Msem 2009 25 1 19 PDF

Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States
Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez: 19281936 Author(s): Nicole Mottier Source: Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Winter 2009), pp. 19-46 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States and the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/msem.2009.25.1.19 . Accessed: 26/11/2013 15:42
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Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez: 19281936

Nicole Mottier*
The University of Chicago
This article examines the two drug gangs in Ciudad Jurez that were significantly connected to local and state politics between 1928 and 1936. It sheds light on the border drug trade and the gangs themselves, shows how the gangs influenced local and state politics, and it illustrates how politics played an important role in shaping the gangs. In doing so, it clarifies the drug and political histories of Ciudad Jurez and the state of Chihuahua during the 1920s and 1930s. Este artculo examina las dos bandas de narcotrfico en Ciudad Jurez que estuvieron significativamente relacionadas con la poltica local y estatal entre 1928 y 1936. Da luz acerca del narcotrfico fronterizo y las bandas mismas, muestra cmo esas bandas influyeron en la poltica local y estatal, y seala que la poltica desempe un papel importante en la formacin de las mismas. Al hacer esto, clarifica la historia de la poltica y del narcotrfico de Ciudad Jurez y del estado de Chihuahua durante las dcadas de 1920 y 1930. Key words: Ciudad Jurez, corruption, drugs, crime, organized crime, gambling, Quevedo, governors, politics, 1920s, 1930s, border. Palabras clave: Ciudad Jurez, corrupcin, drogas, crimen, crimen organizado, apuestas, Quevedo, gobernadores, poltica, 1920, 1930, frontera.
* I would like to thank Alan Knight, Emilio Kour, Isaac Campos-Costero, Bob Chessey, the anonymous reviewers and the editorial committee at MS/EM for their support and helpful comments. I am thankful for grants from the following institutions which made the research and writing phases of this article possible: the British Council Overseas Research Student Award, University College at Oxford, the Oxford Centre for Latin American Studies, the Oxford Centre for Mexican Studies, the University of Chicago Unendowed Fellowship and the University of Chicago Mellon Fellowship for Latin American History.
Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos Vol. 25, Issue 1, Winter 2009, pages 1946. ISSN 0742-9797 electronic ISSN 1533-8320. 2009 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprint info.asp. DOI: 10.1525/msem.2009.25.1.19
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Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos
Before the Jurez Cartel, there were the Fernndez and Quevedo drug gangs. From 1928 through 1934, Enrique Fernndez and a woman known as La Nacha led the first organized crime gang to significantly affect local and state politics. The second gang, which began in 1930, was allegedly led by Jos and Jesus Quevedo, involved their brothers Lorenzo, Guillermo, and Mauro Quevedo, and functioned under the protection of Rodrigo Quevedo while he was governor of Chihuahua. After the Quevedos won a two-year bloody turf war over the gambling and narcotics businesses with their rival gang, asassinating Fernndez in the process, they merged the two drug gangs and then dominated gambling, the narcotics trade and local and state politics through 1936. Several analyses, most notably Mark Wassermans Persistent Oligarchs, have examined the importance of the alcohol and gambling enterprises to the economy and politics of both Jurez and Chihuahua state during the 1920s and 1930s. Various historians of Chihuahua have included the reports of Enrique Fernndez and the Quevedos being involved with the Jurez narcotic trade. But none of the studies about Ciudad Jurez have adequately described and analyzed the Fernndez and the Quevedos involvement in the drug gangs or discussed the trades significance in local and state politics. In order to thoroughly understand Chihuahuan local and state politics, the Jurez drug trade and its leaders must be analyzed along with the gambling business, local and state factionalism, local and state economies, and national political processes. Several scholars have written on the history of drugs and politics in Mexico. Amont them, Luis Astorga has shown many connections between narcotics and politics around all of Mexico during the entire twentieth century thanks to his broad geographic and temporal scopes. This article builds on the existing scholarship by detailing and explicating the Jurez drug trade and its connections to politics. In doing so, it is the first to track and examine how drug gangs affected politics, and how politics affected drug gangs, in one place over time in Mexico from a historical perspective. In examining the first two gangs that were significantly connected to local and state politics, it sheds light on the border drug trade and the gangs themselves, and shows how politics played an important role in shaping these gangs. It details and analyzes the alleged connections of the Quevedo family to the 1930s Jurez drug trade. It also clarifies the political history of Ciudad Jurez and Chihuahua state during the 1920s and 1930s by showing the links between the narcotics business and politics.1
1. See: Luis Astorga, Mitologa del narcotraficante; en Mxico, Mexico City, 1995; Luis Astorga, El siglo de las drogas, Mexico City, 1996; Luis Astorga, Drogas sin fronteras, Mexico City, 2003; Edward Langston, The Impact of Prohibition on the Mexican-United
Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez
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After contextualizing the drug trade, the article provides a brief sketch of the two Ciudad Jurez gangs, making distinctions between the Fernndez and Quevedo gangs when necessary. It then turns to the connections between drug gangs and politics at the local and state levels.2 The Context By 1928, Chihuahua had seen almost two decades of destruction and disruption brought by war and economic depression. Militarily, the state had seen constant uprisings, first during the Revolution, and then throughout the 1920s.3 Politically, the state legislature did not meet from
States Border:The El Paso-Ciudad Jurez Case, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Texas Tech University, 1974; Wilbert Timmons, El Paso:A Borderlands History, El Paso, 1990; Mark Wasserman, Persistent Oligarchs:Elites and Politics in Chihuahua, Mexico, Durham, 1993; Robin Robinson, Monte Carlo of the Southwest: A Reinterpretation of U.S. Prohibitions Impact on Ciudad Jurez, unpublished MA. thesis, University of Texas at Arlington, 1997; Robin Robinson Vice and Tourism on the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Comparison of Three Communities in the Era of U.S. Prohibition, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Arizona State, 2002. Axaycatl Gutirrez, Consumo y trfico de opio en Mexico, 19201949, unpublished licenciatura thesis, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mxico DF, 1996. 2. Organized crime and political corruption are difficult to analyze. Their secretive natures leave relatively sparse documentation. I was lucky to have at my disposal several different types of primary sources that discussed Enrique Fernndezs and Jess, Jos and Rodrigo Quevedos importance in the Jurez drug trade and the trades connections to local and state politics. These sources were located in the Archivo General de la Nacin (AGN) in Mexico City, the Archivo Histrico de la Secretara de Salud, Seccin Jurdica in Mexico City (AHSS, SJ), the Biblioteca Regional Arturo Tolentino Archivo del Municipio de Ciudad Jurez, the University of Texas at El Paso Special Collections (UTEPSC), and the Nettie Lee Benson Library in the University of Texas at Austin (UTABL). They included reports by Juan Requena, a Mexican public health official who had been sent to investigate the drug trade in Ciudad Jurez; a list compiled by a Mr. McMurray, the Head of Narcotics in El Paso, which described many of the members of the Fernndez gang; a second list describing members of the Quevedo gang written by Dr. Francisco Urrutia, a Mexican public health official who had been posted at Ciudad Jurez; a letter sent from Jos Lpez, an American businessman, to Ambassador Josephus Daniels about the Jurez drug gangs; a report written by Marshall Hail, a local journalist; local and national newspapers, consul reports on both sides of the border, several reports from Ambassador Daniels to the U.S. Secretary of State; Mexican presidential papers at the AGN; complaints against Chihuahuan governors at the AGN; municipal government documents from Ciudad Jurez; and complaints against Rodrigo Quevedo from the Centro de Estudios Histricos de la Revolucin Mexicana, Lzaro Crdenas, in Jiquilpan, Michoacn (CEHRMLCJ). Even when a historian is fortunate enough to have found a variety of documents, analyzing the connection between drugs and politics remains difficult because the historian can never trust any piece of evidence to provide a completely truthful account. However, given the quantity and quality of evidence, the frequency that similar comments about the same people cropped up in different sources, and the relatively lengthy time span the evidence covers, I found the sources to be compelling and felt that the story deserved to be told. 3. Wasserman, Oligarchs, 3334
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1913 to 1920, and none of Chihuahuas governors were able to complete their terms between 1920 and 1929. At no time during the 1920s would any faction become strong enough to control state politics; that would not happen until Rodrigo Quevedo became governor in 1932.4 This political instability was due in large part to Chihuahuas economic difficulties. The ruin of the Revolution combined with the effects of the U.S. Great Depression meant that the states agriculture, mining, industry and commerce could not fully recover until the mid-1930s.5 However, state politicians could look to one city to fill its coffers, at least partially, and that city was Ciudad Jurez. Because Jurez is a border town, making it handy for arms smuggling, and because it was the final stop on the Mexican Central Railroad line, making it easy to move goods and people, the city had seen frequent revolutionary disruptions. Between 1910 and 1917, there were forty-nine municipal presidents and the stream of people from all over the country who were fleeing the war constantly drained the citys meager resources. The Revolution also left the city with few economic prospects; the areas mining industry had been ruined, and it could not serve as an entrept for cattle because the states industry had been destroyed. But the United States Prohibition had given Ciudad Jurez a market for alcohol and gambling.6 El Pasos nightlife was moved to Ciudad Jurez and gave local businessmen a reason to establish more tourism enterprises in the city.7 By 1926, two-thirds of all Jurezs businesses and services catered to tourism and the majority of Jurezs 42,000 strong labor force worked in bars, casinos, nightclubs, hotels and the like.8 The American Prohibition changed Ciudad Jurez. It made it bigger 9 and more economically profitable10, and therefore, transformed it into
4. Ibid., 14, 46, 5. Ibid., 32. 6. Ibid., 131. 7. In the face of considerable local opposition, it was voted by the state legislature that 15 April 1918 would be the final day for legal drinking in Texas, a year and a half before the eighteenth constitutional reform (the Volstead Act) outlawed liquor production, sale and consumption nation-wide. Alcohol was finally permitted when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt abrogated the act in February 1933. 8. Martnez, Boom Town, p59, 62; J. McConville, A History of Population in the El Paso, Ciudad Jurez Area, unpublished MA.Thesis, New Mexico, 1966, 91. 9. The deluge of tourists in the 1920s and early 1930s made previous tourist flows seem like a trickle. From July 1918 to July 1919, only 14,130 tourists crossed into Mexico. In the next twelve months, 418, 735 tourists entered, and of them 83, 536, or twenty per cent of total tourists into Mexico, visited Jurez, mainly for the alcohol that had been forbidden in the United States. Langston, Impact, p. 90. 10. By 1924, tourists were spending between US$2,000,000 and US$3,000,000 a year in Jurez Early Closing Must Receive Fair Trial to Prove its Value, included in White to Secretary of State, March 1924, UTABL, Internal Affairs 191029, Roll 148.
