the region.

InSight Crime Analysis

While numerous other marine species in Mexico have been threatened, the speed at which the geoduck clam has been overexploited is alarming. First discovered in the Gulf of California in the 1990s, the clam’s harvesting regulation has only been in place since 2007.

Its price in Mexico can reach $40 a kilogram and a single geoduck clam can fetch as high as $300 in high-end restaurants in China, according to the BBC. It is also legally produced in the United States and China, with 90 percent of clams going to China.

The same goes for Mexico. “More than 90 percent of the production is exported to Asia, where introducers have no qualms about receiving the illegal product, especially at a price lower than the market price,” Guevara Escamilla told La Jornada.  

The Mexican navy has worked to stem the flow of illegally sourced clams to international markets, making regular seizures of geoduck clams alongside sea cucumbers, lobsters, abalone and other seafood.

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Jalisco Cartel Sets Off Alarm Bells Along Mexico-Guatemala Border

 

Jalisco Cartel Sets Off Alarm Bells Along Mexico-Guatemala Border

The Jalisco Cartel New Generation, which has rapidly expanded to become Mexico's greatest criminal threat, may now be spreading its influence in a new area: the border with Guatemala.

Much of the border area is a no-man's-land, where traffickers can easily avoid the police. A recent wave of violence began as a response by Mexican drug gangs after some of their product was allegedly stolen in Guatemala. Guatemalan authorities have displayed caution, but the situation is reminiscent of the days when Los Zetas entered Guatemala.

"This message goes out to [a] crooked and thieving policeman," was the introduction at the start of an edited video circulating on social media on September 7.

The video message was recorded by a subject with their face covered by a ski mask. The man introduced himself as a member of a Mexican cartel and accused, by name, a Guatemalan police inspector and three officers of stealing a drug shipment between the municipalities of Raxruhá and Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, near the country's border with Mexico.

"On May 12, they stole from the boss," continued the subject, speaking with a notable Mexican accent and surrounded by three men wielding assault rifles, their faces also covered.

"We are already going after you [...]; you have 24 hours to return everything. If not, we are going to kill you, we will even kill your children […] This is the last chance we will give you ... we are not playing, we have already cleaned the town of La Mesilla. ... Listen closely, no one messes with Señor Nemesio's people. These items belong to someone and the owner is the Jalisco Cartel New Generation [Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación - CJNG].”

“Señor Nemesio,” or Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” is the leader of the CJNG. While the group began life in the northwest of the country, it is now engaged in a fight with the Sinaloa Cartel for control of the state of Chiapas along the Guatemalan border. This fight echoes other clashes between the two Mexican groups across the country.

*This investigation was carried out by El Faro. It has been edited for clarity and reprinted with permission. It does not necessarily reflect the views of InSight Crime. Read the original in Spanish here. 

These threats are similar to the last time drug traffickers got even with Guatemalan police over stolen money or drugs in June 2013, when eight agents and an inspector from the substation in Salcajá, Quetzaltenango (western Guatemala), were murdered. Eduardo Villatoro Cano, alias "Guayo Cano," of the Zetas, was found to be the intellectual author of the murders.

Now, all signs indicate that a similar vendetta is underway.

Just two months after Nentón residents reported the first attack by a Mexican armed group in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, a shooting occurred on August 12 on the other side of the border, in Chiapas. Photo: El Faro.

A Looming Threat

In the video, the masked man claimed to have already established order in La Mesilla, a Guatemalan town right on the Mexican border, seemingly claiming responsibility for a series of armed attacks there in July and August.

Signs of a new organized crime vendetta began on June 12, when media reported a checkpoint on the road between Nentón in Guatemala and Comitán in Mexico.

Press reports indicated that residents of Nentón, another border town, saw men with ski masks and assault rifles inspecting vehicles for migrants, firearms or drugs on the Guatemalan side of the border.

El Faro contacted the Guatemalan Defense Ministry, but its spokesman, Colonel Rubén Téllez, claimed that the checkpoint was on the Mexico side of the border.

