Free ZeroZeroZero by Roberto Saviano

Arturo Beltrán Leyva’s death: Four relatives of one of the soldiers who lost his life in the operation were killed. Meanwhile, a decapitated head was left in front of Arturo’s tomb, in the Jardines del Humaya cemetery in Culiacán. Arturo’s brother Carlos Beltrán Leyva was arrested about ten days later by the Mexican federal police in Culiacán: He had shown a fake driver’s license when the police stopped him. Some people held that it was El Chapo again who provided the police with information that led to Carlos’s arrest.
    After Arturo’s death, a civil war over leadership broke out within the cartel: On one side were lieutenants Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal and Gerardo “El Indio” Álvarez Vázquez; on the other, Héctor Beltrán Leyva, El H, and his right-hand man, Sergio Villarreal Barragán, a former Mexican federal police agent, known as El Grande or King Kong, because he was over six feet five. All but Héctor were arrested in 2010; El H took the reins of what remained of the cartel. The United States had put a price on his head of $5 million, and the Mexican government was offering 30 million pesos. Héctor was a sort of financial genius; after years of anonymity he succeeded in controlling the group, thanks to his business talent and his ability to maintain good relations with his new allies, Los Zetas.
    But the race was soon over for him too. On October 1, 2014, Héctor was arrested in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato. He was enjoying dinner at a seafood restaurant together with the financial operator of his cartel when the special forces of the Mexican army swooped in. Though he initially passed himself off as a refined businessman and artwork trader, he and his tablemate were carrying pistols exclusively issued to the military. But confirming his proverbial elegance, he let them handcuff him without resisting.
    Héctor was the last of the Beltrán Leyva brothers still at large. Afterhis arrest the Mexican authorities believe the cartel will lose most of its influence on the country. But thrones do not remain empty for long in the narco-trafficking world. The real question is: Who will be the new leader?
    The war between the Beltrán Leyvas and their old Sinaloa partners not only devastated Culiacán and Sinaloa, it has made its way to the United States, to Chicago, where the twins Margarito and Pedro Flores, two Americans with Mexican roots, operated. Their fleet of trucks connected Los Angeles to cities in the Midwest twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They were serious, efficient distributors. They guaranteed their customers two tons of coke and heroin a month, from the border all the way to the shores of Lake Michigan. But they were greedy: They worked with the Sinaloa cartel, but they didn’t disdain working with the Beltrán Leyvas either. When El Chapo found out, he sent some men to Chicago to keep his distribution monopoly from being put at risk by rival cartels. At the same time that the Flores twins were receiving threats from Sinaloa, the DEA set its sights on them. They were arrested in 2009. In part thanks to the testimonies of Margarito and Pedro, who turned informers, the Americans were able to add a few more pieces to the complex puzzle of El Chapo’s and the Beltrán Leyvas’ movements.
    A few months earlier the U.S. government had delivered another blow to the king of Sinaloa by arresting 750 members of his cartel in the United States. An army. American presidents don’t talk much about it, but there are entire legions of narcos within their borders. During the twenty-one months of the operation, more than $59 million in cash, more than 12,000 kilos of cocaine, more than 7,000 kilos of marijuana, more than 500 kilos of methamphetamine, about 1.3 million ecstasy pills, more than 8 kilos of heroin, 169 weapons, 149 vehicles, 3 airplanes, and 3 boats were seized in various states, from the East to the West coasts. An enormous success but a worrisome one, for its