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a key player in state politics. Until President Lzaro Crdenas outlawed gambling in 1934, the casinos in Ciudad Jurez were the most substantial part of the local and state treasuries, thereby providing a fair degree of autonomy from the federal government. Equally as important, it was one of the crucial factors in determining which faction won local and state politics. Whoever obtained a license to operate casinos from the state government provided substantial and legitimate funding to the treasury. From the treasury, the money was then channeled into public works projects and salaries.11 The battle between Fernndez and the Quevedos for control of gambling concessions brought competing Chihuahuan political factions and different levels of government into conflict. The faction that backed the victor controlled state government for the following two years. Thus, the rivalry for the position of Tivoli concessionaire between the Fernndez and Quevedo drug gangs, and, at the state level, between Lus Len and Andrs Ortiz, was a battle for supremacy in Juarense and Chihuahuan politics.12 The increase in the number of casinos, saloons and bars in Ciudad Jurez meant an increase in the number of people involved with the drug trade. The lack of jobs for a population that had escaped to the El Paso/ Ciudad Jurez area during the Revolution promoted growth in the informal sector, including trafficking. Drug regulation on both sides of the bor11. Between September 1930 and September 1931, for example, gambling licenses provided approximately fifty per cent of state income. (See Ms de un millon recibi el gobierno de Ortiz, El Correo de Chihuahua, 11 September 1931, AGN, Gobernacin, Andrz Ortiz Gobernador del Estado de Chihuahua, 19251931.) Manuel Llantada and Fernndez received a ten year concession in 1931 for which they had to pay 60,000 pesos monthly which was then divided equally between the federal, state, and municipal treasuries, and from there, went into salaries, administrative costs, road building and various civic improvements. (See: Resumption of Gambling in Ciudad Jurez, MexicoBlocker to Secretary of State, 12 January 1931, Internal Affairs 193039, Reel 46; Langston, Impact, 159. ) Although a detailed account of these civic improvements is unavailable, given the repetition in U.S. consul reports from 19211933 of funds earmarked for drainage and irrigation, maintaining highways, improving sewage systems, building schools, and maintaining the Jurez-El Paso bridges, it is likely that the improvements were along those lines. But revenue from monthly license fees was rarely secure. The lifespan of any Jurez casino was short and usually ended after bankruptcy or one of the sporadic federal interventions, and while the casino was open, much of the funds set aside for public works were instead pocketed. (Much of the tax from Jurez casinos earmarked for the Jurez Ciudad Chihuahua highway, an estimated total of 720,000 pesos by September 1931 might have gone instead to Ortiz. See: Resume of Gambling and Bridge Controversy at Ciudad Jurez, Blocker to SS, 25 September 1931, Internal Affairs, Reel 46.) Furthermore, the position of concessionaire was rarely secure. It depended upon which faction was in state power and therefore could be revoked or rewarded before it expired. 12. Langston, Impact, 160173; Wasserman, Oligarchs, 44, 5758, 133 ; Robinson, MonteCarlo, 5759; Robinson, Vice and Tourism, 4750.
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der during the 1910s and 1920s also played a role. The U.S. federal government banned opium imports in 1906 and regulated the national usage and traffic of narcotics under the Harrison Narcotic Act in 1914, which made it illegal for those who were not doctors to purchase opiates and morphine. At the local level, the El Paso City Council outlawed the sale of narcotics and marijuana in 1915. Mexico banned the cultivation and sale of marijuana in 1920 and of poppies and opium in 1926. President Calles added that the import of opiates, heroin or its derivatives would be subject to the discretion of the Department of Public Health.13 Far from quelling demand, these laws created a black market, making trafficking more profitable. Instead of eradicating the recreational drug trade, the regulations only forced it underground in both El Paso and Jurez. Already by 1923, the Jurez narcotic trade had become organized and powerful enough to co-opt and persuade certain officials to permit its development.14 But it would not be until the end of the decade when the drug trade would join the alcohol and gambling businesses to contour the shape that local and state politics took. The Gangs By 1936, the drug trade encompassed Jurez, El Paso, three Chihuahuan cities: Parral, Casas Grandes, and Ciudad Chihuahua, and Mexico City.15 The gangs sold opium and morphine, and the source of their narcotics shifted during the first third of the twentieth century. During the Revolution, opium was cultivated and harvested in Europe, then shipped through the Panama Canal and stopped in Nicaragua before arriving at Mexican ports. After the emergence of drug import laws in Mexico, traffickers began planting small poppy fields in Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Chihuahua and Durango.16 But perhaps not enough was harvested, for the first assistant to the U.S. Secretary of State wrote during the mid teens crude opium was still imported into Mexico.17 During the 1920s and
13. Ibid., p. 28. 14. Due to space constraints, I cannot go into the history of the 1920s drug trade and gangs in Jurez. See Langston, Impact, 268278, Astorga, Fronteras, 7781. 15. Traffic in Narcotics in the Ciudad Juarez Consular District Consul Shaw to Secretary of State, 1 February, 1936, Records of the U.S. Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Mexico, 193039, 812/59, (abbreviated as Internal Affairs, 193039) Roll 34; List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez, Josephus Daniels to Secretary of State, 24 September, 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, roll 34; Lpez to Daniels, 5 March, 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 16. Gabriela Recio, Drugs and Alcohol: US Prohibition and the Origins of the Drug Trade in Mexico, 19101930, Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 34, 2002, p 356. 17. Astorga, Fronteras, p 21, 102. For converting poppy to opium, see Astorga, Fronteras, 103.
