'The King is dead, long live the King!'

In September 2023, Ovidio Guzmán López, the son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, stood in a courtroom as a series of charges were laid out, including his alleged role as a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

There is a long list of cartel and organized crime leaders over the past few decades who have been targeted through what become known as the 'Kingpin Strategy'. The strategy aims to weaken, destabilise, and destroy criminal groups through a variety of methods, but is not without critics.

In this episode of Deep Dive: Monitoring, we look at the arrest of Ovidio, the history and impact of the Kingpin Strategy, how organized crime responds to a prominent criminal leader being removed, the so-called "Narco-Culture" that surrounds criminal actors, and the impact it has on the communities bearing the greatest impact of these criminal groups.

Speaker:

Siria Gastelum Felix, the Director of Resilience, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime - Link

GITOC:

OC Index - Mexico

OC Index - Colombia

Clan del Golfo: The fall of 'Otoniel' - How Colombia's biggest drug lord was taken down.

Mexico’s war with itself? ¿La guerra de México consigo mismo?

Additional Reading:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmlj7cFHlsA

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/criminal-prosecution-drug-traffickers-under-continuing-criminal

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-66853111

https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/oficina-de-envigado-profile/

https://insightcrime.org/colombia-organized-crime-news/auc-profile/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-66784678

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/20/colombias-coca-crops-grew-to-historic-levels-last-year-un

https://museum.dea.gov/video-archive/kingpin-strategy-did-it-work

https://justiceinmexico.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/OCVM-21.pdf

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?locations=CO&most_recent_value_desc=true