Sinaloa Cartel, an international criminal organization that is one of the most powerful drug trafficking syndicates in the world. It is based in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. In March 2015, the BBC television show This World aired an episode titled “Secrets of Mexico`s Drug War,”[155] which covered the U.S. government`s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives` Operation Fast and Furious, which allowed licensed arms dealers to sell weapons to illegal buyers acting on behalf of Mexican drug cartel executives. in particular, the Sinaloa Agreement. [156] The BBC also reported on Vicente Zambada Niebla`s requests for immunity from prosecution under an agreement between the Mexican and U.S. governments and his allegations that The leaders of the Sinaloa cartel provided U.S. federal agents with information about rival Mexican drug trafficking gangs. [157] The same documentary shows that the U.S.
Department of Justice invoked national security reasons to prevent Humberto Loya Castro, the lawyer for the sinaloa union, from being called as a witness in the trial of Vicente Zambada Niebla. Meanwhile, Sinaloa was considered severely disadvantaged as they were forced to transport much of their pharmaceutical product into the Tijuana corridor, which often put them in direct conflict with the Arellanos. This eventually led Ramón Arellano Félix to kill two of Guzmán`s associates, which led to a full-fledged war between the two organizations. It was during this period, in the early 1990s, that Guzmán turned to independent trafficker Ismael Zambada García (aka El Mayo), not least because of his extraordinary ability to collaborate and coordinate with other traffickers. For much of the 1990s, Ismael Zambada also contributed to the expansion of the cartel while Guzmán and Palma were imprisoned. Before dealing directly with the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael Zambada García was a fisherman, freelancer and petty drug dealer who sold only kilograms of marijuana and heroin before finally getting to know Mexico`s more elitist business circles. Zambada also helped Amado Carrillo Fuentes expand the Juárez cartel into the state of Chihuahua and helped integrate some of the remnants of the Juárez cartel into the Sinaloa cartel after Carrillo`s death in 1997. The war between the Sinaloa and Tijuana cartels was reportedly at its worst from 1992 to 2000, with family members of some cartel leaders living in fear or “every day as if it were their last,” as Zambata`s wife explained at the time. However, Zambada also used this conflict to his advantage, as the Mexican government began to act primarily against the Tijuana cartel, Mayo used this weakening of his rivals as an opportunity for Sinaloa to rise in the world of human trafficking. Around the year 2000, Zambada was recognized as one of Mexico`s largest and most powerful drug lords after building strong distribution networks from Colombia to the United States. Mayo`s main traditional distribution centers would have been located in Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Denver.
El Mayo was also believed to have sent a private helicopter to El Chapo after escaping from Puente Grande prison in 2001. The Sinaloa Cartel waged a war against the Tijuana Cartel (Arellano Felix Organization) on the smuggling route from Tijuana to the border city of San Diego, California. The rivalry between the two cartels dates back to miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo`s configuration of the de Palma family. After his imprisonment, Félix Gallardo attributed the Guadalajara cartel to his nephews from the Tijuana cartel. On November 8, 1992, Palma successfully defeated the Tijuana cartel at a nightclub in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, where eight members of the Tijuana cartel were killed in the shooting, the Arellano Felix brothers with the help of David Barron Corona, a member of the Logan Heights Gang, from the scene. [41] Money is the ultimate goal of any drug cartel, which is why much of El Chapo`s national research was aimed at tracking the Sinaloa cartel`s finances around the world, especially all the ways it tried to launder its profits. Although El Chapo is in prison, the Sinaloa cartel continues to make so much money that one of its biggest challenges is finding ways to convert that income into usable currency. The U.S. banking system is at the heart of these money laundering efforts.
Once the illegal money is deposited in a U.S. bank, it is much easier to transfer and hide behind the smokescreen of a seemingly legitimate business venture. However, the Sinaloa cartel has invented many money laundering strategies. They prefer a shotgun approach and use all methods to stretch law enforcement resources as finely as possible. The cartel has also long benefited from the ease of cash transactions and money laundering by banks operating in the United States and Mexico, such as HSBC. [107] [108] [109] The Sinaloa Cartel operates in the “Golden Triangle,” the states of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua. The region is a major producer of Mexican opium and marijuana. [43] Despite the trade in various types of illicit substances, the cartel`s activities appear to primarily promote trafficking in cocaine and opioids, particularly in a distribution centre such as Chicago, where demand for methamphetamine is relatively low. [58] According to the United States.