Borderland Beat

by Alex Marentes

  "Beware Felipe Calderón, pray to your holy saint because we come with the blessing of our God. Our God Nazario, may God rest his soul. This will not stop until Familia Michoacana dies. And we will never die; Los Pumas, Los Bravos, Los Leones, La Resistencia, El 5-5, Los Élites, Los LF, Los Chayitos, Los Machitos, Las Fieras, Los X, Los de la A, and many more.

  We are going after Calderon and all his fucking family, our groups are already in Michoacán, recognize; Cheran, Capacuaro, Cheranastico, La Arantepacua, La Mohonera, Nuevo Morelos, they are united with us. This is not "narco terrorism", it's a guerrilla, it's war for peace and against the federal troops in Michoacán, Don Juan de Arantepacua has his people and we will give our lives for everything."

  La Familia also left a message to the people of Michoacán, cautioning them of the forthcoming violence between them and the federal forces :

  "Do not panic, try not to go out on the streets because the pigs federales do not have any respect and this is to avoid stray bullets and more loses. Do not go to the hospitals, do not go shopping, watch TV and stay at home please.

  Atte. La Familia Michoacana, El Fantasma 6 y Bravo 6.

  On July 14, 2009, the cartel tortured and murdered twelve Mexican Federal Police agents and dumped their bodies along the side of a mountain highway along with a written message: "So that you come for another. We will be waiting for you here." The federal agents were investigating crime in Michoacán state; President Calderón, responded to the violence by dispatching additional 1,000 Federal Police officers to the area. The infusion, which more than tripled the number of Federal Police officers patrolling Michoacán, angered Michoacán Governor Leonel Godoy Rangel, who called it 'an occupation' and said he had not been consulted. Days later, 10 municipal police officers were arrested in connection with the slayings of the 12 federal agents.

  By December 2010, the streets of Michoacán were set ablaze, burning vehicles blocked the highways. Black smoke could be seen from miles away, it was a war zone. The smell of burning tires and gun powder permeated the air. As bullets ricochet off the pavement, screams of panic could be heard as helicopters flew overhead.

  Outnumbered and out gunned the criminals began to vanish into the hills surrounding Apatzingan, taking their dead with them. It would go down as one of the fiercest battles the drug war had seen, lasting several days. This was to be the last stand of the once mighty La Familia Cartel and their leader Nazario aka "El Chayo" or "El Mas Loco" Moreno Gonzalez.

  Moreno Gonzalez, the intellectual and spiritual leader of La Familila Michoacana was supposedly killed during this fire fight in 2010. However, his body was never recovered. It was suspected by the authorities that the reason the gunmen fought so fiercely was to protect someone of great importance. It was widely assumed that this person was none other than Nazario Moreno Gonzalez. To Calderon this was to be a huge success; a validation of his crusade against the cartels, with or without a body. To claim with such certainty that the leader of the feared La Familia was in fact dead without a body was strange, considering the prominence of El Chayo. The people of Apatzingan mourned his death but none fully believed he actually died.

  On December 12, 2010 I posted an article on BB announcing the death of Nazario Moreno Gonzalez titled "“El Chayo,” boss who brought “divine justice” to Michoacán with AK-47s, killed."

  “Mexican authorities said that they believe a top leader of the violent La Familia cartel was killed during two days of pitched fighting in the home state of President Felipe Calderon, Michoacán.

  Mexico has struck another blow to the highest levels of ruthless drug gangs with the killing of La Familia Michoacana kingpin Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, a.k.a. "El Mas Loco" (the craziest), a messianic and violent leader who wielded vast control over the western state of Michoacán.

  The drug lord’s death Thursday came amid an ongoing operation that began Wednesday night in the Michoacán city of Apatzingan and has involved intense gun battles between security forces and cartel gunmen.

  Federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire told the media shortly after midday Friday, reading from a prepared statement, that Moreno Gonzalez, alias “El Chayo,” was one of 11 people – five federal police, three suspected cartel gunmen and three civilians – who had been killed in the operation to that point.

