CHAR
THIS ARTICLE WAS POSTED BY MURAL
WRITTEN BY: GRUPO REFORMA
IGNACIO CORONEL VILLAREAL
EL REY DEL 'ICE'
THE KING OF ICE
If the history of crime has taught us anything, it's that when one head is cut off, others rise to replace it.
However, what no one expected, in the case of Ignacio 'Nacho' Coronel, is that after being killed in the midst of Felipe Calderón's war on drugs, a much more ambitious and violent group would emerge: the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
With such an elusive figure as Ignacio Coronel, there is no certainty even about his birthplace.
Some say he was born on February 1, 1954, in Canelas, Durango, while an FBI report—dated April 17, 2003—indicated he was originally from Veracruz.
The drug lord began as the "godmother" of the commander of the Federal Judicial Police, José Luis Fuentes Jiménez, in Baja California, but soon joined Amado Carrillo Fuentes' group.
Coronel arrived in Guadalajara in the early 1990s on orders from the "Lord of the Skies." He was in the city with his brother Magdaleno Coronel Villarreal, "El Leno," who was the plaza boss.
However, along with his nephew Raymundo Carrasco Coronel, Magdaleno died in Zapopan on June 3, 1993, in a shootout with soldiers. It was then that the natural successor to protect Guadalajara's territory from other groups was Nacho Coronel.
The death of Amado Carrillo during plastic surgery in 1997, as well as the fall of General Gutiérrez Rebollo, led the drug lord to join forces with the Sinaloa Cartel, placing him under the command of Joaquín Guzmán, known as El Chapo.
A skilled drug trafficker, Nacho Coronel expanded his range of activities: in addition to cocaine, he trafficked methamphetamines and had dozens of clandestine laboratories throughout the country, allowing him to control more than 50 percent of synthetic drug production, according to the DEA.
He also negotiated with the Valencia brothers of the Milenio Cartel to conduct joint drug trafficking operations to the United States, effectively distancing Guadalajara from the drug-related violence that already plagued the rest of the country.
Despite everything, on the afternoon of July 29, 2010, the drug lord was killed by the Army in an operation carried out at his mansion in Colinas de San Javier.
CJNG PREVAILS
After the fall of Nacho Coronel, the Milenio Cartel suffered a split between La Resistencia and the CJNG. After three years of homicides, massacres, and bodies hanging from bridges, the latter group, led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho," prevailed.
The CJNG would employ the same terror tactics to achieve impressive expansion in a short period of time.
For example, in 2015, the DEA identified Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit, and parts of Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, Michoacán, Oaxaca, and Chiapas as the cartel's areas of influence.
By 2025, the landscape had changed completely. Today, the CJNG has a strong presence in virtually all states of Mexico, according to DEA information.
Likewise, unlike the business model of Nacho Coronel, "El Mencho" seeks to appropriate as much as he can.
The former focused on drug trafficking, primarily synthetic drugs.
Now, CJNG leaders have expanded their businesses to include extortion, fraud, illegal logging, arms trafficking, and heavy cargo theft, among many other crimes.
This, however, has come at an enormous cost in bloodshed.
Speaking only of the Jalisco case, the battles the CJNG has waged against other criminal groups have left a trail of violence and destruction.
There are also countless cases of innocent victims who have lost their lives due to the boundless ambition of "El Mencho" and his accomplices, as well as due to the inaction (and in some cases, complicity) of authorities at all three levels of government.
As a consequence and reflection of this, there have been cases such as the murder of young people working in call centers, the CAAV film students mistaken for criminals, the execution of the González Moreno brothers, and the recruitment center at Rancho Izaguirre. All of this is compounded by the problem of disappearances that keeps Jalisco in first place nationwide.
Over the years, the CJNG has only spread its tentacles, not only in Jalisco but also around the world. And, so far, it remains unclear who or how they can stop it.
AGGRESSIVE EXPANSION
Ten years ago, the CJNG barely controlled Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit, and parts of Michoacán, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Veracruz. It now operates nationwide.
Some of the businesses the cartel has entered into:
- Drug trafficking
- Human trafficking
- Criminal call centers
- Huachicoleo
- Timeshare fraud
- Extortion
- Money laundering involving currency exchange centers, real estate, and restaurants
- Arms trafficking
- Slot machines
- Mineral theft
- Heavy cargo theft
- Illegal logging
These are the preliminary investigations and homicide files:
2009: 570 Arrest of Óscar Orlando Nava, "El Lobo," Valencia.
2010: 888 Deaths of Nacho Coronel.
2011: 1,222 deaths, War between La Resistencia and CJNG.
2012: 1,184
2013: 1,099 deaths. The CJNG prevails and begins expansion.
2014: 907
2015: 957
2016: 1,105. Violence intensifies in the Los Altos region.
2017: 1,342 Carlos Enrique Sánchez Martínez, "El Cholo," forms the Nueva Plaza Cartel.
2018: 1,960
2019: 2,017
2020: 1,754
2021: 1,816 War between CJNG and CNP ends after death of "El Cholo."
2022: 1,601
2023: 1,449
2024: 1,442
2025: 529 (as of June)
great read hope everyone likes the post with lots of historical context.
ReplyDeleteI want to apologize on a previous post I misspelled and wrote that Mayo, Caro, Viceroy got sentenced to death.. The three mentioned avoided the death penalty
Excellent piece Char ... Chapo and Mayo hated on this guy and turned him in. Lobo Valencia was also key to his methamphetamine empire .. I think Noel Torres Nacho coronel rola is hard as foook.
ReplyDelete