Sinaloa Cartel has more planes that Aeramexico

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Noreste article

Subject Matter: Sinaloa Cartel
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

The organization has Cessnas to Boeing 727 and recruits the best pilots

Reporter: Infobae
The career of Jorge Gustavo Arevalo-Kessler as a pilot for the private airline of the Sinaloa Cartel ended with his arrest in the City of Mexico and his admission of guilt before a Federal Judge of the United States.

Born in Germany, Arevalo-Kessler obtained his Mexican citizenship and rose to the rank of Captain in the Mexican Air Force, where he worked as an instructor and trained hundreds of pilots, but his post military career was very different.


He received an offer to fly Emirate Airlines and could have retired with a fat pension, but in place of this he went to work for Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, and flew cocaine to and from Venezuela, Panama and Mexico.

"Many privileges came his way thanks to his education and ability to fly planes", said Gray Miller, District Judge, during his sentencing of Arevalo-Kessler. " I want to say that he has flown combat planes, commercial planes, small and large jets. Unfortunately, he said, he was blinded by greed".

Arévalo-Kessler received 11 years in federal prison on conspiracy charges tied to money laundering and had few words in response to the sentence, according to a transcript of the trial in 2011 that was released last year.

The cartel fleet is even comparable with some of the major international airlines.
"And in all those black days I've been thinking and praying and I'm asking the Lord to approach me and speak to me with the truth," Arévalo-Kessler said. "And the only thing I want to let you know, Your Honor, is that I have time to think about what I did. What I did was wrong. "

Arévalo-Kessler was an important pilot in the air operations of the Sinaloa Cartel, which by number of aircraft can compete with the major airlines of Mexico. The size of its fleet is by a large margin larger than that of Aeromexico, the largest commercial airline in the country.

The cartel's fleet is even comparable to that of many international airlines, although many of the cartel's aircraft are smaller, designed to fulfill their role of traveling to and from remote and clandestine airstrips.

This information comes with an investigation carried out by El Universal, who obtained data on planes confiscated by Mexican federal forces between 2006 and 2015. The numbers are even surprising for the Sinaloa Cartel itself, the world's richest drug trafficking organization.

Mexico has confiscated 599 airplanes and helicopters linked to the Sinaloa Cartel exclusively, according to the newspaper's information. That's almost five times the size of the Aeromexico fleet, although we insist, most of the Sinaloa Cartel aircraft are small, among which are Cessnas (the most popular), Gulf-streams, Pipers and others.

A complex nexus of phantom, private companies and "training schools" conceals their true purpose.

Considering that this number is exclusively confiscated air fleet, not active, the absolute total is probably higher and we can expect the cartel to replenish its losses after these operations. Although not all of the cartel's planes are of small dimensions, Arévalo-Kessler admitted to Mexican authorities that he had flown a Boeing 727 for the cartel.

According to El Universal "If it were a legal company, the cartel would also compete as the most lucrative airport company in the country, operating 4,771 clandestine airstrips between 500 meters and one kilometer long, nestled in the heart of the mountains. in the northern states. "

The Sinaloa Cartel is an international organization, but it is mainly located in northwestern Mexico and centered around the state of Sinaloa. According to the newspaper, the landing and take-off runways are heavily concentrated in Sinaloa, but also towards the border between Baja California and California.

But what the Arévalo-Kessler case shows is that the Sinaloa Cartel does not need to be legal to compete with the world's airlines. A job offer from Emirates (one of the best in the world) and a career in the Mexican Air Force gave him  opportunities to work directly on airplanes. So he went to work for El Chapo.

Illegal or not, the cartel has proven capable of recruiting top talent.