  The operation involving federal police, army soldiers, and marines was launched after an anonymous tip alerted authorities to the presence of armed men in Apatzingan.

  The ferocity with which the gunmen defended that cartel stronghold led authorities to presume that they were not only protecting a key trans-shipment point for drugs but also one of their top leaders.

  Gunmen used torched and bullet-ridden vehicles to barricade roads even as federal forces pursued them with helicopter support, effectively turning parts of Michoacán into a war zone.

  That southwestern state, La Familia’s home base, is coveted by drug traffickers because of its marijuana and opium fields and its long stretch of Pacific coastline, ideal for receiving shipments of cocaine and chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs.”

  But something strange happened in 2014. Borderland Beat contributor Chivis posted an article on March 9, 2014 titled "El Chayo Killed. . . Again."

  "A few minutes ago, the press office of the Interior Ministry (SG) confirmed a few minutes ago the announcement of the death Nazario Moreno, alias El Chayo, early Sunday in the town of Tumbicastio. He referenced the reported death of the capo in 2010, but said the body was missing. (Since then towns people and autodefensas reported to the government that he was in fact alive.)

  Also reported was that armed forces located Chayo who initiated a shootout confrontation which ultimately resulted in his death. Fingerprints were used to identify the capo, but DNA studies are also being conducted. The government credits their intelligence for the capture and gave no credit to the autodefensas that have been directing them to Chayo for over a year, and 300 of them were scouts for the operation that located Chayo.

  Although, the government will take all the credit, it was in fact autodefensas who not only directed the forces to Chayo, who was celebrating his birthday, but it was autodefensas who identified the dead man as Chayo. Autodefensas had reported two years ago Chayo had plastic surgery that included his face and chin.

  Although the 2010 reported death was during the Calderon administration, the Peña administration continued the fallacy, and never denounced it, in spite of the autodefensas federation insistence that he was alive.

  However, on March 4th, journalist Carlos Loret de Mola reported that "government sources" revealed it had 2 recent photos of Chayo and that he is alive. Other reports offer the leader usually wears all white and rides a white horse through the sierras, appearing as the mythical character he is thought to be by some."

  To understand why El Chayo may had been still been alive after the report in 2010 one must look at the history of La Familia Michoacana. LFM started out as a faction of Los Zetas who went rouge. They had long standing ties with both Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, and received training from Los Zetas. Of all the cartels, President Calderon wanted to destroy La Familia most of all. It was personal, La Familia came from the state where he was from, and they were openly provoking the federal authorities, killing several Federal Police. Furthermore, no other state represented how far the narcos had been able to infiltrate the local institutions better than Michoacán. Some said La Familia were able to put in place a shadow government, one which paralleled the state. So, Calderon's war had a pivotal point here.

  According to information received by the PGR through witness testimony, the states of California, New México, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, Atlanta, North/South Carolina and Florida were all important territories and centers of operation for 'La Familia Michoacana' in the United States, a fact that is also recognized by the DEA.

  La Familia Michoacana had its principal base of operations in California and Texas, two of the states that were seeing a major influx of immigra
nts from Michoacán.

  Often, the members of the criminal organization met and discussed strategies on improving distribution and sale, as well as the topic of more effective ways to launder money.

  A protected witness named "Emilio" gave details to SIEDO that “these meetings were for the discussion of logistical strategies related to the sale of drugs in the U.S. and to leave an understanding that those on the north side of the border needed to charge the correct amount, so all the accounts and figures would end up evenly on both sides."

  As had happened with the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltran Leyva Organization, La Familia Cartel fragmented and, triggered a struggle for leadership and control of the business after the heads of the organization were taken down. A new group emerged, a copy of La Familia's tactics and strategies for social and political infiltration:

  After the death of Nazario Moreno González, leader of the La Familia Michoacana cartel, the other cartel co-founders, Enrique Plancarte Solís and Servando Gómez Martínez, formed an offshoot of La Familia calling itself Caballeros Templarios. Dionicio Loya Plancarte would also join.

