Jesús Gutiérrez Guzmán, cousin of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, was arrested in Madrid in 2012 following an elaborate FBI operation posing as Italian mafiosi. The mission, called Dark Waters, spanned three years and involved negotiations to expand the Sinaloa Cartel's cocaine trafficking to Europe. Gutiérrez, acting as the cartel's representative, fell into the trap that ended with the seizure of 346 kilos of drugs.
The FBI's Operation Dark Waters started in 2009 as the Sinaloa Cartel sought European partners to extend its network beyond the U.S. market. An FBI informant, known as 'Alejandro,' posed as a representative of an Italian criminal organization and connected with the cartel through Álvaro Rivera Pedrego, an associate of 'El Chapo' Guzmán. Rivera Pedrego, later sentenced to five years in prison in 2014 for cocaine trafficking, facilitated the initial links.
The first meeting occurred in the mountainous area of Culiacán, Sinaloa, covering details like cocaine quality, prices, export routes, and risk distribution. Gutiérrez Guzmán, stepping in as the representative in 'El Chapo's' absence, built trust with 'Alejandro' and included him in his network. Later meetings in Miami, Florida, briefly involved 'El Chapo,' who remained cautious, along with other members such as accountant Sergio López Alarcón and lawyer Rafael Humberto González Valenzuela.
To formalize the deal, the cartel set up a shell company in Spain, with Gutiérrez overseeing European operations. 'El Chapo' tested the supposed Italians' reliability by altering routes and terms, but they complied. In 2012, test shipments of pineapples and bananas arrived in Spain without issue. The main load, 346 kilos of cocaine hidden in pineapples from Brazil, reached the port of Algeciras on July 27, 2012, valued at 480 million dollars.
The FBI seized the drugs, and eleven days later, on August 7, arrested Gutiérrez Guzmán outside the Hotel Palace in Madrid, along with three associates. Extradited to the United States, he pleaded guilty in 2014 and was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2015. Born in Sinaloa, Gutiérrez had devoted his life to the family business, focusing on European expansion without reported ties to the cartel's other criminal activities.
