HomeNewsBrief'El Chapo Nephew Building Links to Colombian Gangs'
BRIEF

'El Chapo Nephew Building Links to Colombian Gangs'

COLOMBIA / 4 JAN 2013 BY HANNAH STONE EN

A relative of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has reportedly visited Colombia, seeking new business opportunities with the leaders of the Urabeños and Rastrojos criminal organizations.

According to intelligence sources cited by Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, either a nephew or cousin of "El Chapo," the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, has been networking with other criminal groups in Colombia. The suspect allegedly held meetings with Rastrojos leaders in northern Bogota to discuss building a business together in the synthetic drug trade.

According to the newspaper, Guzman's relative and his allies have also been meeting with Rastrojos and Urabeños leaders across the country, trying to build up a presence in key cocaine shipment points. These include the cities of Cali and Medellin, and their respective points of access to the sea: the Pacific port of Buenaventura, and the Caribbean region of Uraba.

InSight Crime Analysis

If El Tiempo's reports are correct, the Sinaloa Cartel is aiming to build up their connections with Colombia's two most powerful criminal groups, even though the two are rivals. This decision may have been influenced by the implosion of the Rastrojos in 2012. The gang's leader Javier Calle Serna, alias "Comba," handed himself in to the United States in May, and rival Diego Perez Henao, alias "Diego Rastrojo," was captured in Venezuela the following month. In October, Comba’s brother Luis Enrique also surrendered to the United States.

The Rastrojos have traditionally dominated the Pacific coast while rival group the Urabeños controlled much of the Caribbean. Now, with its major leaders gone, the Rastrojos' power is shaky. This is bad news for the Sinaloa Cartel, believed to deal mostly with the Rastrojos, as the decline of the Rastrojos could have left the Mexican cartel short of Colombian cocaine. The Urabeños, meanwhile, are believed to work primarily with Mexican group the Zetas

El Tiempo reports that a man known as "Pollo Bobo" (Stupid Chicken) is poised to become the Rastrojos' new commander, and is the main contact of Guzman’s relative. Pollo Bobo was named in June as a rising Rastrojos leader, as InSight Crime reported.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COLOMBIA / 8 APR 2021

Children serve in a wide range of roles in criminal organizations: errand boy, landmine builder, frontline combatant and assassin. In…

BOLIVIA / 8 NOV 2022

The Amazon is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, where wildlife trafficking threatens hundreds of thousands of species.

BOLIVIA / 13 AUG 2021

The US Coast Guard unloaded 27 tons of cocaine after a three-month operation in the Pacific and Caribbean, a massive…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela Coverage Continues to be Highlighted

3 MAR 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott was the featured guest on the Americas Quarterly podcast, where he provided an expert overview of the changing dynamics…

THE ORGANIZATION

Venezuela's Organized Crime Top 10 Attracts Attention

24 FEB 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published its ranking of Venezuela’s ten organized crime groups to accompany the launch of the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory. Read…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime on El País Podcast

10 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime co-founder, Jeremy McDermott, was among experts featured in an El País podcast on the progress of Colombia’s nascent peace process.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Interviewed by Associated Press

3 FEB 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s Co-director Jeremy McDermott was interviewed by the Associated Press on developments in Haiti as the country continues its prolonged collapse. McDermott’s words were republished around the world,…

THE ORGANIZATION

Escaping Barrio 18

27 JAN 2023

Last week, InSight Crime published an investigation charting the story of Desafío, a 28-year-old Barrio 18 gang member who is desperate to escape gang life. But there’s one problem: he’s…