  Various objects seized by the police in the Mexican state of Michoacan, revealed that the mysterious 'Knights Templar" drug cartel is more bizarre than most people imagine.

  There were four hooded tunics, with a red cross, a metal helmet, and a pamphlet or Templar rule book. This drug cartel claims to draw inspiration from the medieval Christian warriors who fought to protect Jerusalem and the Holy Grail.

  The rules in the modern day 'templar bible' call for observance of 'gentleman' like behavior and respect for women – but also state that any disclosure of knights templar activities will result in the death of the person and his whole family, and confiscation by the cartel of the snitch’s property.

  The cartel is like a secret society.

  Like La Familia, the Knights claim to be pious and patriotic protectors of the Michoacán community even as they traffic and murder. When they first announced themselves last spring, they hung more than 40 narcomanteles, or drug-cartel banners, across the state with a message promising security. "Our commitment is to safeguard order, avoid robberies, kidnapping, extortion, and to shield the state from rival organizations," they said. A week later, their first victim was hanged from an overpass with a note claiming that he was a kidnapper.

  The Mexican Templars have an initiation ritual, which apparently includes dressing up like knights from the Middle Ages and performing blood pacts.

  The cartel recruits drug users and enrolls them in the organization’s rehabilitation centers; the process is closely monitored and has a strong religious component.

  The double standard is striking: the Templars cannot take drugs, and yet they run one of the biggest methamphetamines traffic corridors to the United States.

  The Knights Templar appeared to be successfully usurping La Familia's turf. As a result, Mexican army and police commanders made a promised to take them down with the same energy they summoned to destroy La Familia. But it was not easy, the Knights did not go quietly due to the cartel's structure, wealth, and size. It was perhaps the second most notorious Mexican cartel in terms of killing methods, the most vicious one, second only to the Zetas, is a group formed by Mexican army special forces in the 90s.

  Not long after I stopped reporting on Borderland Beat did the Autodefensas or self-defenders organized in Tierra Caliente. They were sometimes called Policia Comunitaria or Community Police and became vigilantes to fight against the cartels. Initially the Mexican government/military allowed them to operate, but eventually they attempted to stop them and resulted in the arrest of a few of their leaders.

  The King of Crystal

  Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel Villarreal did not know that they were coming for him until he had the military on top of him.

  Literally.

  The Mexican military elite group arrived by air and lined up in “single column,” as the military refers to a particular formation. When he reacted, Colonel broke a window and tried to flee through the garden of his safe house, where he had been hiding for at least two weeks, afraid of being apprehended. He knew, that the fence working against him was too far away, was not coming to him fast enough.

  Iran Francisco Quiñones Gastélum, the only man who accompanied the capo, and the physiotherapist who had provided him with a massage minutes before the military assault, made their way out through the broken glass, but were immediately stopped on the grass. Nacho Colonel turned back on his steps and went back inside his home. He ran up some stairs that lead to a corridor on the left to the main bedroom and on to the right was the living room.

  He didn't get anywhere. He turned toward the soldiers coming up and fired five or six shots with an M-16 assault style rifle, caliber 5.56, that killed one soldier and wounded another. A few steps later he ran into a 12mm Mossberg shotgun. Nacho took two gunshots from the shotgun center mass, one in the abdomen and one in the thorax from a soldier at no more than four meters away. The pellets entered from his left side, almost on his back. The shot, at a wide range did not spread much. Nacho Colonel was dead.

  Killed at the age of 55 years of age Nacho had been considered number three of the Sinaola Cartel behind only to Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Ismael "Mayo" Zambada.

  A video seemed to confirm a different version that in the first contact with Colonel he had received several shots.

  Details of the scene of his death, his body laid on the stairs with blood coming from his mouth, a hemorrhage. Near a plant you could see his favorite handgun with a diamond-covered grip. The military had said that Colonel fired at them with an M-16 rifle, which is not visible in the video or pictures taken of the scene. They say that the shotgun that killed Ignacio Coronel was usually used to force open doors.

