Cartel kingpin El Chapo is jailed for life, but the US-Mexico drug trade is booming
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Luis Gómez Romero, University of Wollongong (THE CONVERSATION) The infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera – aka “El Chapo” – has been sentenced to life plus an additional 30 years for drug trafficking, conspiracy, money laundering and weapons charges, among other crimes committed over the past quarter-century as head of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, the Western Hemisphere’s most powerful organized crime syndicate. Judge Brian Cogan also ordered Guzmán – who was convicted in U.S. federal court in February after a dramatic three-month trial – to forfeit US$12.6 billion in illicit narcotics proceeds. U.S. officials celebrated El Chapo’s demise as a triumph in the war on drugs. President Donald Trump has taken an aggressive stance on Mexican drug cartels, vowing at his January 2017 inauguration to stop “the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives.” “This sentencing shows the world that no matter how protected or powerful you are, DEA will ensure that you face justice,” said the acting administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Uttam Dhillon, at Guzmán’s sentencing. Having studied the politics and economics of the U.S.-Mexico drug trade, I see a different lesson in Guzmán’s life story. The U.S. may have locked up Mexico’s worst “bad hombre,” but the business he ran is far too big to fail. ‘Insatiable demand’ Mexicans have greeted Guzmán’s demise with more skepticism. The Mexican newspaper La Jornada noted that the flow of illicit drugs into the United States has not diminished since El Chapo’s arrest. Mexican estimates suggest that each month the Sinaloa cartel...
