The reinvention of the cartel of Sinaloa without "El Chapo" and its fight against the CJNG of "El Mencho"

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, head of the Sinaloa cartel, was sentenced in New York in February and is waiting for what will surely be a life sentence.

Meanwhile, the violence in Mexico is stirred by disputes that cartels maintain over the control of the drug market in the country. Since he's been captured for the third time in 2016, criminal groups have struggled to fill the void left by this character.

Two weeks after "El Chapo" was convicted by a Brooklyn court, at least 5 narcomantas appeared in Guadalajara, a bastion of the main rival of the cartel of Sinaloa: the cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación.

All travel stories were signed by "El Mayo" Zambada and announced "cleansing" in Mexico and promised "the return of the old school" of narco.

The Zambada has never been captured and now we speculate, runs the CDS with the sons of Guzmán Loera, after triumphing in an internal struggle for control of the criminal organization.

A few days after the appearance of the signs in Guadalajara, brother by Damaso López Núñez, Guzmán's right hand, before being captured and testifying against him, was killed in the state of Sinaloa.

"The cartel of Sinaloa proceeds to a vendetta against the relatives of Damascus for attempted murder of the children of El Mayo and El Chapo"said Mike Vigil, former head of international operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration in March.

The incident Vigil is talking about is where, in 2017, the sons Guzmán and Zambada himself, They accused Damaso López of having invited them to a meeting and trying to kill them.

In late February, a man identified by Mexican authorities as Adolfo "N" was executed at his home in Culiacán, in the state of Sinaloa.

The 53-year-old man had no criminal record or relationship with the drug cartels. However, his execution was a message for his brother Dámaso López Núñez, "The license ", which a month ago had declared against Joaquín" El Chapo "Guzmán Loera.

But the revenge had started since 2017. On 21 June of the same year, the body of Luis Fernando Gaxiola, former ex-lord of El Dorado and former PRI regidor, brother-in-law of López Núñez, was found.

"The Licentiate", who was once a man of Guzman's confidence and who considered his right hand, It was he who helped him in his first escape from Puente Grande, tried to replace his boss.

In addition to revenge, The Sinaloa cartel seeks to regain its position in several regions and to "fundamentally" eliminate the Jalisco Cartel Nueva Generación.

Vigil explained that the killing of the brother of "El Licenciado" was not exactly related to the conviction of Guzmán Loera, it is rather a war in another war of a thousand wars. Like the cartel of Sinaloa against the cartel Jalisco New Generation.

"On the other hand, the Sinaloa cartel is essentially trying to eliminate the poster of the new generation of Jalisco", explained the former US official Business Insider

"There is an internal insurgency in the poster of the new generation of Jalisco," said Vigil, referring to a group in Guadalajara called Cartel Nueva Plaza that challenges CJNG with the support of its rivals, including the Sinaloa cartel.

He added that The cartel of Sinaloa seeks to regain its position in several regions, mainly to eliminate the cartel headed by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, "El Mencho".

"The Sinaloa cartel takes advantage of this insurgency, as well as the fact that the Mexican government is actually pursuing" to CJNG leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho", said Vigil.

The Jalisco cartel did not let this happen without an answer. On March 5, another narcomanta was found in Tijuana with a message to Zambada. "This is not your place ", this was read in the message signed by the CJNG.

Uncertainty about the future does not mean that businesses are suffering. The Sinaloa cartel, which has always functioned more as a factional alliance than a traditional hierarchical organization, has been resilient and prosperous through the cocaine trade and, more recently, heroin and synthetic drugs.