JOSE DE JESUS MENDEZ: 'THE MONKEY' DRUG BOSS WHO RAN MEXICO'S CULT CARTEL

Guy Adams Reports on the Capture of a Kingpin Whose Cartel Espoused A
Christian Doctrine but Practised Extreme Violence

His nickname turned out to be richly deserved. When armed police
presented Jose de Jesus Mendez at a press conference in Mexico City
yesterday, the drug kingpin was revealed to be in possession of both a
fat neck and a simian scowl. That's presumably why he was known as "El
Chango", or "The Monkey".

Mendez was the leader of La Familia Michoacana, among half a dozen
large criminal organisations which have fought for years over one of
Mexico's most lucrative industries, the $38bn-a-year (UKP23.6bn)
business of shifting cocaine from South America to US consumers.

The circumstances of his arrest were rare, given the bloody nature of
the Mexican Government's ongoing "war on drugs", which has resulted in
almost 40,000 deaths in the past four years. Federal police who
swooped on "El Chango's" hideout in the central state of
Aguascalientes arrested him without a shot fired.

Mendez is the second head of La Familia to be brought to book. In
December, the organisation's founder, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, known
as "El Mas Loco" ("The Craziest") was killed by security forces during
a two-day battle which filled the once-sleepy city called Apatzigan
with tanks and burning cars.

"With this capture, what was left of the command structure of this
criminal organisation is destroyed," trumpeted a government spokesman,
describing Mendez as, "the last remaining head of a criminal group
responsible for homicides, kidnappings, extortion, corruption and even
cowardly attacks on the authorities and civilian population".

Felipe Calderon, the Mexican President who has devoted much of his
time in office to cracking down on the drug trade, used his Twitter
account to describe the detention of a man who had a $2.5m price tag
on his head a "big blow" against organised crime.

Mendez is now likely to be charged with shipping tonnes of cocaine to
the US, along with large volumes of methamphetamine and marijuana.
With the help of weapons purchased in America (which has the developed
world's most relaxed gun laws), his private army was also able to
commit murder, kidnapping, extortion.

His arrest, like that of any major cartel chief, is unlikely to stem the
flow of drugs through Mexico: the stratospheric profit margins on offer
to traffickers (reported to be about 3,000 percent) mean there is never
a shortage of candidates willing to do battle over newly vacant turf.

But it may represent the beginning of the end for La Familia, a unique
sort of drug cartel which was as famous for its cult-like mentality
and loosely Christian theology as it was for the occasional acts of
extreme violence that it used to maintain a grip on its territory
along Mexico's strategically important western coast.

Founded during the 1980s, as part of the larger Gulf Cartel, the group
split into an independent organisation six years ago. Its existence
became public in 2006, when members lobbed five decapitated heads onto
the dance floor of the Sol y Sombra night club in the city of Uruapan.

They were accompanied by a message scrawled on a scrap of paper, which
read: "The Family doesn't kill for money. It doesn't kill women. It
doesn't kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that
this is divine justice."

As that mission statement suggests, La Familia styles itself as a sort
of parallel government, financing social programmes in and around
Michoacan, an impoverished and therefore eminently bribable state
whose sea ports make it an important staging point for narcotics
en-route to the US.

La Familia has for years collected "taxes" from local business owners,
and spent a portion of its income on propaganda, taking out newspaper
adverts saying it wants to "protect" the region from more ruthless
rival gangs from other regions. It buys at least some popularity by
offering low-interest loans to farmers, churches, and small
businesses. "They believe they are doing God's work, and pass out
Bibles and money to the poor," reads a US Drug Enforcement
Administration profile explaining the cartel's endorsement of family
values. "La Familia Michoacana also gives money to school and local
officials."

Despite the nature of its core business, it also claims to be
protecting locals from the scourge of drugs. La Familia has a "zero
tolerance" policy on the sale of narcotics in Michoacan, and runs
rehabilitation programmes for local drug addicts. Many residents trust
the cartel more than their notoriously corrupt police force.

Members of the organisation are expected to buy into the cult-like
command structure. Before his death in December, Nazario Moreno
Gonzalez, published a "bible" explaining a doctrine which includes
foregoing hard drugs and attending regular prayer meetings.

His supporters were also encouraged to show up at Catholic Mass (and
leave generous donations in the collection plate). Unlike other
cartels, La Familia does not tolerate the abuse of women and children
by its foot-soldiers.

But you don't run a lucrative criminal organisation without
occasionally knocking a few heads together, and La Familia has, like
every major cartel, acquired a reputation for ruthlessness. In
Acapulco last year, I was taken to a church plaza where members had
recently left the decapitated head of a victim. The man's skin had
been entirely removed, and was lying in a heap nearby, next to his
torso. The level of killing had dramatically accelerated in the months
following Gonzalez's death, with La Familia splintering into two groups.

One was loyal to Mendez, another faction to a longstanding Familia
member called Servando "La Tuta" Gomez Martinez, who called his men
The Knights Templar, after the warriors of the Crusades. They claimed
responsibility for 22 murders over last weekend.

Analysts are now wondering if Martinez or one of his colleagues tipped
off the authorities regarding "El Chango's" whereabouts. He is
unlikely to now have the firepower to return his organisation to its
former glories, but Martinez is expected to negotiate the absorption
of La Familia into one of Mexico's remaining major drug gangs.

Rogues gallery: The drug lords and their nicknames

'The Monkey'

Jose de jesus 'El Chango' Mendez

Keeping in line with their counterparts in New York, where Mafia dons
boast nicknames such as "Baby Shacks" and "Junior Lollipops", many of
Mexico's drug lords have eccentric monikers. They don't, however,
always fully represent the ruthless nature of the title-holder. Jose
de Jesus Mendez, who was arrested on Tuesday, is known as "El Chango",
or "The Monkey", which portrays a rather endearing creature. Yet this
monkey is one of Mexico's most-wanted drug lords and an alleged leader
of the La Familia cartel, which has been directly or indirectly
involved in the drug wars that have killed at least 35,000 people
since 2009. Here are some other unusual nicknames acquired by Mexico's
most notorious criminals.

'El Brad Pitt'

Marco Antonio Guzman

The 34-year-old former police officer was arrested last week in Mexico
accused of leading the armed wing of the violent Juarez cartel. He is
said to have acquired his celebrity moniker because of a disguise he
wore when he served as a lookout. The nickname stuck when gang
associates said Guzman resembled the Hollywood star in a scene from
the film Spy Game about CIA agents, in which the actor wore a similar
outfit.

'El Clinton'

Abel Valadez Oribe

The head of operations for La Familia in western Mexico was given the
nickname of the former US president because of his elevated status in
the cartel. The 33-year-old was arrested in 2009 and is allegedly
behind the assassination of a mayor at a popular holiday resort.

'The Professor'

Servando Gomez Martinez

As recently as December last year, La Familia's "El Profe" also known
as "La Tuta" was still on the state's payroll for his teaching job. He
is known as a fervent promoter of the cartel's vigilante ideology.

'La Barbie'

Edgar Valdez Villarreal

The 37-year-old was born in Texas and had an outstanding American
football career in high school, but "Barbie" developed a taste for
luxury cars, nightclubs and Versace clothes as a small-time marijuana
dealer. He soon moved to Mexico and assumed a role as a key player in
the Beltran-Leyva cartel, where he got his improbable nickname because
his blue eyes and fair complexion were said to make him resemble a Ken
doll. He was arrested in Mexico last year and is awaiting extradition
to the US.