By Scott Cohn - CNBC
Two years after the conviction and life imprisonment of Mexican drug lord Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán, the cartel he once headed seems stronger than ever.
An investigation by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) published in March says that the
Sinaloa Cartel
remains the largest organization of its kind in Mexico and
"maintains the broadest national influence."
in the US. The cartel is now heavily involved in trafficking fentanyl and methamphetamine along with cocaine and heroin, according to the DEA.
It seems to be proof that this organization is much larger than one man.
And what about a woman?
US authorities are reportedly hopeful that the three-decade war with the cartel will break out following the arrest in February of Emma Coronel Aispuro,
El Chapo's
wife
and the mother of his twin daughters.
Coronel, 31, is being held without bail on a criminal complaint accusing her of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and helping
El Chapo
escape from a Mexican prison in 2014. But the language of the 12-page complaint suggests the Federal investigators' interest in the former beauty queen, who married
El Chapo
when he was 19 years old.
[From beauty queen to alleged drug trafficker: the tumultuous life of Emma Coronel, the wife of 'El Chapo']
"Coronel grew up with knowledge of the drug trafficking industry," the complaint says.
"Coronel understood the scope of the Sinaloa Cartel's drug trafficking," he
adds.
That scope is enormous, say US authorities. The
cartel controls drug trafficking in the most crucial areas of Mexico,
along the Pacific coast and the northern and southern borders, and is the gatekeeper along the southwestern border of the United States, controlling the smuggling routes. toward California and Arizona. And the organization is as
violent
as it is
ruthless.
US prosecutors say the cartel is known to carry out killings and torture just to protect its territory. Some believe that Coronel could help break the cycle of violence.
Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of Mexican drug cartel boss Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, appears during a virtual hearing in federal court in Washington, DC, on February 23, 2021. REUTERS / Jane Rosenberg
"
She knows where all the bodies are buried,
so to speak, and she can do a lot of damage to the Sinaloa Cartel," former DEA chief of international operations Mike Vigil said in an interview with
CNBC's
American Greed
.
Vigil, whose six books on international drug trafficking include
The Afghan Warlord
, published last fall,
believes Colonel will eventually reach an agreement with US authorities
in hopes of protecting his daughters.
Vigil said that she could cause real harm to the organization.
"She can give a lot of information, drug routes, cocaine supply sources, corrupt public officials, members of the Sinaloa Cartel, things like that," Vigil said.
Trading positions
Coronel, who has both US and Mexican citizenship and was charged in Federal Court for the District of Columbia, did not plead guilty.
In March, he waived his right to a preliminary hearing.
"We are working on a possible plea agreement," his New York-based attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, said in an email to
American Greed
.
"Things can be resolved in the next two weeks."
He did not say whether a deal could include Coronel's cooperation.
Emma Coronel's lawyer reveals how 'El Chapo's' wife spends her days in prison
March 19, 202105: 11
Lichtman has previously called rumors about Coronel's possible cooperation "despicable," warning that they put the lives of his client and his daughters at risk.
In March, Lichtman told Noticias Telemundo that his client doesn't have as much information as people think.
['El Chapo' lawyer believes that it is impossible that Emma Coronel has "betrayed" her husband]
"That's a popular belief but it's based on speculation," Lichtman said, noting that
El Chapo
has been behind bars for much of the time the couple have been married.
"It's not like I've been on the phone telling him prison secrets."
Another drug trafficking expert, Mexico City-based journalist Ioan Grillo, told
American Greed
that the Sinaloa Cartel is so extensive and decentralized that not even Coronel would have the secrets authorities need to bring it down.
Getty Images
"I don't think there is any serious case, it would be a big hit," said Grillo, whose latest book,
Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels
, was published this year.
The journalist said the cartel can easily switch to other routes if its existing supply lines are compromised.
And even if he could resign from corrupt officials, there are many more where they came from.
"You could give information on political protection, but even if it does, then there is other political protection that people can get," he said.
["She will explain": this letter from 'El Chapo' is one of the evidence that led to the arrest of Emma Coronel]
Vigil believes the cartel may already be making adjustments just in case.
"The Sinaloa Cartel is very resistant," he said.
Still,
Lichtman hasn't ruled out a deal from his client.
"I believe that anyone charged with a federal crime who faces a minimum sentence of 10 years will certainly be open to hearing what the government has to say in terms of a negotiated settlement," he told Noticias Telemundo in March.
Star witnesses
If Coronel changed, he wouldn't be the first insider from Sinaloa to do so.
El
Chapo
's 2019
trial
featured no fewer than
14 cooperating witnesses.
Among them were
Chicago
twins
Peter and Jay Flores,
high-level traffickers for the organization that kept drugs flowing into the heartland of the United States and money flowing into
El Chapo.
Emma Coronel fears for her family after rumor that she wants to become a protected witness
March 2, 202101: 34
Today, the Flores twins are in hiding, but their wives spoke exclusively to
American Greed.
Olivia Flores, married to Jay, and Mia Flores, married to Peter, also take many precautions.
They live under false names and the show agreed to keep the interview location a secret.
“Our husbands were able to maneuver both on the streets of Chicago and on the tops of the Sinaloa mountains.
And they were able to navigate both worlds, "Olivia told
American Greed.
[These are the possible heirs of 'El Mayo' Zambada in the Sinaloa Cartel]
But the further they got into the business, the more complicated life got.
“The more money they made, the more problems they had.
Every good moment in our family was always overshadowed by a bad moment, ”Mia confessed.
Ultimately caught in the middle of an internal skirmish between cartels, the twins approached US prosecutors to strike a deal.
Another infiltrator who turned against
El Chapo
was Vicente Zambada Niebla, eldest son of the current Sinaloa Cartel boss, Ismael
El Mayo
Zambada.
Vicente Zambada, who is serving a 15-year prison term after pleading guilty to reduced charges, testified against
El Chapo
while Coronel watched in the courtroom.
That has further fueled speculation that Coronel might be willing to turn against the organization.
An endless war
The fact that the organization appears not to miss a beat, even when its leaders are pitted against each other, shows the folly of the old law enforcement strategy of targeting drug lords, Vigil and Grillo told
American Greed.
"
The war on drugs was conceptually a failure,
" said Grillo, "and the kingpin's strategy was a failure."
The journalist assured that while it is important not to let drug traffickers operate with impunity, a better strategy involves targeting what is at stake in drug trafficking.
[From 'El Chapo' compadre to FBI witness. Who is Dámaso López?]
"I think we have to consider the idea of harm reduction and this is to reduce the harm that drugs do to Americans in terms of deaths from overdoses and addiction, and to reduce the harm of violence related to drug trafficking," He said.
Grillo said that means more resources to treat drug addiction and target organized crime and corruption in Mexico.
Vigil agreed, noting that in his 30 years with the DEA, he never agreed with the emphasis on drug lords.
"We here in the United States have to do a better job of reducing the demand for drugs," he
said.
"Because until we do that, if it is not Mexico, it will be in another country," he concluded.