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The Death Of Ignatio "Nacho" Coronel (Part 1) · 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 talk about a man named
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Ignacio Nacho Coronel. And if you want to understand the
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: fentanyl game and how synthetic drugs became such a huge
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: part of the narcotics trade for the Sinaloa cartel, you
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: most certainly have to understand the man who ushered it
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: all in. So today, we have an article from TheAll.com.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And this article was posted all the way back on
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: August 3rd of 2010. Headline, Ignacio Coronel and what happens
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: after a drug lord is killed. And this also dovetails
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: into our ongoing conversation about the decapitation strategy that is
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: used in the war on drugs. In a luxury suburb
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  Speaker 1: of Guadalajara last Thursday afternoon, one of the key leaders
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  Speaker 1: of the Sinaloa cartel, Ignacio Nacho Coronel, was shot dead
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  Speaker 1: during a brief gunfight with the Mexican Army Special Forces.
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  Speaker 1: Drawing on intelligence gathered over the past few weeks, the
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  Speaker 1: Army staged a raid on a home they believed was
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  Speaker 1: linked to drug trafficking. Coronel was inside. Witnesses reported hearing
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  Speaker 1: loud explosions and plenty of gunfire as helicopters and more
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  Speaker 1: than 150 men closed in on the drug baron. According
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  Speaker 1: to reports, Nacho got off enough shots with an assault
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  Speaker 1: rifle to kill one soldier before being killed. Now think
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: about what would happen if they would have had those
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: shoulder-fired missiles that we see over in Ukraine. Imagine if
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  Speaker 1: Nacho Coronel had three or four guys with those. Forget it.
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  Speaker 1: The Mexican army would never even attempt a raid like this.
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  Speaker 1: And moving forward in the future, you know that people
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  Speaker 1: like Nacho Coronel and the people he left in his
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  Speaker 1: wake are going to have access to those weapons. In
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  Speaker 1: the immediate terms, the raid was a huge success. Coronel
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  Speaker 1: was considered to be the third leader of the Sinaloa
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  Speaker 1: cartel and may be the biggest fish the Mexicans have caught,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: if that's the right word, so far in the drug war.
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  Speaker 1: The raid also netted the arrests of 10 of Coronel's bodyguards,
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  Speaker 1: over $ 7 million in cash and jewelry, three luxury vehicles,
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  Speaker 1: and perhaps, most importantly, his laptop. And whenever you have
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  Speaker 1: a digital footprint of somebody, that is the crown jewel
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  Speaker 1: for the authorities. Because chances are, you're going to have
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  Speaker 1: conversations on there, emails, things that you don't want the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: authorities to find on that computer. And then they'll use
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  Speaker 1: that to continue building their investigations. Authorities have announced that
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  Speaker 1: its contents have already been used to find and arrest
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  Speaker 1: Mario Carrasco Coronel, Nacho's nephew, and most likely his successor.
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  Speaker 1: The information gleaned from the laptop could end up having
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  Speaker 1: devastating effects on the ability of Nacho's organization to operate.
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  Speaker 1: And we know now that wasn't the case. Maybe in
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the short term. But in the long term, these guys adapt.
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  Speaker 1: And they're willing to adjust on the fly to make
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  Speaker 1: sure things keep moving in the right direction. Reports claim
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  Speaker 1: that it contained information on companies he used to import
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  Speaker 1: drugs and launder funds. as well as information on his contacts.
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  Speaker 1: We'll soon see how this plays out for the rest
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: of his outfit in Guadalajara and whether the intelligence will
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: be used to seriously disrupt their ability to operate. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we know now that's not the case. And once again,
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  Speaker 1: this is another example of how the decapitation strategy just
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  Speaker 1: doesn't work. It sounds great. Don't get me wrong. Taking
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  Speaker 1: out scumbags at the top of the chain Never a
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  Speaker 1: bad idea, but if that's the whole strategy, then it's
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  Speaker 1: going to fail because there's always going to be somebody
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  Speaker 1: ready to take that person's place. This is a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: For the government, it should do something to assuage the
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  Speaker 1: feeling that the other cartels were being selectively pursued while
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  Speaker 1: the Sinaloans were largely ignored. Well, we have to take
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  Speaker 1: into account that there were other things at play here.
