Inside the Sinaloa Cartel: ‘The United States knows everything about Los Chapitos because they have 100% infiltration’

On October 17, 2019, the temperature was 33 degrees Celsius in Culiacán, Sinaloa. Residents there described it as “a pleasant day.” However, that date would be remembered as Black Thursday, or the Culiacanazo. Starting at midday, a failed operation by the Mexican army sparked hours of terror and uncertainty. The sound of high-caliber weapons was heard throughout the city, vehicles were set on fire, and gunmen were shooting from rooftops, motorcycles, and cars. The order was to reach the community of Jesús María, a town north of Culiacán, to capture one of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s sons. However, upon arrival, the troops were surprised. They didn’t go after Iván Archivaldo or Jesús Alfredo, considered high-ranking operatives within the Sinaloa Cartel. The target was Ovidio Guzmán, known as “El Ratón,” the youngest of the brothers.

“We were all surprised to see Ovidio arrested. Why did they arrest him?” asks a witness from that day. This is one of the questions that the documentary series Battle of Culiacán: Heirs of the Cartel seeks to answer from the depths of the Sinaloa Cartel. Available on the Max platform since March 13, it chronicles the details of the two attempts to arrest Ovidio Guzmán (one unsuccessful and one successful), the fentanyl explosion, and how the criminal organization operates after the capture of El Chapo, its founder and imprisoned leader.

The four-part series aims to shed light on the web of misinformation and the political fallout unleashed by the Culiacanazo. Through extensive research, which spanned two years, the production team compiled previously unseen footage from witness recordings, army body cameras, and even audio recordings. This was done with the goal of elaborating on and exploring the repercussions of this operation, which triggered a wave of violence in Culiacán and exposed the vulnerabilities of the country’s institutions. It also explored the complex and dynamic relationship between Mexico and the United States, the impact of fentanyl trafficking, and the internal disputes over control of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world.

“The challenge was how to integrate these images into the story without overly offending the viewer's feelings; because at the same time, we had to show reality as it was. It was a task of thinking and rethinking the editing to maintain the pace without falling into sensationalism, but at the same time telling the truth,” explains director Fátima Lianes.

From El Chapo’s low-profile ‘loving son’ to ‘Fentanyl King’

The series focuses on the enigma of Ovidio Guzmán, who was considered a “loving son” by his father, who, according to a fragment of the documentary, “always tried to get him out of crime.” Despite growing up, as the newspaper Reforma explained, in Mexico City’s Jardines del Pedregal neighborhood, an upper-class area, and attending CEYCA, one of Mexico City’s most expensive private Catholic schools, El Ratón’s family influenced him and he became a drug trafficker at 18.

And not just any drug trafficker: one the DEA had its eye on despite the fact that the Mexican army viewed Ovidio as the weakest link in the criminal organization, “because he was the youngest, the least violent, and the one with the lowest profile,” says investigative journalist Luis Chaparro in a segment of the film. He’s not a “psychopath” or “sociopath.” These are adjectives that are often used to describe the temperament of Iván Archivaldo, his older brother and head of Los Chapitos, one of the factions competing against the followers of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada for control of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Even the criminal organization itself was surprised that the authorities were after Ovidio. The series, through various testimonies, reports that the DEA linked El Ratón to the manufacture of fentanyl around 2015. An anonymous cartel member, who has been part of the organization for 15 years, says that this drug, “100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin,” arrived in Sinaloa in 2013.

Ovidio entered the business as an investor, as “you have to put up money to continue buying, moving, and trafficking.” “Ovidio Guzmán becomes the person in charge of producing this synthetic drug. He was responsible for bringing in the chemical precursors, manufacturing, and transporting fentanyl to the United States,” says Jesús Bustamante, an independent journalist and consultant for the documentary.

The same anonymous cartel member explains that for $400,000, approximately 350 kilos of fentanyl can be made. Each kilo can be sold in New York or Los Angeles for $35,000.

Through a security breach within the Sinaloa Cartel, the DEA learned not only the intentions of the fentanyl trafficking operation, but also its scale; Ovidio’s clients in California; the importance of the ports of Lázaro Cárdenas, in Michoacán, and Manzanillo, in Colima; and Iván Archivaldo’s intentions to set up a command center in Mexico City. These details also appear in the Chicago court files of the case against El Ratón.

“The United States knows everything about Los Chapitos because they have 100% infiltration. Their faction is a cheese with holes in every corner,” says the cartel member. This is how the DEA managed to infiltrate three people and record Ovidio, investigative reporter Peniley Ramírez recounts in the documentary. It is for this reason, she notes, that he earned the nickname “The Fentanyl King” from Washington.

Although El Chapo’s heirs have denied, through a letter, having “ever” produced, manufactured or marketed fentanyl, Mike Vigil, head of international operations for the DEA between 2000 and 2003, thinks differently: “This information has linked Los Chapitos and the Sinaloa Cartel as the largest manufacturers of fentanyl in the world.”

“A selection of many voices was made so that people could reflect on their own experiences. We believe all the necessary figures are included, from former politicians, military commanders, citizens, journalists, and analysts. In other words, a series of people are included who address the issue from their perspective and who also, obviously, reflect on what went right and what went wrong, what could have been avoided, and what we need to do to prevent this from happening again,” Bustamante says via video call.

The tentacles that emerge from this problem are long, and the scissors aren’t big enough. The escalation of drug-related violence in Mexico, reflected in the Culiacanazo and in every horrific incident that emerges daily, is still a debt that merits an explanation from the Mexican government to its people.

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