Blog dedicated to reporting on Mexican drug cartels
on the border line between the US and Mexico
.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Golden Triangle in Flames...Again

El Diario de Coahuila (October 19, 2014)

By Patricia Davila and Patricia Mayorga, translated by un vato for Borderland Beat

Aerial view of the southern mountains in Durango located in the Golden Triangle.

Golden Triangle in flames
GUACHOCHI, CHIH. (apro).-- Up until two months ago, in this and other municipalities bordering the drug trafficking Golden Triangle -- which encompasses parts of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango-- there was a relative calm: the young sicarios who defend the plaza for the Sinaloa Cartel seemed at ease.

Driving pickups and equipped with weapons intended for military purposes, with radio communications, they would carry out their jobs of guarding the area to prevent entry of Juarez Cartel members, just in case this rival group tried to retake lost territory. With the advent of the marijuana harvest season, this "peace" was lost.

However, this time, it was not the Juarez Cartel that ended the peace, but rather "Los Salgueiro" and "Los Chavez Matamoros", two Sinaloa Cartel cells that battled for control of the two drug smuggling corridors for drug grown in this area destined for the United States.

The arrest of Joaquin Guzman Loera, "El Chapo", who led the Sinaloa Cartel with Ismael Zambada, "El Mayo", did not cause strife in the area; the local cells, even in the middle of a fight, still call themselves "Los Chapitos".

In Batopilas, a municipality that borders Guachochi on the south, there had not been any confrontations until a month ago. Afterwards, it was clear that attitudes had changed between members of the organization. There are close to 100 men identified as "El Chapo" people, who work for "Los Salgueiro", who are now on permanent alert. They travel from there to other municipalities to provide reinforcements.

As in other Chihuahua municipalities, in Batopilas, some members of the municipal police help the criminal group. Most of them are young men no more than 25 years old and who are willing to die. To give themselves courage, they increasingly consume more drugs.

From the mountains in Durango, Chihuahua and Sinaloa, they bring down the marijuana and opium poppy that they take to the United States. Through the Chihuahua municipalities, the drugs are transported north by two routes; one runs through Janos and the other through Ojinaga.
burning amapola in the Golden Triangle

Third most violent area

In 2008, members of the Juarez Cartel were collecting extortion money from the residents,  traveling salesmen and indigenous artisans in the plaza.

On October 6 that year, when they killed Anicasio Cevallos, "El Cacho", chief of the Juarez Cartel in the area, violence broke out in Guachochi. "El Cacho" was one of the principal sicarios and drug traffickers in the mountains, who spread terror at the point of a gun in Guachochi and bordering areas in Durango and Sinaloa. Cevallos had been accused of masterminding the murder of 13 people in Creel a month before.

That was a year of terror, recall people in the area. Since then, people with the Sinaloa Cartel have maintained control, and they let the inhabitants know that. When they came in, they assured them they would no longer collect "cuotas" (protection money). They asked that anyone who was hassled should call them so they could take care of the troublemakers. Nobody called them.

Young men and teenagers were recruited voluntarily or by force. This is how indigenous and mixed blood people swelled the ranks of the criminal organization.

From that point on, the violence intensified, to the point that by the first trimester in 2013, Guachochi was classified s the third most violent area in the world. Fifth place was taken by Guadalupe y Calvo. The two municipalities exceeded the murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants of Ciudad Juarez and the state capital. Localities in mourning multiplied. When the Sinaloa Cartel was able to settle in, the was some degree of tranquility.

But that respite was temporary: last month, on the 26th, beginning at 2:00 in the afternoon, armed groups entered the municipality and one and a half hours later the fighting began.

In the midst of the terror, a local resident who was passing by during the attack says there were many men and he was not able to count them. Another witness says hat he got there after the sound of gunshots stopped. He saw the bodies of 11 men killed by gunshots. At that time, none of the bodies had been burned, he claims.

The first to arrive were Army personnel based in the municipal seat of Guachochi. Personnel from the Attorney General's office and federal police joined them. The first report issued by Arturo Sandoval Figon, spokesman for the office of the Attorney General, stated that it had involved a clash between two organized crime groups that operate in the Sierra Madre Occidental (western range of the Sierra Madre).

The violence was mitigated


He (Figon) specified that more than one thousand cartridges were fired , in calibers .223, 7.69x39 and 9mm. When the authorities got there, they found four persons incinerated inside of pickups destroyed by the fire. The bodies of the other seven dead people were wearing tactical uniforms and ammunition vests. They had burns and were spread out in a small perimeter in the road that goes to Cerro Grande, town of Tonachi, in Guachochi.  