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  Speaker 1: And in fact, Nacho Coronel's death led to the creation
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  Speaker 1: of CJNG. And we all know how dangerous they are,
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  Speaker 1: how violent they are. So it really didn't do anything
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  Speaker 1: to assuage anyone's feelings, to be honest with you. And
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  Speaker 1: now we know, in hindsight, after several different leaks and
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  Speaker 1: several different whistleblowers have come forward, that the government was
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  Speaker 1: in fact in bed with the Sinaloa cartel. And there's
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  Speaker 1: the talk that the Sinaloa cartel served up Nacho Coronel
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  Speaker 1: as some red meat. And after that betrayal, that led
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  Speaker 1: to the formation of CJNG. Coronel was one of the
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  Speaker 1: three main traffickers, along with Miles Zambada and Chapo Guzman,
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  Speaker 1: that make up the Sinaloa Cartel or Federation. Chances are
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  Speaker 1: that the cartel is already starting to adapt to Nacho's
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  Speaker 1: loss and putting contingency plans into action to maintain control.
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  Speaker 1: But how will this affect their operations? What happens to
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  Speaker 1: a drug cartel after the death of its leader. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we know now, nothing. Nothing happens. Not if Nacho Coronel
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  Speaker 1: goes down, not if El Chapo goes down, not if
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  Speaker 1: Pablo Escobar goes down. As long as there's a market
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  Speaker 1: for those drugs in America and elsewhere, people are going
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  Speaker 1: to continue to make those drugs, and the next man
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  Speaker 1: up might be a lot worse than the guy you
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  Speaker 1: just took out. It's extremely important to understand Guzman, Zambada,
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  Speaker 1: and Coronel as independent traffickers working together under the same
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  Speaker 1: banner of self-interest, rather than as three bosses who have
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  Speaker 1: been working together to smuggle drugs as a team from
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  Speaker 1: the beginning. They've worked for different people over the years,
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  Speaker 1: taken different paths to get where they are. Drug trafficking
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  Speaker 1: is an entrepreneur's business, and the Sinaloa cartel is less
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  Speaker 1: a business in its own right than an alliance between
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  Speaker 1: several businesses. That's exactly what a cartel is. A cartel
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  Speaker 1: is a conglomerate of criminal enterprises working together to make
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  Speaker 1: shit happen. And that's exactly what you have down in
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  Speaker 1: Mexico with the Sinaloa cartel. There's never just been one boss.
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  Speaker 1: We've talked about this a lot. El Mayo has always
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  Speaker 1: been behind the scenes, pulling the strings. El Chapo was
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  Speaker 1: the quote-unquote face of the organization. But anybody who's thinking
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  Speaker 1: that El Mayo didn't have a lot of power, doesn't
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  Speaker 1: still have a lot of power, has no idea what
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  Speaker 1: they're talking about. Because El Mayo is one of the
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  Speaker 1: most powerful men in the history of this whole entire game.
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  Speaker 1: Let's remember, this guy's never been busted, never went to jail,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't run around like a fool, doesn't post on social media.
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  Speaker 1: This is a man who stays in the shadows. and
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  Speaker 1: he was more than willing to let El Chapo shoulder
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  Speaker 1: all of the scrutiny of the government and the authorities,
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  Speaker 1: as he sat back and collected his billions. One could
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  Speaker 1: even say it's an alliance between three independent cartels. Coronel
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  Speaker 1: was called the King of Crystal for pioneering the domestic
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  Speaker 1: production of methamphetamine using precursor chemicals imported from India and Asia,
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  Speaker 1: and Nacho Coronel was the man who started the industrial-level
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  Speaker 1: production of methamphetamine inside of Mexico, which we know now
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  Speaker 1: has morphed into the production of fentanyl. So, basically, the
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  Speaker 1: father of all of it inside of Mexico is Nacho Coronel.
