Beltrán-Leyva Cartel

The Beltrán-Leyva Cartel (Beltrán Leyva Organization or BLO ) (Cártel de los Beltrán Leyva or CBL ) was a Mexican drug cartel and organized crime syndicate founded by the four Beltrán Leyva brothers: Marcos Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo and Héctor.

The cartel was responsible for cocaine transportation and wholesaling, marijuana production and wholesaling, and heroin production and wholesaling. It controlled numerous drug trafficking corridors, and engaged in human smuggling, money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, murder and gun-running.

Once one of Mexico's most powerful drug cartels – which effectively infiltrated the ranks of various Mexican government agencies and even Mexico's Interpol – its last known leader, Héctor Beltrán Leyva, is currently a fugitive with multi-million dollar rewards on his head by both the United States and Mexican governments. The capture on August 11, 2011 of one of the cartel's former top lieutenants, called "the last Beltran-Leyva link of any importance", prompted Mexican authorities to declare the cartel disbanded and extinct.

History
Born in the Sinaloan countryside in the 1960s, the Beltrán Leyva brothers – Marcos Arturo, Carlos, Alfredo and Héctor – worked closely with Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, during decades of smuggling. Sensing a void in the rival Gulf Cartel after Osiel Cárdenas' arrest on March 14, 2003, the Sinaloa Cartel began to move into Gulf Cartel territory. Both gangs fought each other in northern Mexican cities, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people, including some civilians, police and journalists. About 90% of the deaths are of drug traffickers. In 2004 and 2005, Arturo Beltrán Leyva led powerful groups of assassins to fight for trade routes in northeastern Mexico for the Sinaloa Cartel. Through the use of corruption or intimidation, the Beltrán Leyva Cartel was able to infiltrate Mexico's political, judicial and police institutions to feed classified information about anti-drug operations, and even infiltrated the Interpol office in Mexico.

The last cartel leader, Héctor Beltrán Leyva, apparently has been inactive and remains a fugitive; the U.S.A. is offering a reward of USD $5 million for information leading to his arrest. while the Mexican government is offering a USD $2.1 million reward.

During 2010, a former Beltran-Leyva cartel liuetenant by the name of Óscar Osvaldo García Montoya (a.k.a: El Compayito ), attempted to regroup some cartel remnants under a gang he called La Mano Con Ojos. García Montoya was arrested on August 11, 2011; the Attorney General of Mexico had placed a $5 million peso ($400,000 USD) bounty for his capture. Mexican authorities stated that García Montoya was "the last Beltran-Leyva link of any importance", and that the cartel has been disbanded.

Allied forces of Los Zetas and Beltrán-Leyva remnants clashed on April 28, 2012 with gunmen of the Sinaloa Cartel in the Choix mountains. At least 32 armed men were confirmed dead. The renewed fighting in Sinaloa state between the BLO and Sinaloa Cartel is supposedly sparked by the incursion of the Sinaloa Cartel and its allies in Nuevo Laredo, traditionally the biggest Zeta stronghold.

Switch of alliances
The arrest of Alfredo Beltrán Leyva (a.k.a.: El Mochomo) on January 20, 2008, was a huge blow to the Sinaloa Cartel, as he allegedly oversaw large-scale drug-smuggling operations and was a key money launderer for the cartel. In apparent revenge for the arrest of his brother Alfredo, Arturo ordered the assassination of the commissioner of the Federal Police, Édgar Eusebio Millán Gómez, and other top federal officials in the Mexican capital. One group of these hit men was captured in a Mexico City house with dozens of assault rifles, pistols, grenade launchers, 30 hand grenades, and bullet-proof jackets bearing the legend FEDA – the Spanish acronym for 'Special Forces of Arturo'. Apparently, the Beltrán Leyva brothers blamed their boss Joaquin "Chapo" Guzmán for their brother's arrest, and ordered the assassination of Guzmán's son, 22 year-old Édgar Guzmán López, which was carried out in a shopping center parking lot by at least 15 gunmen using assault rifles and grenade launchers.

The residual impact of Alfredo’s arrest not only undermined long-term Sinaloa alliances, but resurrected animosities between rival cartel leaders Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán and Arturo’s new allies, the Juárez Cartel, and provided the catalyst behind the bloodshed in Mexico’s most-violent city: Ciudad Juárez. The Beltrán Leyva brothers, and those loyalists who departed the Sinaloa Cartel with them, allied with Los Zetas, causing an escalation of conflict in strongholds shared uneasily by "old" Sinaloa leaders.

