After moving into fentanyl trafficking in 2014, they adopted the "Russian mafia" model: they control gasoline theft, prostitution, slot machines, pirated cigars and DVDs...
Even the most violent and merciless drug traffickers become fearful. After the penultimate capture of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán in February 2014, his four sons expressed during a meeting of capos their deep fear of being killed by the enemies of their father, who had "inherited" huge debts, power-hungry adversaries and the responsibility of leading a faction of the world's most powerful cartel.
The then 30-year-old Ivan and the 20-year-old Alfredo, Joaquin and Ovidio, now known worldwide as Los Chapitos, thought about leaving the drug business in the hands of Damaso Lopez Nunez, El Licenciado, and his son Damaso Lopez Serrano, nicknamed Mini Lic.
"They were very afraid, so much so that they said 'we want to leave this life already'. I was present at that meeting," said Mini Lic in an exclusive interview with the author of this report. The meeting between his father and Los Chapitos, which took place at Ivan's ranch on the northern outskirts of Culiacan, occurred after Guzman Loera's arrest in Mazatlan.
They announced they were leaving Sinaloa. "We had a meeting where Los Chapitos said 'You know what, Licenciado? Well, look at how things are, my dad left us nothing, nothing but problems'. 'No money, nothing to work with, he should have left a few kilos to move, he left nothing, the only thing he left were debts and problems, and according to him he wants us to continue supporting my aunts.'"
"'My brother-in-law Alfredo and I,' said Iván, 'we're going to go to Guadalajara, and my brothers (Ovidio and Joaquín) are going to Mexico City. Take control of everything. That's what Ivan told my dad, 'take care of everything and if you want, you can support my dad's sisters, we don't want that trouble, what will eventually happen is that my dad's enemies are going to screw us over or kill us, that's the only thing he left us, you see, my dad couldn't take them all on. They are going to kill us!
Damaso López Serrano, 'El Mini Lic'
López Serrano goes into detail about that meeting, which was key to understanding the destiny of the Sinaloa Cartel and its various factions, but first he offers details of the criminal and psychological profile of his former friends and party companions. Ivan, "the ostentatious one"; Alfredo, "the violent one"; Joaquin, "the intelligent one"; and Ovidio, "the pussy whipped individual."
"They abducted a driver of mine and fed him to a tiger. They accused him of stealing from them because he had done business on the side without giving them their cut. They threw him to the tiger in a sort of "Roman Coliseum" that they have on a ranch on the outskirts of Culiacán, where the feline tore off one of his hands and his genitals. His body was dumped on the main streets where the victim's mother lived.
The origin of how they began trafficking fentanyl in 2014 is the episode that explains the rise and subsequent fragility of Los Chapitos' criminal empire, who have become one of the priority targets of the US Justice Department, which is offering $10 million to anyone who provides information to capture each of Chapo's sons who remain at large.
According to Global Financial Integrity, the global fentanyl market is valued at 652 billion dollars. In the United States alone, it generates $150 billion dollars a year. Even so, what worries US authorities most is that this substance generates 73,000 deaths per year, 66 percent of all overdose deaths in the United States.
Breaking the silence
Dámaso López Serrano, Mini Lic, friend, partner and later rival of Los Chapitos, breaks his silence. In an exclusive interview, one of the main prosecution witnesses in the United States against the four children of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, reveals who is who in the quartet of brothers and how the criminal group considered by the US government to be the most powerful faction of the Sinaloa Cartel came into being.
Lopez Serrano, who was a top-level leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and for more than 15 years close to Los Chapitos, decides to tell, for the first time publicly as a collaborating witness of the US Department of Justice, and a fundamental piece in the judicial processes opened in at least four federal courts against the brothers Ivan, Alfredo, Ovidio and Joaquin Guzman, details about the criminal and psychological profile of each of the members of the quartet, their main associates, accomplices and bosses of assassins.
In a conversation lasting more than eight hours, held in a US city, Lopez Serrano, better known in the Sinaloa Cartel as Mini Lic, son of Damaso Lopez Nunez, Joaquin Guzman Loera's main collaborator, explains how Los Chapitos reformulated the drug trafficking empire inherited from his father. How they devised the trafficking of the deadly fentanyl and the variety of criminal activities they carry out, what are the "sources of inspiration" for their criminal model, and describes the brutal way in which they exercise control in the territories they dominate, where they instill terror and buy off authorities at all levels.
Through this unpublished testimony, we learn the ins and outs of the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel that, according to the U.S. government, is the most powerful, and to which they attribute tens of thousands of deaths a year in the U.S. due to fentanyl, which is produced and trafficked by the criminal organization.
Lopez Serrano's testimony given to the Department of Justice about Los Chapitos is one of the bases for the extradition request of Ovidio Guzman, who was handed over by the Mexican government to a Federal Court in Chicago on September 15, and who also faces charges in New York and Columbia.
Far from the narco propaganda spread by El Chapo's own sons, through banners, letters, narco ballads and singers, which spread his supposed "prowess" and "victories", the crude description of his former partner and friend reveals a paradigm shift in the way of being, way of life and business model of a new generation of narcos who want to impose their own rules, new drugs and methods to make the criminal machinery work, eroding and corrupting every part of the social fabric.