"There was no confirmation. [No one] came forward and said, 'yes, they stopped me and asked me for this,'" said Téllez, who added that military and police patrols were sent to reinforce the border.

However, Téllez stated that while it's typical to see organized crime groups moving along the border, a new armed group had recently started entering and leaving Guatemala regularly.

Since June, the violent acts occurring near the border suggest that this armed group is, or could be related to, the CJNG, as the man in the video claims.

This has caused alarm among local towns because, while the area is home to frequent drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, contraband and more, there has not been any large-scale violence in this part of Guatemala in 2020. Huehuetenango, the department along the border where these attacks were reported, has one of the lowest homicide rates in Guatemala.

On July 28, a shootout took place along a highway in Chiapas, mere kilometers from the border. Mexican authorities found at least 300 shell casings of various calibers and six abandoned vehicles. One was on fire, the rest had bullet holes and Guatemalan license plates.

On July 31, a voice message from an unidentified source circulated in Mexico and Guatemala on social media. Despite claiming no criminal affiliation, it warned to "please step aside ... because we are entering Guatemala, and there will be bloodshed. You messed with our people, now deal with it. Whoever is on the street, we will obliterate them. ... We won't say what day, but it is approaching. We are already there. Chamic, Comalapa, La Mesilla, Cuauhtémoc, all those places we are going to come by shooting.”

A former investigator for Guatemala's Attorney General's Office, who knows about the situation on the border but asked to remain anonymous, told El Faro that drug and contraband trafficking at the border happen with help from authorities.

"There are always at least two Guatemalan police officers collecting tax on those who bring merchandise across," said a merchant in the area that had witnessed these transactions. "The Army is there. If you go, you see them. It is uncommon for Mexicans to enter Guatemala, and if they enter, they are known to be narcos [who come] to buy and transport [drugs]."

On August 12, there was another shootout in Mexico on the highway between Ciudad Cuauhtémoc and Potrerillo in Chiapas, 10 minutes from Guatemala. The outcome: a minibus and a pickup truck were left in flames on the side of the highway. The pickup had Guatemalan license plates. Press reports cited Mexican authorities as saying that the shootout took place between Mexican and Guatemalan drug traffickers and that it extended inside Guatemala in the town of Vueltamina. Again, the Army denied any violence inside Guatemala and that soldiers had verified the claim.

The list grows longer. On August 16, Mexican authorities claimed to have arrested 48 CJNG members in Chiapas. On August 24, two people were shot dead on board a minibus in La Democracia, a town in Huehuetenango just 15 kilometers from the border with Mexico. Then just two weeks later, on September 7, came the video with the CJNG claiming to have already cleaned up La Mesilla.

Reactions and Background

The government spokesman, Castillo, told El Faro that authorities have not ruled out that the purpose of the video may have been to destabilize "the [government's] good results in the fight against drug trafficking."

By early September, Guatemala had arrested 36 people wanted for extradition to the United States, seized almost six tons of cocaine and stopped dozens of drug planes in 2021, Castillo stated.

But the CJNG video harks back to the very real Mexican cartel incursions into Guatemala. The municipality of Raxruhá, where police were accused of stealing a CJNG drug shipment, was an important cocaine transit point for the Zetas, which maintained a strong presence in Guatemala between 2008 and 2013.

They lost ground in the country as they splintered, and in recent years the CJNG has begun to take over drug trafficking spots once controlled by the Zetas.

The history of police corruption in the region is also a real problem. Carlos Menocal, a former interior minister, revealed that the police officers who made the seizure in Raxruhá had their phone numbers leaked and began to receive death threats.

In 2017, an anti-drug trafficking investigator stated that drug traffickers had contacts in all police stations. Stopping short of saying that all police officers were corrupt, he revealed that these contacts were substantial enough to prevent key seizures and arrests. Despite this, the number of police prosecutions for drug-related offenses remains very low.

What the Facts Tell Us

Gerson Alegría, the current head of Guatemala's anti-drug prosecutor's office, told El Faro that the outbreaks of violence along the border shared by Huehuetenango and Chiapas may be due to poor negotiations between drug trafficking groups.

