Mexican authorities announced the largest seizure of fentanyl in their history at a critical time for the country’s security. An operation led by the Secretary of the Navy resulted in the seizure of one and a half tons of synthetic drug pills, the equivalent of 20 million doses and 400 million dollars. The last blow occurred in Sinaloa, the historical epicenter of drug trafficking, and just on the verge of exceeding the threshold of 500 murders after three months of uninterrupted violence, in the midst of the greatest fracture that the cartel founded by Joaquín has suffered. El Chapo Guzmán and Ismael May Zambada in more than a decade. The president, Claudia Sheinbaum, stuck out her chest after the stash and announced this Wednesday that Omar García Harfuch, Secretary of Security and architect of her policy against the violence crisis, moved to coordinate the strategy personally and on the ground. The president declared that there will be “zero tolerance,” a direct response to the criticism that has emerged at the beginning of her Administration and to the pressure from Donald Trump to demand more forceful actions in the fight against criminal groups.
The seizure is an oxygen tank for the Sheinbaum Government and the letter of introduction of García Harfuch, the man whom the president trusts to appease the country, compared to his American counterparts. The president requested a new vote of confidence for the new security strategy, which returns attention to the causes and the commitment to the National Guard – a military body created during the Administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with a reported power of force of 130,000 elements―, but gives greater weight to intelligence, coordination and investigation tasks. “It is not that in a short time [la inseguridad] It’s going to drop drastically. It will go down in the time that is essential, because the important thing is to coordinate all the actions and the strategy,” he noted.
“It is an investigation that has been going on for a long time and yesterday it gave these results. “It is the largest seizure of fentanyl pills ever made,” Sheinbaum stressed. García Harfuch, an official who feels comfortable in the spotlight and who survived an attack by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in 2020, was in charge of announcing the news on Tuesday night. “These actions will continue until the violence in Sinaloa decreases,” he stated. A week after Sheinbaum’s inauguration, the secretary was seen walking through the streets of Culiacán, the capital of the State in northwest Mexico, to send the message to the groups in dispute of a change in the Government’s strategy to face the war for control of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Hours before the announcement of the seizure, Culiacán woke up to the roar of shootings and a strong explosion, which overwhelmed panic among the population and led to people thinking that it was a car bomb attack, which was later ruled out by federal authorities. The incident did not leave any injuries, but it increased the questions against the governor of Sinaloa, Rubén Rocha Moya, a member of Morena, the party of Sheinbaum and López Obrador. “We talked about the special strategy for Sinaloa, its presence in the State and the evaluation of operations carried out,” said Rocha Moya to calm the criticism.
The Government needed a media coup, to counteract the terror that drug trafficking has imposed on the civilian population in several States and the narrative that the authorities had lost control in different parts of the territory, a discourse that has permeated Washington, especially among the most conservative sectors. Just in the first weeks of the presidency of Sheinbaum, who assumed power on October 1, the beheading of a mayor in Guerrero, the explosion of two car bombs in Guanajuato and massacres such as that of the Los Cantaritos bar in Querétaro, a State that is not usually among the main red lights.
The operation in Sinaloa took place in two different actions, in coordination with elements of the National Guard, the Army, the Ministry of Public Security and the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic. In addition to the seizure of weapons and tactical equipment, two criminal bosses were also captured, Elier Jassiel Esquerra Félix and Javier Alonso Vázquez Sánchez, linked to the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, former allies and later enemies of the Sinaloa Cartel at the time. del Chapo. The captures took place in Guasave, in the north of the entity, plunged into violence after the capture of Mayo last July in the United States. Amid accusations of treason, the two families that have run the reins of the cartel – Los Mayos and Los Chapitos – have waged an all-out war since last September 9.
At the beginning of his mandate, Sheinbaum held Washington directly responsible for the crisis in Sinaloa, accusing Joe Biden’s Administration of hitting the drug hornet’s nest and capturing Zambada without previously notifying the Government of Mexico. But it is a speech that will hardly be able to sustain against Trump, much more volatile and impulsive than his predecessor. The Republican has threatened a tariff war and has conditioned the renegotiation of the free trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada on his partners giving in on key fronts such as migration and trafficking of fentanyl, a drug that causes tens of thousands of deaths. deaths in that country every year and that is at the center of his latest crusade against the Mexican cartels. The president said this week that her team is seeking a meeting with the next president of the United States in the near future, another open front for the Mexican authorities.