Damaso Lopez Serrano, 'El Mini Lic'
Like father, like son
On the morning of October 1, Dámaso López Serrano arrived punctually to the scheduled meeting in the United States. Due to his status as a cooperating witness and to guarantee his safety, he requested that there be no video recordings and that the location of the meeting not be made public.
With a round face and white complexion in which expressive eyes stand out under dense eyebrows, he showed up dressed in jeans and a checkered shirt from Purificación García. No one who saw him walking the streets would suspect that at a very young age he became an important leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, who sat at the table and expressed his opinions to bosses Ismael El Mayo Zambada, Arturo Beltran Leyva, El Chapo Guzman, his father Lopez Nunez and others.
At 35, his youthful and educated appearance contrasts with his cold-bloodedness in trafficking drugs internationally and giving orders to his group of hitmen to fight or assassinate rivals. I asked him if he personally had ever killed. He said no.
When he was born on November 23, 1987, his father was on the "good" side of the law. He was a public servant, worked in the Judicial Police and was an agent of the Public Prosecutor's Office. When Mini Lic was 10 years old, his life took a path of no return. His father was sent to the maximum security prison in Puente Grande, Jalisco, as deputy director of security. There he met El Chapo, who was a prisoner. He soon became corrupt, as did dozens of guards and their superiors, including officials from the Interior Ministry. With the help of bribes paid with money from his cousin Arturo Beltrán Leyva, Guzmán Loera acted as the prison's owner.
The internal and external corruption scheme made Guzmán Loera's escape possible in January 2001. And although the deputy director managed to resign weeks earlier to avoid responsibility, as soon as El Chapo was free and on the run, he became his right-hand man under the legendary nickname of El Licenciado. That is why his son adopted the nickname Mini Lic.
He confesses that since 2005, at the age of 18, he joined the ranks of the Sinaloa Cartel and was on that side until 2017, when he decided to turn himself in to the US government and face the charges opened against him in the Southern District Court of California and the Eastern District Court of Virginia. In dockets 16cr1896 and 16cr300 he was accused of trafficking methamphetamines, cocaine and heroin, from 2005 until 2016.
According to what was said by Judge Dana M. Sabraw, at the hearing held on January 10, 2018, where he pleaded guilty to the charges, the sentence that awaited him was at least 10 years in prison. He was given half that thanks to extensive and effective cooperation with the Department of Justice.
For months, the sentencing hearing was postponed until five years later, on September 16, 2022, Judge Sabraw sentenced him to five years in prison and five years of supervised release, thereby tolling his sentence and ordering his release on September 19, 2022.
His knowledge of Los Chapitos made him one of the key players in the war the U.S. government declared against the Sinaloa clan.
This is not the first time that the son of an important leader has been used to fight the same organization to which he belonged. At the time it was Vicente Zambada Niebla, Vicentillo, son of Ismael El Mayo Zambada, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, who played a leading role in the indictment and trial against El Chapo Guzman. Today Mini Lic is playing the same role, but against Chapo’s sons.
Four sons, one destiny
El Chapo was 36 years old when he was imprisoned for the first time in 1993, accused of the murder of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, which occurred at the Guadalajara International Airport. The drug lord had two official partners: Alejandrina Salazar, with whom he had four children, among them Iván Archivaldo, born in 1983, and Alfredo in 1986. His other wife was Griselda López, with whom he had four other children, three of whom ended up involved in criminal business: Joaquín, born in 1986, Édgar in 1987, and Ovidio in 1990.
Although the Guzman half-brothers now seem very close, according to 'Mini Lic', who has known them since he was 15 years old, this was not always the case.
-At that time, what were you like and what were 'Los Chapitos' like?
Obviously everything was very different," he sighs deeply. Los Chapitos' had only been settled in Culiacán for a few years.
-Where did they live before?
"They were in Guadalajara. So my relationship with them was through my dad, because my dad worked with his dad. So my dad had a very good relationship with them and I got to know them through my dad.
-Are you El Chapo's godson?
"Yes, he was the godfather to my wedding".
-Regarding Ovidio Guzmán López and Joaquín, at that time, where were they?
"I met them later. I think I met them around 2005".
-Did they come to Culiacán to where they lived before?
"They, their roots, belong more to Culiacán. I know they lived in Mexico City, but, normally, most of their life they were in Culiacán".
El Mini Lic', Damaso Lopez Serrano, with the Three Wise Men
Ivan, the leader: parties, murders...
Ivan Guzman Lopez, El Chapito, is the leader of the four brothers and, according to Mini Lic, "is the worst of them all".
"When you get to know him well, you realize that he doesn't care about anything at all and he doesn't care about anything or anyone as long as he's okay. Not even his family. His mother and his brothers do matter to him, I can't say his half brothers (Ovidio and Joaquín), because before 2014 he didn't love them. Before 2010 I heard him speak badly of Ovidio and Joaquín, he said 'those assholes don't count'".