"When the straw breaks the camel's back, violence is unleashed," said the prosecutor.

That said, spikes in violence on the Guatemalan side are unusual.

The situation at the Mexico-Guatemala border is highly different from the country's borders with Honduras and El Salvador, where the prevalence of smaller drug gangs has made that area the most murderous in Guatemala.

Over the last 15 years, shootings and multiple homicides have been rare in Huehuetenango. The most famous outbreak of violence was the Agua Zarca massacre in November 2008, when a firefight between the Zetas and the Huistas, a local group associated with the Sinaloa Cartel, left 19 dead.

The Huistas remain the dominant criminal structure in Huehuetenango. Authorities had not arrested any Huista since 2012 until two arrests in 2021 showed that they remain active.

Beyond Drug Trafficking

Another investigator for the Attorney General's office also stated that collusion at the Mexico-Guatemala border between authorities and criminal groups extends beyond drug trafficking.

For instance, he claimed that police are warned when buses loaded with migrants are headed to Huehuetenango to stop them and demand money to let them travel to the border. This is a common practice.

In 2019, a journalist for El Faro traveled pretending to be a migrant and was assaulted by police twice before reaching the border.

Disputes over the spoil also provoke violence against police officers. In July, two agents investigating the disappearance of a minor in the remote area of Huehuetenango were beaten by five alleged coyotes (human smugglers).

Another link is that drug trafficking groups are allegedly also taking in human smuggling. On August 27, Guatemalan police in the border department of Petén warned that they were on alert for "possible members of Mexican cartels" that intended to attack migrants, headquarters and immigration checkpoints in Guatemala.

Burning vehicles have frequently been left behind after shootouts on both sides of the Mexico-Guatemala border. Photo: El Faro.

The investigator claimed the attacks across the border, especially those where minibuses were torched on August 12 and 24, could be linked to human smuggling. Government sources stated that two bodies of Salvadoran nationals were found next to the minibus in the August 24 attack.

An investigation is underway to establish if the attackers of the minibus were Mexican and if they crossed the border.

"There are many news reports about the arrival of the Jalisco Cartel in Chiapas. Some say they are being hit hard in Jalisco and are dabbling in businesses outside drug trafficking to avoid attracting the attention of the DEA [US Drug Enforcement Administration]," Raúl Benítez Manaut, an investigator with Mexico's National Autonomous University, told El Faro.

"The Zetas tried to do this years ago. It is now suspected the CJNG intends to do the same," he added.

In the meantime, the Guatemalan government continues to downplay the importance of events at the border. But the violence has not gone down, and the indicators suggest the CJNG may well be responsible.

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Bomb Threats: Mexico's Crime Groups Turn to Explosives

 

Bomb Threats: Mexico's Crime Groups Turn to Explosives

 package bomb that killed a restaurateur and his manager underscores the escalating use of explosives – and the terror that they generate – by criminal groups in Mexico’s most violent state.

The bombing occurred on September 19 during a birthday celebration at a family restaurant in Guanajuato's Salamanca. Delivered by two men on a motorcycle, the package – wrapped like a present – exploded when it was opened, killing two people, according to a news release from the Guanajuato State Attorney General’s Office.

Those who died in the explosion were identified as the manager and a business partner of the restaurant. Five other people were injured.

Relatives of a partner in the restaurant later told the news organization Milenio that they had reported being extorted for weekly payments of 50,000 pesos (about $2,500) by individuals claiming to be from the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG). The Guanajuato’s Attorney General’s Office, however, said in a news release that prosecutors had never received any such complaint.

Mexican President Andrés López Obrador told reporters that the federal Attorney General's Office will likely be tasked with investigating the explosive attack.

“In the state of Guanajuato, more than in other parts, they have begun to use explosives to commit crimes and try to create terror, fear,” he said.

In 2020, a record 3,438 killings were registered in Guanajuato. As of June, nearly 1,500 people had been murdered there in 2021.