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1930s, poppies were grown and converted into morphine and opium in India or Burma, then shipped to the Green Gang in Shanghai, China, then shipped to Los Angeles and then Jurez.18 Although it is difficult to tell whether the gangs dealt very extensively in marijuana compared to opium and morphine, it is very likely that many of the gangsannual transactions involved thousands of small sales of marijuana. However, because officials and diplomats spent the most time and money tracking big deals that amounted to several thousand pesos and involved daily smuggling into El Paso, they could not trace the marijuana trade in Ciudad Jurez as well as they traced the morphine and opium trade.19 It seems that the gangs were divided into four loose tiers based on degrees of responsibility, authority, power and income.20 It was difficult to incarcerate the leaders because they had the money and power to manipulate politics, police and the press. With regards to the Fernndez gang, the leaders were Fernndez and La Nacha.21 Fernndez had been the co-manager of the Mint Caf, one of Jurezs top nightclubs during the 1920s.22 He was also a criminal entrepreneur. Before he became the leader of the drug gang, he had been caught rum-running in 1923, and between 1923 and 1928 was involved in a counterfeit ring.23 According to the Mexican Consul in El Paso, by 1930 Fernndez was known as the king of morphine who financed much of the gangs operations.24 He was also a philanthropist who had made his fortune in the narcotic and gambling enterprises and appeared to be well-regarded in the community. Although he probably spent much of his money on himself (since his youth, Fernndez had loved fine clothes and spending money) he
18. Conversation with Chaowarit M Chaowsangrat, 7 May 2004, Latin American Centre, Oxford University. 19. For the history of marijuana in Mexico from colonial times through the early twentieth century, see Isaac Campos-Costero, Marijuana, Madness, and Modernity in Global Mexico, 15451920. (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2006). 20. For further details and analysis of the gangs and of their connections to politics, see Nicole Mottier, Organised Crime, Political Corruption and Drug Gangs in Ciudad Jurez, Mexico, 19281937 (Unpublished M.Phil Thesis, Oxford University, 2004). 21. For more information on the life and times of La Nacha, see: Bob Chessey, La Nacha: Border Tales of Dope and Depravity, forthcoming manuscript. 22. Clipping from unnamed newspaper: Blame Killing of Fernndez on Officials, 15 June 1934, UTEPSC, MS 145 John J. Middagh Papers Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 23. Marshall Hail, Enrique Fernndez, UTEPSC, MS145, John J Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147, Enrique Fernndez. (abbreviated as Hail, Fernndez.) 24. Eduardo Hernndez Chazaro, Secretario Particular del C. Presidente de la Repblica de Mxico to Gobernado del Estado Chihuahua, 12 August 1930, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, caja 39, ex 230; Blocker to Secretary of State, 25 September 1931, Internal Affairs 193039, roll 46; Luis Medina Barron to President Ortiz Rubio 20 August 1930, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, Box 39, Ex 230.
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used profits from drugs and gambling to benefit the city. He allegedly channeled resources into rural schools near Jurez.25 The Ortiz Rubio School alone cost him approximately 16,000 pesos.26 He was said to play Santa Clause every Christmas for children from impoverished families.27 Several undertakers stated that he had paid for the funerals of many Juarenses whose families could not afford proper burials. When it was his time to be buried, it was reported that thousands of people gathered to show their last respects.28 La Nacha was said to have joined the gang after her first husband, who was heavily involved in the Jurez narcotic trade, was shot in a Jurez brothel.29 Fernndez convinced La Nacha that it would be in her best interest to join his gang. Starting at the bottom, she sold drugs to addicts and went to prison for Fernndezs crimes. On one such occasion, September 19, 1929, La Nacha was charged with committing a crime against public health, only to be freed a couple of weeks and 300 pesos later.30 Fernndez sometimes paid her bail, which demonstrated her importance to the gang and further cemented her obligation to it.31 By 1933, it was reported that she was one of the largest dealers in Jurez.32 The leaders of the Quevedo gang were said to be the two Quevedo brothers who were directly involved in the gangs operations, Jos and Jess. It was also said that their other brother, Rodrigo Quevedo was indirectly involved while he was governor of Chihuahua.33 The Quevedo
25. Hail, Fernndez, MS 145; Article, Sangriento drama en Madero, UTEPSC, MS 145 J. J. Middagh Papers Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 26. El Sr.Enrique Fernndez y su actuacin en beneficio de la colectividad, MS 145 J. J. Middagh Papers Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 27. Hail, Fernndez, MS 145. 28. Thousands at Depot When Fernndezs Body Arries, 18 January 1934. UTEPSC, MS 145 J. J. Middagh Papers Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 29. Capturaron en Ciudad Jurez A. Gonzlez, El Continental, 13 September 1929; Hail, Fernndez,Alleged Drug Queen of Drug Trade Held in Jurez, El Paso Herald, 13 August 1930; Detectivos, 22 January 1934. 30. Hail, Fernnadez; Report, Ignacia Jasso de Gonzlez by Secretario Encargado del Juzgado Ignacio Castro 1 October, 1929, Archivo Muncipal de la Ciudad Jurez (AMCJ), Box 6291929, Rama de Justicia October 1929 #1018; Comandante de Polica to C. Juez de lo Civil, 29 September 1929, AMCJ, Box 6291929, Asuntos Varios 1929. 31. Hail, Fernndez. 32. Westover to Bureau of Narcotics, 15 June 1933, Internal Affairs, 193039, Roll 34. 33. Jos, Jess and Rodrigo Quevedos involvement was reported in many sources. See for example: Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez 24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34; Jos Lpez to Ambassador Daniels, 5 March 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34; Grupos Libertarios to Crdenas, 11 June 1936, Centro de Estudios Historicos de la Revolucin Mexicana, Lzaro Crdenas, Jiquilpan, Fondo Mgica Vol 61, Doc.10; Report on Rodrigo Quevedo, 22 January 1936, Centro de Estudios Historicos de la Revolucin Mexicana, Lzaro Crdenas, Jiquilpan, Fondo Mgica Vol 61, Doc. 4.
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brothers were first and foremost politicians whose political and economic power arose because of the Revolution.34 The leader of the family, Rodrigo, fought in the Revolution, ultimately siding with the Constitutionalists. During the 1920s he defended the regime against several rebellions and served as chief of military operations in Morelos, Guanajuato, Puebla and La Laguna. His brothers, Jess and Jos, both had held several local political positions. During the 1920s and 30s, Jess was presidente municipal of Casas Grandes (1920); a member of the state legislature (192224); tax collector of Ciudad Jurez (192425); city councilor of Ciudad Jurez (1930); and mayor of Ciudad Jurez in 1930 and 193233. Jos was presidente municipal of Casas Grandes in 1911; tax collector of Casas Grandes, Villa Ahumada and Ciudad Jurez; and presidente municipal of Ciudad Jurez in 193637. The Quevedos were able to build their fortunes thanks to their political power. During the 1920s and 30s they acquired land from the Terrazas latifundio and used that in turn to help reconstruct the Chihuahuan cattle industry, which had been badly damaged during the Revolution. The family owned the Ciudad Jurez power company. They also owned the municipal slaughterhouse and allegedly skimmed off eighty per cent of the profits meant for the city government. In his first year as governor, Rodrigo Quevedo acquired two million pesos and property, livestock and other businesses35 As we will see, Jos, Jess and Rodrigo Quevedos supremacy in the Jurez drug trade also directly derived from their formal political power. Unlike Fernnadez, the Quevedos did not enjoy continuous popularity while they were formally politically powerful. On the contrary, they were widely criticized for their corruption and, by the time Rodrigo left the governors seat, were hated by much of Chihuahua. The community probably recognized several differences between Fernndez and the Quevedos. Fernndezs assistance to the city and to individuals was entirely voluntary. Unlike the Quevedos, he was not a politician, so he was not held accountable to campaign promises for municipal improvements. Nor was he a representative of a state whose officials may have been perceived by citizens as illegitimate and unwilling to provide basic needs and services to the community. In addition, Fernndez may have cultivated more personal ties than the politicians, which created a favorable impression in the eyes of those whom he personally helped. The second tier of the gangs was probably comprised of those who were in charge of dealing with big shipments and distributing them on a large scale. By 1931, according to one observer, narcotics were sold
34. There were eleven Quevedo brothers in total. This article focuses only on three of them: Jess, Jos and Rodrigo Quevedo. 35. Wasserman, Oligarchs, 43, 100102.