According to his testimony, the Guzman Salazar family resented the Guzman Lopez family because when El Chapo escaped in 2001, Griselda was the one he spent the most time with, and when Ivan and Alfredo visited Culiacan, she spent less time with them.
In his youth, Iván was a party animal, says Dámaso, "...he went out to nightclubs, to the cattle fair, very young. Before, when he first arrived in Culiacán, the person who introduced him to the Culiacán environment was a friend of mine, son of El Mayo, Mayito Gordo, he was the one who introduced him to most of the people in Culiacán".
-What was Ivan's character then?
"Cheerful, cheerful."
-Was he aggressive, violent?
"Not back then, at least I can tell you I watched him at parties and at a party you go to have fun".
-Was he armed?
"Yes, I saw that he had a gun. He wasn't shy, he was a bit arrogant, thinking he was special".
-Did you also know Alfredo at that time?
"Yes, Alfredo was younger and was more reserved, more shy, always following and respecting his brother".
In December 2003 a car accident in Culiacán changed Iván. "It happened in Culiacán coming out of a nightclub, he was drunk, he was racing with another car and on a bridge he crashed into the back of a pickup truck, he was speeding, and he was pinned and his companion, a man, died".
Iván almost died. "His father was already on the run, he was very worried and immediately made arrangements for him to be taken by plane to Guadalajara. There they gave him medical attention and had to put plates and nails in his leg. He almost lost his leg.
He underwent several surgeries, but was left limping noticeably from the damaged leg. In 2004 he murdered a young Canadian woman who rejected him at the Bali Bar in Zapopan.
"It is when Ivan goes to a bar and has an altercation with a boy who was accompanying a young Canadian girl. Words were exchanged because Ivan tried to hit on the girl and the companion defends her. And when they leave the bar they start to argue. They were going to come to blows but Ivan and his friend took out guns and shot the young people and they died". The victims were Kristen Paige and the Mexican César Augusto Pulido.
For the double homicide, the leader of Los Chapitos was arrested in 2005 and imprisoned in the maximum security prison in Almoloya, State of Mexico. An event that influenced his personality.
-Do you know what Ivan's stay in jail was like?
"A lot of suffering, I have friends who were with him, inmates in the same prison and they said that he didn't spend an evening without crying... sobbing at night. And it was a lot of suffering because Ivan was very afraid. In that prison they had killed his uncle Arturo Guzmán, he was afraid that they would kill him, his father's enemies, Osiel Cárdenas and the Arellano (Félix).
Ivan's leg was literally rotting in prison, in fact "they were about to amputate it. He needed an operation and he wouldn't agree to it. The lawyer told us that Iván did not want to have the operation, that he was afraid because he said that if they took him out for an operation he would be killed and that he preferred to have his leg cut off. In the end, only López Núñez El Licenciado was able to convince him to have the operation and saved his leg.
It was in prison when Ivan started indirectly in drug trafficking. "As far as I know, he was already receiving direct profits from drug trafficking when he was in prison. Because his father gave drugs to Alfredo and told him that it was half for him and that the other half of the profit should be kept for his brother Ivan.
-How much did he give him?
"It was millions, in drugs, he gave him tons of marijuana.
-Alfredo, how did he move those tons of marijuana?
"With the same employees and friends of the cartel, he was in charge of everything, the tunnels were his father's, he practically didn't invest in anything and it was just about earning.
The testimony confirms that in 2008 Ivan was released for an act of corruption, bribes were paid to different authorities. When he returned to Culiacán, the war against Arturo Beltrán Leyva's group, who for years was one of the main leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, had just broken out.
At the welcome party that Mini Lic himself organized for him, Ivan was scared. "He asked his brothers why so many armed people, that he was scared, that he wanted to leave, that the government was going to come and get them all, and that he was going to go back to prison. He was very afraid.
-Alfredo started drug trafficking before Iván did?
"As far as I have seen with my own eyes, yes, Alfredo was first in the business.
They wanted to assassinate the deputy attorney general José Luis Vasconcelos.
-When Ivan gets out of jail, what happens?
"When he got out he was completely integrated. When he was welcomed he was afraid of guns, but he got over it quickly because after a few months I remember he went to my father's ranch, and he and Alfredo arrived with plate carriers and rifles hanging".
When Ivan got out of prison he was a different man. "He told me that he hated and wanted to kill Vasconcelos because he made his life hard and impossible in prison, that he pressured him and tortured him psychologically and wanted him to put his father, El Chapo, in jail. So he comes out with a lot of anger.
"At that time, the two sons who helped his father the most were Alfredo and Edgar. But Édgar had a gift with people, everyone liked him, he got along well with everyone in Culiacán and worked with many and worked very hard, he was generating a lot of money and everyone said he was El Chapo's heir, people said 'Édgar is the one who follows El Chapo'. And I think that weighed on him, it hurt Ivan that this was said, he was jealous.
A month after Iván's release, Édgar was killed by gunmen from the Sinaloa Cartel itself, due to a mix-up.
Damaso López Serrano, 'El Mini Lic'
The day El Chapo ordered to kill El Mayo Zambada
Edgar Guzman Lopez and his two companions were attacked on May 8, 2008 in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Culiacan by an armed criminal cell. "Edgar died instantly, and then it was revealed that it had been a mix-up. The one who authorized the attack was Vicente Zambada, with totally wrong information."
