Gulf cartel leader Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez (aka El Coss), center/Mexican Navy
The history of major arrests of Mexican drug “cartel” leaders during the administration of President Felipe Calderón (2006-December 2012) indicates that despite important apprehensions, many Mexican organized crime groups prove resilient. Thus, the arrests this week by Mexico’s Marines of two long-time high-level leaders of the Gulf cartel are not likely to decimate the organization.
Unlike many arrests in Mexico, where mid-level lieutenants are portrayed as cartel heads the moment they are arrested, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, or “El Coss,” appears to have been the genuine article: a true cartel head. Also arrested this week was Mario Cardenas Guillen, the brother of former Gulf cartel head Osiel Cardenas Guillen. Mario Cardenas Guillen‘s arrest marks the death or arrest of the last of the Cardenas Guillen brothers.
When Osiel Cardenas Guillen was arrested in 2003 and extradited to the United States in 2007, El Coss and Cardenas’ brother, Tony “Tormenta,” rose in the organization’s ranks. Tony Tormenta was killed in a shootout with Mexican naval forces in 2010.
The Mexican Navy has also made important arrests of drug kingpins, which suggests it has targeted the Gulf cartel for some time. As Wikileaks cables have demonstrated, the Mexican Navy is more willing to act on intelligence provided by the United States on the whereabouts of cartel heads — e.g., it was willing to act on U.S. intelligence on the whereabouts of Arturo Beltran Leyva, killing him in 2009. Unlike that operation, the arrest of El Coss appears to be a Mexican operation according to U.S. officials, suggesting that Mexico has developed its own electronic surveillance capabilities. This is in line with reporting by El Universal and Slate.com that Mexico has dramatically increased its use of surveillance technology in the drug war. It should also be noted that Mario Cardenas Guillen’s arrest contributed intelligence to the El Coss arrest, according to Mexican government officials.
The arrests will certainly be disruptive for the Gulf cartel, but don’t hold your breath waiting for its demise. The Gulf cartel has roots in smuggling networks stretching back to the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. Further, it has deep connections in the social fabric of northeastern Mexico and, as the recent U.S. asset forfeiture of a former state governor in Mexico shows, powerful political ties. Finally, it boasts extensive U.S. domestic wholesale transportation networks.
Analysts, pundits and even government officials have said that the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO, or the Tijuana Cartel) is dead, or have often said that “it is a shadow of its former self” following the arrest of Benjamin Arellano Felix in 2002, the arrest of his brother El Tigrillo in 2006, and the arrest of his other brother, El Doctor, in 2008. U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy was so eager to declare victory that she simply renamed the organization the Fernando Sanchez Organization (FSO)—named for the nephew of the Arellano Felix Organization founders who likely took control of the organization in 2006. Needless to say, the moniker did not stick. The AFO continues to function, according to recent articles in the Mexican political magazine Proceso.
Gulf cartel internecine conflict
The real threats to the continued functioning of the Gulf cartel are its internecine conflicts and its competition with Los Zetas, its former security-force-turned-rivals. There appears to have been an internal rift within the Gulf cartel between factions known as Los Rojos and Los Metros in 2011 over an issue of leadership succession in the Reynosa plaza. It appears that the Metros emerged victorious, controlling the Gulf cartel leadership although the Rojos “retain considerable manpower.”
Divided Zetas
Further complicating the power dynamics in the region, the Gulf cartel’s rivals, Los Zetas, also appear to be suffering an internal split between those loyal to Heriberto Lazcano, alias “El Lazca,” and Miguel Angel Trevino, known as “Z-40.” The Gulf cartel has been reported to have an alliance with the Sinaloa cartel against Los Zetas since the Gulf-Zeta split in 2010.
A bipolar organized crime structure
These arrests can be viewed in terms of the broader organized crime struggles in Mexico. Despite the increase in the number of Mexican “cartels” following the government’s militarized onslaught, a bipolar structure has emerged in Mexican drug trafficking. Much like the Cold War, where smaller powers allied with the United States or Soviet Union, Mexican organized crime has consolidated its alliance structure between two major powers, the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas. Smaller cartels find themselves allying with one of these powers, as the Gulf cartel has allied with the Sinaloa cartel against the Zetas since 2010.
Viewed through this lens, it is most likely that former Gulf cartel factions will continue their alliance with the Sinaloa cartel to counter the more immediate local threat from Los Zetas. Any defections from the Gulf cartel to the Zetas would likely be from the Rojos faction, which has lost members to the Zetas in the past and which is likely more disgruntled following the victory of the Metros in their internal struggles. The Zetas may take this as an opportunity to consolidate power in northeastern Mexico in the vacuum left by the arrest of El Coss. However, if reports of Zeta internal strife are accurate, they may be in no position to go on the offensive.
Nathan Jones is the Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy at the Baker Institute. His areas of interest include U.S.-Mexico security issues, illicit networks and cross-border flows.