InSight Crime Analysis

While the motive behind the attack on the restaurant is unclear, the use of what appears to be a package bomb highlights how Mexico’s criminal groups are increasingly resorting to explosives – particularly in regions home to bloody turf wars.

For the past few years, Guanajuato has been the site of a conflict between the powerful CJNG and what’s left of a much smaller rival, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have emerged among their weapons of war and have been found in stashes.  

For example, members of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel were arrested for supposedly building improvised explosives in April of this year. The group is also known for using car bombs.   

Authorities in Guanajuato, meanwhile, seized 89 explosive devices during an operation in July.  Thirteen such devices others were seized in a September 2020 operation.

According to Mexican Defense Secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval González, improvised explosives attached to drones have been reported in Guanajuato and in Jalisco -- both states with significant CJNG presence.

In May of this year, an explosive drone strike in western Michoacán state was carried out by an alleged member of CJNG.

In an interview with InSight Crime, John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, founders of Small Wars Journal-El Centro, drew attention to the militarization of cartel violence, including the use of IEDs. According to Bunker, explosives are typically used as “threat messaging” to intimidate opponents.

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South Korea Becomes Transit Point for Mexican Methamphetamine

 

South Korea Becomes Transit Point for Mexican Methamphetamine

A ton of Mexican methamphetamine found in South Korea and suspected of being bound for Australia has shown how Mexican synthetic drugs continue to make inroads in the Asia-Pacific.

On September 1, prosecutors in the southern port city of Busan detained and charged a Korean male in his 30s for importing 404 kilograms of methamphetamine from Mexico hidden in 20 helical gear drives, according to reporting by the Korea JoongAng Daily.

The outlet cites prosecutors as saying it is the country’s largest-ever methamphetamine seizure, though the man is believed to have – in conjunction with an Australian accomplice – trafficked another 500 kilograms in July 2020 that were not intercepted but instead successfully smuggled into Australia.

“The two men smuggled drugs into Korea because they thought that smuggling meth from Korea to Australia would be less likely to be caught than smuggling methamphetamine directly from Mexico to Australia,” said a prosecutor from the Busan District Prosecutor’s Office.

It seems Australian authorities have since then detected both the route and smuggling method. In May, an investigation into a company importing helical gear drives led customs at the port of Sydney to seize 230 kilograms of methamphetamine in two shipments from South Korea.

Other Korean outlets have reported at least some of the drugs were destined for the domestic market. The Donga Ilbo newspaper claimed the original 404-kilogram methamphetamine cargo was meant to stay in the country, the remains of a larger amount that had been exported to Australia.

InSight Crime Analysis

Mexican methamphetamine is globalizing, with increasingly large quantities appearing not just in Europe but also Australia and East Asia. Yet as law enforcement agencies get better at identifying suspicious shipments and routes, traffickers look for alternatives – like South Korea.

With a strong reputation as a “drug-free” country, South Korea is a useful transit point for smugglers because it means they can avoid the stricter drug searches applied to cargo arriving directly from Mexico or – in the case of cocaine –  Colombia, a South Korean official told the South China Morning Post in 2018.

Alongside its superb infrastructure, including the port of Busan, one of the world’s busiest container ports, that makes the country an increasingly attractive thoroughfare for both methamphetamine and cocaine from Latin America, states a recent report by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service seen by UPI.

From there, the drugs mostly go to China, Hong Kong or Australia, all three of which have well-established methamphetamine markets. However, while Mexico is a key embarkation point for methamphetamine seized in Australia, South Korea is not, according to Australia’s latest Illicit Drug Data Report.

It therefore represents a new transit route for traffickers, one that appears to be of growing importance. Besides the South Korean seizures, in November 2020 Hong Kong interdicted a record half-ton of methamphetamine in a container bound for Australia. Originating in Mexico, the container had transited in South Korea, as well as Vietnam.

In line with the news report of the seized Mexican methamphetamine staying in South Korea, it also appears consumption of the drug, particularly of crystal meth, has increased in the country in recent years, asserts the UNODC’s 2021 “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia” report.