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by the ton. (Regardless of whether this was true, it does indicate that large amounts were trafficked by the gang relative to the amounts of previous years).36 After switching sides to become part of the Quevedo gang, La Nacha became a second-tier member, acting as their representative in distributing and shipping the narcotics.37 Her second husband was identified as a major supplier in both gangs.38 Several second-tier members held or had held positions of authority in Jurez, which provided connections and protection for the gang. In both gangs, some of the members were local officials.39 Not surprisingly, the leaders and the second tier members of the gang were also difficult to arrest. Interim Police Chief Urbano Zea, who was appointed by a temporary and moralistic junta municipal in August 1930, complained that this was mainly because securing evidence against them is difficultbecause they remain far in the background and take few risks.40 If they were caught, upper-echelon members rarely served their entire sentences: Juan Requena (a public health official who had been sent by the federal government to investigate the citys drug trade,) explained that there are individuals on the list that have two, three, and five accusations in Ciudad Jurez, but in some way they have always made a mockery of justice.41 The third tier was likely comprised of members who had some skills and connections, but did not enjoy the same level of responsibility and local immunity that their upper-echelon counterparts did. The owners of opium dens were one such group within this tier. Most of these were owned by Chinese men, and combined a fumadero, where the customer smoked opium through a chandoo, and a picadero, where the patron
36. A. Wagner to US Treasury Department, 7 October, 1931, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, roll 33 37. Hail, Fernndez, Jos Lpez to Ambassador Daniels, 5 March 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, roll 34. 38. Sangriento Drama en Madero, 14 January, 1934. UTEPSC, MS 145, J. J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez; McMurray list included in Requena to Salubridad Pblica 20 July 1931, AHSS, SJ Box 28, Ex 6. 39. I cross-checked each member of the gangs that I came across in both the lists that McMurray and Urrutia wrote, newspaper clippings and police records with the men who were named as municipal officials in Armando Chvezs Sesenta aos de gobierno municipal. McMurray List and report written by Juan Requena both included in Requena to Salubridad Pblica, 20 July 1931, AHSS,SJ, Box 28, Ex 6.; Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez 24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34; Armando Chvez M. Sesenta aos de gobierno municipal, jefes politicos del Distrito Bravos y presidentes del Municipio de Jurez 18971960. Mexico, 1959. 40. Juarez Police Open Drive on Dope Ring, Eight Are Arrested, El Paso Herald, 14 August, 1930. 41. Juan Requena to Salubridad Pblica, 20 July 1931, AHSS,SJ, Box 28, Ex 6 1931.
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injected morphine or heroin.42 Those in charge of the dens attempted to place them inconspicuously in their homes or in the backrooms of their businesses.43 Though there were many fumaderos on Coln Street, the most shameless of all was located behind the federal sanitary delegation offices.44 Those employed in medicine also participated. Several of the known members of the gangs were doctors who could legally traffic by prescribing medicine to their patients; others were the owners of drug storesalso places to buy and sell drugs. It was reported that Mauro Quevedo owned a drug store which accepted large narcotic shipments from Mexico City or Torren on Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, the days when the drugstore kept longer hours.45 Finally there were the pistoleros, who killed rival gang members, and the Jurez madams, who were described to be among the boldest traffickers in drugs.46 The majority of gang members were in the fourth tier. They took risks most frequently, and so were the most exposed and the most frequently caught. After arresting eight men in Jurez in August 1930, Chief of Police Zea shed light on how men and women became part of this tier: Certain men in Jurez hire addicts and felons to carry on the actual mechanical functions of the ring.47 It is likely that some of those who had been put in jail as vagrant and vicious sellers of drugs and whom the Quevedos took into their employ were also part of this tier.48 Also likely is that some of the people noted on a list of the members of the Fernndez gang which had been compiled by the head of narcotics in El Paso were members of this tier.49 Furthermore, it is probable that some of the one hundred city employees, truck drivers, carpenters, street cleaners, waterworks operators and electricians who had been fired during an earlier reformist municipal administra42. Gutirrez, Opio 86. 43. Fue aprehendido por vendedor de drogas, El Excelsior, 3 August 1930, 5. 44. Luis Astorga, Siglo, 47; Enclosure No. 2 to Despatch no. 4178, Josephus Daniels to Secretary of State, 8 December 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 45. Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Josephus Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez 24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 46. Luchas de gangsters provocan una intensa tragedia a balazos en la Avenida F.I. Madero Excelsior, 14 January 1934; Urrutia report to Ambassador Josephus Daniels which was enclosed by Ambassador Daniels in his letter to the American Embassy in Mexico City, 8 December 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 47. Jurez Police Open Drive on Dope Ring, Eight are Arrested El Paso Herald, 14 August 1930. 48. Jos Lpez to Ambassador Josephus Daniels, 5 March, 1934. UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, roll 34. 49. McMurray list included in Requena to Salubridad Pblica 20 July 1931, AHSS, SJ Box 28, Ex 6.
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tion probably joined this tier in the Quevedo gang after Jess Quevedo won them over by reinstating their employment early during his municipal presidency.50 The main activity of members in this tier was short-term and shortdistance smuggling and selling. Members in both gangs smuggled drugs across the border, where transaction sometimes occurred in the Concordia Cemetery in El Paso after dusk.51 Though sellers approached people in the open, most deals occurred in the sellers homes, and in casinos, bars and brothels along both sides of the border.52 Drugs, Gambling, and Politics The governor of Chihuahua collected enough evidence in 1927 to convict Fernndez and his brothers Antonio and Simn with trafficking drugs on a large scale and send them to the Islas Maras penitentiary.53 But Fernndez was not incarcerated because he contacted an important politician who pulled a few strings and immediately returned him to Jurez.54 It is likely that the obliging politician was Lus Len, who allegedly had a friendship with Fernndez, had held several political positions ranging from the director of the Sonoran State Agricultural Department to the Federal Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and was serving on the National Committee of the PNR.55 Fernndez would become an important figure in the Luis Len faction in northern Chihuahua, and supported Len when he and Andrs Ortiz disagreed irreconcilably over agrarian matters during Ortizs gubernatorial term in 1930. Once he controlled the Jurez narcotic trade in the late 1920s, it did not take long for Fernndez to gain enough informal political power to get his men elected to the municipal government. The internal election to name the candidate of the PNR, held at the Jurez Jockey Club on September 8, 1929, was fixed by his gang from the start. The commander of the Jurez garrison was in charge of placing the soldiers as close to the polls as permissible to ensure vigilance. He was thought to be in50. New Regime Has Control in Jurez, El Paso Herald, 15 August 1930, p1, 5. 51. Langston, Impact, 270. 52. Representative of Mexican Government in Ciudad Jurez Investigating Narcotic Traffic. Blocker to SS, 23 April 1931, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 33. 53. Fernndez si es que no debe delito alguno, por qu lo ha perseguido la justicia? 20 December 1934, UTEPSC, MS 145 J. J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez; Jos Lpez to Ambassador Josephus Daniels, 5 March 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 54. Marshall Hail, Enrique Fernndez, UTEPSC, MS 145 J. J. Middagh Papers Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 55. Requena to SP, 20 July 1931, AHSS,SJ, Box28, Ex 6, 1931; Roderic Camp, Mexican Political Biographies, 19351993, 3rd ed., Austin, 1995, 39091.
