Cartel Corner #48: El Chapo’s Top Hitman Caught by Mexican Authorities

Joaquín Guzmán Loera wasn’t the only major organized crime figured captured Friday in Los Mochis. His chief of sicarios — the cartel’s main hitman — was also taken in by elements from the Mexican Navy.

His name is Iván Gastelum Cruz, also known as El Cholo Iván, and he was also a fugitive. Gastelum had escaped from prison in 2009 by using a party taking place inside a state prison as a diversion. And he stayed on the loose until Friday.

He was a hitman, a killer. In fact he was in charge of all the Sinaloa Cartel’s killers.

Like El Chapo, Gastelum is something of a legend in narco circles. The group Enigma Norteño immemorialized him in song, with a part of a corrido in his honor going, “Snitches are never forgiven here, because traitors cannot be tolerated . . . He goes by another nickname, el Cholo Iván.”

But Gastelum is no romantic figure. He is in charge of murders for the most powerful drug-trafficking organization in the hemisphere, the Sinaloa Cartel.

Gastelum was caught the first time in 2005. Ten firearms were found in his possession at the time. The investigation was carried out poorly, however, and el Cholo Iván was released by a court order.

But in 2008, he was arrested again, this time after an armed confrontation with soldiers.

He spent a year in prison. Then, on Aug. 9, 2009, he escaped.

The hunt for him was vigorous, and carried out mostly in Sinaloa. He was spotted at least three times, and in 2010, 2014 and 2015 there were firefights as authorities tried to move in on him.

Mexican Navy/Mexican government Weaponry and equipment recovered during the operation to capture Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Each time, it was thought he was injured. But each time he escaped.

In 2013, narco-banners began to be displayed in various parts of Sinaloa, accusing the Army of having killed Susana Flores who had won the Miss Sinaloa crown in 2012. Susana and Iván were a couple. The banners are assumed to be the work of El Cholo.

Gastelum Cruz remained a fugitive until Friday (Jan. 8). He was targeted in the same raid on a Los Mochis home as El Chapo, tried to escape in the same underground drainage system as El Chapo, and soon caught in the same stolen car.

Gastelum’s capture may is not as much of an image-booster for the Mexican government as El Chapo’s, but it is a significant a blow to the Sinaloa organization.

Read the Original Article at Business Insider

 

Cartel Corner #46: Hey Sean Penn, Stop Glorifying Drugs and Drug Lords!

Sean Penn Perpetuates Narco-Worship in a Blood-Stained Country

The recently published interview between Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Sean Penn, while being presented as heroic, is in fact just perpetuating Mexico’s sickly worship of drugs, violence and mass murder. Penn, a Hollywood artist and activist wrote an article for Rolling Stone where he details his meeting with Guzman Loera, a cold, calculating criminal who has been turned into an idol by mainstream media.

The meeting took place in Mexico while Guzman was on the run from Mexican law enforcement. Mexican authorities have since stated that Penn is under investigation over the meeting.

Penn’s meeting with Guzman was made possible thanks to Kate Del Castillo, a soap opera starlet who has gained notoriety by playing a female drug kingpin on television. Del Castillo’s character has helped promote and idolize the lifestyle of a kingpin rather than show the pain and suffering that narco-violence has brought to Mexico.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, many in Mexico and now Penn, view Guzman Loera as a benign Robin Hood type figure, when in fact he is responsible for the majority of the blood that has been shed in Mexico. 

Just his capture this week resulted in hours of firefights as his security detail squared off against Mexican marines. Armed with assault rifles, .50 caliber rifles and rocket launchers, the gunmen tried to hold off the military while their boss escaped through the sewers.Breitbart Texas published some of the leaked photos of the carnage that took place during the effort to capture the “hero” narco. 

The main reason for the bloodshed in Mexico since the early part of 2000‘s comes from Guzman’s efforts to take control of the entire Northern Mexican border with the United States. While the expansion has been partly successful, the land-grab has resulted in thousands of deaths as rival cartels and former allies have at different times taken arms to protect their turf.

El Chapo’s attempt to take Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, led that massive drug trafficking corridor to become the Murder Capital of the world. The violence came when El Chapo’s forces clashed with the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, also known as the Juarez Cartel.

Even before Juarez, El Chapo and his then allied the Beltran Leyva cartel had unsuccessfully tried to take over the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. That effort was met with a violent response from the Gulf Cartel and their enforcers Los Zetas. Gruesome executions and fierce clashes between convoys of gunmen became a regular sight.

To this day, as reported by Breitbart Texas, Guzman’s criminal organization, the Sinaloa Cartel, is responsible for 50 percent of the heroin that is currently being consumed in America and the violence that the drug epidemic has brought. The Sinaloa Cartel has managed to beat out heroin giants like the Asian mafias.

The ever increasing heroin epidemic has resulted in the number of overdose deaths in America having spiked 244 percent from 2007 to 2013, as Breitbart News reported.

Despite the drug epidemic that he supplies and the bloodshed that his forces bring about, Penn seems to think that Guzman Loera remains a figure worthy of nice write-ups and biographical movies.

Read the Original Article at Breitbart Texas

Cartel Corner #42: The Search for “El Chapo” Intensifies… (Yeah Right)

Mexican security forces descended on a region in the country’s northwest in October as part of a new phase in the search for fugitive Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

And now there are disturbing new details about that intensifying manhunt.

Guzmán remains free, but a recent report from Vice News details allegations that, in their fierce pursuit of the drug lord, Mexican marines attacked the homes of ranchers in a mountainous and rugged region of Durango state.

“It all happened on October 6,” Gonzalo Peña, a farmer in Tamazula in Durango state, told Vice News. “A little before 8 a.m., we heard the choppers … They arrived shooting, I heard the shots from the choppers.”

“And suddenly they disappeared, and then a plane showed up before me,”Peña told Vice News. “I thought it was going to land, or just circle around. But no. It arrived shooting.”

“I worried about getting killed right there,” he said.

By now, the details of the effort to recapture Guzmán are almost as lurid as the drug kingpin’s actual prison breakout.

After escaping on July 11, he flew northwest to a ranch in the remote, mountainous area of southwestern Durango state, near the border with Sinaloa.

Many, including a top official with the US Drug Enforcement Administration, suspected that Guzmán returned to Sinaloa after his escape. After Mexican authorities detected efforts to return the drug lord’s daughters’ pet monkey, Boots, to Durango, the manhunt was shifted to the region — a stronghold for the Sinaloa cartel nicknamed the Golden Triangle for its drug production.

Read the Remainder at Business Insider

Cartel Corner #39: Sinaloa Cartel Boss’ nephews Murder could spark more Narco Violence

Although details on the killing of a power drug capo’s nephew are still scarce, there is reason to believe the murder foreshadows a conflict for Mexico’s mighty Sinaloa Cartel.

In the city of Culiacan, within the Sinaloa Cartel’s stronghold of Sinaloa state, a truck full of unidentified assailants reportedly opened fire on another truck full of men.

As a result, Jose Vicente Zambada Reyes and two other men were killed, while another was injured, reported Proceso.

The 28-year-old Zambada was the nephew of Sinaloa Cartel faction leader Ismael Zambada Garcia, alias “El Mayo.”

The Sinaloa Cartel is arguably Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organization, whose infamous leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped from prison earlier this year.

 

Read the Remainder at Business Insider