Mini Lic reveals that cartel hitmen had said that those gathered in that place were Arturo Beltrán Leyva's people. Édgar had gone out without bodyguards\s and without carrying his communication radios, so when asked if there was anyone from the cartel in the place everyone said no, that was when Vicente Zambada Niebla Vicentillo gave the go-ahead to shoot.
"El Chapo's first reaction when he learned that the attack had been ordered by the Zambada family, he gave the order to attack and wipe out everything that had to do with the Zambadas. He told my dad. He told him: 'Hey, everything that has to do with my compadre, Mayo, kill him, get everyone out and everything you know about him: houses, offices, everything! My dad was the one who made him change his mind".
"My father calmed him down and told him: 'Listen, you have always told me that you have to think with a cool head, I understand, Edgar was a son to me, it hurts me, I am with you, I just advise you and remind you, I tell you what I see. If you want to do it, I will order it right now.
El Chapo cried like a child. "I saw him at a ranch, in the Culiacán area, he was rolling around in the dirt crying, literally, he was rolling around on the ground, in the dirt, he was hitting the ground with his fist and shooting guns, he fired all the guns he had and he was crying and drinking Buchanan's 18 whiskey, straight with no chaser, and crying, crying, rolling around like a screaming child".
-What was he saying?
"I didn't want to be too close to that scene. I was there but I was trying not to look at him, but it was unavoidable. What he was shouting was 'My prince, my king, my son,'" recalls Mini Lic with a lump in his throat and teary eyes.
"He (Edgar) was like a brother to me. He was one of my best friends and he is one of the people who hurt me the most, he was very important, very dear to me and my dad. It was very strong, very painful.
-And what happens after the rage, after El Chapo's pain, what happens with El Mayo and Vicentillo?
"The next day my dad and El Chapo spoke, a little calmer, and he told him: "It's true, I've thought it through and we're not going to be able to do it. But we're going to keep this, then I'm going to get rid of the thorn, then I'm going to get my revenge. And that's how it was.
-And did he ever get rid of the thorn? He never sought revenge with the Zambadas?
"He wanted to kill Vicente, since Vicente was in the United States. They told him that 'Vicente is going to get out out of prison, he's going to get out out of prison' and El Chapo had a house of his (Vicente) in Los Angeles and he said: 'as soon as he gets out, I'm going to kill him, I'm going to collect two paybacks from him, one for my son's life and the other because he's cooperating with the feds by talking about me'. He had already located where Vicente's wife, Zynthia (Borboa), was living". It was approximately 2012.
-And did El Mayo know about this?
"No, obviously nobody knew. Only my dad.
In the meetings where I was, Ivan and Alfredo used to refer to El Mayo as "that old fucking man," now he's the old dumbass.
Ivan the Terrible: wife-beater and hallucinogenic mushroom user.
-After Edgar's death, Ivan became closer to his father?
"Yes, completely. In 2009, at a ranch on my property, my dad, El Chapo, Ivan, Alfredo and I were there, and I think some Colombians were coordinating a shipment and Ivan was already giving his opinion at the table, he was already proposing to do it this way or to do it another way. El Chapo feels very proud of Iván because Iván has many things in common with El Chapo: he is in love, he is a dancer. And that is what El Chapo likes.
-How is Ivan with women?
"Well, what I've seen is very extreme. He does know how to talk to them, he talks to them very nicely, but I've seen him beat up a few women. The ones he considers completely his property, he treats them very severely, as if they were an object of his property. Possessive. Slapping them, pulling their hair, slamming them against the car."
-Do you know the names of some of these women?
"The mother of his children, Zulema, his ex-girlfriend Priscila, another woman he was bringing, Citlaly Morgan."
He describes Priscila Esquerra, who was Ivan's girlfriend for many years, they even had marriage plans; she made conjugal visits to him in Almoloya when he was in prison. In the end they did not marry and he married Zulema Aracely Lindoro.
"Once I was at the Lucerna hotel in Culiacán, Iván had taken some pills, drugs, ecstasy, I don't know what kind of drug, but he was very high and very crazy. He was with a woman in a room and he took out his gun, he was going to kill her, but a friend of Ivan's and a friend of the girl intervened. Ivan told him 'I'm going to kill you too' and said 'go away, go away, dog! Ivan did manage to hit the woman, but the woman was able to escape. The next day Ivan called his friend and said 'thank you, you made me stop, I would have killed her'".
Mini Lic affirms that Iván now consumes "chocolate mushrooms", that is, hallucinogens. Of the four brothers, he is the most ostentatious. "The most expensive watches, the most exclusive, Lamborghini, Ferrari, McLaren, Porche cars, the best, the most expensive, he likes them". Until Ovidio's arrest last January, he liked to go to bars in Mexico City, where, according to Lopez Serrano, Los Chapitos have an important center of operations.
His favorite places are, for example: Grand Piano Lounge, in Paseo Arcos Bosques, Santa Fe, and the República del Distrito bar, located on Presidente Masaryk Avenue, in the Polanco neighborhood.
