The Sinaloa Cartel's businesses grow with 'El Chapo' in prison

When Joaquín

El Chapo

Guzmán was arrested five years ago, the authorities celebrated "the important victory" that he represented for the fight against drug trafficking.

His arrest, however, has not prevented the Sinaloa cartel from doing better than ever.

On deaf ears are the words then pronounced by former New York East District Attorney Richard Donoghue, when he affirmed that the organization led by

El Chapo

 would not "again pour poison into our country, nor earn millions while innocent lives are lost

."

Official data from the United States Government, security analysts and even some of its lawyers point out the opposite.

In 2016, the year in which he was arrested in Mexico, more than 23 tons of cocaine were seized in the United States.

The following year, when he was extradited to the United States, the figure rose to more than 28 tons.

In April, at the end of the first six months of fiscal year 2021 (which runs from October 1, 2020 to September 30 of this year),

that figure had already been reached

.

On the methamphetamine side, US authorities seized 13 tons in 2015, when Guzmán was missing.

Five years later, they exceeded 53 tons.

Falko Ernst, an analyst in Mexico for the International Crisis Group, believes that it is a mistake to consider the arrest or murder of cartel leaders like Guzmán as a mortal blow to end these criminal organizations.

"

The arrest of

El Chapo

is an illusion

that is based on believing that a criminal organization can be beheaded and its operations reduced," says the expert.

"The US authorities used the case of

El Chapo

to justify their presence in Mexico, but [his arrest] does not solve anything," he adds.

Guzmán is currently serving a life sentence plus 30 years for drug trafficking in a maximum security prison, after being found guilty in an 11-week trial.

Vertical or horizontal structure?

A report by the firm Lantia Consultores indicates that cartels in Mexico have gone from 20 in 2000 to more than 200 in 2021, an increase mainly attributed to the division of these groups by the arrest or murder of their leaders.

It is believed that the Sinaloa Cartel does not function following a hierarchical structure, but rather as a confederation of factions

.

Although the US government presented evidence to prove that

El Chapo

is their leader, his lawyer claimed that he was just another lieutenant.

This is how the days of 'El Chapo' Guzmán pass in a maximum security prison

March 10, 202 105: 02

Schneider told Business Insider magazine that Guzmán "could not be the leader of a global criminal syndicate" because it is "extremely difficult for someone like Guzmán, without education, to run such a company."

[The wife of 'El Chapo', Emma Coronel, may have the keys to dismantle the most dangerous cartel in the world]

"If you think the Sinaloa cartel is a cartel, you have a lot to learn," Schneider said.

"There are many things that people describe as more organized than they really are," he hinted.

The black future of his wife

The idea that

the cartels are hierarchical is also rejected

by analysts.

The security expert and former agent of the Mexican civil intelligence agency, CISEN, Alejandro Hope, told the magazine that "they function as decentralized networks."

One of the people who could have played some kind of role in this structure is Guzmán's wife, Emma Coronel, who pleaded guilty on June 10 to drug trafficking and money laundering in federal court in Washington DC.

Colonel, arrested in February at an airport in the United States, could be sentenced to 10 years in prison or less as part of an agreement with the prosecution.

With information from Business Insider.