I think it is not worth speculating further on the real story of the rendition/capture/kidnapping/betrayal of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López, since the versions of the detainees and their lawyers are dubious and contradictory, while the United States government decided to give a frankly incredible version – that the bosses fell from the sky, without expecting them – because it seems it does not want to get into more trouble with its Mexican counterpart, in case there had been some kind of violation of sovereignty.
What is regrettable and should be highlighted is that, at the end of the criminal career of the most important drug trafficker in Mexico, the one who for 35 years led, together with “El Chapo” Guzmán, the most powerful and long-standing drug trafficking organization in the country, the Mexican authorities have not been able to say anything (and when they did, they resorted to their “other data”: that of the pilot and the plane) for the simple reason that they did not participate and were not aware of it either. Their omission, ignorance and the ridiculousness of the White House excluding them from information about the event are a terrible culmination of the ignominious and failed security policy of President López Obrador’s six-year term.
The relevant issues to discuss are, from my point of view, the rearrangements in the structure of Mexican criminal organizations and the consequences for the security cooperation relations between Mexico and the United States. Regarding the former, it is not necessary to be an expert to predict an intensification of the struggles between the factions of the Sinaloa cartel for control of that organization, and also between it and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG) for the predominance of the various illegal markets that they control in various territories.
Since “El Chapo” Guzmán was extradited to the United States in early 2017, his organization has been involved in an internal conflict over its direction, mainly between “Mayo” Zambada and the so-called Chapitos, “El Chapo’s” sons, and between the Chapitos and the Caborca cartel – an organization created by Rafael Caro Quintero, who after being released from prison in 2013 tried to regain his place in the drug trafficking business – which has covered a good part of Sonora in blood.
We will have to wait and see if Zambada’s faction remains united or splits up, making the situation more violent in the coming months. If “Mayo” surrendered to the US after a negotiation process, it is likely that he left his organization in order and defined a leadership, thus avoiding internal struggles. If it was a surrender against his will, the groups related to him could fight with bullets for the seat of their now ex-boss. We will soon know: what is at stake is whether the powerful Sinaloa cartel remains as a single organization, and the most important one, or if it ends up splitting into two or three, leaving the CJNG as the dominant organization.
The CJNG leadership will probably not wait passively for the outcome of events and will take the initiative to attack its rival with more force (they currently have several battle fronts: Baja California, Zacatecas, Michoacán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas), taking advantage of the confusion, its divisions and eventual internal conflict. It could also try to establish some alliance with some of the factions in Sinaloa.
Several scenarios could arise in the coming months. It should not be overlooked that it will not only be a dispute over the drug market, specifically fentanyl, but also over the control of territories that allow the exploitation and control of other legal or illegal markets that are also extremely profitable: drug dealing in the Riviera Maya, one of the most important tourist centers for drug consumption in the world; migrant trafficking in Chiapas (around 500,000 people a year who pay a fee of between 7 and 10 thousand dollars for each one); huachicol in Guanajuato (hundreds of thousands of barrels of fuel); the collection of a floor fee from tens of thousands of businesses in the disputed states; the monopolies on the sale of alcohol and cigarettes in Zacatecas and Durango, the control of the export of cattle in Jalisco and avocados in Michoacán, etc. After six years of government permissiveness, the CJNG has the opportunity to expand its territories to extend its already diversified criminal activity.
As regards security relations with the United States, the “unexpected fall from the sky” on US soil of Zambada and Guzmán López reveals a deep crisis and puts an end to the pantomime of cooperation that is merely rhetoric. The issue is very relevant, since in a few months two new governments will face a common problem that is extremely difficult to resolve – if not impossible – with collaboration and trust at the lowest levels in several decades.
If a century of fighting against drugs by both governments has shown anything, it is that the most that can be hoped for is to keep the problem relatively under control, with levels of demand and supply as low as possible. And that is achieved when there is a real level of cooperation between the security agencies of the two countries, since the history of collaboration also shows that unilateral efforts are very ineffective or even counterproductive. Thus, even if the authorities of one or both governments do not like it or sometimes do not understand it, Mexico and the United States are condemned to work hand in hand to manage and control the problem of drug production and consumption and the rest of the associated phenomena, such as homicidal violence, arms trafficking and money laundering.
Collaboration is only possible if there is trust between the governments and the officials directly involved, which is currently destroyed. Without trust, cooperation agreements end up being acts of pretense. This is another of the consequences of the policy of “hugs and not bullets”: López Obrador spent the six years of his government maintaining a policy of permissiveness at a time when drug trafficking acquired a relevance for the United States that it had not had in a hundred years.
A review of US drug policies in the 20th and early 20th centuries reveals moral motivations (drugs are bad and go against morals and values), political motivations (the two wars on drugs declared by Nixon and Reagan had electoral and domestic political purposes), and public health motivations (the spread of addictions among young people and overdose deaths). The latter has become very important during the last decade because fentanyl drastically changed the equation, causing a brutal increase in overdose deaths.
Between 2015 and 2022, overdose deaths doubled. In absolute terms, of the nearly 108,000 people who died in the United States from overdoses in 2022, nearly 80,000 were due to fentanyl use. In Mexico, criminal violence causes around 30,000 homicides annually, so that in the US, fentanyl kills 2.5 Americans for every Mexican murdered. That is why it has acquired an unusual priority in the White House’s domestic policy and also on the agenda with Mexico.
López Obrador never seriously assumed the US demand to collaborate in the fight against the production and export of fentanyl. Proof of this is the repeated denial that this drug is produced in Mexico or the manipulation of the statistics of fentanyl laboratories destroyed by the Mexican Army in order to presume that Mexico was indeed collaborating (the Reuters agency published two reports that exposed the crude handling of the figures). Biden’s diplomatic patience with the current government’s pretense is over. With the arrest of Zambada, he decided to act unilaterally regardless of the consequences; “He’s leaving,” they must have thought in the White House. In addition, it is a warning for the new administration: if Claudia Sheinbaum wants respect, she should change the security policy and show real signs of political will to collaborate.
Although arresting Zambada and El Chapo’s son will not solve the fentanyl problem – the utility of arresting drug lords is more political – the temptation for the next US government to resort to unilateral measures has grown dangerously, especially if Donald Trump wins, who has already said it in no uncertain terms: they will intervene, even militarily and without permission.
The challenge for Sheinbaum will be twofold. Internally, designing an effective strategy to contain the conflict between the cartels that goes far beyond the deployment of the Army and the National Guard. In the area of relations with the United States, beginning to rebuild trust in the relationship from scratch and convincing the next president of that country of the limited utility of unilateral actions. There are already too many dead in both countries to continue believing that arresting the heads of the organizations will end the problem. ~
He is a specialist in national security and was director of the Center for Research and National Security (CISEN). He is a partner at GEA.
