Tijuana Cartel

For the next few years, instead of being ferried underground, Sinaloa's narcotics would be stuffed into cans of chili and transported in tractor trailers as the strong odor of the chilis covered up the scent to sniffer dogs.

The new entry point across to the USA however, was now in Baja, California, which was the territory of the Tijuana cartel, and El Chapo was refusing to pay the Arellano Felix brothers the customary tax they expected.

Throughout the 1980s, tensions between the two organizations had started to ratchet up following a series of violent feuds.

The kidnapping and murder of the wife and children of Héctor "El Güero" Palma, a staunch ally of El Chapo's, by a Venezuelan trafficker connected with the Arellano Felix brothers, was one such sore point.

After this, he reestablished a base of operation in the Sinaloa mountains, reinvesting much of the profits into other drugs.

Having sorted out the commercial side of his criminal enterprise, he now planned to exact revenge on a man that had nearly ended him twice.

In February 2002, Tijuana cartel enforcer Ramón Arellano Félix was shot by police working for El Mayo after being pulled over for a traffic violation.

Then the next month, the DEA helped him out by arresting Benjamin Arellano Félix, marking the downfall of the Tijuana cartel.

Now, the balance of the organized crime in Mexico became destabilized at this time, and the old structure started fracturing.

Control of valuable shipping corridors was falling to some of the competing groups, and a group from, uh, called the Arellano Félix Organization became dominant around Tijuana.

The Carrillo Fuentes Organization strengthened its position around Juárez.

Guzmán recognized the vacuum that was being created, and he began working with other drug figures like Héctor Salazar or Ismael El Mayo, who [chuckles] was just convicted to life in prison, Zambada, to develop the network that became known as the Sinaloa Cartel.