Drug War Experts Insist Juarez Cartel Will ‘Fight To The Death’
A new Associated Press article cites government sources claiming the infamous Sinaloa cartel now controls the drug smuggling routes throughout the Borderland. But experts agree there won’t be a noticeable change and the drug war in Juarez may not be over.
“Our intelligence does not indicate the Sinaloa Cartel has taken over the Juarez corridor, however, they are making serious attempts,” said Joseph Arabit, the Special Agent In Charge for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in El Paso.
Federal officials say Juarez is a vital corridor to the drug cartels because it’s where 40 to 60 percent of all illegal drugs get smuggled into the U.S. “The upper hand changes from week to week because there is an ongoing struggle for the Juarez corridor,” said Arabit.
Other analysts dismiss claims the Juarez Drug Cartel has been relegated to the sidelines and will only be fighting for scraps. “The Juarez cartel is simply going to fight to the death, ” said a tactical analyst for the global intelligence firm STRATFOR who asked to remain anonymous. “As long as Vicente Carrillo Fuentes is alive and able to control the cartel, there will be some level of resistance.”
FBI officials in El Paso referred to drug cartel bosses as being similar to the Chief Executive Officers of corporations. “You have to think of drugs as a business … and they are fighting for a portion of the market,” said Andrea Simmons, El Paso’s FBI Spokeswoman.
Still, Simmons said intelligence shows the Sinaloa cartel owns a vast amount of the drug shipments seized in the U.S. and this leads many to an assumption. “They’ve got control of the land to get the drugs across the border,” Simmons explained.
And even if the Sinaloa Cartel has emerged victorious, it does not mean the deadly violence that has plagued our Sister City is over. Arabit told ABC-7 there are three types of cartel-related violence that will always pose a threat to the public: inter-cartel violence, intra-cartel violence, and violence aimed at law enforcement agencies.
“Whenever a significant organization member is either killed or arrested, members of that cartel will fight and kill for that lucrative position,” said Arabit in regards to intra-cartel violence.
