Mexico: The Struggle for Balance

Por Scott Stewart,  Stratfor, 8 de abril, 2010

The current round of cartel fighting began when the balance of cartel power was thrown off by the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes in 1997, which resulted in the weakening of the once powerful Juarez cartel. Shortly after the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin Guzman Loera, aka El Chapo, escaped from prison in 2001, he began a push to move in on the weakened Juarez cartel. Guzman initially succeeded and the Juarez cartel became part of the Sinaloa Federation until the two cartels had a falling out in 2004.

Then when the chief enforcer of the AFO, Ramon Arellano Felix, was killed in 2002, both the Sinaloa and the Gulf cartels attempted to wrest control of Tijuana from the AFO. Finally, when Gulf cartel kingpin Osiel Cardenas Guillen was captured in March 2003, the Sinaloa cartel sent Los Negros to attempt to take control of the Gulf cartel’s territory, and this sparked a series of violent clashes in Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. The BLO’s top enforcer, Edgar Valdez Villarreal (La Barbie), led Los Negros into Nuevo Laredo.

Para leer el texto completo pulse aquí