Pubdate: Fri, 28 Feb 2014
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Times, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Kelly Riddell

KINGPIN'S ARREST UNLIKELY TO AFFECT CARTEL, FLOW OF DRUGS, EXPERTS SAY

This month's capture of the world's most-wanted narcotics kingpin, 
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, will have little to no impact on the 
amount of drugs flowing into the U.S. across the Mexican border, experts say.

Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel - the largest in Mexico and the world - 
has a leadership succession plan that most likely has placed Ismael 
"El Mayo" Zambada at its helm.

"If El Chapo was the CEO, then El Mayo was the CFO. He's certainly 
smart, knows the network, and will keep the supplies going," said 
George Grayson, a drug war expert at the College of William and Mary 
who has written several books on Mexican cartels. "This [arrest] may 
be a sharp thorn in the side of the cartel, but it's certainly not a 
dagger in the heart."

Mexican authorities arrested Guzman early Saturday in a condominium 
in the beach resort town of Mazatlan on the Pacific coast. He has 
been formally accused of cocaine trafficking, and authorities are 
weighing other charges against the former fugitive as American 
officials call for his extradition to face U.S. drug-trafficking charges.

Mr. Zambada previously has run Guzman's empire, from the drug lord's 
1993 imprisonment in Mexico until his escape in 2001. The two leaders 
share the same vision for the organization's trafficking network and 
have a clear notion of who their adversaries are.

Mr. Zambada, along with Juan Jose "El Azul" Esparragoza, another 
Sinaloa heavyweight, remain at large.

"In the short term, El Chapo's arrest achieves the DEA's [U.S. Drug 
Enforcement Administration] goal in that it disrupts the cartel's 
command-and-control center," said former undercover DEA agent Bob 
Mazur. "However, the Sinaloa organization is much too effective and 
powerful to be taken down with one man alone. They own leaders of 
countries and have infiltrated law enforcement agencies on both sides 
of the border."

Although Mr. Zambada most likely will assume leadership, there are 
many young cartel up-and-comers who may use this schism to try to 
take ownership of the organization's most prized smuggling routes, 
said Mr. Mazur, author of "The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the 
Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel."

In the near term, there may be more conflicts and violence. The 
cartel already is responsible for leaving tens of thousands dead in 
Mexico. It's unlikely the gang's main rival, the Zetas, will attempt 
to take over Sinaloa's turf as they've been weakened by their own 
arrests, and other groups are too locally focused to compete with 
Sinaloa's international reach.

The Sinaloa cartel is said to be responsible for as much as one-third 
of the cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamines entering the 
U.S. With operations in Europe and Asia, the cartel flaunts an 
international presence unmatched by any other criminal organization.

Using 747 airliners, shipping freights and tractor trailers, Guzman 
built an extensive network that can smuggle tons of drugs into the 
country of his choosing, experts say. Sinaloa sells more narcotics 
today than Colombian drug dealer Pablo Escobar did at the height of 
his career, according to the DEA.

Mr. Mazur said the U.S. drug market is too attractive for a cartel 
like Guzman's to stay underground for too long. For example, Sinaloa 
buy a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of cocaine in Colombia or Peru for about 
$2,000. It then can get as much as $10,000 for that kilo in Mexico 
and as much as $30,000 in the U.S. Marked up for retail, a kilo of 
cocaine in some U.S. cities can reach $100,000.

Colombian and Mexican cartels can achieve as much as $39 billion 
annually in drug sales from the U.S. alone, the Justice Department 
estimates. If Sinaloa actually is responsible for about one-third of 
all U.S. narcotics, it could be making $13 billion a year, outranking 
Coca-Cola and Facebook in annual revenue. Guzman has appeared on 
Forbes magazine's billionaire list, and his organization has been 
likened to a Fortune 500 company.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom