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Mexico captures Sinaloa cartel boss who launched power bid after El Chapo arrest Mexico captures Sinaloa cartel boss who launched power bid after El Chapo arrest
(about 1 hour later)
Mexican prosecutors have captured a leader of the Sinaloa cartel who launched a struggle for control of the gang following the re-arrest and extradition to the US of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Mexican soldiers and police have detained a Sinaloa cartel leader who was once Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s right-hand man, but more recently became locked in a power struggle with the imprisoned kingpin’s sons.
The attorney general’s office said soldiers and prosecution agents had detained a drug gang leader it called “Dámaso N”. Dámaso López was arrested at an apartment block in an upper middle class Mexico City neighbourhood on Tuesday morning, the attorney general’s office said in a statement.
A federal official confirmed the suspect is Dámaso López, known by the nickname “El Licenciado” – a title for college graduates. López was long considered Guzmán’s right-hand man and helped him escape from a Mexican prison in 2001. A grand jury in Virginia has previously accused him of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and launder money. Troops and police officers in masks and full battle gear led López from the building before he was sped in a convoy of white vehicles to a unit of the attorney general’s office.
López is believed to be locked in a dispute with Guzmán’s sons for control of the cartel’s territories, especially in the cartel’s heartland of Sinaloa state. In a handwritten letter made public in February, the sons alleged they were lured to a meeting with López, but attacked upon arriving. Nicknamed “El Licenciado” – a title for college graduates – López was a former security official himself, and once worked as head of security in the Puente Grande prison near Guadalajara, where Guzmán was held after his first arrest in 1993.
Guzmán, who twice slipped out of maximum-security prisons in spectacular escapes, was detained for a third time outside a motel in the Sinaloa city of Los Mochis in January 2016. He was extradited to the United States on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration to face multiple charges. López is accused of helping Guzmán slip out of the prison in 2001 in the first of two high-profile escapes.
With Guzmán in jail, the Sinaloa cartel has been controlled by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García and Rafael Caro Quintero, two of the most traditional, old-school capos, plus López, and Guzmán’s son, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán. After the escape, López kept a low profile but reputedly worked closely with the fugitive kinpgin. Guzmán became godfather to López’s son, Dámaso López Serrano, nicknamed “El Mini-Licenciado” and the supposed leader of a Sinaloa cartel hit team known as Los Ántrax.
It is believed that López and Iván Guzmán are feuding over the spoils of El Chapo’s empire, provoking a wave of violence in Sinaloa. In 2013, the US Department of the Treasury’s office of foreign assets control described López as “one of the top lieutenants of the Sinaloa cartel” when it announced sanctions identifying him as a major international drug trafficker.
Guzmán faces US drug trafficking, money laundering and other charges. He has pleaded not guilty. A grand jury in Virginia has accused López of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and launder money, according to the Associated Press.
Guzmán, who escaped a second maximum security prison in 2015, was detained for a third time outside a motel in the Sinaloa city of Los Mochis in January 2016. He was extradited to the US on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration to face multiple charges.
López is now believed to be engaged in a bitter dispute with Guzmán’s sons for control of the cartel’s territories, especially in its heartland of Sinaloa state, where violence has surged since El Chapo’s recapture.
“It’s going to get worse,” said a local reporter who covers drug violence. “The war now is inside Dámaso’s faction. Internal disputes are always much more violent than when they fight rival groups.”
With Guzmán now in the US, the Sinaloa cartel has been controlled by Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García and Rafael Caro Quintero, two of the more traditional, old-school capos, who are understood to have stayed on the sidelines of the dispute between López and Guzmán’s sons: Iván Archivaldo Guzmán and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán, sometimes called “Los Chapitos”.
The battle between them has brought bloodshed to Sinaloa, which registered 142 homicides in March, the most violence month there since 2011, according to the newspaper Noroeste.
In a handwritten letter made public by journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva in February, the sons alleged they were lured to a meeting with López, but attacked upon arriving.
The Sinaloa cartel is often described as a confederation of crime leaders – many with roots in the rural areas of Sinaloa state – in which Guzmán was seen as the ultimate authority to referee internal disputes.
But analysts say that the structure has come under unprecedented pressure since El Chapo’s recapture and the emergence of a new generation of leaders more prone to conspicuous displays of wealth, and less willing to follow established cartel codes which discouraged attacks on rivals’ families or the local population.
“Something the Sinaloa cartel did well was have these cells in which everyone made good money, but they also got along,” said Adrián López, editor of Noroeste.
“There was a mafia model in which the main interest was everyone doing well … After with El Chapo’s escape the federal government started focus on Sinaloa that hadn’t happened before.”