But the police and military patrols did not mitigate the violence. On the 28th, two days after that attack, towards the southwestern part of the state, outside of Santa Anita, there was another confrontation, in which eight people died, four of which were incinerated. 

According to investigative and forensic sources with the Office of State Attorney General, one of the men and incinerated in Cerro Grande was Artemio Bernal Gonzalez, "El Temo", 43 years old who was the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel group that operates in Yoquivo, Batopilas municipality. His brother, Ignacio Bernal Gonzales, 37 years old, died with him. Both of them were originally from El Ranchito, Chihuahua.

The Attorney General's Office, Southern Zone, indicated that the other partially identified man was Edgar Herrera Carrizosa, who was carrying several false identities with different names,  one of which is the one just mentioned. Also identified were Ignacio Bernal Gonzalez and Jesus Javier Lopez Mendoza. The only detainee who was injured was Gabriel Torres Hernandez.

According to the statements compiled by the attorney general, the dead men and the one who was injured worked for "Los Salgueiro". Apparently, "Los Chavez Matamoros" did not have suffer any casualties in their incursion into Guachochi.

By Tuesday night, September 30, the violent incidents reached the Bocoyna municipality, which borders Guachochi. The attorney general reported that an armed group intercepted members of the State Police while they were traveling on the highway. It was reported that the confrontation was as a consequence of an operation that took place that morning in a house in the town of San Juanito, in which Madday Sarahi Dominguez Carrillo, from the municipality of Casas Grandes, and Jesus Armando Cisneros Loya, born in Cuauhtemoc, lost their lives.....continues on following page


The authorities provide no support.

After the clash in Guachochi, on Thursday, October 2, the groups intensified their battle for the territory and took San Juan de los Iturralde, the town of El Vergel, Balleza municipality. They were searching for the murderers of two sicarios who were executed a week before.

Me wearing hoods were firing from the surrounding areas of San Juan de los Iturraldes. The area residents who heard the gunshots fled to a nearby hill. From there, they saw houses being burned. The attackers seized the town until Friday afternoon on the third. At the close of this publication, the Attorney General's office reported two men dead, identified as Othon Luna Lazos and Martin Payan Valencias, who apparently were the ones who killed the sicarios

The townspeople claim that there are more persons dead and at least 10 disappeared. Despite the fact that they reported this, neither the attorney general nor the Army have begun to search for them, they say.

Relatives of inhabitants from that area on October 3 demanded that the Army and the police forces provide aid for the people affected by the groups in the dispute.

"For 24 hours, we have been making calls to the Army and the state attorney general so they will help our family members who live in the San Juan (de los Iturbide) (sic) area, Balleza municipality, which is some 20 minutes from El Vergel", says an email message to Proceso.

Murdered for gathering signatures

Another person points out that a month ago in El Vergel, Norma Moreno was murdered while she was working in her family's restaurant. Days earlier, the military had withdrawn from the town, and the young 37 year old woman began to gather signatures asking for its return, and for it to be based there permanently. This angered the group who is present in that area and they killed her.

In addition, indigenous communities in Guadalupe y Calvo have had to move out in the face of these armed groups. These have seized the towns and the inhabitants prefer not to leave their ranches because the sicarios only allow those persons who do not represent any risk to them to leave.

Meanwhile, the violence in Guachochi seems unstoppable. On October 11, five men were picked up in Tonachi and their bodies were found the next day in a vacant area. The victims were Heliodoro Holguin Caro, Heliodoro Holguin Bustillos, Juan Holguin Moreno, Hipolito Cruz Holguin and Leoncio Holguin Bustillos. According to the state attorney general's office, one of them was identified as one of the attackers in the confrontation on September 26.

Internal reports from the state attorney general's office indicate that lieutenants known as "Los Chavez Matamoros" and "Los Salgueiro" are fighting for control of the municipalities of Guadalupe y Calvo, Morelos, Batopilas, Urique, Bocoyna and Balleza, located in the middle of the Golden Triangle.

Fighting for control

According to sources withing that agency, the confrontation in Guachochi began because members of the "Los Chavez Matamoros" were disputing over control of territory with "Los Salgueiro".

Adding to the dispute between these two Sinaloa Cartel cells, and taking advantage of the internal disputes among the local groups, other cells from the same organization, these based in the states of Durango and Sonora, are also trying to take control of the plaza.

