Life's Peachy Keen In Sinaloa

Yes, no matter what happens, El Chapo wins:

Yes, there have been victories for the government: In March 2009 the attorney general’s office published a most-wanted list of 37 high profile drug lords. As of February 2013, two-thirds of them are either dead or in custody. By now, the majority of the seven major drug trafficking cartels battling for dominance have been crippled. Most have partially or completely fractured into smaller groups. Even the infamous Los Zetas, whose leader Heriberto Lazcano was killed last fall, have recently suffered severe blows.

Only the Sinaloa cartel seems to have survived the onslaught relatively intact.

...El Chapo is still at large, after his spectacular escape from prison in 2003. In mid-February Guatemalan authorities investigated rumors that he had been gunned down, but the president’s spokesman later told GlobalPost they found no evidence of this. His inner circle cronies Juan José Esparragoza and Ismael Zambada also still operate freely.

...Since then, the Sinaloa cartel ousted its rivals in the lucrative smuggling corridors of Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. El Chapo himself is now the most wanted man on the globe, with US authorities offering a $5 million reward for any information leading to his capture.

...Even more impressive is its global reach. Sinaloa operatives have been arrested from Egypt to Argentina and from Europe to Malaysia. Properties attributed to El Chapo Guzmán have been seized in Europe and South America. US law enforcement reports that the group is now present in all major American cities. Recent US court documents involving the case of Vicente Zambada-Niebla, Mayo Zambada’s son, even suggest the Sinaloa cartel now controls the cocaine trade in Australia.

Earlier this month, Chicago named El Chapo Guzmán public enemy number one, the first to receive that title since the city’s legendary crime boss, Al Capone.

...No wonder Forbes has listed El Chapo Guzmán on its annual list of billionaires since 2009.

...Beith points out that Sinaloa´s survival and recalcitrant power should instead be attributed to the way it operates.

“There is a level-headedness about the leadership that the other groups lack,” he says. “To the authorities, first priority always has to be quelling violence. When other groups throw grenades into a crowd of innocents or behead[s] people, it’s obvious what needs to be done. Sinaloa has perpetrated its share of violence, but by and large it did not cause disruption to the general well-being of the population.¨

The Sinaloa cartel’s relatively low profile in terms of violence is partly due to its relatively long history – it’s been around for 25 years. In Sinaloa itself the goup is deeply rooted in society. Not only do its senior leaders hail from the region, but the cartel reputedly funds hospitals and schools, thus winning support from locals who aid the capos in their never-ending struggle to escape arrest.

...“El Chapo has an apparent ability to [allegedly] corrupt and infiltrate elements of law enforcement on both sides of the border and seemingly play the authorities’ every move to his advantage,” Beith says. “When the Mexican army moved into Juárez, so did El Chapo, seizing an opportunity. When the authorities took down the Arellano-Félix cartel, El Chapo was already poised to take Tijuana.”