El Mini Lic
Alfredillo' the violent and his mini pomeranian 'Blue'.
Alfredo Guzmán Salazar, 37, nicknamed Alfredillo, is the most "violent" and "irrational," says Mini Lic. He studied up to high school. "When he's in his five senses he's normal violent, but when he's drunk he's violent on another level, he's like someone crazy that you can't control."
-And what role did Alfredo play while Iván was occupying this important position with his father?
"Alfredo remained the same as before, respecting his brother and giving the place of boss to his brother."
-He never had any interest in disputing that position?
"No, I never saw that, I never knew anything about it. Whenever I was present Alfredo always said 'whatever my brother-in-law says'."
"Once we were at a birthday party of a compadre of Iván's at a ranch in Culiacán, and a person was recording with his cell phone the musicians who were playing. Between the musicians and the person who was recording, there was the dance floor, where several people were dancing. Among them was Ovidio dancing with a woman. Someone told Alfredo that they were taking video of his brother Ovidio and, immediately, Alfredo ordered them to take it out. Alfredo called me 'Hey Mini Lic, come with me', and I went with him. It was a cousin of Alfredo's who explained in bewilderment that he was recording the musicians alone 'Are you an informant or what? Are you from the DEA or what?', he complained."
"Alfredo is drinking, there was screaming and craziness. He hit him with his fist in the head. He grabbed him by the neck against the wall. You know that I'll kill you here, you're an asshole and I don't care'. I told him 'Alfredo, I don't think he's been recording, he's family'. Don't get involved, Mini,' he told me, 'this fucker must be from the DEA'. When I had him by the neck, Alfredo headbutted him and broke his cousin's nose and blood started dripping from his nose. He told him: 'I'm not going to kill you because you are my cousin, but this is just to let you know that not even my family will be forgiven. And they went back to the party.
"Once, Alfredo came to an apartment of mine that I had in the most expensive area of Culiacán (Colinas de San Miguel). I was drinking with one of my pilots and Alfredo arrived with his pilot, it was already morning, six or seven in the morning. And he arrived just as drunk, he arrived yelling at my pilot, yelling at my musicians... there was a balcony from where you could see all of Culiacán and he went to put a glass and took out his pistol from the living room to shoot at the glass. That's when I told him no, and I had a slight argument".
Mini Lic asked him not to shoot because the neighbors were going to call the government. "He got angry, put the gun away and left in a huff. As soon as he left the building he fired about seven shots. Then his driver spoke to my driver and said 'I don't know how we didn't kill each other, we were going more than 200 kilometers per hour through the streets of Culiacán, running the traffic lights, and shooting through the sunroof of the truck.
In a disturbing contrast of personality, for almost two years now, wherever Alfredo travels, as if he were Paris Hilton, he takes his dog Blue with him, a funny and fluffy mini Pomeranian that accompanies him to meetings with drug dealers as well as to the discotheque. He carries him in his arms or in a name-brand bag that he carries on his shoulder, while in his waistband he carries his firearm.
On one occasion, a friend of his was carrying and throwing the puppy into the air. Alfredo got angry, "Not like that, give it to me! You'll stress him out." Alfredo massages Blue all day and combs his hair. He has another identical dog named Roy, but the other one is the spoiled one.
"They saw it in the movies. At one time everyone imitated Tony Montana, the protagonist from the Scarface movie, they all had their chairs made with the T and the M, and they dressed like him."
Pomeranian puppy 'Blue' by Alfredo Guzman
Ovidio the 'Mouse', the most agile in business
Ovidio Guzmán López, 30, nicknamed Ratón, has just been extradited to the United States. He is remembered by Mini Lic as "the most obedient" and "submissive" of the brothers. But also as the most agile in the drug trafficking business. He studied Business Administration or International Commerce at the Tecnológico de Monterrey.
After Edgar's death, his mother Griselda took Ovidio and his brothers to Canada. "Canada was easier because there were routes there, there were people there, there was structure and there was money, so whatever was needed there, there was money directly there".
"He was a very simple young man, very spoiled by his mother, his father too because he was the boy, but his mother’s love for him was over exaggerated. He was pussy whipped, he was completely dominated by his wife Adriana (Meza Torres)". She is the daughter of drug trafficker Raul Meza Ontiveros, M6, a lieutenant and partner of the Sinaloa Cartel.
"I've known them since we were young. I saw that relationship since they were boyfriend and girlfriend, I know Adriana and Ovidio completely, and I got to see everything first hand. All their fights.
"There was a time when Adriana beat Ovidio, approximately 2009-2010, before they got married, I don't know if they settled their problems when they were married. Ovidio was very quiet, I remember that Adriana went out to parties, to nightclubs, well, as any woman can do. Ovidio stayed at home taking care of his daughters. He was the one who changed their diapers. He was a very loving father, I have no doubt about that. In the narco world it’s a very uncommon thing, it’s very rare".
"I met Adriana many times at parties and I would ask her 'What about your husband?', she would tell me 'I left him at home taking care of the girls'.
