One cartel leader says he tries to think of how to protect his family in case the US military hits Mexico. Others say he was already hiding, rarely leaving his home. Two young men who produce Fentanil for cartel say they have extinguished all their drugs for drugs.
In recent months, Mexican authorities have been hit by arrests, drug seizures and laboratory busts by Mexican authorities Behemota Sinalo, according to Mexican officials and interviews with six cartel operatives, forcing at least some of their leaders to increase the production of fental in the Sinalo State.
The cartels sown terror throughout Mexico and caused innumerable damage to the United States. But here in Culiacán, a state capital, it seems that the dynamics are changing, at least for now. Cartel operatives say they had to move laboratories to other areas of the country or temporarily close production.
“You can’t be calm, you can’t even sleep, because you don’t know when it will catch you,” said a high member of the Sinalo cartel, who, like other cartel operatives, spoke on a condition of anonymity for fear of catching.
“The most important thing is to survive now,” he added, his hands trembling.
The Government’s interruption of organized crime was increased after Trump’s administration threatened to retaliate, unless Mexico stopped the fentanile supply to the United States, promising high tariffs if the flow of migrants and drugs continued.
President Trump began floating on the possibility of tariff shortly after his election in November, and shortly after he took over the post, he announced 25 percent of the levy on Mexican goods if the land does not act on border security and drug trade. The President gave Mexico a month to achieve the results, threatening to bring tariffs on March 4. If he was not satisfied.
Faced with economic chaos, the Mexican government started offensive. President Claudia Sheinbaum sent 10,000 troops of the National Guard to the border and hundreds of more soldiers in the state of Sinalo, the big center of the Fentanil trade, where the war of cartel has been causing discomfort for months.
“Every day there was an arrest and seizures,” said Omar Harfuch, a Mexican Minister of Security at a recent press conference after returning to Sinaloi. The discovery led to the “constant weakening” of the cartel, he said.
The implementation of law in the country has seized almost as much fental in the last five months as in the previous year. Mrs. Sheinbaum’s administration says she has committed almost 900 arrests in Sinaloi since October.
Then last week the Mexican government said that it began to send the United States more than two tenths Cartel operatives who wanted US authorities. It was a clear signal to Trump’s administration that Mexico wanted to fight the cartel, although Mr. Trump said on the same day that he was still not satisfied with the government’s efforts and that The tariffs would come into force March 4.
“Criminal groups have not felt this level of pressure in such a long time,” said Jaime López, a security analyst based in Mexico City.
Cartel operatives agreed in interviews. Some have said they sell property and shoot in irrelevant staff to make up for the lost revenue from recesses in the fentanil store. Others said to invest money in advanced detection equipment American government droneswhich the United States flew to Mexico during Biden and Obama administration as.
Criminal organizations in Mexico have a long history of survival efforts to dismantle them or simply fall into new groups. But several operatives said that for the first time after years, they were truly afraid of arrest or death in the hands of power.
Experts noted that the fall of production in Culiacán would not necessarily affect the flow of the north fentanyl, because the medicine is easy to make, and the cartel can move its laboratories elsewhere. And it is not clear how long any disorder in Culiacán will take. Chefs and experts said they expected the cartel to restart the laboratories in the city if the pressure was silenced or the group needed an appeal of money.
But the act had a direct impact, they said, and some cited Mr. Trump’s new pressure.
“Trump has established the deadline, and we see the results of everything we could see in the years that are done in a month,” said Mr. López. “The government sends a message that when it really wants it, it can make that pressure.”
But even before the threats of the tariffs intensified, Mrs. Sheinbaum showed a willingness to take the cartel as soon as she took duty on October 1.
Her predecessor and political ally, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, followed a strategy he called “hugs of no bullets,” focusing on the fundamental causes of crime and generally avoiding violent conflicts with criminals.
While promising the faithfulness of her mentor to the vision of her mentor, Mrs. Sheinbaum made titles with the rash of battles between the soldiers and the cartel, who left the dozens of the dead earlier in her Presidency.
Cartel members said their own preparation for increased pressure under Mr. Trump. US officials say the United States recently began to spread Drone flies to Mexico to discover the drug laboratory, and last week the administration labeled several cartels as a terrorist organization.
In interviews, cartel operatives said they import scanners to discover unmanned aircraft and hire more people with the experience of managing and monitoring such aircraft. They also said that they increased weapons from the United States, the source of the majority of illegal weapons used by criminals in Mexico.
Inside Trump’s administration there is still a division about whether the United States should take a one -sided military action Inside Mexico against cartel, or should it work closely with the Mexican government in the fight against drug trade.
Mexican cartels are known for collecting military class weapons, including IEDs and land mines, but operatives admitted in interviews that they could barely compete with the Arsenal of the US Army. Despite this, a high -level operative said the cartel would be ready to respond if raids or hitting are done.
“If the helicopter comes here and the soldiers give up, 20 or 30 of them,” the operative said, “there is no way we just sit here with his hands crossed.”
One cartel Fentanil chef, speaking from prison, said that he was actually advocating to reinforce the Mexican government, because he believed that the suppression of cartel violence could prevent the “death of innocent”.
Last week, the Mexican forces arrested two big players in Kartel Sinalo, who were close associates by Iván Archivald Guzmán Salazar, the most powerful son of Lord drugs known as El Chapo. After the recording news, the Mexican army arranged a branch of soldiers throughout the city, setting up control points and blocking the entire blocks.
Despite his arrests, violence in Culiacán continues to seek lives. Recently on Wednesday morning, a man’s body appeared face down in the middle of the street at a traffic intersection, hands tied and blood from the head.
The next day, the body of a different man was found in a residential neighborhood nearby, with legs tied and a plastic bag over his head. Officials at the scene said it seems that the victim is shot on the spot.
Mrs. Sheinbaum defended her record in the fight against cartel and strongly returned the accusation of Trump’s White House that the Mexican government had a “unbearable alliance” with drug traders.
“We fight organized crime groups, there may be no doubt about that,” she said at a press conference last month, adding: “Let’s go after an organized crime.”
But there is little dispute that corruption in Mexico is widespread. The last major suppression of organized crime was led by the Security Chief who was later convicted of US Federal Court for taking bribe from Cartel Sinalo.
Cartel members said the only reason the government had not really fought with them until recently was that they had purchased enough officials. One cartel leader said he suspected this new effort would seriously damage the cartel because the group could ensure survival by bribing key officials.
“There are always weak points,” he said, “there are always loose ends that we can come.”
When asked what it feels like to be marked by terrorists, the Operatives’ answers moved in the range from the Apatics to the outraged.
Fentanil chef in prison claimed that real terrorists are users in the United States whose insatiable drug appetite encourages trade. Two other young chefs agreed that the worst actors were north of the border: weapons traders that convert huge smuggling in Mexico into Mexico, which kills so many people.
A high -level operative said he was considered a business, not a terrorist.
“We’re talking about offer and demand,” he said, “No AK-47, even less bombing Times Square.”
Even if the Government bombing of every drug drug laboratory in Mexico, he said, will not do the Americans less dependent on drugs, which is one of the most important synthetic opioids. He said that with the right ingredients, Fentanil could synthesize almost anywhere – in small kitchens or rudimentary mountain laboratories – and that, as long as the Americans want fentanil, they will do.
“Demand will never end, the product is still consumed.” The operative said. “Addiction means demand never ends.”