  During the years when the El Cártel del Pacífico was consolidated as the most violent and powerful criminal group (Sinaloa had been a part), an organization with the greatest capacity for the cultivation of heroin, as well as the trafficking of cocaine from South America, Colonel Villarreal was an important piece of the puzzle.

  Nacho Colonel bought tons of cocaine from the Colombian cartels and was responsible for the production of large quantities of methamphetamines in clandestine laboratories. That earned him the nickname "The King of the Crystal."

  "The King of Crystal" began his criminal career working next to "The Lord of the Skies," Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Carrillo "turned over" Nacho Coronel to the authorities in 1993, but the Sinaloa Cartel helped him to obtain his freedom.

  After the escape of El Chapo from the prison Federal Center for Social Readaptation 2, West, in Puente Grande, Jalisco, the organization known as the Sinaloa Cartel was divided among Nacho Coronel, Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, El Azul.

  Nacho became the right hand of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, someone that he had the most confidence to operate Jalisco, Colima and Nayarit. These areas that had been for the most part kept away from cartel violence. Especially the out of control violence that resulted from conflicts between Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and the Beltrán Leyva brothers, that brought a series of murders along the Pacific coast and beyond.

  The Beltrán Leyva brothers allied themselves with Los Zetas to face the powerful Sinaloa Cartel and its main leaders: El Chapo, El Azul, El Mayo and El Nacho.

  The Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO) and Los Zetas kidnapped and murdered the son of Colonel, Alejandro Coronel who was only 16 years of age. This heightened the violence and forced Nacho to enter the conflict against the BLO. Nacho responded to the death of his son by kidnapping the wife of Héctor "El Hache" Beltran Leyva, whom he soon released with a message: "I give you your wife back, healthy and unharmed so you can see and learn that for us the family is sacred."

  In his thirst for revenge, "Nacho" Colonel was located by elements of the Mexican Marines. After they had located his whereabouts, an operation was launched to capture Nacho at his residence in the C
olinas de San Javier community, in Zapopan, Jalisco.

  The death of the Colonel left a power vacuum in the synthetic drug trafficking, which Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes aka "El Mencho" took advantage to create the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (JNGC) and dominate the west of the country after winning the battle against Ramiro Pozos González, aka 'El Molca', leader of La Resistencia.

  The death of nacho was indeed a heavy loss for the Pacific Cartel operation, but El Chapo Guzmán already had the support of a cousin of Nacho Colonel. It was Inés Coronel Barreras, who eventually also became his father-in-law.

  Colonel Barreras and his children, Inés Omar and Édgar Coronel Aispuro were operators of El Chapo Guzmán, for the Durango and Chihuahua region.

  But El Chapo Guzmán became interested in Emma, the youngest daughter of Colonel Barreras, who in 2007 was the queen of the Guava and Coffee Fair in Canelas, Durango, where the entire Colonel's family originated. On July 2, 2008 the wedding was held in a ranch located in La Angostura, in the Golden Triangle area, in the limits of the states of Durango, Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

  There were rumors that El Chapo Guzman made an agreement with the cabinet of President Felipe Calderon to give up Nacho Colonel to make it seem like the Mexican government was also hitting the Sinaloa Cartel. The Felipe Calderon was under fire that they were not targeting the high leadership of the Sinaloa enterprise.

  In Mexico there has been just two known narcocorridos to Nacho's name, a kind of musical subgenre that feeds the ego of Mexican traffickers. One of them portraits "Nacho" Colonel a brave warrior who does not hesitate to challenge and engage the military in combat.

  The Golden Triangle

  Another region was the “Golden Triangle” that is primarily controlled by the Sinaloa Cartel while to some extend it also includes the Juarez Cartel, Tijuana Cartel and the Beltran Leyva Organization. The Golden Triangle is located in the states of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua. The region is mostly the mountain range of the Sierra Madre Occidental (western range of the Sierra Madre) that is used by the Sinaloa cartel to cultivate Mexican opium and marijuana.