"That was before, now that all this power and the Culiacanazo happened, I know that Ovidio was a totally different person, he already had many armed people with him, many narco ballads, he was already going to parties, he was already following his brother Iván's lead. He had already taken that path.
Mini Lic, Damaso Lopez Serrano
Ovidio had been making a lot of money for some time. "He worked very hard," says Mini Lic. "There was a time when he worked with another drug trafficker named Gabriel Valenzuela, where he made a lot of money. He also worked with his father, but in this you have to diversify and work with one and the other. Gabriel Valenzuela started out as a freight forwarder. He moved drugs from Guatemala to Chiapas, and from there to Sinaloa and the border with the United States, trafficking cocaine. That's where he made a lot of money.
-What did Ovidio do with that money?
"He bought ranches, he likes horses a lot, he is very passionate about horses. He was simple, I never saw him with jewelry, nor flashy cars, I'm not saying he didn't have them, but I never saw them.
Joaquín, the one who claims to be the smartest one
Joaquín Guzmán López, Güero and/or Moreno, is the one we know the least about. He likes to boast that, of the four brothers, he is "the most intelligent. He also went as far as university studies.
"I didn't deal with him much but I did interact with him. I dealt more with his best friends and what they said was that he thought he was the smartest of them all, he made fun of the fact that they didn't mention him in narco ballads in those years, he wasn't burned by the government or anyone else, no one bothered to look at him but he was already dealing. So he would say 'no, look at my brothers and those assholes', referring to other drug traffickers, 'I'm fine, I'm on my own'. At that time he walked without bodyguards, without a driver or secretary, completely alone, it was 2014. He said: 'Those assholes, look, I'm comfortable on my own, why go around with so many people? If I pass a checkpoint they don't even know who I am".
Joaquin had a social life that was not so active because he frequented other circles, "he didn't like to live or talk with drug traffickers." "He was always behind Ovidio, he sent Ovidio, 'you do the negotiations, you say everything,' but the one who had the last word was Joaquin. Everyone said 'Ovidio, Ovidio', but no! The other one was the one in charge, the one who decided. Maybe in these years since the Culiacanazo of 2019, Ovidio has grown, but before, whatever Joaquín said, that was it".
Damaso López Serrano, 'El Mini Lic'
How fentanyl trafficking began
-About Los Chapitos being the main precursors of fentanyl, what do you know about this?
"What they say they are, yes, they are. They do produce a lot of fentanyl.
-How long have you known about this?
"As far as I know, at the end of 2014.
El Mini Lic said that in that year they got the news that criminal groups from Michoacan or Jalisco were trafficking a drug that made a lot of money. "At that time it wasn't known as fentanyl, they called it synthetic chiva or synthetic heroin, that's how it was known, that it was much more profitable, that they made much more money.
"The organization sent a person to China and began to investigate, they contacted a person there where they explained how, the process, why, the costs, and they came to Sinaloa and explained: 'this is how it is, you take it like this, you sell it for so much', and then they began to say 'he is going to sell us'. At that moment, the one who started production was El Chapo. Then El Mayo Zambada.
-Has El Mayo produced fentanyl from your knowledge?
"From my knowledge, yes, yes, they say that he no longer produces, that he stopped. I don't know that. After the United States began to put pressure on him.
Shortly after it began, in February 2014, El Chapo was arrested in Mazatlan.
The war in the making
"They were very afraid, so much so that they said 'we already want to stop this,' so I was present at that meeting," Mini Lic refers to a meeting between his father and Los Chapitos, which occurred at Ivan's ranch, just north of Culiacan, after Guzman Loera's arrest.
"We had a meeting where Los Chapitos said 'You know what, Licenciado? Well, look at how things are, my dad left us nothing, nothing but problems'. 'No money, nothing to work with, he should have left us a few kilos to move, he left nothing, the only thing he left were debts and problems, and according to him he wants us to continue supporting my aunts'."
They said that they were leaving Sinaloa. "'My brother-in-law and I,' said Iván, 'are going to Guadalajara, and my brothers (Ovidio and Joaquín) are going to Mexico City. You take everything. That's what Ivan told my dad, 'you take care of everything and if you want, you can keep supporting my dad's sisters, but we don't want that trouble, what is going to happen is that my dad's enemies are going to screw us or kill us, that's the only thing he left us, you see, my dad couldn't take them all on, they are going to kill us!
They didn't want to retire from drug trafficking. "They didn't want to pay anything from the Sinaloa Cartel. They wanted to create their own organization just for themselves. My dad told him 'no, let your dad say, he is alive, you are killing him, wait, wait for him to say something and we will do it, don't make any decisions yet.
El Chapo, from prison, sent a letter to Licenciado instructing him that half of the profits from the drug trafficking operation should go to him and the other half to Ivan, Alfredo, Ovidio and Joaquin. But Ivan, the leader of the brothers, said he was not interested, so his father's right-hand man offered to keep all the drug trafficking profits in Culiacan. According to Mini Lic, that whetted Los Chapitos' appetite and that's when the problems began, because they wanted to take over more and more of the business.
"In 2014 there were problems because not only did they take over drug dealing, they began to see the slot machines, pirated cigarettes, and they charged for prostitution, the sale of pirated movies and DVDs, anything they could get their hands on, gasoline theft... And they wanted to get into our areas.
