Sinaloa product seized in Tijuana
Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, significant seizures of Sinaloa cartel work were seized in Tijuana, by the PEP, State Preventative Police, familiar names whenever there are large drugs shipments seized, or mid level organized crime figures.
The official story, which often seems to be a little abstract, and vague, is arresting officers intercepted a 2005 white jeep Cherokee, and observed a .380 caliber pistol, prompting a more intensive search of the rest of the vehicle. Three wraps and two packages of heroin were found under the drivers seat, which was only the beginning of a poly drug discovery. In one modified gas tank, agents found approximately 24 kilos of crystal, and in another, adjoining tank, 18 kilos, and 100 grams of cocaine.
The amount of heroin was five kilos, plus 500 grams, roughly 5 and a half kilos altogether. Two kilos of opium was also discovered. These discoveries beg the question, what was going on, with the 2005 white jeep cherokee, that day? The detainees, of course, confessed to being 'members' of the Sinaloa Cartel, and serving it's leader, whose name, need not be mentioned here.
The detainees, Jesus Alberto Gaxiola, and Leobardo Gonzalez Garcia, are from smaller cities in Sinaloa, Angustura, and Mocrito. It is doubtful they are US citizens, and likely weren't planning on crossing the border themselves, with the product. Perhaps, they were delivering the vehicle, along with a few spare kilos of heroin, to another location, where a driver who would cross the car into the United States. Or, maybe the car was coming up from Sinaloa, but that is probably less likely. The upturn in cocaine seizures, both in Tijuana, and at the US Ports of entry, are evident of a returning consistent stream of product crossing into the US, which had all but halted in the summer months, where cocaine seizures, all but slowed to a halt, indicating a decrease in supply and availability. Several recent arrests along the line, including almost 60 kilos seized in early October, are more consistent with the seizures of winter 2011.
The Sinaloa Cartel, is believed to work in coordination with Arellano Felix's remaining network, combining product, money, smuggling routes, corrupt officials, and safe houses, in an effort to by pass increasingly tight border security at the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa point of entry.
Other things of note in Tijuana, is several executions, including bodies found entombed, in barrels of cement, and several daylight executions along Sanchez Tadoba. Stories are also emerging, of prominent Tijuana society members, opera singers, and architects, who have been arrested, and sentenced for drug trafficking, multiple kilos of cocaine and crystal. The reports are that these men, unlikely traffickers and mules, were coerced under threat of violence, as the traffickers grow more desperate to find a line across the border.
The catch is, many captured smugglers claim this, but more and more information leads credence to these claims. Narcos find a person, find their family, and pose a scenario, one that is not hypothetical. The way of thinking is, once they get your information, anything is possible. This would be a new elevation from the 'blind mules'.
Murders in Tijuana continue, but are likely to end with lower final numbers then last year, continuing a de escalation in violence, since the bloody final months of 2008.
Sources: AFN Tijuana, Zeta Tijuana.
