DRUG Lord El Mencho’s wife is a “financial genius” who holds the key to his empire and her arrest could bring him down, says a former Drug Enforcement Agency chief .
Mike Vigil said “Narco Queen” Rosalinda González Valencia’s arrest on money laundering charges has the potential cause “significant damage” to the $50 billion Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Bloodthirsty El Mencho’s has built an empire more powerful than the once feared El Chapo and his personal fortune alone is estimated to be $1 billion.
His rise to become the most powerful cartel boss in Mexico has been accompanied by a shocking savagery that has been compared to the brutal acts committed by terrorist group ISIS.
It has included ripping out victims’ hearts, dissolving their bodies in barrels of acid, publicly hanging enemies, and even targeting pregnant women.
He has $10 million price on his head in the United States but his once seemingly impregnable position has been shaken by his wife, son and daughter’s capture.
Vigil is one the world’s leading experts on Mexican cartels and as well as being the former chief of international operations for the DEA, also worked undercover as an agent in Mexico.
He alleged González Valencia’s has been involved in the narco world “from a very early age” as her family set up the Milenio cartel in the 1970.
“She is a key figure within Jalisco New Generation because she is a Narco Queen and has been involved the drug trade from a very age,” he said.
“Rosalina is the financial genius behind the Jalisco New Generation Cartel because has been responsible for the laundering of their money. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars.”
According to Vigil when he was at the DEA “we estimated that just 2015, 2016 what we could figure out she had laundered at least $50 million” through 70 companies.
“The arrest of Rosalinda is certainly going to have a significant impact on the cartel,” he said.
“One thing we know about drug traffickers is that they believe in blood before associates,” he said.
“In other words the people they trust they have blood ties to and these are they people they confide in.
“The key is that they can get Rosalinda to co-operate and she holds the key to the kingdom of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and she can provide damaging, damaging information.
“If she co-operated and gave information and the Mexican government acted on it then it could severely damage the cartel – it could cripple it.”
He said “the family of El Mencho is starting to crumble” with his daughter in jail in the United States and his son awaiting charges after being extradited there
Who are the CJNG?
The CJNG have marked themselves out as being extraordinarily violent even by the standards of Mexico’s bloodsoaked narco wars.
They have turned on their former masters the Sinaloa cartel, seizing territory and buying off thousands of corrupt police.
They are now thought to have interests from China to North Africa to eastern Europe and now South America, where they have displaced Sinaloa.
The speed of its ascent shows how quickly power can shift in Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar drugs trade.
They predominantly deal in amphetamines rather than shipping cocaine from South America,.
Not only are the profit margins higher but according to one DEA analyst, has helped to shape their savage way of operating.
“The problem with meth guys is that they’re unhinged.”
“They didn’t have to wine and dine Bolivian suppliers, or fly to South America to do international negotiations.
“They’re not sophisticated. They’re very rough.”
But Vigil said El Mencho will be “long gone” from where he’s been hiding though knowing his son, daughter and now wife will “mentally preoccupy him”.
“He’s not going to be able to focus his energies on the expansion of the cartel and his mortal enemies the Sinaloa Cartel can take advantage of that,” he said.
The brutal turf wars El Mencho has fought with rivals, in particular with the Sinaloa cartel, has seen beheaded corpses hanged of bridges as a warning to others.
Chilling footage showed a rival gangster tied up in his underpants shortly before being slaughtered and his body then found hanging from a bridge
The cartel kingpin has been indicted in a US court on charges of drug trafficking, corruption and murder and is in hiding.
“The net is starting to tighten on El Mencho and he’s got to feel the walls starting to close in on him. That translates into more violence.”
“A rattlesnake is more trustworthy than El Mencho so I guarantee he’s going to retaliate against Mexican officials and security forces for the arrest of his wife.”
