Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers Read Online Free PDF Page B

phoned Coello in order to pass on the complaints he was getting. Coello would typically protest, as he recalled:
    “Of course not, Mr. Under Secretary, pure fairy tales. I’m too fat to be a bad guy!”
    “Well, they’re saying you sit on the detainees, that’s the third degree,” Carrillo Olea would reply sardonically.
    In 1989, Coello’s full weight was brought to bear on his friend Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who found himself imprisoned in the Reclusorio Sur along with Félix Gallardo and El Azul Esparragoza. But after the disgrace of his bodyguards, Deputy Attorney Coello had lost clout. He knew his days at the PGR were numbered, and that he’d need friends when he was ousted. Therefore he helped to get Carrillo Fuentes acquitted and released, to the surprise of his jailmates.
    In 1990, President Salinas summoned Carrillo Olea and told him: “Jorge, Coello is severely undermining our image abroad. Enrique [Álvarez] has had enough. Help him out. He needs somebody he can trust.” As Carrillo Olea hadn’t trained as a lawyer, he could not take over the exact post occupied by Coello. Salinas created a job for him out of thin air: General Coordinator of the Fight Against the Drug Traffic.
    Álvarez welcomed Carrillo’s arrival at the PGR, and practically invited him to take it under his control, which little by little he did.
    In 1991, Carrillo appointed Rodolfo León Aragón, El Chino, as chief of the Federal Judicial Police (PJF). According to the general, relations between them were always good, despite El Chino’s high corruption ratings. León also got along very well with the equally corrupt police commander, González Calderoni. It’s in the light of this closeness to the command of the Mexican prosecutor’s office that Benjamín Arellano Félix’s recent declarations about the Cardinal’s killing are important.

Readjustments
    When Carrillo Fuentes left prison, the structure of organized crime had broken down as a result of the arrest of Félix Gallardo. The only man strong enough replace him was Salcido, El Cochiloco, who ruled in Sinaloa, and who had the support of Benjamín Arellano Félix and his brothers, ensconced in Tijuana.
    For their part, Juan and Humberto García Ábrego, leaders of the Gulf organization and the protégés of Juan Nepomuceno, were not interested in the others’ territory. Their own vast territory was quite enough. Besides, at that stage all of them were cooperating. There was a kind of tacit peace agreement. At the time, El Mayo Zambada—always an independent force—and El Azul Esparragoza had no influence beyond Sinaloa, and had not built up their organizations into what we know them as today. As for El Chapo Guzmán, El Güero Palma and the Beltrán Leyva brothers, these were just emerging leaders who picked up the crumbs. Indeed, some of them—like El Chapo, El Güero Palma and the Arellano Félix brothers—had certain shared interests that encouraged them to do business together. Nonetheless, these links were too weak to withstand the blows of betrayal, and mutual hatred developed. It was a hatred that was to be measured in the hundreds of deaths they have contributed to the cruel war waged among the cartels over the last decade in almost every part of the country.
    El Chapo and El Güero were ambitious, violent characters, who sought ever more money and power. They weren’t as strong but theyfought El Cochiloco and the Arellano Félixes for control of the Guadalajara “franchise.”
    Amado Carrillo Fuentes hatched a more ambitious plan. In alliance with Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, he decided to seize control of the drug trade all along the northern Pacific coast. El Chapo Guzmán and El Güero Palma joined him, to build up their own strength.
    El Cochiloco was executed in October 1991. Guzmán claims he was killed by his own followers, the Arellano Félix brothers. The war for the prize territory had begun. Those who had previously coexisted in the same area now