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volved in narcotics and was no stranger to Enrique Fernndez.56 After the polls closed a member of the Fernndez gang was one of two men chosen to represent the PNR in formally announcing which candidate the official party in Chihuahua would back. Predictably, Gustavo Flores, the candidate whom Fernndez supported and who was noted as being one of the principal traffickers in the Fernndez gang, won the election for the municipal presidency, and just as predictably, did not seem to win honestly.57 The local press reported that he was an unpopular candidate who had been placed by Fernndez and Luis Len, and an agent of the Mexican Public Health Department wrote that Flores committed several outrages, including freeing prisoners, forming them into flying columnsand then letting them loose to take over voting booths and to harass supporters of the opposing party.58 Under Gustavo Flores, Fernndez and his gang continued to enjoy immunity and political influence. Members of the Fernndez gang received favors from Flores, which probably aided their contributions to the gang.59 When Gustavo Flores rose to power, one journalist remarked, the business of Fernndez prospered notably. The racketeers were not persecuted because they were in power . . . they even placed judges and mayors for the benefit of their maniobras and works.60 In addition to Flores himself, several men in his municipal administration were involved heavily in narcotics between 1925 and 1938. One of the substitute councilors was charged with smuggling in 1938 while he was municipal president.61 The police chief was a friend of Fernndezs, his
56. Memorandum al Sr. Presidente de Ciudad Jurez 7August 1930 Ulises Irigoyen to President Ortiz Rubio, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, Box 39, Ex 230 (1930); Corona Protests Election, Wants Acting Mayor Named After Jan. 1, El Paso Herald, 18 November 1929. 57. McMurray List included in Requena to Salubridad Pblica, 20 July 1931, AHSS,SJ, Box 28, Ex 6 Se discutira un Dictamina, El Continental, 12 September 1929; Corona Protests Election, Wants Acting Mayor Named After Jan. 1, EPH, 18 November 1929; Fernndez se es que no debe delito alguno, por qu lo ha perseguido la justicia? 20 December, 1934, UTEPSC, MS 145 John J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147. 58. Fernndez se es que no debe delito alguno, por qu lo ha perseguido la justicia? 20 December, 1934, UTEPSC, MS 145 John J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147; Memorandum para el C. Gobernador del Estado, sobre las condiciones que prevalecen en Ciudad Jurez, Chihuahua. Rosales to Barrn, 18 August 1930. AGN, Ortiz Rubio, Box 39, Ex 230 (1930). 59. Flores to whom it may concern, 23 January 1930, AMCJ, Ramo de gobernacin, correspondencia particular, Meses de enero, febrero, marzo y abril 1930, #1101, Year Box 1930, number 660 1101,1102. 60. Fernndez si es que no debe delito alguno, por qu lo ha perseguido la justicia? 20 December, 1934, UTEPSC, MS145 J. J. Middagh papers, Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 61. File note regarding Jos Borunda in Ciudad Jurez, 12 January 1938, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34.
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occasional bodyguard, and, on at least one occasion, waited for a morphine shipment at the Jurez train station with Gustavo Flores.62 Jess Quevedo, the councilor of Salubridad y Beneficia, would become one of the leaders of the Quevedo gang. Another councilor would later participate in the Quevedo gang. The Jefe de las Comisiones de Seguridad was a third- or fourth-tier member in the Fernndez gang. Dr. Daniel Quiroz, a doctor on the town council and a future municipal president, would also join the Quevedo gang.63 They were thus willing to abuse their office, either by exploiting their power or by willfully neglecting their public duties, something that even concerned President Ortiz Rubio. He stated in a telegram to Governor Almada in July 1930: . . . the municipal administration of Ciudad Jurez is in the hands of persons who do little honor to their positions [by virtue of being persons of ] bad antecedents, vice-ridden and underhanded they traffic in drugs.64 As gang members and their cronies achieved power in Jurez, Fernndez reached the peak of his political influence: he was said to be all powerful along the frontier. According to several sources, he used his connections and money to direct state politics when he backed the campaign of Andrs Ortiz and got him elected to the governorship of Chihuahua. During the spring and summer of 1930, Ortiz was on good terms with Luis Len and thus enjoyed the Chihuahuan agrarians support. It seems that Ortiz knew that Fernndez was recognized as a promoter of candidates and magnificent in his donations, so it was arranged for Fernndez to go to Ciudad Chihuahua several times to meet the candidate. On one occasion, Fernndez was said to have given him a total of 25,000 pesos.65 It was reported that he also sent 10,000 pesos to buy several deputies on August 9, 1930 so that the State Legislature would declare Ortiz the victor, which it did three days later.66 In his letter to Ambassador Josephus Daniels, businessman Jos Lpez wrote that the 1930 gubernatorial election illustrated that Fernndez and his drug gang
62. Luis Medina Barron, report, 18 July 1930, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, Box 39, Ex 230; Thousands at Depot When Fernndezs Body Arrives 18 January 1934, UTEPSC, MS 145 John J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147. 63. Armando B. Chvez M., Jefes polticos del Districto Bravos y presidentes de municipio de Jurez 18971960, Mexico, 1959, 271; McMurray List included in Requena to Salubridad Pblica, 20 July 1931, AHSS,SJ, Box 28, Ex 6; Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Josephus Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez 24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 1930 39, Roll 34; 64. Ortiz Rubio to Almada, 24 July 1930, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, caja 39, expediente 230 1930. 65. Lpez to Daniels, 5 March 1934, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 66. Eduardo Hernndez to Governor Almada, 12 August 1930, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, caja 39, expediente 230 .
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controlled even public affairs, as the highest officials and the lowliest employees shared in the abundant and inexhaustible funds of the splendid magnate of the Jurez gang. [This occurred for ] every political campaign whether it was for the re-election of the municipal councils of Jurez, Guadalupe, San Ignacio, . . . or in the elections of deputies and senators by the state of Chihuauha, and still more for elections for Governor of the state of Chihuahua . . .67 The Flores administration was ousted on August 1, 1930 and replaced by five Juarense businessmen who governed Jurez as a junta municipal. 68 Their intent to clean up the Jurez drug trade shed more light on the Flores administration and the extent of Fernndezs informal political power. A few days after they took charge, over one hundred people, many of whom had been hired under the Flores administration, either were fired or resigned from their jobs. Many were involved with narcotics. One of those fired was the director of the jail who had been charged with possession only a few months earlier.69 The Agente del Ministerio Pblico remarked that his desk was overflowing with indictments. In the two weeks that it held office the zealous junta reported more morphine crimes than had been reported in the previous two years.70 But the reform was temporary. Jesus Quevedo, appointed municipal president by the governor in mid-August, began his political rise and used his newfound power to start building his rival drug gang by rehiring those who the junta fired. He also protected people involved in narcotics by deliberately overlooking their activities. One of the federal sanitary agents sent by the federal government to get information about the Jurez drug scene complained that none of the persecutory methods are effective because the very same municipal authorities tolerate and protect the traffickers.71 The municipal police were no exception. One of Quevedos first orders was to replace the moralist police chief who the junta municipal had appointed with one of the Quevedo allies.72 Only four days into Quevedos administration, Consul Luis Barrn complained that everything has returned to its original state . . . the drug
67. Lpez to Daniels, 5 March 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 68. Governor Escobar Appoints Advisory Board to Rule Jurez City Government. 2 August 1930, El Paso Herald; Blocker to Secretary of State, Political Conditions in the Ciudad Jurez Consular District, 1 August 1930, Internal Affairs 193039, roll 8. 69. Indice del Legajo de Gobernacin 14 August 1930, AMCJ, box no. 654, Book, Augusto 1930. 70. Almeida to Escobar, 15 August 1930, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, caja 39, expediente 230 (1930). 71. Rosales to Barrn, 18 August 1930, included in Barrn to Ortiz Rubio, 20 August 1930, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, Caja 39, expediente 230 (1930). 72. New Regime Has Control in Jurez, 15 August 1930, El Paso Herald, Pineda; Ciudad Jurez est en calma, El Excelsior, 20 August 1930.
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dealers are dealing almost publicly and the councilors and their friends enjoy this situation.73 Although Jess Quevedo used his position to start building his own drug gang, Fernndez did not take any action against him. He may have felt that he still had the upper hand, which, in fact, seemed to be the case. Through part of 1931, Fernndezs gang was the more powerful of the two, not to mention that Fernndez had more money. Rodrigo Quevedo was alleged to have sought Fernndez for a loan of over 130,000 pesos to help his political career. In exchange, Fernndez received a great deal of immunity; any official, wrote Jos Lpez, who received assistance and money from Fernndez for his election, assumed an obligation to aid him later in his activities, assure his impunity, cover up his contraband business, and tolerate everything that the contraband chief might do.74 Furthermore during the summer of 1931, Fernndez had at his service, six politicos who cared for him day and night.75 Perhaps these included the Quevedo brothers. In addition, the Quevedos and Fernndez were on the same political side. At the time of Ortizs election in July 1930, the Luis Len faction dominated state politics, and both Fernndez and the Quevedos were all allies of Ortiz, Len and Calles and they had won the good graces of Governor Almada, one of the leading figures of the Len faction in the state.76 The Quevedos and Fernndez were also in the gambling business together. In January 1931 Fernndez joined Manuel Llantada, an exgovernor of Nayarit who was an ally of the Quevedos (though never a member of their drug gang), in managing the Tivoli casino. At this time it was easy for Fernndez to get a concession for the Tivoli; after all, Ortiz had to show his appreciation for Fernndezs help in getting him elected. And in light of the financial help he had given Rodrigo Quevedo, it made sense that Fernndez and Llantada would share management of the casino. Within a few months of being awarded possession of the gambling concession along with Llantada, Fernndez found himself in a very difficult situation, one which would mark the beginning of his downfall. In March 1931, Govenor Ortiz and Luis Len disagreed over agrarian matters, causing Ortiz to travel frequently to Mexico City in hopes of sal73. Barrn to Hernndez, 19 August 1930, AGN, Ortiz Rubio, caja 39, expediente 230 (1930). 74. Lpez to Daniels, 5 March 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 75. Requena to C. Jefe del Depto de Salubridad Pblica, 20 July 1931, AHSS, SJ, caja 28, expediente 6 1931. 76. Political Conditions in the Ciudad Jurez Consular District, Blocker to SS, 15 August 1930, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 8.
