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The Death Of Ignatio "Nacho" Coronel (Part 2) · Beyond The Horizon

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome back to the program. In
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: this episode, we're going to pick up where we left
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: off with the article from The All that was authored
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: by John Murray. The war with the Sinaloans is what
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: many researchers and reporters believe was the catalyst for the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: incredible levels of violence Mexico has experienced in the past
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: three years. Arturo's sociopathic brutality and the ruthlessness quickly became
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: apparent as police all over Pacific and Central Mexico found
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: bodies by the dozen, decapitated and bearing messages signed by
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: El Jefe del Jefe, the boss of bosses, the name
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Arturo gave himself. These sadistic operations were carried out by
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: men wearing uniforms bearing the acronym FEDA, which stands for
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Special Forces of Arturo. He didn't have a high opinion
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of himself or anything, huh? Let me name the whole
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: entire special force unit that I employ after myself. The
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: violence quickly escalated on both sides. Arturo reached out to
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: his old contacts in the Cario organization in Juarez, as
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: well as the Zetas, who were then distancing themselves from
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: their former employers in the Gulf cartel. The three aligned
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: against the hegemonic Sinaloans, and the Beltran-Leyba empire now rivaled
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: any in Mexico. Not only with size, but with brutality
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: as well. Anytime you bring the Zetas on board, you're
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: dealing with a group of straight-up killers, straight-up maniacs, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it automatically bolsters your own forces. But as quickly as
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: things came together for the Beltrans, they began to unravel.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: In early August, Mexican officials arrested the Beltrans' main connection
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: with Colombian cocaine, Ever Vilafan Martinez. While they were able
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to establish new connections within Colombian cartels, it was a
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: symbolic hit to the newly formed organization. In November, federal
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: authorities running an anti-corruption campaign discovered that Noe Ramirez Mandolano,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the chief of the Attorney General's Organized Crime Unit, was
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: on the Beltran-Leva payroll. This brought increased attention to the group,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: which had probably bought off Ramirez before. long before, while
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: they were still working for the Sinaloa cartel. The violence
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: bore on for another year, and was in large part
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: responsible for the skyrocketing death tolls of 2008 and 2009.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Arturo terrorized Mexico, and in addition to his nicknames The
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Beard and White Boots, he soon simply became called Death. Then,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: in mid-December of 2009, Arturo threw a Christmas party for
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: friends and associates near Cuanavaca, a wealthy resort town in
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: his base state of Morelos. The party was thrown at
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: a private house and Arturo had invited the popular singer
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Ramon Ayala to entertain his guests. But the party was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: interrupted when an elite special forces division of the Mexican Navy,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: acting on a tip, raided the house. Arturo managed to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: escape as his gunmen held the Marines at bay. About
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: a week later, on December 17th, Arturo was laid up
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: at a second floor apartment of the Altitudes Luxury Condo
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Development in Cuanavaca with several bodyguards, though not including his
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: favorite bodyguard and most trusted confidant, the Barbie. Again, the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Mexican Navy, acting on intelligence they had gathered from the
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: first raid, managed to track him down and staged an
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: assault on his apartment. Arturo and his men saw them
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: swarming the complex from their second-story perch and open fire.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Over the course of about 90 minutes, 200 Mexican Marines
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: stormed the Altitudes Condo complex, even rappelling into the scene
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: from helicopters. Artero's men were well-armed, firing assault rifles and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: lobbing grenades from the windows of the apartment. At one point,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Artero called for backup, and at least 10 more gunmen
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: arrived at the complex, throwing grenades and fighting back the
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Marines to give Arturo a chance to escape. One by one,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: his men fell, until it was just Arturo left in
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the apartment. Whether he was given a chance to surrender
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: isn't clear, but it's clear he had no intentions of
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: doing so. In a final act of defiance, he picked
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: up an AR-15 and kicked open the front door of
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: his apartment to make a break for it. He was
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: met by Marines coming up the stairs to the second floor,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: who cut him down immediately. Yeah, you don't have a
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: very good chance of surviving that encounter by yourself, running
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: into a whole group of Marines coming up the stairs
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  Speaker 1: who are looking to kill you. Yeah, chances are you're
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: going to end up dead. This was Felipe Calderon's first
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: major victory in the drug war, and Beltran Leva's body
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: was certainly treated like a trophy. With his jeans were
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: stripped to his knees in a gesture of humiliation, just
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: as so many of his victims had been found. He
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: was extensively photographed and recorded, and those images made their
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: way around the internet very quickly. This was the first
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: time in the recent war anyone got to see what
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: a dead Mexican drug lord looked like. There was something
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: very strange about seeing where and how he lived, bowls
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of fruit still fresh on the table, next to religious
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: icons and automatic weapons, that made the whole thing seem symbolic.
