Development: On 5 August Chuck Rosenberg, the acting head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), said that the escaped leader of the Sinaloa drug trafficking organisation (DTO), Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, was probably still in Mexico, and that the agency was stepping up its attempts to bring him to justice.
Significance: A key issue in the attempt to control Mexican DTOs is the quality of the collaboration between Mexican and US law enforcement agencies. Rosenberg’s comments at a press briefing show that despite US reservations about drug gang infiltration of the Mexican police, the two governments maintain a degree of security collaboration.
- Asked about the whereabouts of Guzmán, whose spectacular tunnelling escape from prison on 11 July humiliated the Mexican government, Rosenberg said “Where is he probably the safest and best protected? Probably Sinaloa”. The DEA chief said that his agency, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Marshals Service, and the US State Department are all stepping up the hunt for information leading to Guzmán’s recapture. The campaign includes setting up “Chapo tips” telephone lines and an email address for members of the public to provide information about his whereabouts; the US State Department is also offering a US$5m reward for information leading to Guzmán’s recapture.
- On the sensitive subject of collaboration between US and Mexican agencies, Rosenberg said “institutional problems” on the Mexican side made information gathering difficult. “We have sources in Mexico we can work closely with. It doesn’t extend through the entire government”, he said. Despite its disastrously poor record on keeping top drug lords such as Guzmán in prison, the current Mexican government, working through navy marines and other elite units, actually has a good record for tracking down and apprehending DTO leaders. Some analysts therefore say the answer is to extradite the top mafia bosses to stand trial in the US – a move previously resisted on sovereignty grounds. Should Guzmán be once more re-arrested this is a real possibility: at the end of last month a Mexico City judge accepted a US extradition request filed before El Chapo’s escape. Should El Chapo be recaptured the Mexican government will therefore have the option to process the request.
Looking Ahead: The major question is whether after two arrests (1993 and 2014) and two escapes (2001 and 2015) over the last two decades, there will be a “third time lucky” for the authorities trying to capture El Chapo. Most Mexican analysts believe, for the moment at least, that the answer is “no”: he has the power and resources in Sinaloa and elsewhere to continue to escape arrest for a number of years.
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