On videos, young and pretty women fill and distribute boxes of food on the outskirts of Guadalajara in western Mexico. They wear cloth masks bearing the image of the famous Mexican drug trafficker, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. The initiative was posted on social media by one of the daughters of the former head of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, imprisoned in the United States. There is a tendency among Mexican mafiosi to play the benefactors. They make it known, in the midst of an economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. If the cartels are themselves affected, they quickly rebound against a state overtaken by the health emergency.
Toilet paper, rice, beans, soup in sachets, oil … the boxes of basic necessities, intended for the poor elderly, are stamped "El Chapo 701". It is the brand of clothing and alcohol created by Alejandrina Guzman, the daughter of the drug trafficker. The “701” refers to the rank occupied, in 2009, by El Chapo in the ranking Forbes of the richest men in the world. The brand has never been implicated in illegal activities. The initiative nevertheless benefits his father’s mafia organization. It is the fourth cartel to boast about its charitable operations on the Web, since the health alert declared on March 30.
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In early April, the Gulf cartel was the first to post a more warlike video: Armed with machine-guns, masked men deliver packages to residents of poor villages in Tamaulipas State, in northeastern Mexico, stronghold of the organization. In the aftermath, the Jalisco New Generation cartel and that of Los Viagras quickly posted in their turn images of stacks of cardboard boxes and food bags, labeled with their respective mafia acronyms.
These food distributions are not new. Their dissemination on the Internet is even more so. "Cartels strengthen their social basesays Edgardo Buscaglia, an organized crime specialist at Columbia University. For example, mafia networks should offer loans to small merchants on the verge of bankruptcy to buy their loyalty. " The International Monetary Fund (IMF) anticipates a 6.6% recession this year, in a country where almost half the population is considered poor and one in five Mexicans earn less than 2 dollars (1.83 euros) per day.
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