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  Speaker 1: This expertise is something he brought to the Sinaloa Federation.
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  Speaker 1: He wasn't hired to fill a need. He aligned with
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  Speaker 1: these powerful allies because of what he had to offer
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  Speaker 1: and what they could offer him in return. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: it had to do with the drug routes. It had
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  Speaker 1: to do with protection. It had to do with expanding
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  Speaker 1: your power base. And when you're working with other powerful
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  Speaker 1: narcos the way that Cornell was here, you're talking about
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  Speaker 1: a federation that is very, very hard to match. And
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  Speaker 1: at this point in time that we're talking about inside
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  Speaker 1: of Mexico, nobody was even close to touching the Sinaloa
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  Speaker 1: cartel or what they were capable of. Cornell was in
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  Speaker 1: charge of the Guadalajara Plaza and held influence in the
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  Speaker 1: states of Jalisco, Colima, Michoacan, Nayarit, and parts of Durango.
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  Speaker 1: These areas were uniquely under his control. With over 30
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  Speaker 1: years in the drug business, he had his own employees,
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  Speaker 1: his own contacts, and his own networks. This is what
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  Speaker 1: made him valuable to the Sinaloa cartel. His sphere of influence,
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  Speaker 1: mostly states bordering the Pacific coast, was strategically perfect for
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  Speaker 1: importing drugs, And moving them to Sinaloa, Durango, Chihuahua, and Sonora.
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  Speaker 1: Key trafficking areas where Guzman and Zambada have great influence
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  Speaker 1: and control. So you see how it works? One hand
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  Speaker 1: washes the other. He needed to move his drugs through
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  Speaker 1: their areas of control. They wanted to have access to
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  Speaker 1: the synthetic drugs that he was making. Because we all
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  Speaker 1: know how much money you can make there. So it
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  Speaker 1: was a match made in heaven if you will. But remember...
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  Speaker 1: There's no honor among thieves. It's also important to understand
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  Speaker 1: their union as being ultimately opportunist. These aren't ironclad bonds.
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  Speaker 1: They're business relationships. Right. These aren't dudes that grew up
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  Speaker 1: together and decided we're going to create this cartel and
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  Speaker 1: we have the kind of blood bonds of a real brother.
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  Speaker 1: That's not what's going on here. This was all business motivated.
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  Speaker 1: And if getting rid of one or the other or
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  Speaker 1: two of your associates is is going to help you
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  Speaker 1: consolidate your business oh they're not above that because remember
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  Speaker 1: it's all about the consolidation of power and moving on
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  Speaker 1: up and having a bigger share ultimately cornell's death isn't
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  Speaker 1: going to break the larger sinaloa cartel Although the stability
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  Speaker 1: he provided the organization through the order he kept in
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  Speaker 1: his plaza and the longevity of his career is going
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  Speaker 1: to be almost impossible to replicate. Rival cartels, especially the Zetas,
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  Speaker 1: were already active in his territory during the past year,
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  Speaker 1: and the power vacuum in Guadalajara is going to leave
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  Speaker 1: the organization reeling in the short term. But while this
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  Speaker 1: will drastically alter their operations, it's far from a death blow.
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  Speaker 1: They'll still be able to use their vast network of
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  Speaker 1: resources to import and export drugs, and they're very likely
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  Speaker 1: to throw a lot into defending Nacho's organization and turf.
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  Speaker 1: And no matter who ends up taking over its reins. Yeah, well,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: we know how that worked out. Considering CJNG sprung up
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  Speaker 1: from all of this, the Sinaloa cartel basically created their
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  Speaker 1: own worst enemy from their own ranks. Killing a drug
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  Speaker 1: lord rarely leads to the death of the trafficking organization.
