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El Chapo’s Conviction Isn’t Enough
The catastrophe that is Mexico’s drug war is so much bigger than one man.

By Ioan Grillo

Contributing Opinion Writer
Feb. 12, 2019

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Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, after her husband was convicted of conspiring to murder rivals, money laundering and more.CreditStephen Speranza for The New York Times

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Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo, after her husband was convicted of conspiring to murder rivals, money laundering and more.CreditCreditStephen Speranza for The New York Times

MEXICO CITY — People lined up for hours outside the federal court in Brooklyn last week for a chance to hear the jury instructions at the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as El Chapo. On Tuesday, the jury handed out guilty verdicts on all counts, including conspiracy to murder and money laundering. During the trial, while American audiences were focused on the courtroom, the Mexican government held a news conference on forced disappearances south of the border. The figures were alarming. The two stories — of Mr. Guzman being tried in New York and the continuing bloody tragedy here in Mexico — are intrinsically connected.

Government officials said at the Feb. 4 news conference that Mexico has records of more than 40,000 people who have vanished, many in the areas where drug traffickers are strongest. Investigators have discovered 1,100 graves, and there are a stunning 26,000 corpses in public morgues that have not been identified. “This reveals the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis,” said Alejandro Encinas, Mexico’s under secretary for human rights. “Our territory has become a huge clandestine grave.”

Amid the details about Mr. Guzmán’s personal allure and venality presented during the three-month trial, it was easy to forget that his real significance was his position at the top of the Sinaloa drug cartel, one of the forces that plunged the nation into a painful armed conflict that has led to so many massacres, mass graves and refugees.

The tales of Mr. Guzmán running naked through tunnels with his lover, the glamour of his beauty-queen wife coming dutifully to the court, the brutal murder of police informants, the inventiveness of smuggling cocaine in cans of chili pepper — it all made entertaining coverage. As a TV reporter mused to me in the Brooklyn courtroom, it all provided a certain light relief away from the divisive political climate that dominates American news.

But the focus on the individual can distract from the size of the crisis in Mexico. Tuesday’s verdict followed more than 200,000 murders over the past decade, a level of bloodshed that has ripped at the heart of the nation. More than 100 journalists have been slain, including my friend and colleague Javier Valdez Cárdenas, whom one of the witnesses against Mr. Guzmán was questioned about. An entire movement has grown of family members of those killed and disappeared, pushing to see the violence against their loved ones punished, or at least to find the bodies.

In the face of such slaughter, it is obviously good that Mr. Guzmán, a leader of one of the drug cartels involved, is convicted and is likely to spend the rest of his life in a tough prison. But considering this was the biggest trial to date related to Mexico’s catastrophic drug war, it seems only a bittersweet victory in the battle for justice.

It is a painful fact that Mr. Guzmán was convicted in the United States and not in Mexico, where he has sown corruption and terror. After he escaped from two top security prisons here, the Mexican government conceded that its institutions were not powerful enough to hold him and extradited him north. As a result the charges were mostly related to his trafficking drugs to Americans rather than murdering Mexicans.

In the trial, 14 fellow criminals testified against him, using the long-criticized system of cooperating witnesses. One of them, Juan Carlos Ramírez Abadía, alias Chupeta, confessed to ordering as many as 150 murders, mostly in his home country, Colombia, yet hoped to have his sentence reduced in return for his testimony. With audio recordings of Mr. Guzmán setting up drug deals, you have to question whether it was necessary for prosecutors to work with such hardened criminals.

“Lunatics, drug dealers, maniacs, given sweetheart deals,” the defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman said in his closing arguments. In rebuttal, the assistant United States attorney Amanda Liskamm said, “The day that cocaine conspiracies are made in heaven is the day we can call angels as witnesses.”

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These witnesses spoke of bribes to Mexican officials, from the police and soldiers right up to former President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was accused of receiving $100 million. Tragically, this came as little surprise to people here in Mexico, where there have long been accusations of corruption at the very top.

Yet there is little hope they will lead to punishment. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said the Mexican government would need more solid evidence to go after Mr. Peña Nieto. “We can’t judge him if we don’t have proof,” he said. He has also said that going after former presidents could plunge the country into confrontation while he is trying to build unity.

Questions about the dubious practices of American agents were shut down by the prosecution and judge. The jurors were not allowed to hear about the so-called Fast and Furious debacle, in which agents watched as thousands of guns were trafficked south, including a .50-caliber rifle found in the last hide-out of Mr. Guzmán. Or about the cooperating witness who had previously claimed that his cartel had been protected by the United States government while it informed on rivals.

And despite Mr. Guzmán’s infamy, there are questions about whether he was truly the biggest drug trafficker in Mexico or just one of various powerful kingpins, including his fellow Sinaloan trafficker Ismael Zambada García, called El Mayo, who is still at large. Indeed, the prosecution said in its closing argument that it didn’t matter if Mr. Guzmán wasn’t the supreme head of the Sinaloa cartel, so long as he was one of its bosses.

A veteran agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration once admitted to me that the policy of taking down kingpins didn’t stop the flow of drugs. But he said that it did stop certain drug traffickers who were becoming too infamous and powerful, which made them a threat to governments.

Perhaps the conviction of Mr. Guzmán at least shows aspiring drug traffickers that they cannot become as notorious as El Chapo and escape the law. But for the families looking for their loved ones in the mass graves here in Mexico and the families of those who have died of drug overdoses in the United States, the search for justice and peace continues.

Mr. Grillo is a contributing opinion writer.

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A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 13, 2019, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: El Chapo’s Conviction Isn’t Enough. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Ioan Grillo
Mexico, Latin America, Politics, and the Drug War