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vaging his political position. Jos Lpez reported that heavy expenses caused Ortiz to seek support from Fernndez who, this time, brusquely refused his request for 35,000 pesos.77 Given that Fernndez had been one of the unofficial leaders of the leonistas in northern Chihuahua, he probably decided to side with Len. But Fernndez calculated badly. In early September, Ortiz feigned ignorance of Fernndezs dominance of the Jurez drug scene and rescinded Fernndezs share of the Tivoli concession after publicly discoveringthat he was the narcotic king of Ciudad Jurez. Manuel Llantada then received the entire concession and paid Fernndez 50,000 pesos, a meager reimbursement for all of the Tivolis expensive gambling equipment.78 Around the same time, an editorial campaign criticizing Ortizs encouragement of gambling appeared in the El Paso Times. Whether or not Fernndez was actually behind it, Ortiz blamed him.79 In meetings, Ortiz began to speak contemptuously of Fernndez and it was rumored in 1931 that he wanted to have him assassinated.80 Although Ortizs overt hostility toward Fernndez was probably personal, his actions fit his pattern of ousting all the loyal Leonistas from the state government. Once Fernndez was out of the Tivoli management, Ortiz (who had been the third partner all along81) and Llantada were left as the only partners. The Quevedos, for their part, had sided with Ortiz, and it was believed that they used their alliance with him as an opportunity to gain the upper hand on Fernndez. Jesus Quevedo and Ortiz seemed to have conspired to burn down the Mint Caf, which Fernndez had continued to co-manage, on September 13.82 Like his business, his leadership of the drug trade, and his involvement in Jurez gambling, his immunity and informal political power would be destroyed in a short while. Ortiz would not last either. The Quevedos were not content to share power with him, political or otherwise. Desiring to establish their political dynasty, Rodrigo Quevedo managed to get President Ortiz Rubio and Jefe Mximo Calles to force Governor Ortizs resignation on No77. Lpez to Daniels, 5 March 1934, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 78. Resume of Gambling Bridge Controversy at Ciudad Jurez, Mexico, Blocker to SS, 25 September 1931, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 46. 79. Blocker to Secretary of State, 20 August 1931, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 46. Further Details Regarding the Gambling Situation in JurezBlocker to SS, 20 August 1931, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 46. Resume of Gambling and Bridge Controversy at Ciudad Jurez, Mexico Blocker to SS, 25 September 1931, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 46; Langston, Impact, 164. 80. Fernndez to Puentes, 1 August 1931, AGN, Gobernacin, Andrs Ortiz Gobernador del Estado de Chihuahua (1925) 2.384. (6)/21 (1931). 81. Wasserman, Oligarchs, 58. 82. Incendario, Diputado Arriola and five others, AGN, Gobernacin, Andrs Ortiz Gobernador de Estado de Chihuahua, (1925) 2.384 (6)/21 (1931).
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vember 2, 1931. An interim governor replaced him for two weeks while the PNR scrambled to find someone to take over for the rest of Ortizs term.83 Meanwhile Fernndez had been working toward a favorable outcome in the November 1931 election for municipal president. He personally financed all of his candidates campaign expenditures, who was apparently not involved with narcotics. But Jess Quevedo, who enjoyed more support from the PNR and who had been courting the Jurez underworld continuously, easily won the November election. Fernndez enjoyed a final surge of power before his influence in the drug trade, gambling business and politics was extinguished. Colonel Roberto Fierro was appointed governor with the initial approval of the Quevedos on the assumption that he would follow their orders. But during Fierros eight-month administration, he favored Fernndez over the Quevedos: Fernndez received tax exemptions in exchange for his continuing financial assistance to the state.84 On March 3, 1932, Fierro gave Fernndez complete control over Jurez gambling, and Fernndez in turn advanced the state treasury 100,000 pesos for workers who had not been paid in February.85 Fierro would not last as governor, for in addition to favoring Fernndez, he had ousted several quevedistas from state political positions. By this time, Rodrigo Quevedo, who had won the gubernatorial election, was determined to put an ally in the gubernatorial seat until he became governor. The local quevedista deputies, led by Jos Borunda E., accused Fierro of appropriating funds, deposed him on 4 July 1932, and elected a quevedista to the position.86 Once Rodrigo Quevedo became governor, and once Jess and Jos Quevedo seized the city hall in Jurez in the summer of 1932 and declared war on Fernndez, Fernndez found he had nowhere to turn.87
83. Luis Aboites, De Almeida a Quevedo: Lucha Poltica en Chihuahua, 1927 1932,in Ricardo Len Garca, (ed.) Actas del Segundo Congreso de Historia Regional comparada 1990, Ciudad Jurez, 1991. 84. Fernndez si es que no debe delito alguno, por qu lo ha perseguido la justicia? 20 December 1934, UTEPSC, MS 145 J. J. Middagh Papers Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 85. Political Conditions in the Ciudad Jurez Consular District for the Month of March 1932, 31 March 1931, Farnsworth to SS, UTABL,Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 8; Langston, Impact, 167. 86. Styles to Secretary of State, 5 July 1932, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 8. Pedro Antillon, Crnicas Chihuahenses: de la conquista al Cardenismo, Mexico, 1992, 254258. In Gobernadores del Estado de Chihuahua, ex-governor Francisco Almada, also a historian of Chihuahua, claims that Fierros deposal was unjust, for he had not taken a penny . . . Almada, Gobernadores, 579. 87. Astorga, Organized Crime, 69.
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In August 1932 he appealed in person to President Ortiz Rubio for assistance, but to no avail. Not only did Fernndez return to Jurez emptyhanded, but police sent by Jess Quevedo, now mayor of Jurez, arrested and charged him with violating state gaming laws: he was operating the Gold Palace Casino despite that Manuel Llantada had been granted exclusive rights on gambling in Jarez.88 Though he was released thirty minutes later, this was the first time he was arrested. Weeks later, he was forced to return the concession to the state, and it was bestowed on Llantada.89 Fernndez faded from politics and retreated to another one of his businesses, a shoe store named La Mexicana, where he continued being active in the Jurez drug trade from the backroom for his remaining two years.90 About the same time, the Quevedo drug gang was reported to have begun aggressively challenging the Fernndez gangs supremacy in the Jurez narcotic trade. It was described that
the police of that town took drugs away from Fernndezs smugglers, and once those drugs had been confiscated, the Chief of Police himself, instead of having them turned over to the Health Officer in Jurez, delivered them to Jos Quevedo by express order from Jess, the mayor. [. . .] the Quevedos gang was growing constantly and the Fernndez gang was declining.91
In late 1933 Governor Quevedo sent members of the state police force to Jurez, ostensibly to clean up the drug trade there, but more likely to get rid of Fernndezs gang and his hold on gambling.92 Several articles in the local papers described how three large men wearing sombreros and leather jackets and riding in a red Ford, attacked, killed, and buried members of Fernndezs gang in La Piedrera, a lonely boulderstrewn desert wasteland four miles south of Jurez. The first to be found at La Piedrera was Luis Kuan, a Chinese Tong leader who was Fernndezs chief link to Mexico City.93 During 1933 and 1934, there were between thirty and forty murders, and some of the deceased were mentioned in the McMurray list or associated with persons on it.94 Meanwhile the authorities, many of whom by this time had been co-opted by the
88. Blocker to Secretary of State, 11 August 1932, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 46; Langston, Impact, 1712. 89. Langston, Impact, 1712. 90. Hail, Fernndez, MS 145. 91. Jos Lpez to Ambassador Josephus Daniels, 5 March, 1934, Internal Affairs 1930 39, roll 34. 92. Hail, Fernndez, MS145. Langston includes some details about Enrique Fernndezs demise in Langston, Impact, 173176. 93. Hail, Fernndez. 94. McMurray list included in Requena to Salubridad Pblica 20 July 1931, AHSS, SJ Box 28, Ex 6; Number of murders: Wasserman, Oligarchs, 102.