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  Speaker 1: But it was very hard to grasp what the symbol was. Well,
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  Speaker 1: with hindsight, we now know that that symbol was to
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  Speaker 1: show the Mexican people that, look, we're going after the cartels,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: but it was all just a show. At the same
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: time they were doing this, they were also feeding all
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: kinds of information to the Sinaloa cartel. And that was
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: just recently proved inside of a courtroom in America when
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Genaro Garcia Luna was convicted for his crimes of taking
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: money from the cartels and working with the cartels hand
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: in hand as he was Mexico's top cop. So when
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: we look back at all of this in hindsight, it
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: all really comes into focus. From there, the Beltran Leyva
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: cartel began to fall apart. On December 30th, police arrested
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Carlos Beltran Leyva, who was riding by himself with fake identification,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: two guns, and a bag of cocaine in Culiacan. With
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: three of the brothers dead or arrested, Many speculated about
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: what would happen to the headless cartel. Some thought there
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: would be some kind of succession of power allowing it
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: to survive. Others predicted another cartel moving in and taking
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: over the entire operation. But what has happened so far
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: bears no sign of a definitive ending. Over the months
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: following Carlos' arrest, the group fractured further. In an apparent
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: struggle for control of the remnants of Arturo's empire, Barbie,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the sidekick, whom Arturo once trusted before anyone else, is
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: now at war with Hector Beltranleva, one of the last
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: remaining brothers of the cartel namesake. The factionalized group is
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: also still locked in a larger struggle with the Sinaloa cartel,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: which played itself out most recently in the epic shootout
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: between Sinaloan foot soldiers and the last remnants of a
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: local Sonoran Beltranleva gang entrenched in a hill town, some
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: 25 miles from Nogales, Arizona border crossing, a few days ago.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the Beltran Leyva gang
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in the Mexican psyche has more to do with Joaquin Guzman.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Almost without fail, the origins of the cartel are traced
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: back to the media reports and drug war analysis to
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the betrayal by Chapo Guzman, and that's a reputation that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: hasn't left Chapo since. To this day, it can be
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: seen in the attitude of citizens, who believe that Calderon's
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: administration is in league with Chapo. Bingo, they most certainly were.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: That has all played out now, and it's all been
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: factually proven. He's viewed as the man behind the scenes,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: pulling all the strings. Anytime someone is killed or arrested,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: that was a one-time friend or enemy of Chapo Guzman,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the suspicion arises that he had something to do with it.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: that he either tipped off the police or somehow was
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: responsible for the murder. This happened immediately after the death
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: of Arturo Beltranleva. It also happened when Teodoro Simmental, a
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: one-time associate of the Tijuana cartel operating in southern Baja,
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  Speaker 1: was arrested and it continues with the death of Nacho Coronel.
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  Speaker 1: But this was the biggest mistake they made as far
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  Speaker 1: as Nacho Coronel being thrown under the bus. At the time,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: they didn't realize it, but it led to CJNG and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the number one rival that Sinaloa cartel has for their supremacy.
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  Speaker 1: But these reports are impossible to corroborate, and in many
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: cases may owe to the puppet master's stature that Guzman
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: has received from the arrest of Alfredo in 2008. Well,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: we know now that it's all true, it all bared out,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: that Guzman and the Sinaloa cartel were working with the government.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: They were feeding them information about their enemies. And in return,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: they were being protected. But what the Beltran Levas can
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: tell us about the possible repercussions of the death of
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Nacho Coronel is that one thing we can expect is
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: more violence. 2010 is on target to becoming the most
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: violent year yet in the Mexican drug war. And a
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: great deal of that was spurred on by the death
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of Arturo and the subsequent infighting and chaos within his ranks.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Guadalajara was plagued with relatively little violence when compared with
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the slaughter in Juarez and along the Texas border in Gulf.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: That may change. Worse still, this will be extremely complicated,
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  Speaker 1: as Nacho and his most apparent successor have been taken
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: out of the picture. Infighting among Nacho's group and their
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Sinaloan allies, along with the threat from the Zetas and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: other cartels, will create a mess in Jalisco for some
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: time to come. Well, that didn't really happen, did it?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: As far as a mess in leadership, because that vacuum,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: that void was filled right away by El Mencho. And
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: then El Mencho and his group, well, they became CJNG.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So you know that decapitation strategy they were talking about? Well,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: how's it working out? While the DEA called Cornell's death
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: a crippling blow to the Sinaloa cartel, the structure of
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the group ensures that it will survive, just as it
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  Speaker 1: survived and prevailed when it lost the Beltran Levas, who
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: were then a huge part of its core. The drug
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: trade is far bigger than any one capo, no matter
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: how big an image we paint of them. The only
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  Speaker 1: sure thing his death has for the history books at
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: this point is one more story of an immensely powerful
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  Speaker 1: drug trafficker shot down in a country where such stories
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  Speaker 1: flourish and the promise of violence to come in the aftermath.
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  Speaker 1: And boy, oh boy, did that violence come. And we
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  Speaker 1: see it playing out every single day right now in
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  Speaker 1: real time. All right, folks, that's going to do it
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: for this one. All of the information that goes with
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the episode can be found in the description box.