Juárez Cartel

Juárez Cartel

Founded	Early 1970s
In	Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico
Founded by	Amado Carrillo Fuentes
Years active	1970s−present
Territory	Mexico: Chihuahua. United States: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico
Ethnicity	Mexican
Criminal activities	Drug trafficking, people smuggling, money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, racketeering, murder, arms trafficking, terrorism, robbery, assault, rape, bribery, prostitution, counterfeiting, coercion, fencing, mayhem, burglary, police impersonation
Allies	Los Zetas, Tijuana Cartel
Rivals	Sinaloa Cartel, Gulf Cartel

The Juárez Cartel (Spanish: Cártel de Juárez or CDJ), also known as the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, is a Mexican drug cartel based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Prior to 2012, the Juárez Cartel controlled one of the primary transportation routes for billions of dollars worth of illegal drug shipments annually entering the United States from Mexico. Since then, however, control of these areas has shifted to the Los Zetas. Moreover, the Juárez Cartel has an armed wing known as La Línea, a ruthless gang made up of corrupt police officers and hitmen that usually perform the executions. During the 1990s and early 2000s, drug lords from contiguous Mexican states forged an alliance that became known as 'The Golden Triangle Alliance' or 'La Alianza Triángulo de Oro' because of its three-state area of influence: Chihuahua, south of the U.S. state of Texas, Durango and Sinaloa. However, this alliance was broken after Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the Boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, refused to pay "derecho de piso," a tax for the right to use the routes into the U.S., to the Juarez Cartel.

Bill Conroy of the Narcosphere said that the cartel is one of several that are "ruthless," dangerous drug trafficking organization that has been known to decapitate their rivals and mutilate their corpses and dump them in public to instill fear not only to the general public but to local law enforcement and their rivals, the Sinaloa Cartel.

History

The cartel was founded in the 1970s by Rafael Aguilar Guajardo and handed down to Amado Carrillo Fuentes in 1993 under the tutelage of his uncle. Amado brought his brothers in and later his son into the business. After Amado died in 1997 following complications from plastic surgery, a brief turf war erupted over the control of the cartel, where Amado's brother —Vicente Carrillo Fuentes— emerged as leader after defeating the Muñoz Talavera brothers.

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, who still remains in control of the cartel, then formed a partnership with Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, his brother Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, his nephew Vicente Carrillo Leyva, Ricardo Garcia Urquiza, and formed an alliance with other drug lords such as Ismael "Mayo" Zambada in Sinaloa and Baja California, the Beltrán Leyva brothers in Monterrey, and Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán in Nayarit, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, according to sources in the FBI and the Mexican Attorney General's office. He also kept in service several lieutenants formally under his brother, such as "El Chacky" Hernandez.

When Vicente took control of the cartel, the organization was in flux. The death of Amado created a large power vacuum in the Mexican underworld. The Carrillo Fuentes brothers became the most powerful organization during the 1990s while Vicente was able to avoid direct conflict and increase the strength of the Juárez Cartel. The relationship between the Carrillo Fuentes clan and the other members of the organization grew unstable towards the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s.

In 2001 after Joaquín Guzmán Loera 'El Chapo' escaped from prison, many Juárez Cartel members defected to Guzmán Loera's Sinaloa Cartel. In 2004, Vicente's brother was killed allegedly by order of Guzmán Loera. Carrillo Fuentes responded by assassinating Guzmán Loera's brother in prison. This ignited a turf war between the two cartels, which was more or less put on hold from 2005-2006 because of the Sinaloa Cartel's war with the Gulf cartel.

As recently as November 2005, the Juárez Cartel was the dominant player in the center of the country, controlling a large percentage of the cocaine traffic from Mexico into the United States. The death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes in 1997, however, was the beginning of the decline of the Juárez cartel, as Carrillo relied on ties to Mexico's top-ranking drug interdiction officer, division general Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo.

After the organization collapsed, some elements of it were absorbed into the Sinaloa Cartel, a relatively young and aggressive organization that has gobbled up much of the Juárez Cartel's former territory. The cartel has been able to either corrupt or intimidate high ranking officials in order to obtain information on law enforcement operatives and acquire protection from the police and judicial systems.

The Juárez cartel has been found in 21 Mexican states and its principal bases are Culiacán, Monterrey, Ciudad Juárez, Ojinaga, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Cuernavaca and Cancún. Vicente Carrillo Fuentes remains the leader of the cartel.

Since 2007, the Juárez Cartel has been locked in a vicious battle with its former partner, the Sinaloa Cartel, for control of Juárez. The fighting between them has left thousands dead in Chihuahua state. The Juárez Cartel relies on two enforcement gangs to exercise control over both sides of the border: La Linea, a group of current and former Chihuahua police officers, is prevalent on the Mexican side, while the large street gang Barrio Azteca operates in Mexico and the U.S. in Texas cities such as El Paso, Dallas and Austin. as well as in New Mexico and Arizona. On April 9, 2010, the Associated Press reported that the Sinaloa Cartel had won the Juarez turf war. Nevertheless, the Juarez Cartel has continued open confrontations with the Sinaloa Cartel and Mexican police forces. On July 15, 2010, the Juarez Cartel raised their attacks to a new level by using a car bomb to target federal police officers.

Members of the cartel were implicated in the serial murder site in Ciudad Juárez that was discovered in 2004 and has been dubbed the House of Death. The Juárez Cartel was featured battling the rival Tijuana Cartel in the 2000 motion picture Traffic. The Australian ABC documentary La Frontera (2010) described social impact of the cartel in the region.

In September 2011, narco-banners appeared were they publicize the return of the extinct cartel signed by Cesar "El Gato" Carrillo Leyva, who appears to be the son or close relative to the late drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes. According to sources in the Ministerial police this is a sign that close relatives to the "Lord of Heaven" are coming to Chihuahua from Sinaloa after the loss of bosses in Chihuahua. By 2012 it has lost greatly influence.

Current alliances

Since March 2010, the major cartels have aligned in two factions, one integrated by the Juárez Cartel, Tijuana Cartel, Los Zetas and the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel‎‎; the other faction integrated by the Gulf Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel and La Familia Cartel.

See also

• Gulf Cartel
• Tijuana Cartel
• Beltrán-Leyva Cartel‎‎
• Amado Carrillo Fuentes
• Los Zetas
• Vicente Carrillo Fuentes

External links

• Border Stories profiles a newspaper reporter caught up in the drug war in Mexico