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Quevedos, seemed permanently neutral and tolerated the actions of the three men.95 Attempting to maintain his gangs supremacy in the Jurez underworld, Fernndez tried to scatter money by the handful and pull strings. But his attempts were in vain because everything failed before the influence and power of the Quevedo brothers. It was reported that the Quevedos learned that Fernndez intended to expose them as the greatest exploiters of the border drug traffick, so they told several of their men, including the state police chief from Chihuahua City, to spy on Fernndez.96 Once they learned that Fernndez had traveled to Mexico City to collect the evidence necessary to make formal accusations against them, it is likely that they concluded that Fernndez would have to be killed quickly if they were to achieve complete control over the Jurez drug trade and gambling enterprise.97 An attempt on Fernndezs life occurred on December 4, 1933.98 He was walking home from his shoe store along 16 September Street with his son when several gunshots wounded him.99 Both he and his son reported that the shots came from a red car, which Fernndez suspected was the same used by the men who were murdering members of his gang.100 When Marshall Hail, a journalist and an acquaintance of Fernndezs, spoke to the men at the Hotel Koper (where the red Ford was parked in full view) they admitted they were special police officers sent from the state capital to clean up narcotics gangs, but they denied any connection with the attack or with the gang.101 The incident convinced Fernndez that he had to campaign against the Quevedos and, as he put it, appeal personally to the president of Mexico for protection.102 One of Fernndezs friends told a local newspaper that Fernndez told him he was worried that the Quevedos
95. Ciudad Jurez, Detectives, 15 January 1934, UTEPSC, MS 145, J. J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 96. Lpez to Ambassador Josephus Daniels, 5 March, 1934, Internal Affairs 1930 39, roll 34. 97. Report on Governor of Chihuahua, General Rodrigo Quevedo, 22 January 1936, Centro de Estudios Historicos de la Revolucin Mexicana, Lzaro Crdenas, Jiquilpan, Fondo Mgica Vol 61,Doc. 4. 98. Ibid., Merchant Names Three Men He Says Tried to Take his Life 5 December, 1933, UTEPSC, MS145, J. J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez.; Enrique Fernndez asegura que sabe quin lo hiri anoche, 5 December, 1933, El Continental. 99. Langston, Impact, 173; Hail, Fernndez, MS145. 100. Ciudad Jurez, Detectives, UTEPSC, MS 145 J. J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez.; Enrique Fernndez asegura que sabe quin lo hiri anoche, 5 December, 1933, El Continental. 101. Hail, Fernndez, MS145. 102. Blocker to Secretary of State, 18 January 1934, Internal Affairs 193039; January 14, and 15, 1934, El Paso Times; Fernndez quoted in Gunmen in Mexico City to
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wanted to kill me in Chihuahua because I was going to reveal the secrets of the international rum-running, drug smuggling, and gambling rackets in Jurez.103 Marshall Hail explained in his report that Fernndez hoped to convince powerful politicians that he himself was not the gang leader of the north, but that certain of his enemies carried on the operation for which he was given credit . . . it was an audacious plan. If successful, [Fernndez] would be left without a rival on the border.104 Fernndez left for Mexico City in January 1934 disguised as a railway worker but did not get far without the Quevedosspy network noticing.105 One of the personal aides of Governor Quevedo and one of the members of the Quevedo gang both boarded the same train Fernndez was riding in Chihuahua City. After realizing that Fernndez suspected them, they got off in Guanajuato, were joined by a bully, and caught a later train. Meanwhile, several Jurez police officers, and Jos and Guillermo Quevedo had arrived at the Cosmos Hotel in Mexico City said to be one of the Quevedo gangs centers there.106 Aware of being shadowed, Fernndez hired a friend who had been an inspector of police in Chihuahua to protect him.107 But this did not help. On the afternoon of January 13, 1934, both men were shot on the corner of Teatro Nacional and Avenida Madero. Fernndez died that evening in the Red Cross Hospital.108 The documents that Fernndez supposedly had in his coat pocket that he hoped would incriminate the Quevedos disappeared, and it was later discovered that court and police records about Jurez criminality, which probably concerned the Quevedos and members of their gang, had vanished as well.109 A month later, an ex-police officer from Jurez named Jos Barragn Snchez admitted accepting 5,000 pesos to kill Fernndez, but did not disclose the identity of those who had
Avenge Shootings of Enrique Fernndez, 31 January 1934, MS 145 J. J. Middagh Papers Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 103. Asserts Slain Merchant Fled from Border Because of Plot on Life, MS 145 John J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147. 104. Hair, Fernndez, MS 145. 105. Edward Langston included a few details about Fernndezs final days in Langston, Impact, 17475. 106. Lpez to Daniels, 5 March 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 107. Fernndez vino a hacer sensacional declaraciones, Excelsior, 15 January 1934, 4; Jos Barragan Snchez Mat al Hampon Enrique Fernndez Por Questiones Personales, La Semana, 16 January 1934.; Sangriento drama en Madero 14 January, 1934, MS 145 John J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147. 108. Sangriento drama en Madero, 14 January, 1934, UTEPSC, MS 145, J. J. Middagh Papers, Box 12, Folder 147 Enrique Fernndez. 109. Barragan Snchez confiesa que recibi mil pesos para matar a Fernndez, El Continental, 2 February, 1934, 1.
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hired him.110 The Quevedos were accused of being behind the operation; in his testimony Gil Snchez reported that he saw one of the men Rodrigo Quevdo sent to clean up the trade and Barragn together in a car parked outside the hotel where Fernndez was staying.111 According to the U.S. vice consul in Chihuahua City the consensus of local opinion is that there is no doubt that Messrs. Quevedo, with the tacit support of their brother and governor, are engaged in liquor and drug smuggling and were responsible for the murder of Fernndez.112 The Quevedos vehemently denied all the allegations.113 Writing soon after Fernndezs death, businessman Jos Lpez explained to Ambassador Daniels that the Quevedos are now the masters of the field [of narcotics] and, certainly since the death of Fernndez, the most powerful dealers along the whole northern boundary of the country.114 Little changed in the next two years, for in January 1936, one of the Quevedo brothers in Jurez, probably Jos, was recorded as being the largest exporter of illicit narcotic drugs operating in that section of Mexico115 Securing political control had proven crucial to the Quevedos being able to dominate the Jurez drug trade. When Jos was elected municipal president, the Quevedos exercised electoral fraud, which in turn enabled them to fix each Jurez municipal administration probably through all the typical methods of multiple voting, buying votes, counting improperly, intimidations and harassment. It appears that they arranged for the municipal administrations to include men involved in narcotics, who, if they were not part of the gang, would at least look the other way. While serving as municipal president in 1932, Jess Quevedo named a member of the Quevedo gang as councilor of the police.116 The councilor who oversaw education had been charged with smuggling only months before his appointment.117 Dr. Daniel Quiroz Reyes, a member of the Quevedo gang, was the city health officer and the Quevedoscho110. Barragan Snchez confiesa que recib cinco mil pesos por matar a Fernndez, El Continental, 2 February 1934. 111. El Gobernador Quevedo fue mencionado en el crimen que se achaca al hampa de Ciudad Jurez, La Prensa ,19 January, 1934, 1. 112. Enclosure No. 2 to Despatch no. 4178, Ambassador Josephus Daniels to Secretary of State, 8 December, 1936, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 113. Langston, Impact, 175. 114. Lpez to Daniels, 5 March, 1934. UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, roll 34. 115. J.J. Biggins, Treasury Department District Supervisor to H. J. Anslinger, Commissioner of Narcotics, 8 January 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 116. Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 117. Document file note by Clark, 28 April 1932, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 33.
