Inside Mexico’s feared Sinaloa drugs cartel

Some of Mexico’s leading drugs traffickers have been uk canada goose killed or captured in recent months, including the head of the powerful Sinaloa cartel. But inside the secretive world of this feared criminal organisation it’s clear that it remains as active as ever.

Hector is not what you might expect a drugs smuggler arconserve for the Sinaloa cartel to look like. There is no flashy truck and chrome plated Kalashnikov. Instead, the spry 68 year old drives a tiny Honda and runs a small canada goose coats on sale convenience store.

But he is the real thing. I had asked a Mexican contact with knowledge of the cartel to introduce me to someone on the inside. For years, Hector has been his guide to the secret workings of the oldest and richest drugs mafia in Mexico.

The Sinaloa cartel its tide of dirty cash and its pitiless violence reaches into the police, business, and politics. The arrest in February of the cartel leader, El Chapo “Shorty” Guzman, made little difference to the organisation there is too much money to be made.

“This place is sick with the narco culture,” says my contact. “They have been living with it in Sinaloa for 100 years.”

Hector has been a narcotrafficante buy canada goose jacket for 50 years. “I am a canada goose uk shop pioneer,” he tells me proudly, wearing a white cowboy hat, and swirling the ice around in a glass of whisky.

His father had been a poor farmer, planting canada goose clearance sale corn canada goose black friday sale and beans. In his teens, Hector grew marijuana, then began smuggling his crop to the US, where it fetched a much higher price.

Before, if you owed money, your word was good now you will be killed tomorrow if you don’t pay todayHector

He survived all this time by being smart, he told me. The shop, for instance, is his alibi.

“When I was young, I canada goose wanted to make lots of money. And for a time I did,” he says. “But I live better now because I don’t canada goose uk outlet have to hide.”

He has many regrets, including the loss Canada Goose Online of his son, killed while trafficking. “Truly, the business has changed,” he says. “The people have changed. There is cheap canada goose uk no respect. The nobility is gone. There is Canada Goose Coats On Sale no friendship. There is no promise. Before, if you owed money, your word was good. Now you will be killed tomorrow Canada Goose online if you don’t pay today.”

The blood flowed when, several years ago, the trafficking of crystal meth began to overtake that canadian goose jacket of the “noble” drugs marijuana and cocaine, he says. A pound of white, canada goose clearance crystalline methamphetamine is bought from a lab in Mexico for $2,000. It is sold in the US for $10,000 after smuggling costs you can Canada Goose Outlet clear $5,000 a pound. The obscene profits and the drug itself were uk canada goose outlet corrupting, he explains.

“The person who uses crystal meth can hang his mother. The change to synthetic drugs changed the mentality,” he says.

“When the meth boom started, the war started, the jealousy started. The different cartels started to Canada Goose Parka recruit people who had never seen a Kalashnikov.

“They give buy canada goose jacket cheap them a rifle, they give them drugs and those people turn crazy, they don’t think about tomorrow. canada goose coats People are cheap Canada Goose sick the ones who kill and the ones who send them to kill.”

The drugs war is conducted by the sicarios or “blades” cartel hitmen. They guard the shipments and the money, protect the cartel’s turf from rivals, and kill to order.

We read more here are taken to a safe house used as a base by one group of sicarios. The smell of marijuana is heavy in the air as we walk in. A dozen young men lounge on sofas watching TV.

They are well armed many have AK 47s, canada goose store known affectionately as “goats’ horns” by the traffickers because of the curved clip for the bullets. One or two have M 16s with grenade launchers, weapons not even the police have.

A traitor, a whistleblower, a thief, someone who doesn’t pay the cartel they send us to collect the money or to kill himJose

I speak to Raphael, a dead eyed 18 year old with a Kalashnikov, a black combat vest stuffed with ammunition clips, and a pearl handled revolver.

“A friend a mine told me about this business,” he canada goose factory sale says. “He was part of this team. So I joined canada goose uk black friday too. I was 14 years old. I was not good at school. I like this. How to explain? I don’t like fighting but I do like the weapons.”

He was 15 when he first killed. He saw an informer on the street and phoned for orders. “Kill him,” he was told. So he did, there and then, shooting the man. “I felt nothing,” he tells me. “Just adrenalin.”

He has lost count of the number of lives he has taken since. No one in the safe house has an exact number. At a guess, most think Canada Goose sale they have each killed a dozen people in the past year or 18 months.

The most recent “hit” was two weeks ago someone from their own group accused of passing information to rival traffickers. The boss of the safe house, an innocuous looking 26 year old in a striped polo shirt, garrotted him from behind with electrical cable.

The head of security for this branch of the cartel, a man in his 40s called Jose, says almost anyone can be a target. “A traitor, a whistleblower, a thief, someone who doesn’t pay the cartel. They send us to collect the money or to kill him.”

But he also claims that the cartel protects Canada Goose Jackets the people of Sinaloa. That is not as strange as it sounds. The Sinaloa mafia has, by and large, not carried out the kidnapping and extortion seen elsewhere in Mexico.

That would be bad for business, and the trafficking is far more lucrative than anything else they could do. The cartel has even killed and put on display the bodies of criminals accused of kidnapping for ransom.

We have arrested people from all sides they are all criminalsCommandante Jesus Aguilar, State police chief

“So the people protect us,” says Jose. “Most people do business with the cartel or join it. It’s almost an obligation here because if you don’t you’re on your own. You are against everyone else. There is no protection.”.