The Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico is in the news again. Its creator and former leader is the infamous shorter-than-normal Napoleon-like “El Chapo” now residing in America’s super prison in Colorado for the rest of his life. Joaquin Guzman Loera is his name. Today he goes by a number, an inmate number.
The government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is not pursuing any campaign against this cartel, an evil purveyor of death. In fact, this President even refuses to admit that labs run by the Sinaloa Cartel even exist. But they do.
The gigantic laboratories are producing deadly fentanyl from tons of precursor ingredients shipped to Mexico from communist China. They exist only because this president has imposed a “hugs not bullets” policy that is so extreme that almost a hundred Mexicans are murdered daily, though Lopez Obrador brags his country is safer than the United States.
Concurrently, Mexican-cartel manufactured fentanyl killed upwards of 70,000 American addicts in 2022 — more than all who died during the 10-year long Vietnam War.
Lopez Obrador keeps the Mexican Army busy building a failed airport and laying tracks for his dream railroad, the 1,500-kilometer Maya Train. He also has diverted the Mexican Navy and it’s classy Marines from chasing down drug bigshots like El Chapo to instead manning ports to collect import duties like clerks.
The President has gone so far as to greet and hug El Chapo’s mother in public and to order the release of one of El Chapo’s sons after Marines had captured him. Why? Because the “Chapitos” killer followers were mobilizing to try to free him. Lopez Obrador called off the Marines and ordered the little jerk released so no one would be harmed.
Enough is enough. The Department of Justice convinced federal grand juries to indict 28 cartel leaders, including four of El Chapo’s sons, last week. This was announced even as a top cartel leader and leading gunman and killer — Jorge Ivan Gastelum Avila, nicknamed “Cholo Ivan” — was extradited to the United States for trial like his old boss El Chapo.
Political freedom erupted in Mexico under Presidents Vicente Fox (2000-2006) and Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) when they defeated the old Stalinest PRI political party. Two legal factors improved: extradition to the United States of wanted cartel members and prosecution and imprisonment of criminals.
Extradition is heavily supported in Mexico because in that country justice doesn’t exist for over 90% of crimes. Only 2% of all murders in Mexico are ever solved, and 98% are never prosecuted.
NPR reports that Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Anne Milgram said when the latest indictments were made public that “the Chapitos pioneered the manufacture and trafficking of fentanyl…flooded it into the United States…and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.”
“Between 2019 and 2021, fatal overdoses increased by approximately 94%, with an estimated 196 Americans dying each day from fentanyl,” according to Milgram.
Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans under 40. It is 50 times more potent than heroin, experts say.
Stopping the fentanyl trade must be the priority of not only the United States but also for Mexico, for once the Cartels figure out they can make a fortune hooking the lower economic classes of Mexico on fentanyl, Mexico will be done.
Stopping fentanyl can only be ended by both countries working together.
My suggestion is combining U.S. Special Forces with the Mexican Marines in joint operations in Mexico supported by airpower. Unfortunately, until Lopez Obrador and his MORENA political party are gone, the plan could not be implemented.
So nearly 400 people a day will continue to be murdered by guns or fentanyl in the United States and Mexico. How long will it be before both countries are destroyed?
Raoul Lowery Contreras is a Marine veteran, political consultant, prolific author and host of the Contreras Report on YouTube and ROKU.