In the state of Chihuahua, the Sinaloa Cartel controls the municipalities of Parral, Guachochi, Guadalupe y Calvo, Delicias, Camargo, Jimenez, Batopilas, Morelos, Bocoyna and a part of Urique. In this latter municipality (Urique), the story is that there are also cells from the Juarez Cartel.

Taking advantage of the split between "Los Salgueiro" and "Los Chavez Matamoros", the Sinaloa cell of Los Salazar is trying to extend its control over the southern part of Chihuahua.

Added to that is the fact that the Los Cabrera group, with the same organization, which controls the state of Durango, is also trying to take advantage of the Salgueiro-Chavez dispute to assume control of the Chihuahua municipalities located in the Golden Triangle. 

43 comments:

  1. FREE CHAPO!! AND EVERYTHING GOES BACK TO NORMAL...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly dude! Before they arrested Chapo Mexico was so peaceful... oh wait, it wasn't.

      Delete
    2. En Sinaloa estan las CULEBRAS DE 6 CABEZAS responsables de ciertas guerras en los estados de Sonora, Chihuaha, Durango, Zacatecas, Jalisco, Nayarit entre otros.. Bonita la cosa ellos llenandose las casas/ranchos de villete mientras ke los otros animales se masacran llevandose con ellos a la misma ves a personas inocentes.

      Delete
    3. Back to normal? Hes the one that started the wars when he was free mexico was still hell

      Delete
    4. Make him the next pres.👍

      Delete
  2. The Chavez brothers had Parral under control until the Salguieros turn on them and started sitching to the government. Now the Chavez are putting the heat on them in la sierra.

    ReplyDelete
  3. tis is the real hollawen

    ReplyDelete
  4. at least they had their comrades at arms with them when they died

    ReplyDelete
  5. "The Chavez brothers had Parral under control until the Salguieros turn on them"
    Weren't Salguieos packin with Cabrera,then they turned on each other,in the fight with Los Mayitos?Parts of Gente Nueva?All aligned under CDS ?
    Friends like this who needs,ye all that crap..

    ReplyDelete
  6. When you take away the mastermind the minions will fight for the right to rule. Ultimately they end up fighting for the scraps when it is all said and done. Sounds like CDS kept the peace at first but when Chapo got locked up the different cells went berserk. When you add La Linea and possibly Loz Zetaz to the mix...Aye!!!! It will be like a fireworks show on the 4th of July. I feel for the residents. There will be many civilian casualties until the plaza is won by either group.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Poor inocent people getting mix in the shet without having anything to do with it other than living there. thats really messed up.

      Delete
  7. The sinajotos couldn't take J town and they can't keep this. Borla por pinche vida.

    ReplyDelete
  8. MIA
    Los huevos y la inteligencia militar de los militares y las polesias mexicanas, bien gracias...
    --Mi casa su casa, vengan a mexico senores turistas...
    The balls and the military intelligence of the mexican military and police departments, they ok, thank you...
    --mi casa su casa, come to mexico senor touristas..
    Of course the government left, after collecting from both sides, the winner will be free to work in exchange of big kickbacks, after all is said and done, the mexican narcs will have died for nothing, not even the maruchan, again, did you say there were zetas involved?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sometimes I wonder if this isn't a game on more levels than anyone can see . How long can the criminals keep coming . This is like a never ending Zombie movie . Its like there gets to be some predictability in things and then the puppet masters pulls the organizer out and then it goes wild again . I really believe they will never run out of new Zombies for this game . There are some sick bastards out there enjoying it .
    I really think this whole drug war thing is manipulated by people so high up in the world that they will never be visibly connected

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah on both sides of the linea.

      Delete
    2. exactly.... you nailed it

      Delete
  10. Good, let'em kill each other for their own territories, the're saving the marines time.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks for the work in translating this article Vato,

    ReplyDelete
  12. So.who.is.the.new.cartel.boss.of.los.beltran.leyva?

    ReplyDelete
  13. There has been a combat where Gente Nueva has not gone horribly massacred and has actually won?, they god killed by dozens in Tubutama, Nayarit and Chihuahua and now they're fighting each other as if they were not already beaten enough.

    ReplyDelete
  14. CHAPITO ES EL NUEVO NUMERO Y LOS AVENGERS YA TIENEN LUZ VERDE

    ReplyDelete
  15. And everyone was saying it was linea who was involves...linea aint shit and are contained and concentrated in small pockets in chiwas....Sinaloa has the majority of chiwas....all these idiots on here always running their mouths dont know shit! Arriba Parral Chihuahua!!! Pura gente de chapo....pura gente de huevos!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Didnt you read the article? The named the municipios que controla gente nueva its just the south.. Ah gente pendeja por eso no progresamos.. Son una mierda es lo que son los pinches carteles...

