Life in Sinaloa while the trial "El Chapo" takes place in New York

In 2009, Forbes magazine ranked Joaquín Guzmán Loera at number 701 on the list of the world's greatest fortunes.. Shortly after its recovery in 2016, accessories such as hats, belts or mariqueras bearing this number were everywhere.

Today, you have to look for them carefully among the street vendors of Culiacán, in the state of Sinaloa., where is a kind of "pax narca".

In a few days, the lawsuit against "El Chapo" will end. The Mexican drug dealer is waiting for his fate in a prison in the United States. The 12-member jury of the Brooklyn Federal Court have in their hands the fate of the most powerful Mexican capo of recent times.

"The process did not have much impact among the population, only between businessmen and politicians on the subject of bribes"badured Luis Pablo Beauregard, journalist The country, a young book dealer from the central mall, who sells the old and clbadic clbadics of Jesús Blancornelas and Manuel Buendía, two of the Mexican journalists who have written the most about drug trafficking.

The so-called "judgment of the century" did not have many surprises for the inhabitants of SinaloaThey always knew that Guzmán was the face of the cartel, but that the real boss has always been "El Mayo Zambada," said the bookseller.

Ismael Bojórquez, director of the weekly Sinalean Ríodoce, explained that "with the trial of" El Chapo ", many things that they had published on their pages have been proven, "I need proof of the role played by the gringos in all of this," he said.

The weekly has devoted itself to the publication of the activities of narco in the State of the North, so much so that In May 2017, journalist Javier Valdez, founder of Ríodoce, was badbadinated. The murder took place in the aftermath of the internal war of the criminal group caused by the extradition of Guzmán Loera to the United States.

The clashes that followed the extradition of "El Chapo" took place between the heirs of the capo and Dámaso López Núñez, Aka "The lawyer". They kept Sinaloa in a bloody battle for the territory. In February 2017, eleven dead during a shooting in the municipality of Navolato.

The figure of Ismael, "El Mayo", Zambada García is rooted in this internal war. Specialists in the criminal organization believe that the veteran is aligned with his partner's children.

On four occasions, the military has followed suit with "El Mayo", according to his own statement in an interview that he conceded to the dean of Mexican journalism Julio Scherer in 2010.

"I saved myself by the mountain, whose branches, streams, stones, I know"The Mexican government should add another attempt to capture him in February 2014, when DEA agents failed an operation that reached the drug trafficker's ranch outside Culiacán.

Bojórquez, according to his interpretations, explains that the interview he gave to Scherer could mean a message that "El Mayo" sent to the US government, after the extradition of his son Vicente Zambada Niebla, nicknamed the "Vicentillo", "El Mayo knows things and is ready to use them to negotiate", Expressed the director of Ríodoce.

"Vicentillo" pleaded guilty last November to a Chicago court, which allowed him to testify in the so-called "trial of the century". For five years, Zambada Niebla has been a collaborator of the government of the neighboring country. Some versions say their help could be rewarded with a 10-year sentence that would be completed next year.

Something similar happened with his half-brother Serafin, who was sentenced to a little over five years. He was released last September because he had already served his sentence. At liberty, Ismael Zambada Sicairos, "El Mayito Flaco", was considered as an operator for the transfer of synthetic drugs.

"Vicentillo" has repeatedly stated, before the questions of Guzman's lawyers, who informed the US authorities of the coordinates of his father's hiding places. "They did not stop it, it's not my fault", he told Eduardo Balarezo, defender of "El Chapo", who badured the jury that "El Mayo" had held "meetings with very high-ranking soldiers".

More than 25 companies belonging to the Zambada family have been blacklisted by the US Treasury Department over the past two decades. Despite this financial blow, the power of the family is still evident in Sinaloa.

"The Mayo is the heaviest and, in the United States, the people do not know who it is, and the lawsuit made it possible to wonder if" El Chapo "was the maximum leader or any other among others" , explains Ioan Grillo, a writer of drug trafficking in Mexico.

Dámaso López Núñez was arrested in the Mexican capital in May 2017, 13 days before the murder of Valdez, Many journalists believed that it was he who had ordered the journalist's death. However, in the case against "El Chapo", he badured that the intellectual actors of this crime are the children of Guzmán Loera."It was on the order of my friend's sons, Iván and Alfredo … The truth is the truth, maybe my compadre (Joaquín Guzmán) ignored him but he now knows it ", said López Núñez in court. This statement from "The lic" was received with skepticism.

In that same year, 2017, Dámaso López's son went to the American authorities, overwhelmed by the extermination that was taking place inside the cartel. The year 2017 was the most violent in Sinaloa, with more than 1,600 homicides.

The fall of "El Chapo" and Dámaso caused a kind of "pax narca" in Sinaloa. "I am helping to reduce homicides," said Cristóbal Castañeda, secretary of the state's Public Security.

"When we arrived, reports of convoy convoys were common, and today there are more." said Castañeda. He said homicides were down 29 percent from last year, in addition to the recovery in areas dominated by drug traffickers.

For Ismal Bojórquez, journalist in Ríodoce, nothing changes, despite the sentence that Joaquín Guzmán Loera will receive in a few days. "The underlying problem does not change, we see it for decades, it does not change the regime of impunity, which has always been the refuge of the government, neither the violence has diminished nor the cartel dismantled ".

With information from El País