"In Culiacán there were people who have been in the drug dealing business for 20 years, 50-year-old women who sell drugs to support themselves. I'm not saying it's right, but it's been ingrained for a long time. Ivan's people would come and say 'do you want to sell, this is what you are going to sell and 80 percent is for me and 20 percent for you,' even to relatives of El Mayo... from there El Mayo began to fold his hands and said 'it's true, I don't have drug dealing, I'm not interested in that business.
El Chapo escaped in 2015 from the federal prison in Almoloya, State of Mexico, with the help of El Licenciado, Los Chapitos and the intervention of Emma Coronel as a courier.
"We were the best family in the world! Chapo escaped in July, in August it was Ivan's birthday, he invited me, I was the guest of honor. He brought me parading all over the place hugging me, it was at a ranch belonging to my compadre Jorge Caro. When I arrived Ivan went for me, he received me at the entrance, he accompanied me from table to table walking and hugging me". But the peace did not last.
Damaso Lopez Serrano, El Mini Lic
The day they were going to die
In August 2016, after the third capture of El Chapo, the Beltrán Leyvas with people from the Quintero family, planned to abduct Iván and Alfredo in Puerto Vallarta, reveals Mini Lic, and asked the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) for the favor.
"The kidnapping was given to kill them, it wasn't to scare them, or threaten them, or intimidate them, it was to kill them. I can't say I planned it, I wasn't part of it, I didn't know about it."
-But there are those who hold you responsible, that you participated in it.
"It wasn't like that, I did participate in meetings with those people to make a common front against Los Chapitos, but I had no knowledge that they were going to be kidnapped, that they were going to do something to them."
-Why didn't they kill them?
"Because they quickly warned El Chapo. He intervened, he sent a threat to Menchito, El Mencho's son, and gave him an ultimatum: 'if you hand over my children to me, I'll hand over yours'... and it wasn't until El Chapo did that that he released them.
After their release, it was then that Los Chapitos were born as an organized criminal group. "As far as I saw, they said: 'we were about to die, we almost didn't get away with it. And as many people mocked and laughed at them and celebrated that, it was as if more hatred entered them, as if they said: 'they were laughing at us, ok, now we are going to take anyone by surprise'. I saw it, they started to kill whoever".
In February 2017, Los Chapitos' war against El Licenciado and Mini Lic broke out. López Núñez was arrested in Mexico City in May 2017 by the Criminal Investigation Agency, and his son turned himself in in July 2017 to US authorities. According to him, to save his life.
They want to be like the Russian mafia
-How did Los Chapitos end up becoming the kings of Culiacan, what business do they have?
"It's a long list. Where they made the most money was stealing gasoline. That and drug dealing, prostitutes, pirated cigars, robbery and extortion of mines.
-How does this happen?
"They charge them for protection. "You pay me or I won't let you work," as well as lumber and fishing. They charge the fishermen a fee. The beer stores have to close at a certain time, at 10 o'clock at night, and then only theirs open, only they are allowed to sell beer.
-You commented that they are ingenious in inventing criminal businesses.
"I recognize that.
-Where do they get these ideas from?
"In my time living with them, Ivan said that he wanted to be like the Russian mafia, the company had to earn a percentage of everything that moved, in everything that passed through there. If drugs were sold, if there were laboratories, they charged a percentage to whoever had laboratories. He wanted to monopolize all the drugs in his city (Culiacán): "here only the cartel sells drugs" and "everyone who wants to work has to buy from the cartel and if you want to bring your drugs you are going to pay me". That's how they tried to do it with crystal meth, but they couldn't because in Sinaloa it's like making fresh water. It is manufactured everywhere.
"I repeat: they are visionaries, when it comes to evil, because they thought 'we are going to mix fentanyl with cocaine to make people more addicted.' And they also mix fentanyl with crystal meth. It's evil to make pills that look like medicine. Why do this if they know they're killing people? I can't see why. You want to kill for the fun of it?
The Chapitos' private "Coliseum".
In the criminal file opened in New York against Los Chapitos in 2023, the prosecution attributes episodes of incredible brutality to the Guzmán brothers: they kill, torture and throw their victims to the lions or tigers. But what Mini Lic describes is even worse.
"For example, they would pick up robbers, thieves, or enemies and put them to fight among themselves until they killed each other. It was fun like in the times of Rome in the Coliseum, to kill each other, sometimes they would give them a knife and people would bet 'Let's see how much'. They promised them 'whoever wins, we will spare his life'. And they were killing each other's cousins, relatives.
-Where was this happening?
-In Sinaloa, in ranches around Culiacán. I don't like that kind of thing, but my gunmen did go there, they were invited by the gunmen of Los Chapitos. Sometimes they would get them to fight with blows, sometimes with a rock. Once they gave two brothers a knife and made them kill each other.
"A driver of mine was thrown to the tiger," said Mini Lic. They abducted him and accused him of stealing from them because he had done business on the side without giving them their cut, and they threw him to the tiger, which tore off one of his hands and his genitals. His body was thrown in the main streets where the victim's mother lived.
