Are Mexican drug cartels as powerful as people think?

Oswaldo Zavala is a Mexican academic and writer whose provocatively titled 2022 book — “Drug Cartels Do Not Exist” — calls for a bold rethinking of how we think about organized crime in his country. Zavala argues that the cartels are not as all-powerful as U.S. and Mexican authorities claim, and that they could not flourish without the support of corrupt officials.

Following the arrest last month of two leaders of the Sinaloa drug trafficking organization, The Times’ Kate Linthicum spoke with Zavala about the “kingpin strategy” that targets cartel leaders and the ways he says authorities have built up the idea of ​​all-powerful narco “bogeymen” to cover up government officials’ involvement in the drug trade.

Their conversation has been edited for clarity.

What did you think when you heard news reports that two high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel had been arrested outside prison? El Paso?

The first thing that came to my mind was, “Oh, here we go again.” It’s the repetition of the narco-narrative again, only with a rearrangement of the names.

What is the narco-narrative?

It is argued that drug organizations have become very sophisticated and powerful and have endless resources at their disposal. They can challenge not only the authorities in countries such as Colombia or Mexico, but also US intelligence agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI.

It is the public justification for a militarized policy introduced in Latin America from the Global North, which has led to bloodshed in the poorest, most deprived and vulnerable sectors.

One of my first reactions to this whole episode is how deeply flawed and contradictory this drug war narrative is, and how it keeps changing. One day we hear that these traffickers are criminal masterminds. And the next day they’re bumbling men desperate to make a deal to survive, even if it’s a U.S. detention facility.

Your book is titled “The cartels do not exist.” Do you really mean that?

What I’m primarily arguing against with this title is that the concept of the cartel itself is a fiction. This is not to say that traffickers or their organizations aren’t real. What I’m arguing against is the language we use to describe them, which I believe is essential to understanding how consensus is built to legitimize the violent, militaristic policies that are pushed in societies like Mexico. It’s language that legitimizes state violence, abuse, crimes against humanity—all the kinds of horrors that a militarized country has to endure.

The concept of the cartel was promoted by the DEA in the late 1970s to show the American public that these organizations had grown in power and reach and that they had become extremely dangerous to national security. The word itself was rarely used by traffickers. In fact, traffickers were the last to realize that they were part of this so-called cartel.

Most of the logistics of their survival as organizations were coordinated by the Federal Police or the Mexican Army. Traffickers themselves were very much subordinate to Mexican state structures.

There was much celebration in the US after the arrests of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López. President Biden praised it as part of a broader effort to “save American lives.” Do you think the arrestsS of these two men will make Americans safer?

There is proven evidence that the kingpin strategy — this idea of ​​keeping the leaders of organizations — not only does not affect drug prices, or the flow of drugs, but in many ways it makes it easier. Because it fragments global markets and allows drugs to flow from many different sources.

When Pablo Escobar was murdered in the 1990s, the price of cocaine dropped. This made cocaine cheaper and more available.

Of course I am happy that someone like Zambada is arrested and brought to justice. But this will not end the trade in fentanyl, for example.

What about these major displays of cartel power, such as in 2019, when members of the Sinaloa Cartel blocked roads and held hostages in the city of Culiacan to successfully pressure the Mexican military to release Ovidio Guzmán, another son of El Chapo?

It was of course a very frightening day. It was extraordinary and very disturbing to see.

If I say that drug cartels do not exist, it seems as if I am denying the relevance of the current criminal situation in Mexico. And I absolutely do not want to do that.

What I am very concerned about is how we interpret these moments of violence according to the official script. In this case, it was the official narrative that immediately took hold: human traffickers are very powerful, they took over the city and they forced the Mexican government to leave. They won and maybe they even have the city in their power.

That is very dangerous for me. Because there is no evidence that this is true. There is a military base in Culiacan and according to news reports there were almost 10 times more soldiers and police than traffickers.

What we saw is this story that I described, that the drug traffickers have the upper hand. They’re winning the war on drugs and the Mexican government is backing down. That’s not what happened at all. The Mexican government decided to abandon Guzmán and extradite him to spare innocent citizens. I think that was the right thing to do. It didn’t mean that the drug traffickers controlled the city, or that they could really challenge the Mexican government in any way, shape or form. That’s just ridiculous to think.

Early During his term, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared that Mexico’s drug war was over. He said his government would focus more on reducing murders than catching cartel leaders. Did that happen?

I think the Mexican president has failed to deliver on his promise to end the war on drugs.

It may be true that there was a discursive change in the way the president and the Mexican government talk about drug trafficking. But the raids never stopped. They still send soldiers to arrest drug traffickers.

The military now takes over more aspects of civilian government than ever before. The military controls Mexico City’s airport, customs posts, the northern and southern borders. They are omnipresent in Mexican politics. The process of militarization has not stopped, it has grown.

We sit next to the United States, one of the most heavily militarized countries in the world, with the largest military spending budget on the planet, surpassing the next 10 countries combined. And that certainly pushes up the military presence and the level of military intervention in Mexico.

What do you expect from López Obrador’s successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, who will be sworn in as president on October 1?

Sometimes I am very hopeful and sometimes I am pessimistic. Militarization — and the violence that comes with it — is very difficult to eliminate. Sheinbaum has a very difficult task. Our own military is very interested in maintaining its dominant position. I mean, why would they voluntarily give up the power that they have acquired?