#juarez

Goodnight from Juarez, Mexico. Postcard

Hey Nonni!!! Sorry for the late reply to this.

Basically, Yep!

Before I answer, I want to clarify: The Caro, the Quintero and the Payan clans have been in the narco world before Rafa was even born and they’ll be in it well after Rafa has passed (whenever that is) This is a family that has been involved in the manufacture and distribution of drugs for almost a century. Going back to what I said on a previous post, it’s not uncommon for Narcos to try to keep the business within the family. Hell, it’s practically the norm. You have the Beltran Leyva family, the carrillos, the Fonsecas, and you also have the Guzmans and the Zambada. The CJNG’s leadership are all related and then they also have the Cuinis. That being said what makes the Caros, the Quinteros and the Payans stand out is their longevity in the game and just how many of them have been prolific and famous. Imagine being Rafa in the 80’s and there’s already a movie of your uncle’s escapades and corridos being played about him. (I would’ve been hilarious if Rafa had been watching Lamberto’s movie instead of Cantinflas while eating cheetos and snorting coke. Don’t get me wrong, I had a laugh when he was watching a Cantinflas movie 😆. Rafa the cinephile.)

I think I’ll have to do a part two of this post to go over the family members mentioned here.

Let me know if you’d like me to talk about the inception of the golden triangle. What the drug industry was like before operation condor and the move to Guadalajara and how Rafa’s family basically has roots to the start of it. It’s really good stuff. 🤓

You said that Rafa's family still running in narco business. Does it mean that they're still powerful in Mexico?

Well…in the ever shifting power dynamics of narco politics…. Short answer would be, they still are relatively powerful. So, long story short, they aren’t as powerful as they used to be. They’re not as powerful as Mencho’s family at the CJNG, or Mayo’s family for example. But this is more nuanced (when isn’t it?) and we need context. First thing is just how big are the Caro, the Quintero and the Payan clans? Like a lot of families in rural areas, these families are big. To the point where they’re basically clans who have their own dynamics and conflicts. Rafa alone has at least 9 brothers (never mind his sisters) plus his uncles and his nephews and his cousins. So that right there leaves us with a big family with lots of family members that can carry a lot of influence. And Rafa, like most Narcos of that culture kept things within the family.

So the second question is: what happened after Rafa was arrested?

Well, we know where his story went in the show. (Let’s recap 😉)

Yeah, that’s about it. So this is where the show sort of leaves him and abandons any storyline involving him or his family. But this isn’t where his or his family’s story ends. Far from it.

So, despite Rafa spending 28 years in jail (from 1985-2013) his operations and his family, especially his brothers, never stopped working in narco trafficking and the cartel business, and as a whole they’ve remained concentrated in Sonora (the family’s power base and where Rafa started his empire ) and in northern Sinaloa, historically.

So once Felix goes to Jail and the organization splinters into Cartels. His uncle Emilio, is placed in charge of the Sonora plazas. Which is smart because they have a border. (Something that I feel should’ve been addressed in season 3 as it was a big plot point that led to the war between Sinaloa and Tijuana in the show. Why not meet with Emilio if you needed a border? Was he not open to negotiating?) In Sonora, his brother Miguel Angel also worked and preserved what he and Rafa had built. (It’s thought that Miguel Angel was Rafa’s proxy and the one he trusted to carry out his will on the outside). His other uncle Juanjo, ends up as second in command in Juarez.

Rafa’s brother Carlos also became a boss in their own organization in Sinaloa. Actually, some of Rafa’s family is still in there under their own organization. You have his nephew Jose Gil, who’s a high ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel working under the authority of El Mayo.

His other Nephew, Ismael Quintero, became the leader of Rafa’s organization in Sinaloa.

Afterwards, Miguel Angel founded the now (allegedly) defunct Sonora Cartel, basically keeping themselves separate from Sinaloa, but are allies because of the Caro Quintero Payan Branch of Sinaloa.

Once Rafa got out of Jail he was (according to him) visited by both Chapo and Mayo separately. (This was corroborated by people within the cartel, BTW). Basically, each Narco had wanted to visit him and offer him a place in the Sinaloa cartel as one of its leaders. In other words, they made it clear that Rafa’s rightful place as the head of the Caro Quintero pillar of the Sinaloa cartel was there if he wanted it. According to Rafa, he refused and said he wasn’t interested in getting back into the Narco business (sure, Jan 😏). What insiders say really happened is that Rafa politely declined because he wasn’t gonna be a boss in Sinaloa. He was gonna be THE boss of his own Cartel.

For the first five years after his release, Rafa became a sort of a figure the family rallied around and he eventually founded the Caborca cartel in the state of Sonora. Which makes sense because the Quinteros and the Payans have a lot of people still loyal there and a lot of people that like those families. This is when Rafa started to quietly make his moves. He reached out to the guerrillas and the Gulf cartel in Colombia and secured a reliable cocaine supplier. He also contacted suppliers in China to start manufacturing meth.

