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Sunday, November 17, 2019

The Fracture of the Main Cartels


By Buggs for Borderland Beat
Some sources used are from Washington Post and Insight Crime. 


Two little-known criminal groups have made headlines in recent weeks for their alleged role in the ambush and murder of women and children in northern Mexico of Sonora state. How did these groups known as "little armies" emerged?

A group of 17 members of a prominent American Mormon family were traveling in three vehicles when gunmen opened fire on their caravan on November 4. Nine members of the family with dual US and Mexican citizenship - three women and six children - died in the attack near the municipality of Bavispe, state of Sonora, on the northwestern border of Mexico with the United States.




The attack was not perpetrated by Mexico's powerful traditional cartels, but was started independently by two smaller criminal cell groups while in conflict with each other. One known as Los Salazar that has links to the Sinaloa Cartel and operates in the state of Sonora, and another called La Línea, a faction of the Juarez cartel with a strong presence in the state of Chihuahua.

The LeBarón family had denounced for years the presence and threats of organized crime groups in this anarchic border. In 2009, two members of this family were kidnapped and killed in Chihuahua. However, recently the family and Los Salazar lived together peacefully in Sonora.

But all that changed on November 4, 2019.

In the months before the deadly attack there were rumors about an escalation of territorial conflict. Los Salazar operating in Sonora had allegedly asked the LeBarón family, who lived in La Mora, not to buy fuel in the neighboring state of Chihuahua, since they said that it supported the finances of their rivals, La Línea.

On the other hand, La Línea perceived the possible incursion of Los Salazar in Chihuahua as a direct threat to its operations and therefore decided to send a violent message, this according to General Homero Mendoza, head of the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena).

With the attack of the LeBaron family, La Línea made it clear to rivals Los Salazar that they were the ones who controlled the roads out of Sonora, that crosses through Chihuahua and reaches the border with the United States. These routes are vital for drug smuggling, human trafficking and other lucrative criminal activities. If the massacre was intentional or of mistaken identity is not very clear now, but it is expected to be clarified as arrests are made from the actual shooters. What is clear, it came from a cell operating in the region.

One can say for certain that the armed group that allegedly committed the Sonora massacre most likely emerged years ago as part of the outsourcing of security by the most dominant cartels in Mexico. Although perhaps they began as small family-based organizations, these networks eventually expanded, which led to increased profits and the militarization of their drug trafficking activities.

In addition to securing their areas of influence, the cartels also competed for the control of drug traffic corridors known as “plazas.” Once they gained control of a specific plaza, the dominant criminal group can begin to charge “piso” or a fee (quota) for other criminal organization to operate in their controlled plazas. This is like a tax charged to any other criminal group that traffics weapons, people or drugs through their territory. This tax system has become another important source of income to the cartels.

However, to win these territorial wars, it is essential to have a greater number of "soldiers" or sicarios ready to fight to the death.


As an example, the Tijuana Cartel, the Arellano Felix family sought out the members of the San Diego Logan Street gang, across the border, to whom they provided weapons and tactical training. The Gulf Cartel hired members of the Special Forces Aircraft Group of Mexico (GAFES) to be its operational wing, which later became known as Los Zetas.

For its part, in the early stages, the Sinaloa Cartel resorted to an internal faction of the group, known as the Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO), to create a mini-army supported by smaller street gangs in areas that the group controlled along the U.S.-Mexico border to fight rival cartels. BLO lost a lot of their power when they turned against Sinaloa and were hit hard by the Mexican government, mainly Arturo Beltran Leyva, who was killed and his brothers, who were arrested and who had been heads of the criminal organization.

The Sinaloa cartel also had a powerful group known as Gente Nueva, but currently are not as powerful as they use to be mainly because of in-fighting, they formed alliances with the street gangs like Los Mexicles who not only operated in the barrios of Juarez but in the Mexican state penitentiaries. The recent violence reported in Ciudad Juarez was credited to the Mexicles who burned vehicles in the streets, executed many people and targeted members of La Línea in the Juarez jail.

The Juarez Cartel hired active and retired police officers to form what became known as La Línea, and also worked with a street gang located in Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, known as Barrio Aztecas.

Over time, however, the structure of Mexico's cartels changed and became less hierarchical. With the arrest of the top capos, these organizations became fragmented into numerous cells and many of these cells started to operate independently. These armed wings became more autonomous in terms of finances and decision making. In turn, this allowed them to expand their activities, so that they no longer only provided security but also advanced their own criminal activities, such as extorting local businesses and carrying out kidnappings. The Zetas, for example, would eventually separate from the Gulf Cartel and become one of Mexico's most ruthless criminal groups.

La Línea also acquired more prominence, so much so that it came to be targeted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). The former leader of the group, Carlos Arturo Quintana Quintana, alias “El 80”, was included in the list of the most wanted of the FBI and was arrested in May 2018 after a bloody criminal career that lasted almost a decade.

Under Quintana Quintana, La Línea bought several municipal police forces and co-opted political figures in northwestern Chihuahua to facilitate drug trafficking operations of the Juarez Cartel in Ciudad Juarez and across the border between the United States and Mexico.



