Tag: Mexico

It’s been awhile since we’ve gotten a Kingpin. Almost a year. El Chapo. We’ve gotten this guy before. Like non-sequel movies, are we running out of Kingpins?

It’s amazing there are any drug kingpins left since we’ve gotten so many of them.

It seems there was one last to get: “La Tuta.” Now he’s history. (I’m a bit disappointed in the monicker. “The teacher” is a pretty lame nickname by drug lord standards, I have to say. We may not be running out of kingpins, but they may be running out of good nicknames.)

“The most wanted drug lord in the country,” according to the NYT.

I guess Mexico is now safe. Surely this marks the end of the drug war. What a relief.

It’s been a few months, and actually “we” didn’t get him. But he was gotten all the same.

From the BBC: “Mexican police have found the body of Aquiles Gomez, who was thought to be one of the main leaders of the Knights Templar drug cartel.”

We win! (for the fourteenth time and counting…)

As I wrote back in 2011:

Ah, the illusive search for “Mr. Kingpin.” If only we could nab him, the whole criminal enterprise would tumble. Witness how we’re all safe from terrorism after the killing of Osama bin Laden. And notice how the drug war in Mexico has been won…

That’s two in one month and it makes an even dozen.

“Eduardo Arellano Felix is to serve 15 years in jail, after pleading guilty to charges of money laundering,” says the BBC. Though I don’t know if this should really count since he’s been in jail since 2008, and his nickname, “The Doctor,” is kinda lame. But I’m still chalking him up because, well, he was a kingpin (or at least the accountant for one).

Check out the others.

Eduardo was the last of four brothers who ran the Mexican drug cartel known as the Arellano-Felix Organization. With all these kingpins gone, we can look back to the turning point in the drug war. Though today it’s hard to conceive of how violent Mexico once was, back before we won the war on drugs.

Why it was less than a year ago that we got Heriberto Lazcano, the founder and principal leader of the Zetas. And now the Times reports:

The leader of … the Zetas, was captured Monday in a city near the Texas border, an emphatic retort from the new government to questions over whether it would go after top organized crime leaders.

…

Mr. Treviño is the highest-ranking and most-sought-after drug capo arrested by the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico, whose aides had questioned the so-called kingpin strategy of his predecessor, which had emphasized high-profile arrests. 

If you’re counting, and I am, this is the 11th Kingpinwe’ve captured in less than three years! Start the chant: War on drugs! War on Drugs! USA! Mexico!

The BBC mentions in passing: “The fear is that it will lead to a period of violent in-fighting between different Zeta factions as they try to assume control of the criminal organisation, our correspondent adds.” Ya think?

And this one is a big one. Heriberto Lazcano, the founder and the principal leader of the Zetas. Perhaps he’s even the big one. The real kingpin. I guess we won. Ten times is the charm.

Let’s savor our victory and bask in a new drug-free world.

Update: the body was stolen.