Chicago seems like a long way from Sinaloa, but that didn't prevent the Chicago Crime Commission from naming Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera as Public Enemy Number One.
According to CBSnews.com, Chicago is very important to the Sinaloa cartel. Excerpt:
Sinaloa and other Mexican cartels shipping drugs to Chicago are rarely directly linked to slayings in the city, but Riley said cartel-led drug trafficking is an underlying cause of territorial battles between street gangs that are blamed for rising homicide rates. Riley described Chicago as one of Sinaloa's most important cities, not only as an end destination for drugs but as a hub to distribute drugs across the U.S.
"This is where Guzman turns his drugs into money," he said.
And they send in their own people. More:
Because cartels accumulate houses full of cash, they run the constant risk associates will skim off the top. That points to the main reason cartels prefer their own people: Trust is hard to come by in their cutthroat world. There's also a fear factor. Cartels can exert more control on their operatives than on middlemen, often by threatening to torture or kill loved ones back home. ...
Riley's assessment is stark: He argues that the cartels should be seen as an underlying cause of Chicago's disturbingly high murder rate.
"They are the puppeteers," he said. "Maybe the shooter didn't know and maybe the victim didn't know that. But if you follow it down the line, the cartels are ultimately responsible."
Ironically, they are comparing El Chapo with Al Capone, the murderous bootlegger of the prohibition era. While they did eventually get Capone, the end of that gangster era ended when liquor prohibition ended. Prohibition didn't work with liquor, and it isn't working with drugs.
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