In February 2010, the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel and Los Zetas engaged in a violent turf war against the new alliance integrated by the Gulf Cartel, Sinaloa Cartel and La Familia Cartel in the border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas,  rendering some border towns "ghost towns".

Official reports from early 2010 revealed infighting for control of the cartel and its territory. One faction was led by lieutenants Édgar Valdez Villarreal and Gerardo Alvarez-Vazquez, while the other was led by Héctor Beltrán Leyva and his lieutenant Sergio Villarreal Barragán. On April 2010 Héctor Beltrán Leyva created a short-lived cell or branch in Morelos state called South Pacific Cartel (Cartel del Pacífico Sur) best known for having employed a 12-year-old gunman and executioner.

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The Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO), who were formerly aligned who the Sinaloa Cartel, began working in their home state of Sinaloa with small-time poppy growers and later rose with the Sinaloans, who built nationwide organizations. Among these was Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who employed them as hitmen and transporters. Carrillo Fuentes ran the powerful Juarez Cartel and asked them to begin establishing drug trafficking routes stretching south to Colombia and north into the United States. The BLO became allies of Los Zetas Cartel, the former armed wing of the Gulf Cartel. The two organizations complement each other. The Zetas have their power base on the eastern U.S.-Mexico border and operate along the Caribbean coast through Central America. The BLO had its power base in the west, in Guerrero, Morelos and the State of Mexico. Combined, they had some of the more sophisticated and well-equipped paramilitaries in Mexico. However, there were also negatives. The two were allied for practical rather than ideological or family reasons. Their bond comes from their common enemy: the Sinaloa Cartel. Their alliance was therefore fragile. Since February 2010 they fought along Los Zetas against all other Mexican cartels. The South Pacific Cartel is a branch of the splintered Beltrán-Leyva Cartel.

The Beltran Leyva clan was ruthless and ambitious. Their home municipality, Badiraguato, is the same that of as Joaquin Guzman Loera, and there is some evidence they worked together as hitmen in the infamous Guadalajara Cartel. Through marriage, the Guzman Loera and Beltran Leyva families became closer and more tightly aligned. This connection proved critical when Guzman was jailed in 1993. The Beltran Leyva brothers helped Guzman’s brother, Arturo, maintain the business; they supplied cash to Guzman while in prison and helped him escape in 2001.

Guzman’s escape, the capture of his brother Arturo several months later, and the death of Carrillo Fuentes opened the door for the Beltran Leyva brothers. After several meetings in 2002 with Guzman and his partners, Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno, and Ismael Zambada Garcia, the group formed what became known as The Federation, or the "Alianza de Sangre" (Blood Alliance); Alfredo Beltran Leyva is married to Guzman’s cousin. Esparragoza married Guzman's sister-in-law. Guzman later married the niece of another partner, Ignacio Coronel Villarreal.

As godfather to Amado Carrillo Fuentes’ son, Esparragoza was also closely tied to the Carrillo Fuentes clan. That Juarez-based family was brought into the pact in the 2002, but it would not last. In 2004, Amado Carrillo Fuentes' brother, Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes killed two of Guzman's operatives in Ciudad Juarez. Guzman had him assassinated. Faced with a choice, Zambada and Esparragoza picked Guzman's side, and the war between the Sinaloa and Juarez organizations has raged ever since.

In the meantime, the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) began to build their power. Guzman commissioned as his security team and armed wing to combat the rising power of their other rivals, the Gulf Cartel. A few years earlier, the Gulf Cartel had lured 31 special forces officers from the Mexican military to create a powerful, sophisticated and brutal armed wing that called themselves Los Zetas. The BLO recruited their own operatives. One operative, Edgar Valdez Villareal formed an armed wing, Los Pelones, and began to match Zetas’ brutality. Another allied armed group, Los Negros, was led by a former police detective. At the top of the pyramid was Arturo Beltran Leyva. Arturo created his own unit which he called "Arturo’s Special Forces" (Fuerzas Especiales de Arturo – FEDA). The war soon spread, as did the BLO’s power and influence. By 2005, the BLO was reportedly operating in 11 states: Guerrero, Morelos, Chiapas, Queretaro, Sinaloa, Jalisco, Quintana Roo, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Mexico State and the Federal District (Mexico City).

