00:00After the killing of Al Mencho, he leaves behind a void in the cartel, a sprawling criminal network, which includes
00:08a paramilitary organization.
00:11What comes next when it comes to the cartel?
00:16This is one of the most important questions and probably the one that worries Mexicans most,
00:21because our experience with the so-called kingpin strategy, which was a strategy that both American and Mexican authorities used
00:28by taking out the heads of major crime organizations, is that once a character like Al Mencho is either died
00:35or apprehended,
00:37an organization falls apart into different war factions, sometimes dozens of them.
00:42And this usually leads to a very violent battle for territory between those different gangs,
00:48which is significantly harder to combat than actually a bigger organization.
00:54So lots of Mexicans are actually expecting that this will lead, at least in the strong term, to more violence.
01:00And then afterwards, there's sort of a reshuffling of the power balance between different organizations.
01:06And I think another thing that's important to point out is that the fall of Al Mencho will also lead
01:12to different power dynamics
01:13in other criminal organizations, such as the Sinaloa cartel.
01:16The sons of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, the leader and founder of the Sinaloa cartel who was arrested and then
01:25extradited to the United States,
01:26had an alliance, a personal alliance with Al Mencho for their own protection in their struggle with another faction of
01:33the Sinaloa cartel.
01:34And it looks like that alliance will now be falling apart.
01:37And the effects will also be felt in states where the Sinaloa cartel is active.
01:41So there's a lot of uncertainty again about this, but one thing that's almost for certain is that this will
01:47lead to more violence in short term.
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