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Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was the pioneer in industrial-scale cocaine trafficking. Known as “El Patrón,” Escobar led the Medellín Cartel from the 1970s to the early 1990s. He oversaw each step of cocaine production, from sourcing coca base paste in Andean nations to feeding a booming US market for the drug. He also successfully challenged the State on extradition, showing that extreme violence could force governments to negotiate.

History

Like most of his partners in the Medellín Cartel, Escobar came from a humble social background. He dropped out of school because his family could not pay for his education and soon got involved in petty crime. His early criminal activities included smuggling stereo equipment and stealing tombstones to resell them.

Escobar then entered the cocaine trade, founding the Medellín Cartel in the 1970s and the Ochoa Vásquez brothers (Jorge Luis, Juan David and Fabio). The Ochoa brothers were initially the business brains of the outfit. Meanwhile, Escobar first oversaw the group's "protection" before emerging as its undisputed leader.

During the Medellín Cartel’s zenith in the 1980s and early 1990s, Escobar controlled nearly the entire cocaine supply chain. He oversaw the import of large, multi-ton shipments of coca base from Andean nations Peru and Bolivia into Colombia, where it was processed into cocaine in jungle labs. The criminal enterprise then stored the drug in Colombia before flying it to the United States. In the 1980s, the organization is estimated to have supplied over 80 percent of all cocaine shipped to the country, sending across some 15 tons per day.

In this period, kidnappings made by guerrilla groups led the State to collaborate with criminal groups. The 1981 kidnapping of the sister of the Ochoas led to the creation of a Medellín Cartel-funded paramilitary group known as Death to Kidnappers (Muerte a Secuestradores - MAS).

In the mid-1980s, Escobar’s hold on Medellín increased when he founded a criminal debt collection service known as the “Oficina de Envigado.” This was an office in the town hall of Envigado, a small municipality next to Medellín where Escobar grew up. Escobar used the municipal office to collect debts owed to him by drug traffickers and set the “sicarios” or hired killers on those who refused.

Unlike many drug traffickers today, Escobar was not afraid to flaunt his riches. His cartel is estimated to have earned around $420 million in revenue per week during the mid-1980s, and Escobar himself made Forbes' Billionaires list for seven years straight, between 1987 to 1993. His luxurious multimillion-dollar "Hacienda Nápoles" estate had its own zoo, and he reportedly ate from solid gold dinner sets.

Despite his opulent lifestyle, Escobar presented himself as a populist figure, persecuted by the upper classes for his own social background and efforts to help the poor. He attempted to stir up anti-establishment sentiment and win over disadvantaged communities by opening a public zoo, constructing 70 community soccer fields and building housing for the poor.

He could not break into Medellín's upper social classes, which blocked his application to join the city's top social club. His attempts to join the political elite were also crushed in the early 1980s when he was expelled from Colombia's Liberal Party and thrown out of his position as a deputy congressman.

These tensions escalated in the mid-1980s when the Medellín Cartel declared war on the Colombian state. In April 1984, the nation's then Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was shot dead by sicarios working for Escobar. The Colombian state responded by immediately signing into law Escobar's extradition to the United States. In response, Escobar's hitmen murdered dozens of judges, police and several journalists in the late 1980s. During the 1989 presidential elections, Escobar's assassins murdered the Liberal Party candidate Luis Carlos Galán Sarmiento. They then made a failed attempt to kill Galán's replacement, Liberal Party presidential candidate César Augusto Gaviria Trujillo.

Using these tactics, Escobar eventually pushed the State to ban the extradition of Colombian nationals in the 1991 Constitutional Assembly. He managed to negotiate his surrender to authorities and took up residence in a jail known as the “Cathedral,” which he built. It was a jail only in name. Escobar controlled the guards and had a playhouse built on the grounds for when his daughter went to visit. He used his first year behind bars to reorganize the Medellín Cartel.

But his influence in the organization was dwindling. Resentment against Escobar grew when he raised a "tax" on cartel members, making them pay between $200,000 and $1 million in fees.

And in July 1992, Escobar's men found a stash of $20 million on a property belonging to cartel member Fernando Galeano. Escobar summoned Galeano and another associate, Gerardo Moncada, for a meeting at the Cathedral. Both were then killed by two of Escobar's sicarios.