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  Speaker 1: As we've seen in the past, there's always someone to
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  Speaker 1: fill the shoes of the deceased or incarcerated and the
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  Speaker 1: organization in some form continues to function. The most recent
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  Speaker 1: example of this was the Beltran-Leva cartel. Their story can
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  Speaker 1: shed some light on where these traffickers come from, how
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  Speaker 1: they come to power, and what happens after their demise,
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  Speaker 1: which should shed some light on the probable legacy of
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  Speaker 1: Nacho's death. The five Beltran-Leva brothers, Artero, Alfredo, Hector, Carlos,
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  Speaker 1: and Alberto were born in the municipality of Baraguato, Sinaloa,
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  Speaker 1: the same small region where Chapo Guzman comes from. This
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  Speaker 1: impoverished area has a long history of birthing outlaws and smugglers.
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  Speaker 1: For many years before the modern drug trade, Baraguato and
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the Golden Triangle region, where Sinaloa, Chihuahua,
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  Speaker 1: and Durango meet, was the cradle of Mexican marijuana and
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: opium production. The Beltrans were born into this tradition. Remember,
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  Speaker 1: that's what the Mexicans were smuggling for the longest time, marijuana.
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  Speaker 1: Some heroin, but marijuana mainly. And it wasn't until Felix Gallardo,
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  Speaker 1: until they got into the coke game heavily. While it's
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  Speaker 1: unknown exactly how they got their start, they eventually came
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  Speaker 1: under the wing of the fledgling drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
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  Speaker 1: who began his own infamous career tending a marijuana farm
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  Speaker 1: in the Golden Triangle for his uncle, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo,
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  Speaker 1: one of the founders of the first modern Mexican drug
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  Speaker 1: trafficking organization. And he was one of the founding members
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  Speaker 1: with Felix Gallardo. As the motto came to power in Juarez,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: so did Beltran Leyva Brothers, as the motto was one
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  Speaker 1: of the most influential, powerful, and rich drug lords of
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: all time. So the Beltran Brothers became powerful. Working in
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  Speaker 1: enforcement and operations, they became part of Amado's inner circle
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  Speaker 1: and helped him run one of the most lucrative and
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  Speaker 1: successful drug trafficking operations of all time. And Amado Carrillo,
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  Speaker 1: he had a whole fleet of aircraft that he used
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  Speaker 1: to smuggle the drugs into the United States. So they
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  Speaker 1: called him the Lord of the Skies. But when Carrillo
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  Speaker 1: died in 1997, the Beltran-Leva brothers were without a master.
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  Speaker 1: But like Nacho, they had spent years developing their own
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  Speaker 1: network of underlings. Following the lead of one of Mexican
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  Speaker 1: drug trafficking's most famous diplomats, Ismael El Mayo Zambada, they
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  Speaker 1: brought their organization home to Sinaloa and began working with
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  Speaker 1: Mayo and his partner, Joaquin Guzman. Led by the eldest brother, Arturo,
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  Speaker 1: the brothers engaged in all parts of the Sinaloa cartel's operations,
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  Speaker 1: such as money laundering, drug transport, and perhaps, most notably, enforcement.
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  Speaker 1: It was Arturo who, in response to the Gulf cartels'
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  Speaker 1: formation of their own private army, known as the Zetas,
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  Speaker 1: formed the group of assassins known as the Los Polones
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  Speaker 1: and Los Negros, the two enforcement arms of the Sinaloa cartel.
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  Speaker 1: The formation of the three paramilitary groups would end up
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  Speaker 1: doing more to increase the volume and intensity of violence
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: in Mexico, over the next decade than any other factor.
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  Speaker 1: It was around this time that Arturo took on Edgar
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: LaBarbie Villarreal. Called Barbie for his light complexion and blue eyes,
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  Speaker 1: the American-born hitman would become Arturo's right hand and most
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  Speaker 1: trusted confidant, as well as the leader of the Los Negros.
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  Speaker 1: And we know that he was one of the first
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  Speaker 1: people to commit these sorts of atrocious crimes of torture.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: And he filmed it all as an intimidation tactic against
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the Zetas. Because the Zetas were on some other shit.