With a good supply chain, Rafa then started to increase his power base and influence. Especially during the last 5 years he was free. So when Chapo was arrested in 2016?…well, Chapo’s loss was Rafa’s gain. Rafa jumped to take advantage of the opportunities Chapo’s absence (and the power vacuum it could leave behind) offered him. In 2017, Rafa called a meeting of his underlings but also included key important figures within the family, to bring them under his leadership. Now with the clans under his returned leadership, he reached out to the Beltran Leyva clans (mainly through their heir, Chapo Isidro) and managed to create a sort of alliance with them (so he built a bridge that Chapo burned a long time ago). In fact, the treasury claims that Emilio Sajid (Rafa’s cousin) was operating for the Beltran leyvas in Arizona/Sonora. He also (allegedly) made an alliance with La Línea, who are the Juarez cartel’s armed branch. Which makes sense because apparently, Juarez gunmen were seen doing work on behalf of the Caro Quintero names. So it all points to a strategic alliance even between cartels.

This alliance must have ruffled feathers (especially since it involved Mayo) because the Chapitos started to get into Sonora. They may have also done it out of a need to gain more territory, but either way, this was a blatant disrespect towards Rafa and his organization. Word on the street is that the Chapitos didn’t care that Sonora was Rafa’s and (in a very cliché way) said that they didn’t care about the old man and how he should’ve just walked away, basically saying he was too old and have been out of the game too long. (Which is stupid because his family’s still there?) Either way, it seems the Chapitos thought Rafa was weak or beneath them. Maybe they thought he was weak after all those years in prison, idk. In any case, this move by the arrogant Chapitos left a bad taste in people’s mouth because of the disrespect to a figure that’s very much still respected in the game. It was even thought that Rafa had been the one to kidnap Chapo’s sons, but that was el Mencho. (Who later negotiated with Mayo for their release.) But it’s clear that there’s beef there.

Nowadays, Miguel Angel, Jorge Luis, along with Genaro Caro Quintero, Francisco Caro Quintero and his other brothers, run the Caborca Cartel founded by Rafa. Rodrigo (Rafa’s nephew) has been the one mostly credited with holding the front and expanding to fully occupy Caborca/Sonora from the Chapitos. The cartel has continued to contest territory with the Sinaloa Cartel, specifically with the Chapistas, since the Sinaloa Cartel largely controlled the Mexican state of Sonora prior to Chapo’s arrest. They’ve been trying to breaking out nationally, but with little success.

So you could say that they have power. Are they as powerful as the CJNG? No. But Rafa’s name still carries weight and respect in these circles and still has influence all over Mexico. To this day he’s still celebrated as the legend, the Narco of Narcos. R1 (his old code name) or simply as “el número 1”. If you step foot in Sonora or Sinaloa and your last name is Quintero, there will be a certain weight and respect given. Now, maybe due to maturity (or sobriety), it seems that he learned that it’s better to move quietly. It’s why the US government put a $20 million bounty on him (the largest of any narco, even El Mencho). Maybe Rafa, after having operated Guadalajara in the 80’s, saw the benefits of having multiple organizations working together, instead of against each other and splintering into factions creating chaos? Who knows. I won’t mention Sinaloa as a comparison because Sinaloa is a dumpster fire right now and may end. In either case, by the time Rafa was caught, Caborca had alliances with Sinaloa and Mayo, Juarez and the Beltran Leyva clan. So something was going on.

In either case Rafa was eventually caught. Now, HOW he was caught is up for debate. Especially when the Mexican government (according to the US) was protecting him. It’s said that Rafa was betrayed by a high ranking member of the cartel, the word on the street is that it was a family member and most likely worked in security because they knew the routes he took to visit his girlfriends, how he got around by ATV, and everything. I have a theory of who it could be but I find it unlikely. And if that’s true…well, that’s nothing but bad news. Journalist Annabel Hernandez (who’s interviewed him multiple times) has hinted that perhaps Rafa gave up and turned himself in (this is kinda supported by the fact that Rafa was just hiding in a bush and didn’t put up a fight when arrested). Mainly because health issues. So, according to his doctor, Rafa has prostate issues and requires surgical intervention, but he refused to do it out of fear of being captured/cornered with no means of escape while convalescing. In fact, Rafa himself has said that he’d be willing to turn himself in, so long as they abide by his rights and don’t extradite him. If they met his conditions, then he’d be willing to do the remaining 10 years of his sentence.

Of course, that didn’t happen, he was caught and extradited. At I imagine, was the insistence of the Us government. They paraded him like a trophy, cuffed him in Kiki’s old handcuffs and even had Kiki’s son preside over his case. They’ve even did a whole media spin on it as the DEA finally revenge for murdering Kiki. When we know he’s not the only guilty party. In fact, while he does still say he didn’t do it. Rafa does admit to being at the house when it happened and even publicly apologized to Kiki’s family. (But he insists he didn’t kill Kiki). Meanwhile Neto and Miguel Angel are in house arrest for the remainder of their sentences.

I’m just saying that while Neto and Miguel Angel were allowed to live the remainder of their sentences in peace at home. The US did a relentless pursuit of Rafa after 2013, and are now using him as an example. So it seems like unfair treatment. Not only that, US government wanted to give him more years into his sentence (when he’s already served 28 of his 40 year sentence in Mexico and was let out due to a mistrial). So there’s an insistence on the US government to keep him in jail even after he completed the max sentence his country’s constitution allows…..idk it’s fishy. And I don’t think this is some righteous revenge on Kiki’s murder. Especially when Rafa was writing a book. The US government likes to hide really awful stuff behind some weird sense of righteousness and morality.