The territorial war over the control of key routes for trafficking of drugs and smuggling of people in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, in northern Mexico, has extended for more than a decade. But although some of the so-called “small armies” of the country have emerged and disappeared, the brutal demonstration of strength by La Línea against Los Salazar at the expense of the LeBarón family indicates that they could be a fundamental piece of the Juarez cartel’s plan to regain power in their old fort (Insight Crime Analysis).

To gather further understanding of the fracture of the big cartels and understand the dismantling of the cartel structure, that took out the bigger than life capos that controlled with ultimate power, grab the book "Borderland Beat" available in Amazon, Lulu and anywhere books are sold.


31 comments:

  1. Gee, who'd a thought.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anyone heard the corrido los 6 caballeros? Who are the two brothers keeping anonymous? They mention Arturo, Alfredo, Carlos and Hector, also i heard arturo sister is the leader now.. theres a reason blo is still present although more low key and everyone who abandoned shipped los Hs example got wacked.

    Evo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They lost the majority of their power, beltranes lost the Airport, guerrero, aguascalientes and Nuevo Leon plazas

      Delete
    2. Humberto & Mario

      Delete
  3. No crime in Mexico is ever brought to trial. Chapo still has the power

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not according to mencho 😆

      Delete
    2. Chapo is in prison. Forever.

      Delete
  4. linea doesn't control the route into/out of Chihuahua from Sonora,cds cells do

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep and cds did the killings, the only reason they are saying it was linea is because the gov dont want to look worse after letting ovidio walk away, but everybody knows all of the border between sonora and chihuahua is controlled by cds

      Delete
  5. Good Read. Thanks Buggs

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow no we have a better understanding, Buggs had to do some digging on news sites, Mexico secretary Durazno had said last Monday they arrested a group, but was to scared to name them. But in this article does not mention they got arrested. Can't even trust the higher-ups in Mexico..they try to feed you lies.
    Mexico-Observer

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One was arrested in Agua Prieta but was said he didnt have no connection to the family murded

      Delete
  7. Los Salazar is pulling a cdn warning others not to buy fuel

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Doesn't seem to be working too well. At this rate all surviving members of Los Salazares will be aligned with either La Linea or with RCQ.

      They're quickly becoming extinct....

      Delete
  8. So if I read it correctly, it was the Los Salazar wanna be cartel that killed the Mormon kids and ladies?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No it was the people who are making Los Salazares extinct...

      Delete
    2. Not even the fucking narcos know who killed that family. It is hardcore CDS territory yet La Linea chased those Salazar fuckers all the way there. Could of been either group if both have a prescense there.

      Delete
    3. 2 weeks had went by, and no one was able to name the criminals that killed the ladies and kids. The enept MEXICO government was unable to name the group, they said they got arrested but did not show the group, also they limiting the FBI on what they can do, the irony too, is that FBI cannot be armed.
      El Perin de Tamp.

      Delete
  9. Thank you for the explanation. This was informational and helpful in understanding local cartel politics leading up to the murder of the peaceful Mormons.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Well written. It was ready to follow the weave.

    If it was “La Línea,” (things could change), Both Governments will take credit for capturing anyone involved, if they are still alive.

    Whoever did it really fucked up and should be shitting it right about now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the shooters and whoever approved the killings end up as Pozole or Tamales.

    Queso

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Queso, thy name is smegm, if it was whatever.
      It would be better to investigate and find something before assigning blames.

      Delete
    2. 917
      Its called having an opinion,Queso is eliciting comment,if everyone thought like you we would all be mute morons ya dig?

      Delete
    3. May every cartel member and those officials and police who facilitate them perish.

      Delete
  11. Seems like semi-autonomous cells that do in fact belong to major DTO’s. Bosses delegate tasks to these groups and they may also act on their own, but I’m sure they would have to answer for acts of extreme stupidity like killing the Mormon family, which, has unfortunately garnered far more publicity than the slaying of countless Mexican families since 2006

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ALMO has been putting all this slayings under the rug. It has also went down in history, that he refused help from USA in tracking the criminals. Of course later, he allows the FBI but under stupid rules.
      Luna Apagtha

      Delete
    2. I wasted my vote. ALMO is clueless and not doing everything in HIS power to protect Mexicanos. Everyone still loves him now but in the future he will step down como Evo Morales. I have spoken.

      Delete
    3. 8:15 local boss javier corral is in charge,
      as Governor of chihuahuas he was too busy playing golf with his PANISTA buddies, his security guards could have helped the Le Barons better than AMLO,
      (IT IS AMLO, AMLO you know?)

      Delete
  12. A month or 2 ago it was allegedly Rafael Caro Quintero who was attacking Los Salazar the killing in the restaurant, the Alleged Audio Recording talking of War, I find it strange with all the talk of Sonora over the last few weeks his name has not been mentioned once yet before hand his name was everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When ever a salazar is waked his name comes up if you read a little more careful, he is just a low key mother fucker

      Delete

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