SINALOA DRUG CARTEL: LEADER'S DEATH MAY CAUSE FIGHT FOR
POWER

EL PASO -- The Sinaloa drug cartel may undergo a bloody power struggle
after the death Thursday of one of its key leaders, U.S. officials
said Friday.

But the cartel, which has been entangled in a war with the Juarez drug
cartel since 2008, will continue to traffic cocaine and
methamphetamine into the U.S., they said.

The Mexican army shot and killed Ignacio "El Nacho" Coronel Villareal,
56, during a raid Thursday in a suburb of Guadalajara, Mexico.

Coronel, who was indicted on drug-dealing charges in El Paso, is one
of the two associates close to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the alleged
leader of Sinaloa drug cartel. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia is the
other alleged drug boss. Guzman and Zambada are both at large.

FBI officials in El Paso anticipate "some chaos within the Sinaloa
drug trafficking organization at the upper-management level," said
spokeswoman Andrea Simmons.

Coronel, originally of Durango, Mexico, has been on the most-wanted
list of the FBI since he was indicted in El Paso in 2003. The U.S.
State Department and the FBI offered a $5 million reward for
information leading to Coronel's capture.

Thursday's raid on Coronel was the biggest crackdown on the Sinaloa
cartel since President Felipe Calderon declared war on drugs in 2006.
Coronel was influential not only in Mexico but also abroad.

From El Paso to New York and across the Americas and Europe, Coronel
allegedly was the liaison with Colombian drug traffickers to supply
cocaine, the FBI said. The FBI said his organization created crystal
meth laboratories in Mexico.

As sophisticated as Coronel was, the Sinaloa drug cartel will replace
him, the FBI said.

"Even with the Coronel gone, there will be multiple people to take his
place," Simmons said. "We don't expect to see much impact on the
day-to-day movement of methamphetamine across the border."

Violence within the Sinaloa cartel ranks may break out if more than
one person wants to take over Coronel's position, officials said.

Coronel was no stranger to the Juarez and El Paso area. He was first
an ally of former Juarez drug cartel leader Amado Carrillo Fuentes, or
the "Lord of the Skies," a Mexican army official said.

He joined Chapo Guzman after Carrillo Fuentes died in
1997.

In a short time, Coronel's power rose. He became the leader on
Mexico's Pacific coast, controlling cocaine trafficking in the states
of Jalisco -- where he was based -- Colima, Nayarit and Michoacan,
Mexican officials said.

Coronel was one of the main targets in the multi-agency U.S. Operation
Baja Kings that began in 2002 and netted 66 federal indictments, 148
pounds of crystal meth, tons of cocaine and marijuana and $10.5
million in cash.

The FBI indicted Coronel in 2003 in El Paso, along with 11 other
people on drug-smuggling charges.

Only two people have been sentenced in Coronel's case. One of them,
Olga Cristina Lerma Lizarraga, was sentenced in April to five years in
a prison in Dublin, Calif.

Last year, Coronel was indicted in New York along with Guzman, Zambada
and his brother Jesus Zambada.

Hector and Arturo Beltran Leyva are also indicted in the same
nine-count case that charges the men for operating the powerful
cartel, also known as the Federation.

Arturo Beltran was killed also in a military raid in December in
Cuernavaca, Mexico. Hector and Arturo Beltran Leyva, however, broke
away from the Sinaloa cartel in 2008 and allied with the Gulf Cartel
and the Zetas.

Since 2008, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, allegedly the leader of the
Juarez cartel, and Guzman have been involved in ruthless war Juarez.
About 5,900 people have been killed.