On hearing of the killings, President César Gaviria ordered for Escobar to be sent from the Cathedral to a military base in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. Before he could be transferred, Escobar escaped.

Ultimately, Escobar's former criminal associates teamed up with the government and gradually dismantled his empire. Out of money, luck, and with just one bodyguard left, authorities in Colombia gunned down Escobar on the rooftop of a house in Medellín on December 2, 1993.

Rumors have circulated for years around his death. Former paramilitary leader and mafia boss Diego Fernando Murillo Bejarano, alias "Don Berna," claimed his brother fired Escobar's shot.

Criminal Activity

Escobar was instrumental in setting up the Medellín Cartel, feeding booming demand in the United States during the 1980s.

Through the 1980s and early 1990s, Escobar oversaw each step of the cocaine supply chain as the Medellín Cartel's undisputed leader. The organization sourced coca leaf from primary production points in Peru and Bolivia, processed it in Colombian jungle labs, then shipped cocaine to the United States, where operatives sold it on the streets.

He focused on international markets for cocaine and never sold the drug domestically to Colombians for consumption. Instead, Escobar initially used a Caribbean air route to feed the US market.

Escobar also ordered contract killings to target police, judges, politicians and journalists. On the other hand, the Medellín Cartel maintained high-level allies in security and justice institutions that largely protected its members from prosecution.

He dipped into extortion, too. While he was at the "Cathedral," he made his money by shaking down other drug traffickers, who had to pay him a fixed sum every month.

Finally, Escobar was known for investing profits from the drug trade in luxury goods, property, and works of art. He is also reported to have stashed his cash in “hidden coves,” allegedly burying it on his farms and under floors in many of his houses.

Geography

Escobar headed the Medellín Cartel, named after the Colombian city where it was based. However, his influence extended to as far as the United States, where he ran distribution networks.

Medellín has paid a high cost in blood for its role in the international cocaine trade. The city's murder rate was the highest in the world during Escobar's day.

To ensure the smooth transfer of cocaine from coca leaf to consumer, Escobar’s ties extended to Andean production nations (including Bolivia, Peru) and the United States and Canada.

He also sought refuge in Panama – a nation the Medellín Cartel appears to have passed drugs en route to the United States - when Colombian authorities attempted to capture him.

Allies and Enemies

Escobar’s success in the underworld relied on alliances far and wide. His actions, wealth and public profile also meant he had many enemies, whose eventual alliance would ultimately lead to his downfall.

The Ochoa Vásquez brothers (Jorge Luis, Juan David and Fabio) were close allies of Escobar for years. They helped form the Medellín Cartel and worked for hand in hand with the drug lord to run the organization. Others, such as José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, alias "El Mexicano," also worked with Escobar to provide the organization with muscle and logistical support.

Escobar also maintained alliances with associates based in Andean production nations. Jorge Roca Suárez, alias “Techo de Paja,” was identified as having provided cocaine shipments to Escobar and his uncle Roberto Suárez Gómez, known as the “King of Cocaine” in Bolivia.

The Medellín Cartel also formed alliances with Mexican groups to traffic cocaine into the United States. Escobar allied with leader of the Juárez Cartel, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, alias "El Señor de los Cielos," or "Lord of the Skies." Carrillo Fuentes used his fleet of aircraft to transport drugs belonging to Escobar as part of the Guadalajara Cartel.

One of Escobar's most consistent enemies was the Cali Cartel. The Cali Cartelinitially cooperated with the Medellín Cartel during the early 1980s to stabilize the drug market and divide territory in the United States. However, by 1988 the cartels were fighting a vicious turf war in Colombia.

The Cali Cartel ultimately funded elements of the Medellín Cartel that turned against Escobar after the 1992 murders of Galeano and Moncada in the Cathedral. They attacked Escobar's support structure by calling themselves the People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar (Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar - PEPES. One Cali Cartel leader, Francisco Hélmer Herrera Buitrago, alias "Pacho," claimed that he personally invested $30 million in the war against Escobar. The PEPES' principal objective was to hunt down Escobar. The PEPES worked with and were protected by the State.