Guzman also tasked the Beltran Leyva clan with penetrating the security and political forces, which they did with efficiency. In 2005, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recorded a conversation between Nahum Acosta, a close advisor to the Fox administration, and one of the Beltran Leyva, presumably Hector. Hector was responsible for payroll, which also allegedly included top members of the government’s National Investigative Agency (Agencia Federal de Investigacion – AFI) and the country’s drug czar, Noe Ramirez Mandujano. Ramirez is in jail awaiting trial for allegedly receiving $450,000 per month from the organization; Acosta was arrested but later exonerated.

The BLO, however, suffered from hubris.Their public profile steadily rose, as did their public appearances in extravagant parties in places like Cuernavaca where their domain was undisputed. Added to this was a dispute over a distribution route in Chicago between the Sinaloa faction and the BLO. Tension boiled over when authorities arrested Alfredo Beltran Leyva on January 21, 2008. After authorities released Guzman's son, Ivan Archivaldo, from jail on a technicality, Arturo Beltran Leyva assumed that Guzman had provided the information leading to the arrest of his younger brother Alfredo.

War was declared, and one of the first victims was Edgar Guzman, Joaquin Guzman’s son, who was killed when he left a Sinaloa shopping center with his bodyguards. The levels of bloodshed in Sinaloa increased. The BLO allied themselves with their former arch-rivals, Los Zetas. The Sinaloa Cartel reached working agreements with the Gulf Cartel and the Familia Michoacana, a ruthless group that had burst onto the scene in 2006. Throughout, Guzman, Zambada and Esparragoza remained aligned against the BLO. Using their contacts in the federal government, the Sinaloa Cartel wore down the BLO. Dozens of operatives were arrested or killed in 2009. And in December, 2009, Mexican Marines killed Arturo Beltran Leyva after he’d barricaded himself into an apartment in an upscale neighborhood in Cuernavaca.

The year 2010 has been even worse for the BLO. Following the death of Arturo, Valdez Villareal split to form his own organization. Hector Beltran Leyva regrouped and formed an additional armed gang in Morelos called the South Pacific Cartel (Cartel del Pacifico Sur). However, the battles between them left both vulnerable. Carlos Beltran Leyva, a brother of Hector and Arturo, was arrested in January 2010. Valdez Villarea's top lieutenant was arrested in April 2010 and Valdez Villareal himself was detained in late August. Hector's top security officer, Sergio Villareal was arrested in September 2010. What’s left of the BLO has strengthened its alliance with the Zetas to stave off extinction. -->

Assets
The cartel's assets included:
 * Dominance over drug and other illegal activities at airports in Mexico, Monterrey, Toluca, Cancún, and Acapulco;
 * Hotels and restaurants constructed to launder money in Cancún, Acapulco, Cozumel, and other resorts;
 * A working agreement with Los Zetas.
 * Supply corridors for moving marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamine from the Andes to the Arctic;
 * Capability to extort, launder money, run guns, smuggle humans, promote prostitution and carry out kidnappings;
 * Operations in Mexico City, Chiapas, Guerrero Mexico State, Morelos, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Tamaulipas, as well as in the United States and Canada;
 * Access to some high-ranking public figures and Army personnel whom they bribed or intimidated.

The Beltrán Leyva brothers’ Colombian cocaine supplier, Ever Villafane Martínez, was arrested in Morelos in August 2008. After that, the organization pursued a relationship with Víctor and Darío Espinoza Valencia of Colombia’s Norte del Valle cartel.
 * Former suppliers

Bounty
The United States is offering a $5 million USD reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Héctor Beltrán Leyva.

Captures
Alfredo Beltrán Leyva was captured on January 20, 2008, Arturo was killed by Mexican Marines in a shoot-out on December 16, 2009. Carlos Beltrán Leyva was captured by the Mexican Federal Police on December 30, 2009, in Culiacán, Sinaloa after showing authorities a fake driver's license.

On April 22, 2010, a cartel lieutenant Gerardo Alvarez-Vazquez was captured on the outskirts of Mexico city; the U.S. had been offering a $2 million U.S. bounty for his arrest. Edgar Valdez Villarreal was arrested on August 30, 2010 outside Mexico City. On September 12, 2010 Sergio Villarreal Barragán was arrested in the city of Puebla, east of Mexico City. Héctor Beltrán Leyva is still at large.

The August 11, 2011 arrest Óscar Osvaldo García Montoya (a.k.a: El Compayito), a cartel liuetenant, was called "the last Beltran-Leyva link of any importance".