Mexican kingpin’s arrest likely to set off violent jockeying for power
Mexican kingpin’s arrest likely to set off violent jockeying for power
A new era is coming for Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel in the wake of the capture by U.S. authorities of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the last of the grand old Mexican drug traffickers.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A new era is coming for Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel in the wake of the capture by U.S. authorities of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the last of the grand old Mexican drug traffickers.
Experts believe his arrest will usher in a new wave of violence in Mexico even as Zambada could potentially provide loads of information for U.S. prosecutors.
Zambada, who had eluded authorities for decades and had never set foot in prison, was known for being an astute operator, skilled at corrupting officials and having an ability to negotiate with everyone, including rivals.
Removing him from the criminal landscape could set off an internal war for control of the cartel that has a global reach — as has occurred with the arrest or killings of other kingpins — and open the door to the more violent inclinations of a younger generation of Sinaloa traffickers, experts say.
With that in mind, the Mexican government deployed 200 members of its special forces Friday to Culiacan, Sinaloa state’s capital.
There is “significant potential for high escalation of violence across Mexico,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Brookings Institution. That “is bad for Mexico, it’s bad for the United States, as well as the possibility that the even more vicious (Jalisco New Generation cartel) will rise to even greater importance.”
Is it just me, or is the article trying to make the point that arresting the drug lord was a bad thing?
Well, from a purely imperical viewpoint, it kind of is. Pros: a criminal is captured and potentially made to suffer in some way, which somehow balances out the cosmic scales of justice or something; this high ranking criminal can be plumbed for information, which has many assets seizing and additional criminal capturing implications. Cons: there is no reduction in criminal activity; there is actually an increase in violence and volatility; the power vacuum will inevitably be filled and essentially all the clandestine infiltration/investigation work up to this point resets to square one. Could be someone better, could be someone worse, but absolutely will be someone.
I tell people at work, the way to fix the cartel problem is to legitimize cartels. You have to appeal to the fact that people want to leave things better for future generations. Change their AOR as a business to something else. They already diversified to some legal fields. The cartels already have the logistics, communication, and infrastructure.
An organization this big doesn't disappear just because you captured the top guy. Someone will take over. That someone will usually be deadly so that they can cement their leadership.
If you convince the top guy to restructure his organization then after a few generations maybe they can have a 'me too' movement. No one likes my idea though, so I don't know if that means it's a good negotiation deal or a bad one. 😂
Because it often is. These types of immediate and chaotic power vacuums are generally only filled after an enormous and destructive blood letting, and there's no guarantees that the baseline level of violence will return to earlier levels after the dust settles.
Of course, if you don't consider, or care about, the violent struggles that will result, or it's collateral damage on civilian populations, then that value proposition may work out differently.