Mexico's Drug Cartels Take Barbarous Turn: Targeting Bystanders

The current uptick in violence in Sinaloa is most likely the result of "a historic rupture" in the alliance between Mexico's most feared drug lord, Joaquín "Chapo" Guzmán, and a pair of brothers who had served as hit men for his Sinaloa cartel, according to a top federal police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment. One of the brothers, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, was arrested in January, and his loyalists -- mistakenly believing Guzmán helped arrange the arrest -- are now seeking revenge against the drug lord, the federal official said.

"The streets where they once lived together now don't seem big enough for both of them," the official said.

But law-abiding Sinaloans have also begun to accept some of the blame for the violence. Drug cartels have openly used this mountainous state as a center of operations. The richest cartel leaders have flaunted their wealth by buying fancy cars and living in swanky mansions in the region.

"The problem is that for years we let this grow -- the society is as much responsible as the government," said Domínguez, the state legislator. "This is a lesson for society: If all this hadn't been accepted, we wouldn't be reaching these levels of violence."

Drug trafficking is directly or indirectly responsible for 20 percent of the economic activity in Sinaloa, according to Guillermo Ibarra, an economist at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa. Ibarra also estimates that drug cartels have at least $680 million of laundered money deposited in Sinaloan banks. As a result, Sinaloa is one of the top six Mexican states in terms of bank deposits even though it is 17th in economic production, he said.

"Sinaloa is not a banking center by any means," Ibarra said in an interview. "It is a financial center for drug traffickers."

The economic might of the cartels makes residents more likely to turn a blind eye to drug traffickers because they depend on the money, at least in part, for their livelihood, he said.

"If you took drug money out of Sinaloa, half the automobile dealerships would fail," Ibarra said. "Half the restaurants would fail, the real estate market would collapse. Even if you only reduced drug money by 9 percent, there would be an immediate recession, a crisis much like the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States."

Sinaloans tend to clam up when investigators try to unravel drug crimes, law enforcement officials say. In Guamuchil, for instance, drug cartels are suspected of killing 21 people -- including the eight slain July 13 -- in the past three weeks. But the cartels have made residents so fearful of retribution that investigators have not received a single tip about any of the killings, said Arredondo, the prosecutor.

"I have nothing, nothing," she said. "Imagine, the families are coming to me and saying, 'Why aren't you doing anything?' But what can we do? We have no information."

Arredondo's own office, now ringed by cyclone fencing, was attacked by cartel hit men in May, though no one was killed. Arredondo missed the attack -- she was on a three-month leave because of stress.

The Mexican government has responded to the outburst of violence by nearly tripling the number of federal police and troops in Sinaloa to 2,000. Convoys of federal police -- most wearing face masks to protect their identities -- ply the streets of Culiacan, and military helicopters regularly swoop down over the city. But the presence of troops and federal police has not stopped the violence; many here feel it has provoked more confrontations.

"The government is failing," Domínguez said. "They've been implementing these operations, but it appears that they are going about it without any kind of strategy."

Antonio Guadalupe Arredondo Higuera -- brother of Ignacio Arredondo Higuera, a 38-year-old welder who was one of the July 13 victims in Guamuchil -- doesn't expect much from the federal forces either. "They'll go away soon and leave us here with the cartels," he said during an interview in the dusty yard of his parents' home.

Arredondo Higuera considers the drug cartels "untouchables." He has come to think of their leaders as "the Kings of Sinaloa," he said.

"They're just laughing at the law. They kill for the fun of it," he said. "And they're going to keep doing it."

His mother, Regina Higuera Gutiérrez, sat a few steps away, shaking her head. She has wanted to honor her son's memory -- and perhaps ensure a better world for the child her son's partner is due to deliver in three months -- by marching to protest the violence ruining her home town. She tried to talk her husband, Concepción Arredondo, into taking to the streets and saying, "Enough!" But he refused and forbade her from joining in.

"He's afraid," she said, shaking her head. "We're all afraid."