      Delete
    2. It's just a matter of time before all of Chihuas belongs to CF/La Linea. For now enjoy what you have. I don't expect it to last much longer. The factions fighting each other ultimately weakens the entire organization. Look what it did to the Golfos. It appears to be happening to the CDS also.

      Delete
    3. You clearly dont know shit thats gong on in chihuas...los aztecas are in juarez and la linea in Chihuahua capital and some other parts.. gente nueva are only in small parts south of chihuas

      Delete
    4. "And everyone was saying it was linea who was involves...linea aint shit and are contained and concentrated in small pockets in chiwas....Sinaloa has the majority of chiwas....all these idiots on here always running their mouths dont know shit! Arriba Parral Chihuahua!!! Pura gente de chapo....pura gente de huevos!!!"

      Are you a CDS sicario? What faction do you represent? If you are not involved in the fighting then you are a fan. Who is your source cause obviously you were told wrong. Anybody who lives close to the state of Chihuas knows who is gaining the majority control of the state. If you were making that statement 2 years ago then you would be correct. Since it's October 2014 I would have to call bullshit on your comment. There is nothing wrong in believing that the mighty CDS isn't what they use to be. Times change and it appears the different factions are fighting for scraps. Not a good sign if you ask me.

      Delete
    5. Sinaloa controls todo el mexico menos la region del golfo....

      Delete
    6. Estas menso. Los de sinaloa no van para michoacan, cauhila, tamaulipas. Esos estados no son de gente dejado como los de mas que los controlan los de sinaloa

      Delete
  16. Chapo owns parral chihuahua?
    Carlos slim helu owns parral, chihuahua and el chapo, by his marriage into the family of pancho vlla's murderers, who also took pancho viila's treasury, and the current mexican government wants to steal away some of carlos slim drug trafficking empire, and carlos sim is defending himself by delivering one drug trafficking televisa van ata a time to the dea...
    --Yep, it is all up there at another level, full of well applied engineering by greedy technos who do not give a rat's ass about the humanities, it is not easy to become the richest man in the world if you are a bleeding heart sister...

    ReplyDelete
  17. I thought that Los M's controlled the State of Durango. Didn't they take over after flaco and los Cabrera brothers were arrested?? Anyone know and have a link not just their theory

    ReplyDelete
  18. El Senor Chapo Guzman had everthing under control and very organized .

    ReplyDelete
  19. "Arriba Parral Chihuahua!!! Pura gente de chapo....pura gente de huevos!!!"
    It was Chapo people killing each other all under CDS bandera

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Its always been that way bro....its justlike in la how sureños bang on sureños.....thats pretty much all there is in the area so of course there is gonna be fighting

      Delete
  20. If you want to know who is in charge of all of Juarez and Chihuahua read what the Governor of Chihuahua says about it in The El Paso Times about the arrest of Vicente Carrillo and what the Juarez Cartel is really about. That is straight from the horses mouth and he says CDJ is the most dangerous and treacherous cartel in Mexico. Read it and decide for yourselves.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Y eso ke el CDS ya lleva tiempo controlando partes de chiwas van a ver ke en la ciudad de Juarez va ser 100% Sinaloa ya mero acaban con los mugrosos linieros esos chapulines delos aztecas..ay les va un saludo alos artistas y toda la Gente Nueva en Delicias..vamos acabar con todos los contras pura Gente Del Chapo cabrones! ��

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pura gente de chapo!!!! Arriva Sinaloa y Chihuahua parienton!!!!

      Delete
  22. 6:04 survivors of the maruchan wars get to work a little longer for a little better pay, but just a little longer, and none of them or their bosses launder billions and billions of dollars or reinvest the laundered money on offshoring any industries from the US, as a matter of fact, the few capos that make money can't access it after they get arrested, or killed, only some money for the family to get by...
    --The real criminals in the world are not "kids" exactly, either...

    ReplyDelete
  23. Amao carrillo had some class, the muslim religion prison gangs like the barrio azteca prison gang , the eMe, the aryan brotherhood do not have any class, el paso prison gang barrio azteca running Cd Juarez will never have any class like the lowly cholos they are...

    ReplyDelete
  24. Another Great BB article. The truth is revealed again !!!!

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, refer to policy for more information.
Envía fotos, vídeos, notas, enlaces o información
Todo 100% Anónimo;

borderlandbeat@gmail.com