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  Speaker 1: You want to talk about violence? Those dudes were on
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  Speaker 1: some crazy shit. And a lot of those guys were
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: ex-special forces to boot. So they brought in LaBarbie to
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: try and counteract that. And to do that, LaBarbie was
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: extremely violent. And the torture that they were getting up
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to and the shit they were engaging in would make
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: your stomach turn. After Osiel Cardenas was arrested in 2003,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Guzman sent Artero and his enforcement squads to battle the
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Gulf Cartel and Los Zetos in Nuevo Laredo, attempting to
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  Speaker 1: seize the opportunity to wrest territory from the weakened group.
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  Speaker 1: The results were mixed, but this became the first major
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: skirmish in the cartel war the Mexican government is dealing
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: with today. The brothers went on like this, running their
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  Speaker 1: own show, as part of the larger Sinaloa Federation, until
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  Speaker 1: January 21, 2008, when Alfredo Beltran Leifa was arrested by
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: federal police and taken into custody. The arrest was strange.
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  Speaker 1: He was picked up riding around in an SUV with
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  Speaker 1: three bodyguards, $ 900, 000 in cash, and a host of weapons.
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  Speaker 1: It was strange because this was the sort of thing
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the Beltrans had developed an extensive network of backsheesh to
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: prevent certainly in a home turf city like Culiacan. So
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: they knew the fix was in, right? They had a
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: bunch of people of their own that were well placed
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: in the government, people that they were paying, and they
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: shouldn't have been getting hemmed up like this. So, of course,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: somebody was to blame. Olivet Artero soon came to blame Chapo.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: He believed that only Chapo would have known his brother's
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  Speaker 1: location or had the authority to sell him out to
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  Speaker 1: the federal police. There has been speculation that a few
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: incidents had already developed an animosity between the two before
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  Speaker 1: the arrest. A botched transfer of control of the drug
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: traffic through certain airports had earned Arturo the ire of
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: his boss, and many reports suggest that after working for
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: the Carillo organization, Arturo wasn't happy playing second fiddle to Guzman.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Whatever the reasoning for the feud, Alfredo's arrest was the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: breaking point. Artero began or continued to assemble his network
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to strike out on its own, into what would become
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: known as the Beltran-Leva Cartel. Using its extensive connections with
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the army, state, and federal police, and even the Mexican
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: drug czar's office to protect itself and its base of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: operations in the state of Morelos, Artero would take La Barbie,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Los Negros, and Los Polones with him. It all came
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to a head on May 8th. Edgar Guzman, Chapo's son,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: was exiting his car with two friends in the parking
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  Speaker 1: lot of a shopping mall in Culiacan when roughly 40
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: gunmen stormed the lot and cut down the two with
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: a barrage of AK-47 fire. On the same day, Arturo
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: struck back at the federal police by assassinating Edgar Milan Gomez,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the head of the Mexican federal police, and the man
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: behind the operation to arrest Alfredo. There was no mistake
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in the message. Almost immediately, Mexico seemed to know the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: repercussions would be devastating. El Universal ran a story that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: captured the prevailing sentiment with the headline, Psychosis and Fear
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Grip Sinaloa. So began the war between the Sinaloa cartel
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and the Beltran-Leva cartel. Highly functional in their own right,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the Beltran-Levas used contacts in Colombia to send tons of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: cocaine through the Mexico City airport and the coast of
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  Speaker 1: Grado up through their trafficking corridors in Sonora and Arizona,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: where they held a great deal of turf and influence.
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  Speaker 1: With the young and ambitious Barbie running their brutal enforcement
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  Speaker 1: gangs and the combined 30 years of expertise of the brothers,
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  Speaker 1: the newly independent group quickly became one of the most
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: dominant forces in Mexican drug trafficking. They were finally out
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  Speaker 1: on their own. All right, folks, we're going to wrap
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  Speaker 1: up with part one right here. And in the next episode,
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  Speaker 1: we'll pick it up with part two. All of the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: information that goes with the episode can be found in
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the description box.