Sinaloa drug cartel: Leader’s death may cause fight for power - El Paso Times
EL PASO — The Sinaloa drug cartel may undergo a bloody power struggle after the death Thursday of one of its key leaders, U.S. officials said Friday.
But the cartel, which has been entangled in a war with the Juárez drug cartel since 2008, will continue to traffic cocaine and methamphetamine into the U.S., they said.
The Mexican army shot and killed Ignacio “El Nacho” Coronel Villareal, 56, during a raid Thursday in a suburb of Guadalajara, Mexico.
Coronel, who was indicted on drug-dealing charges in El Paso, is one of the two associates close to Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the alleged leader of Sinaloa drug cartel. Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García is the other alleged drug boss. Guzmán and Zambada are both at large.
FBI officials in El Paso anticipate “some chaos within the Sinaloa drug trafficking organization at the upper-management level,” said spokeswoman Andrea Simmons.
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