Ballesteros, Mexican drug rings began to charge Colombians one thousand to two thousand dollars per kilo for cross-border transportation. This worked so well that by 1987, according to Robert Bonner, former DEA administrator and U.S. Customs commissioner, 80–90 percent of U.S. cocaine had been smuggled via Mexico. This arrangement, however, caused the Mexican groups to grow in wealth and strength, while multiplying their connections in South and Central America and the United States.179
Perhaps most important, by the early 1990s Colombian cartels were often providing their Mexican associates with a commission of a percentage of the drugs being moved, in lieu of cash payments.180 The DEA traced this policy change to a 1989 dispute between Colombian traffickers and Mexican transporters, who had brought tons of cocaine into Sylmar, California, for temporary storage.181 When Colombian distributors attempted to repossess the cocaine, the Mexicans refused to release it while awaiting full payment for their services. But, before the stalemate could be resolved, the DEA raided the Sylmar warehouse and in the largest U.S. cocaine seizure confiscated 21.5 tons. Thereafter, Colombian and Mexican traffickers agreed that the Mexicans would take a percentage of each future drug shipment as compensation. This, however, entrenched Mexican traffickers in U.S. cocaine distribution, bringing them yet more influence within the cocaine industry.182 In 1992, for instance, Cali traffickers sent about 100 tons of cocaine far out into the Pacific Ocean on mother ships to rendezvous with Mexican vessels. Mexican smugglers then brought the drugs to shore and oversaw their transit across the U.S. border. After returning some of the cocaine to Cali representatives for distribution, the Mexicans took possession of about half the entire shipment to distribute through their own networks.183
The next cardinal factor contributing to the rise of Mexican cocaine-smuggling networks was the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, markedly expanding traffic along the border.184 In the mid-1990s, poised for aggressive expansion and bridling at their long subordinate status vis-à-vis Colombian groups, Mexican traffickers increased their presence in the bridge states, while threatening to buy directly from Andean producers unless the Colombians came to more favorable terms for cross-border transit.185 Although Colombians continued to dominate cocaine refining, Mexican muscle flexing brought on renegotiation.186 Colombians directing cocaine shipments through Mexico began to pay considerably more to their Mexican associates. Furthermore, certain Mexican enterprises did begin to work directly with suppliers, buying cocaine in South America and moving the drugs to the U.S. market themselves.187 And, in response, some Colombian drug rings looked to move more cocaine to the United States by circumventing costly Mexican assistance.188
Map 1.3
Each of these developments had significant consequences for Central America. Deftly capitalizing on their advantages, Mexican organizations soon rose to become the new leaders of the Latin American cocaine trade.189 Because Mexico borders two Central American countries and its traffickers had ties throughout the region, the shifting configuration of power further enhanced the importance of this key bridge region. And, just as the drug trade within Colombia was distributed geographically, with certain traffickers predominant in Medellín, others in Cali or Bogotá, so the same was true of Mexico. Criminal groups staked out their turf and then fought tenaciously to retain or expand it. Thus, while Mexican drug-related violence as well as Mexican drug-trafficking schemes has long been evident in Central America, each now climbed markedly.
Particular Mexican Cartels Active in Central America
One Mexican drug organization of some note in the early years of the Central American drug trafficking boom was the cartel headquartered in the far northern state of Sonora. Originally led by Rafael Caro Quintero, Sonoran traffickers focused especially on the export of Mexican marijuana, rather than smuggling cocaine via Central America. However, they allied with counterparts in Guadalajara for a period, and Caro’s close links with Guadalajara kingpin Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo extended to both men participating in the 1985 kidnapping of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.190 The agent’s torture and murder then factored into the development of the Central American drug trade. Honduran kingpin Matta Ballesteros was deeply involved, and gaining custody of Matta became a key DEA objective. Moreover, while the target of a worldwide hunt, Caro fled to Costa Rica, where he was arrested and extradited to Mexico in the spring of 1985. As for the Sonora cartel, although Rafael’s brother Miguel took over, leading it until his arrest in 2001, repeated clashes with the Gulf cartel steadily diminished its importance.
The Guadalajara cartel, founded in the 1970s by Alberto Sicilia Falcón, also gained very early prominence. Guadalajara kingpins long supervised marijuana and opium cultivation in Mexico’s “Golden Triangle”—the mountains of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua, where most of the country’s drugs are produced—and it frequently trafficked drugs into the U.S. Southwest. As Guadalajara traffickers entered the cocaine trade, they reached out from their traditional territory in northwest Mexico to become active in Baja California, in the Pacific ports of Acapulco and Lázaro Cárdenas, and as far east along the U.S. border as Nuevo Laredo. Cocaine kingpin Félix Gallardo and heroin kingpin Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo built up the cartel. Once Félix was apprehended in 1989, however, the organization split apart. One center of power shifted to Culiacán where Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera developed the Sinaloa cartel. This organization controlled routes within Mexico that ran from Chiapas all the way to the U.S. boundary, and Sinaloan traffickers launched transshipment schemes across Central America with a major presence in Costa Rica.191
The Juárez cartel also grew out of Guadalajara’s fragmentation, and it came to be led by the nephews of Fonseca Carillo—Amado, Cipriano, and Vicente. The most able of the three, Amado Carillo Fuentes, initially seized control, gaining the nickname “Lord of the Skies” for moving large cocaine shipments by air.192 For a period in the 1990s Juárez dominated Mexican cocaine smuggling, enjoying the allegiance of other Mexican cartels and cultivating relationships with Cali and other Colombian traffickers. However, with Carillo’s death in mid-1997 during a botched plastic-surgery operation, bloody struggles among Mexican drug enterprises eventually ensued, as an initial truce ruptured and contenders vied for primacy. With Vicente Carillo Fuentes in charge, the Juárez cartel clashed violently with the Gulf and Tijuana cartels, which had temporarily allied. Not only did Tijuana traffickers fight with Juárez counterparts, but both struggled with Sinaloa for dominance in the Chihuahua–Ciudad Juárez–El Paso, Texas corridor.193 In the course of this bloody violence, the Juárez cartel shifted more of its operations south, with its southeast cell, headquartered in the Yucatán, taking a central role in drug transit via Belize. However, starting in the latter 1990s, law-enforcement successes, pressure by rival Mexican cartels, and eventually Mexican military operations left Juárez a shadow of what it once had been.
The final consequence of the splintering of the Guadalajara cartel was that Félix Gallardo’s nephews, the Arellano Félix brothers, came to lead the Tijuana cartel, sometimes simply termed the Arellano
