The Sinaloa Federation - LCT Alliance

SITREP

Joaquin Guzman Loera (El Chapo) has a long standing relationship with MEXGOV, but he paid off primarily SEGOB and SEDENA. He had Mexican Army liaisons with him almost all of the time and Gobernacion people with him some of the time to fend off unwanted inquiries. 

Times change and politics changes. Since Enrique Pena took office, there has been a systematic purge of the old guard at PRI and the young turks have replaced them. El Chapo is now going it alone without the top cover that he's grown accustomed to. 

El Chapo and his partner, Ismael Zambada (El Mayo) have split the sheets with Cartel Nueva Generacion Jalisco and El Mencho. The Sinaloa Federation is trimming down and is getting ready to operate under a new paradigm.

The New Sinaloa Federation

As part of the Sinaloa Federation's restructure, El Chapo has joined with Los Caballeros Templarios (LCT) and is allied with key figures within Los Kaibiles de Guatemala (Guatemalan Special Forces). Thus, his strength in Southern Mexico is profound. Much of their methamphetamines and opiate products are now streaming into the marketplace (USA) by way of Canada. Chapo is proportionately as strong in Canada as he is along the US Border. The Arellano Felix Organization was folded completely into El Chapo's new Sinaloa Federation and he has a strong grip on the border from the Pacific Ocean to New Mexico.

MEXGOV Reaction

Because the rapprochement with the Sinaloa Federation has gone, MEXGOV wants to put pressure on them to crush them. 

Example of MANPAD damage to a
civilian aircraft.

El Chapo's Reaction to the MEXGOV Reaction

El Chapo has decided to up the ante. One of those moves is to provide the Sinaloa Federation with protection against MEXGOV rotorcraft and low flying aircraft. He turned to Guatemala (site of the shoot-out yesterday) to purchase Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) - surface to air missiles. He couldn't lay his hands on the latest generation of MANPAD, but the Chinese FN-6 is good enough to eliminate the threat that MEXGOV can present from the air to cartels operating in the field.

New MEXGOV Philosophy

For a very long time, the Mexican Government has been paid by drug cartels for the right to move narcotics through "plazas" as the drugs make their way to "the customer/consumer" - the USA. This resulted in unacceptable violence. Today MEXGOV plans to cut out the middle man and handle the business themselves. It brings more profit to PRI's new young turks and they can do it without encountering the problem of violence between competing cartels. Or at least that's the plan.

The Livable, Lovable, Port of Veracruz

The Sinaloa Federation is a practical organization. When you intend to take over a major hub or region, it's better to simply flip the current warlord to your team than it is to try and install somebody from outside (Sinaloa) than it is to keep the figurehead in place where he is. 

It's been over a year now since SEDENA assaulted Veracruz (very effectively) and drove out Los Zetas (circa September/October 2011). Within two weeks, the Sinaloa Federation moved in and installed the formerly #3 in the Los Zetas command structure as their man in Veracruz. Sure, Rafael Acosta Croda has people keeping an eye on him, but life is good. The police leave him alone. The Army leaves him alone, the politicians tip their hats to him and all is well with the world.

Rafael Acosta Croda - and one of his wives.

The drugs move through the port of Veracruz with the occasional seizure to insure that MEXGOV authorities take credit for their vigilance. [usually somebody else's dope - rarely is a load belonging to Gonzalo Inzunza Inzunza (Macho Prieto) bagged] DEA has been wondering how all of the drugs are moving through the East Coast. This is one route. There are others.

Zeta one day, Sinaloa Federation the next. Expedient moves are necessary for survival. But sometimes it's tough for USGOV to keep up with the program.

Nicholas Ivie murder and the Beltran Leyva Cartel

The Beltrán-Leyva Cartel (Beltrán Leyva Organization or BLO -  Cártel de los Beltrán Leyva was a Mexican drug cartel founded by Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo and Hector Beltrán Leyva brothers. The cartel found its origin with the demise of Amado Carillo Fuentes (El Rey de Ciello). From time to time they have been allied to and opposed to most of the other drug syndicates in Mexico. 

On August 11, 2011, the Mexican Government declared the cartel to be disbanded and extinct, except that it's not. (Wikipedia) As of the penning of this blog, the BLO has been pushed back in Sinaloa to a sparse turf in Mexico including the Gussave and Batamote corridor in the valley along the highway 15 corridor and into the mountains east of there in the region referred to as "Mexico's Golden Triangle" where the states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua meet.

They also control turf in Nayarit State and in the area surrounding Cuernavaca. Their distribution network in the United States is intact. They control various sections along the US/Mexico Border including a portion of the narcotics traffic that crosses at the San Luis Colorado/Yuma area and about 75% of the turf between Nogales and Agua Prieto. It's in that turf area that Agent Nicholas Ivie was murdered this week. And there it was there, in that area that Fausto Isidro Meza Flores also known as Chapo Isidro traveled to pick up a supply of money that was transported south, across the US/Mexico Border.

One of the best photos of Chapo Isidro available. He has
more gray hair now and is heavier.

Chapo Isidro has been pressed hard of late. There were two attacks by the Mexican Army at his home in Batamote and at Camp Wilson over the past three months wherein they tried to take him and only succeeded in killing his bodyguards. Today the Mexican Federal Police raided his home near Gussave and took members of his family into custody.

He traveled up to the border across from the Bisbee, Arizona Corridor because he needed to replenish his war chest. There's been a big war in Mexico and he needed more cash to pay his small army of about 300 fighters.

Drug dealers transit the Bisbee, Arizona Corridor because the US Border Patrol is prohibited by policy for policing that area with vehicles. They do their work on horseback or on foot. Terrorists or narcotraffickers have a pass to move through this area. A bill passed the House of Representatives on June 19, stipulates that federal land management agencies may not prohibit enforcement efforts to “prevent all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband through the international land borders of the United States.” The Senate has not acted and the bill rests, collecting dust on Sen. Harry Reid's desk.

On October 2, 2012 in the early morning hours, Ivie, along with two other agents, responded to a border sensor about five miles into Arizona. Ivie was shot to death and one of the other agents was wounded.

Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie was responding to members of a drug cartel that officially doesn't exist anymore in a portion of the US/Mexico Border area that the US Government wouldn't allow them to use automobiles to patrol, when he was killed by friendly fire.

Out of the more than 20 million acres of Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service land along the southern border, 4.3 million acres are classified as wilderness areas.

The Center for Biological Diversity has been one of the organizations charging that greater access for the Border Patrol on federal lands would harm the environment.

“Organ Pipe and Cabeza Prieta lie adjacent to each other along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and have been significantly hurt by off-road vehicle use in recent years — much of the damage has been the result of Border Patrol vehicles riding roughshod over wilderness areas,” (PJ Media)