Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers by Roberto Saviano
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Authors: Roberto Saviano
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drug traffickers, who used the professional traffickers for their own ends.
One of García’s trusted acolytes was Guillermo González Calderoni, whom he had released from jail, and now sent to Tamaulipas. “On the one hand, these policemen created drug traffickers of their own to do their dirty work and the actual trafficking for them. On the other, they gave support and protection to some of the most important drug barons, in exchange for money which no longer went into government coffers or to buy equipment, but into the pockets of politicians.” The Informer went on:
That’s how the organization of the Arellano Félix brothers was born. It was Commander Salvador Peralta who taught the Arellano Félixes how to work when they were still just third-rate car thieves and smugglers. He gave them equipment to intercept communications so they could find out where the goods were heading, steal them, and then share the proceeds with Peralta.
When González Calderoni arrived in Tamaulipas he became good friends with [Gulf Cartel lynchpin] Juan García Ábrego. Very soon, González turned a local band of people smugglers into important drug traffickers. It was he who provided protection for Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
In 1987, González Calderoni was head of the PJF in Guadalajara, where he met Félix Gallardo, according to letters sent to journalists by the drug baron from the Almoloya de Juárez maximum security prison. 4
Explaining that “the nub of cocaine trafficking was in the state of Oaxaca,” The Informer described his experience of the transportation arrangements:
The Cessnas flew down to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—in Oaxaca state—from Tijuana, Juárez, and Matamoros, picked up the cocaine and returned to their home base, where the storage centers were. Sometimes the US government came for the merchandise in person. Its planes might equally be carrying Colombian pelo rojo [red marijuana] or cocaine. I saw it with my own eyes. In the early 1980s, when I was in Puerto Escondido, I had to look after a US Air Force plane that arrived with a load of pelo rojo from Colombia. The only difference between Mexican and Colombian marijuana is the color: the red kind is extra prized, even today. This plane landed at Puerto Escondido to refuel, and went on to the United States.
Any contacts between the Mexican drug lords and their Colombian colleagues had to be through the goverment. Anybody who wanted to buy cocaine, Félix Gallardo, El Chapo Guzmán, El Azul, anybody, they had to do it through the government.
The figures, dates, and events narrated by The Informer coincide in time with the CIA’s Iran-Contra plan, which encompassed an area from Colombia to Mexico. Obsessed with its anti-communist mission in Latin America, denied resources by Congress, the unscrupulous CIA fell into the arms of the narcotic traffickers.
From Medellín to Guadalajara
Juan Ramón Matta Ballesteros, known as El Negro, is remembered as the man who offered to pay off the national debt of his country, Honduras. They say he made the proposal directly to the then president, José Azcona Hoyo, but was turned down.
In Matta Ballesteros, everything is dark: the colour of his hair, his skin, and his shifty eyes, his violent character and his history as a trafficker. In the hearings of the Kerry subcommittee on the Iran-Contra affair, his name came up repeatedly, as did that of his company, Setco. Setco was an airline hired by the CIA to carry “humanitarian aid” to the Contras, in spite of all the evidence the agency had that Matta was a drug trafficker—or perhaps precisely because of that.
In 1977, El Negro Matta had forged the link between the Medellín and Guadalajara cartels, when he introduced the Colombian, José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha—one of the founders of the Medellín Cartel—to Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. The two drug barons soon struck up a close understanding.
Rodríguez Gacha was born to a
One of García’s trusted acolytes was Guillermo González Calderoni, whom he had released from jail, and now sent to Tamaulipas. “On the one hand, these policemen created drug traffickers of their own to do their dirty work and the actual trafficking for them. On the other, they gave support and protection to some of the most important drug barons, in exchange for money which no longer went into government coffers or to buy equipment, but into the pockets of politicians.” The Informer went on:
That’s how the organization of the Arellano Félix brothers was born. It was Commander Salvador Peralta who taught the Arellano Félixes how to work when they were still just third-rate car thieves and smugglers. He gave them equipment to intercept communications so they could find out where the goods were heading, steal them, and then share the proceeds with Peralta.
When González Calderoni arrived in Tamaulipas he became good friends with [Gulf Cartel lynchpin] Juan García Ábrego. Very soon, González turned a local band of people smugglers into important drug traffickers. It was he who provided protection for Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
In 1987, González Calderoni was head of the PJF in Guadalajara, where he met Félix Gallardo, according to letters sent to journalists by the drug baron from the Almoloya de Juárez maximum security prison. 4
Explaining that “the nub of cocaine trafficking was in the state of Oaxaca,” The Informer described his experience of the transportation arrangements:
The Cessnas flew down to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—in Oaxaca state—from Tijuana, Juárez, and Matamoros, picked up the cocaine and returned to their home base, where the storage centers were. Sometimes the US government came for the merchandise in person. Its planes might equally be carrying Colombian pelo rojo [red marijuana] or cocaine. I saw it with my own eyes. In the early 1980s, when I was in Puerto Escondido, I had to look after a US Air Force plane that arrived with a load of pelo rojo from Colombia. The only difference between Mexican and Colombian marijuana is the color: the red kind is extra prized, even today. This plane landed at Puerto Escondido to refuel, and went on to the United States.
Any contacts between the Mexican drug lords and their Colombian colleagues had to be through the goverment. Anybody who wanted to buy cocaine, Félix Gallardo, El Chapo Guzmán, El Azul, anybody, they had to do it through the government.
The figures, dates, and events narrated by The Informer coincide in time with the CIA’s Iran-Contra plan, which encompassed an area from Colombia to Mexico. Obsessed with its anti-communist mission in Latin America, denied resources by Congress, the unscrupulous CIA fell into the arms of the narcotic traffickers.
From Medellín to Guadalajara
Juan Ramón Matta Ballesteros, known as El Negro, is remembered as the man who offered to pay off the national debt of his country, Honduras. They say he made the proposal directly to the then president, José Azcona Hoyo, but was turned down.
In Matta Ballesteros, everything is dark: the colour of his hair, his skin, and his shifty eyes, his violent character and his history as a trafficker. In the hearings of the Kerry subcommittee on the Iran-Contra affair, his name came up repeatedly, as did that of his company, Setco. Setco was an airline hired by the CIA to carry “humanitarian aid” to the Contras, in spite of all the evidence the agency had that Matta was a drug trafficker—or perhaps precisely because of that.
In 1977, El Negro Matta had forged the link between the Medellín and Guadalajara cartels, when he introduced the Colombian, José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha—one of the founders of the Medellín Cartel—to Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. The two drug barons soon struck up a close understanding.
Rodríguez Gacha was born to a
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