The ABC's of 'Los Chapitos': what do they read?
-Where does the idea of violence come from in this way? How can the narcos be thinking: 'and now how do I have fun?
Dámaso stares at the author of this report, it is a question he did not expect. He thinks and answers.
"They like to read books that have to do with power, with war, with control, like 'The Art of War' or 'The 48 Laws of Power'".
-How do you know?
"Because we've said: 'Have you read this book? Have you read this one?' That's where they get a lot of ideas!"
He also states that Los Chapitos replicate what they see in movies or TV series. "For example, I discussed this with them when the Pablo Escobar series came out many years ago, a Colombian series. Pablo Escobar throws some people out of a plane or a helicopter, I once commented on it unintentionally. And Ivan says 'what will they look like when they fall'. It turns out that years later, when we confronted each other in 2017, they throw bodies at me from a small plane in my town. They say they were alive. They were thrown by the Los Chapitos mob, there in El Dorado (a town near Culiacán). One landed on top of a hospital and the other in a neighborhood."
Who killed the journalist of the weekly Ríodoce, Javier Valdez?
At noon on May 15, 2017, a burst of gunshots rang out on Vicente Riva Palacio Street, colonia Jorge Almada, in Culiacán, Sinaloa. The body of journalist and writer Javier Valdez was left on the asphalt, attacked a few meters from the weekly newspaper Ríodoce, while he was driving his car. His telephone and personal computer were stolen and the perpetrators were able to flee without any problems, despite the heavy traffic that is usual in that area and at that time of day.
The journalist, who received the 2011 Press Freedom Award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), was a specialist in drug trafficking issues. In a state controlled by organized crime, his diligent work contributed to shedding light on uncomfortable issues for both the government and criminal groups, giving a voice to the victims and bringing the perpetrators out of anonymity.
In February 2017, Valdez published in the weekly zine an interview with Dámaso López Núñez, El Licenciado, who for decades was the right-hand man of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán Loera, but who at that point, after the third arrest of his boss in January 2016, began a war with the Sinaloan's sons: Iván, Alfredo, Ovidio and Joaquín Guzmán, better known as Los Chapitos. In the interview, López Núñez tried to explain the origin of the dispute.
According to what the weekly revealed, Los Chapitos pressured Valdez to cancel the publication, but he refused. After the publication of the article, groups of people went to the points of sale to buy the edition en masse, as a form of censorship to stop the dissemination.
On May 8, 2017, the weekly published an article signed by "Redacción" about López Núñez and his son Dámaso López Serrano, titled Dámaso, the man who wanted to replace 'El Chapo', in prison. It describes Mini Lic as a "prop gunman" with "no leadership capacity.
Valdez's brothers, interviewed by the author of this report, stated at the time that the journalist was working on a book about the collusion between drug cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel, with politicians, officials and the military, and that the authorities should include that line of investigation in their inquiries.
The Sinaloa government and the Attorney General's Office have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) to extradite Dámaso López Serrano, alias Mini Lic, who is accused of being the alleged mastermind behind the morder of Valdez. One of the witnesses testified in a trial that he had received money from López Serrano to kill the journalist.
"Absolutely not. Yes, people who were threatened, bought, forced to declare that lie in a trial where everything was corrupted from the beginning, I was never allowed to defend myself, since they threatened to kill the lawyers I sent to represent me, but what else can you expect from Sinaloa if they murder police, military, politicians, journalists, searching mothers, innocent people... this is the daily bread."
"In Sinaloa, the cartel rules, it puts the governor, municipal presidents, senators, deputies, trustees, so a lie like saying that I paid 100,000 pesos to have Javier Valdez killed, is nothing."
-Who killed the journalist?
"The death of Javier Valdez was ordered by the sons of Chapo Guzmán: Iván, Alfredo, Ovidio and Joaquín, and the gunmen who killed Javier are gunmen of Los Chapitos, that's what his family knows, but they are threatened. It won't be long before Ovidio Guzmán agrees with me and accepts that he and his brothers are the masterminds behind that crime. I hope that on the day that happens, the U.S. Department of Justice will make the announcement and the Mexican government will send its agents to interrogate Ovidio, just as they did with my father, to take his statement and annul the extradition order they have against me. It is time for them to look for the real culprits."
Authorities from the Department of Justice who at the time were involved in the surrender of López Serrano and in the negotiations of his plea agreement, consulted on this issue, stated that if their government had any suspicion that 'Mini Lic' was behind the journalist's murder they would not have made a plea agreement or collaboration.
On May 15, on the anniversary of Valdez's death, the international organization Article 19, through a communiqué, requested the Attorney General's Office to deepen the line of investigation that points to the alleged responsibility of Mini Lic.
As to why he does not return to Mexico to face the charges and prove his alleged innocence, López Núñez responded that Los Chapitos are protected at the highest level and he is certain that, if he were to return to Mexico, he would be killed and this would prevent him from being a prosecution witness in the judicial processes being followed in the United States against the four sons of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, who are not being prosecuted by the Mexican government. Nor is it known that there are charges against the quartet, despite their criminal record.
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