Exotic world of international drug cartels is right on our doorstep

Last week’s massive drugs haul is a reminder that the tentacles of powerful South American narcotics gangs such as Sinaloa are not just stretching from your nearest streaming device — they are ensconced in unsuspecting communities across Munster.

Mexican Navy soldiers escort Joaquin Guzman, known as ‘El Chapo’, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, at the Mexican Navy hangar in Mexico City, on February. 22, 2014. Picture: Jair Cabrera Torres

The Sinaloa Cartel has become an almost romanticised entity thanks to the portrayal of Mexican cartels in the hit series Narcos.

For die-hard Irish fans of the programme, the realities of cartels seemed thousands of miles away in the fields of Mexico where heroin and cannabis cultivation were key in the emergence of the Sinaloa as a dominant force in the global drugs trade.

The cartel was once headed up by the renowned Joaquin Guzman, known as ‘El Chapo’, who managed to evade law enforcement for many years. However, in 2019, he was convicted of a number of criminal charges related to his leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the US.

The cartel continues to thrive, though, and the fields have turned into factories where synthetic drugs including fentanyl and crystal meth are produced, fuelling concerns across the world that the fentanyl-related deaths so prevalent in the US could one day hit countries such as Ireland.

It is against this backdrop that the transnational aspect of cartels like the Sinaloa group grabbed the attention of Ireland last Friday, with the discovery of €33.8m worth of crystal meth in the Port of Cork, en route from South America to Australia.

Premises in Cork and Kerry were searched and two people were arrested after the discovery of hundreds of kilos of crystal meth.

Although the drug itself was not meant for Irish markets, it is clear from searches across Kerry and Waterford and the arrests of two men in Kerry last Friday that the tentacles of cartels such as Sinaloa are not just stretching from your nearest streaming device — they are ensconced in unsuspecting communities across Munster.

This is not the first time that the Sinaloa cartel has been linked to Kerry. Last July, Killorglin was abuzz after it emerged that Morris O’Shea Salazar, a man who had spent several of his teenage years in Kerry, was named in a Chilean court as the leader of a cell of the cartel which was planning to ship Bolivian cocaine into Europe from Chile, through ports and airports.

O’Shea Salazar moved to Killorglin after the death of his Kerry-born father in a car accident in Mexico almost two decades ago. He attended a local secondary school before moving to Spain.

According to Chilean prosecutors, after a successful court application to have O’Shea Salazar extradited from Mexico to Chile as part of an investigation which was carried out in 2020, the cell operated in Europe and other areas of South America. O’Shea Salazar was stated as being in Spain at the time of the investigation and had been involved in organising the operation, the Chileans said.

His mother Yolanda Salazar Tarriba and uncle Ricardo Salazar Tarriba were taken into custody in Chile in 2021 as they tried to leave the country, having also been linked to the operation, after attempting to send 61kg of cocaine to Europe to prospective customers. Last November, the pair were sentenced for their role in the plot, with Ricardo given 23 years and Yolanda handed 18 years in prison.

Yolanda is the link between Kerry and the Sinaloa cartel, as she is a relative of El Chapo’s first wife, Maria Alejandrina Salazar, according to court documents.

Dublin referenced in cartel plans

A 299-page ruling issued in Chile last November said that Yolanda told how she had come to Europe after graduating in sociology in 1982. She first lived in Spain before moving to France where she met an Irishman with whom she had a 17-year relationship and with whom she had children, including Morris. She had said, according to the ruling, that she had settled in Ireland for a period from the early 2000s, where she did holistic therapies.

The ruling references her son almost 600 times, including noting that Dublin Port would be of interest as a destination site for Sinaloa cartel activities because of Morris being an Irish and Mexican citizen. Several infiltrated encrypted phone messages between Morris and other gang members noted references to Dublin in plans by the cartel to target ports in Europe. Others mentioned included Rotterdam, Antwerp, Valencia, and Liverpool.

The encrypted messages included references too to Sinaloa cartel leaders. Today, as El Chapo languishes in prison, the infamous cartel is made up of splinter groupings, including one faction known as Los Chapitos which is headed by El Chapo’s sons — two of whom are related to Morris O’Shea Salazar through their mother.

Last April, indictments against 25 members of the cartel were announced by the US Justice Department — including three of El Chapo’s sons: Ovidio Guzman Lopez, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar. Chinese and Guatemalan citizens accused of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl were also charged in the operation.

Such is the influence of the cartel on the US synthetic drug market that the US Justice Department announced rewards of up to $10m (€9.25m) for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Ivan Guzman Salazar, Alfredo Guzman Salazar, and Ovidio Guzman Lopez, and up to $5m for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of a fourth brother, Joaquin Guzman Lopez.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez was subsequently extradited from Mexico to the United States. Late last year, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, also known as ‘El Nini’, one of the cartel’s assassins, who led security operations for the cartel, was captured by the Mexican government, according to the US Justice Department. Efforts are now under way to have him extradited to the US.

The cartel exports and distributes wholesale amounts of methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl, according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency, with a business model to ensure that it “is to grow at all costs, no matter how many people die in the process”.

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Just days before the emergence in Ireland of the extradition application for O’Shea Salazar last July, head of the US Drug Enforcement Agency, Anne Milgram, told the US Congress that the DEA estimated that the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Mexico had more than “45,000 members, associates, facilitators, and brokers” in up to 100 countries across the world.

She also noted: “The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels pose the greatest criminal drug threat the United States has ever faced.” 

According to the DEA, the cartel has a link with chemical companies in China which produce and sell “the majority of precursor chemicals that are used today by the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels to manufacture fentanyl and methamphetamine”.

The synthetic drugs market is a valuable add-on to the activities of the cartels, which have also become tied up with Chinese money laundering operations, according to the DEA.

Suspected methamphetamine seized in Cork last Friday, which was thought to be bound for Australia, was estimated to be worth €32.8m. Picture: An Garda Síochána

In the statement to a US Senate committee hearing on fentanyl trafficking a year ago, Ms Milgram said: “The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels utilise US-based Chinese money laundering organisations [CMLOs] around the world to facilitate laundering drug proceeds. CMLOs use trade-based money-laundering and bulk cash movement to facilitate the exchange of foreign currency.

“The use of CMLOs by the cartels simplifies the money-laundering process and streamlines the purchase of precursor chemicals utilised in manufacturing drugs.”

She also said: “The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel and their affiliates control the vast majority of the fentanyl global supply chain, from manufacture to distribution. The cartels are buying precursor chemicals in the People’s Republic of China [PRC]; transporting the precursor chemicals from the PRC to Mexico; using the precursor chemicals to mass-produce fentanyl; pressing the fentanyl into fake prescription pills; and using cars, trucks, and other routes to transport the drugs from Mexico into the United States for distribution.

“It costs the cartels as little as 10c to produce a fentanyl-laced fake prescription pill that is sold in the United States for $10 to $30 per pill.”

Although the DEA, the Spanish Guardia Civil, and An Garda Síochána are among several agencies across the globe targeting the operations of cartels such as Sinaloa, the loss of drugs including last week’s seizure in Cork is unlikely to make a big dent in an organisation that has thousands of foot soldiers not just in Mexico and around the world, but also Kerry.