PEPES membership included the founders of what became the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia - AUC): the brothers Fidel Antonio Castaño Gil, alias "Rambo," Carlos Castaño Gil, and José Vicente Castaño Gil, alias "El Profe," as well as "Don Berna," who joined the AUC later.

Former allies of Escobar, the Castaños grew distant from him for many reasons. These included his stated affinity for left-wing guerrillas, his alleged links to the M-19 rebel movement and the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional - ELN).

Meanwhile, Don Berna turned on Escobar after El Patrón killed his boss, Fernando Galeano. Don Berna and his PEPES associates tracked down Escobar's family and connections, killing many of them. The police used Don Berna for information, leading to the capture of several Escobar associates, seizure of properties, and freezing his bank accounts. Don Berna claimed he and other members of PEPES were with the police that located Escobar on the day of his death.

To bring down Escobar, the PEPES worked alongside the Search Bloc, an elite police unit formed in 1989 made up of around 600 members and based out of the Carlos Holguín Police School in Medellín. When Escobar surrendered in 1991, its members were dispersed. It reformed following his escape from prison in 1992 and hunted him until his death in 1993.

Legacy and Influence

Escobar's death signaled the end of one era of drug trafficking and the birth of another. Mystique surrounding the drug lord has grown since 1993, and endless myths have circulated.

The Medellín Cartel no longer exists, nor does the cartel structure Escobar help to found, which involved controlling all the links in the drug chain from production to retail.

While the Colombian department of Antioquia, of which Medellín is the capital, remains pivotal to the nation’s cocaine trade, today's drug lords bear little resemblance to Escobar.

Following Escobar’s downfall, the structure of Colombia’s underworld -- and Medellín's especially – shifted. It gradually went from being hierarchical and dominated by a few key actors to more federal, fragmented and horizontal. The "Oficina" - which had its roots in Envigado - transformed into a mafia federation that now regulates almost all criminal activity in Medellín.

A modern-day counterpart to Escobar himself is hard to come by. There is no single figure able to exercise control even in Medellín today, let alone over a large portion of the international cocaine trade. Instead, a given figure climbs up the ladder, is often quickly identified by authorities and captured. Today, Escobar’s closest counterparts would be the Mexican capos.

Since Escobar, a new generation of “Invisible” traffickers has emerged. They have learned that demonstrating a luxury lifestyle and using extreme public violence is counterproductive. Instead, anonymity is their protection plan. This new generation of drug traffickers looks like young entrepreneurs or highly qualified businessmen. They are unrecognizable from those who dominated in Escobar’s day.

With this, the "man of the people" model traffickers like Escobar traditionally tried to transmit is dying out. Mexican trafficker Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias "El Chapo" operated using this approach and Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias "El Mencho" has replicated it to a certain extent. But now, criminal governance and loyalty are largely being cultivated at the group level, not by individual leaders.

Escobar achieved a level of state penetration which helped members of his cartel to avoid capture for years. The fact he was elected to Congress as an alternate tells us about how deeply he could achieve this.

Drug traffickers still have links to state institutions. Political elites have been historically linked to drug trafficking and corruption. Other institutions continue to be penetrated at a more local level. The Urabeños, one of Colombia's most influential criminal groups, for example, have worked through corruption networks linked to local governments in Colombia.

The US Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act may also be considered as another legacy of Escobar's influence. Made law in 1999, it permits "the identification of and worldwide sanctions against foreign narcotics traffickers whose activities threaten US security, foreign policy, or the economy." Its purpose is to prevent foreign drug traffickers from trading with US companies or individuals.

Finally, Escobar remains a contemporary narcoculture symbol, the “kingpin” in the popular imagination. His name is often used to refer to drug lords that have cornered the drug market in certain Latin American countries. However, few – if any – have ever built a cocaine empire to rival Escobar, who continues to inspire numerous books and television shows, with his face even stamped on to drug packets.

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