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sen candidate to succeed Jess.118 During Dr. Quirozs administration (19341936), one gang member who left the Fernndez gang to be part of the Quevedo gang was put in charge of the police.119 The next municipal president was Jos Quevedo, who held office between 1936 and 1937. He filled the council with an unprecedented number of officials involved in narcotics. Jos was also on the Consejo de Distrito Electoral para Supremos Poderes del Estado. His brother Jess was also on that Consejo, as well as on the Consejo de Distrito Electoral para eleccin de Supremos Poderes Federales. Another member of the Quevedo gang was in charge of Salubridad y Beneficia, and belonged to the Electoral Municipal Council. Dr. Quiroz Reyes was the head of the Board of Health, a member of the Consejo para Supremos Poderes Federales, and a leading voice on the Consejo para Supremos Poderes del Estado. A member of the Fernndez gang was the Presidente de la Seccin Municipal de Zaragoza and another was one of the men on the Consejo para Supremos Poderes Federales. A third member of the Fernndez gang was on the Consejo Electoral Municipal. Finally, one of the major traffickers in the Fernndez gang was on the Consejo Municipal para elecciones de Supremos Poderes del Estado.120 The Quevedos also found a way around anti-drug legislation. Circumventing laws became easier when the councilors in charge of police were members of the gang, as in Jess Quevedos and Quirozs administrations. By having several mdicos in the Quevedo gang and in local administrationsnote that Dr. Quirz participated in every municipal administrationthe gang continued to acquire a steady stream of narcotics.121 But the Quevedos in Jurez had not achieved their power alone; their excellent connections to Ciudad Chihuahua were crucial. Rodrigo Quevedo became governor in October 1932.122 It was alleged that Gov118. Chvez, M., Jefes, 29394, 30001; Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez 24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 119. Chvez M., Jefes, 307; McMuray list included in Requena to Salubridad Pblica 20 July 1931, AHSS,SJ Box 28, Ex 6; Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez 24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 120. Chvez M., Jefes, 31315. McMuray list included in Requena to Salubridad Pblica 20 July 1931, AHSS,SJ Box 28, Ex 6; Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez 24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34. 121. Francisco Urrutia to Ambassador Daniels, List of Persons Connected with the Narcotic Trade and Places Where Narcotics Are Sold in Ciudad Jurez24 September 1936, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 34 122. Wasserman, Oligarchs, p 567.
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ernor Quevedo and other state officials protected his familys drug gang in addition to their liquor and gambling enterprises.123 Rodrigos subordinates in the state government were said to have begun taking money from the Quevedos in March of 1934 in return for protecting them. This proved useful when rumors of the Quevedosinvolvement in Fernndezs murder circulated in Jurez, Ciudad Chihuahua and Mexico City because the officials prevented full light from being shed on the case of [the assassin,] Barragn Snchez. . . . In addition, the Quevedos were able to censor both state and local newspapers so that the newspapers ceased their campaign against vices and the narcotics traffic of Ciudad Jurez, for that is what suits the interest of the Quevedos, and they prevent it being known who are the important dealers in this dirty business . . .124 Despite their efforts, allegations of their involvement could not be kept quiet. The May 9, 1936 edition of La Prensa ran a letter naming Rodrigo as the protector of Jos Quevedos illicit trafficking in opiates.125 During the last part of Rodrigo Quevedos governorship, public allegations charged him with drug trafficking.126 Lzaro Crdenas had been made aware of the accusations regarding Rodrigos involvement in the Jurez drug trade during his presidency. The Grupos Libertarios del Estado de Chihuahua, an anti-quevedista group, supplied him with a list of several complaints against Rodrigo Quevedo, among them that he permitted drug trafficking through family networks.127 By the mid-1930s, the Quevedos had become very unpopular with most sectors of society. Governor Rodrigo Quevedo was unpopular with labor; he opposed the Chihuahuan chapter of the CTM while he was governor.128 He was also unpopular with the campesinos. Though he doled out resources for existing ejidos, he had never advocated the ejidal model, especially after Calless condemnation of the ejido in 1930.129 Given that
123. Louis Mazzeo, American Vice Consul to Secretary of State, 31 January 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 8;Grupos Libertarios to President Lzaro Crdenas, 11 June 1936, CEHRMLC, Jiquilpan, fondo Mjica, Vol. 61, doc. 10; Astorga, Organized Crime, 69, 124. Lpez to Daniels, 5 March 1934, Internal Affairs 193039, roll 34. 125. Astorga, Organized Crime, 69. 126. Political Conditions in Chihuahua During the Month of May 1935, Blohm to Secretary of State, 31 May 1935, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 8. 127. Granted the writers had an angle: they wanted to make sure that quevedista influence would stop, and they did not want Talamantes as the next governor because they thought that he was a puppet of Quevedos. However, it is significant that they complained about Rodrigo Quevedos connection to narcotics among their other complaints. Grupos Libertarios to Crdenas, 11 June 1936, Centro de Estudios Historicos de la Revolucin Mexicana, Lzaro Crdenas, Jiquilpan, fondo Mjica, Vol. 61, doc. 10. 128. Wasserman, Oligarchs, 59; Luis Aboites, Breve Historia de Chihuahua, (Mexico, 1994) 154. 129. Wasserman, Oligarchs, 57.
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Governor Quevedo was more concerned with amassing properties than incorporating peasants into the nation, it is not surprising that agrarian reform slowed. There were agrarian protests throughout his administration, the largest occurring in July 1935 when hundreds of ejidatarios demonstrated against him and accused him of oppressing workers, [and practicing] great favoritism to capitalism.130 According to a U.S. consular report, when Rodrigo Quevedos gubernatorial term ended, there was jubilation, [and] immense rejoicing, because at last members of the sinister Quevedo clan will cease to oppress and exploit the state.131 The Quevedos were probably not regarded well by President Crdenas. During his administration, the political tide turned. From the beginning of his presidency, Crdenas was more pro-agrarian and pro-labor than Calles. Governor Quevedo, like Calles and like the rest of the Quevedos, was a conservative landed capitalist; thus he opposed radical agrarian reform and distrusted labor unions. Nevertheless, he was prudent enough to go through the motions of complying with cardenismo, and for that reason he finished his term.132 Quevedo did not fight the establishment the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration of Ciudad Jurez, for example.133 But Crdenas probably knew that Quevedo made several trips across the border while he was governor to see Calles during the purification (that is, purge of callismo) of the party during 1935 and 1936.134 The change of federal authority from Calles (during the maximato) to Crdenas also affected expectations for public morality. Unlike Calles, who was a principal stockholder in one of the largest casinos in Mexico City and in the Aguascalientes resort in Baja California during the maximato, Crdenas seemed to have been relatively honest in his personal life and professional affairs.135 The virtues which Crdenas was known to have cultivated in himself, among them sobriety, responsibility and diligence, he tried to promote in Mexican society, especially among workers and campesinos. During the radical phase of his administration, one of the ways he did this was through socialist education, but he also attacked gambling directly. He did not content himself
130. Ibid., 59. 131. US report quoted. Ibid., 60. 132. Ibid., 59. 133. Antillon, Crnicas, 355; Luis Aboites, Breve Historia de Chihuahua, Mexico DF,1994, 153. 134. Grupos Libertarios to President Lzaro Crdenas, 11 June 1936, CEHRMLC, Vol. 61, doc. 10. 135. Political Situation in the Ciudad Jurez Consular DistrictBlocker to SS, 19 December 1934, UTABL, Internal Affairs 193039, Roll 46. Alan Knight, Cardenismo, Juggernaut or Jalopy?, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 26, 1994, 80.
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with simply mandating the reforms that, though well-intentioned, had proven ultimately unsuccessful during the maximato. He banned gambling early in December 1934. But his reform was unsuccessful at the local level.136 Jos Quevedo still managed Jurez gambling until Rodrigo Quevedo left office. Thus, games were still played, although presumably more discreetly. But profits were already precarious before Crdenas outlawed gambling. The legalization of beer sales in El Paso in April 1933 and the end of Prohibition in early 1934 put much of Jurez tourism out of business.137 The Quevedos would never again wield as much formal political power as they did during part of the 1930s. This was due in part to the changed national tide: no more faithful callistas, (even those who, like the Quevedos, had not openly challenged Crdenas) remained in significant positions of political power. It was also due to local circumstances: their unpopularity, their failure to make good on campaign promises, and the new governor, Gustavo Talamantes. Although he took control of gambling and was supposedly behind the murder and jailing of several agrarian leaders he presented himself as an active cardenista by declaring his hatred for Calles and by incorporating peasants and workers into the PRM.138 However, the Quevedos still retained some formal political strength. Governor Talamantes only managed to oust Jos Quevedo from the municipal presidency on April 1 with the help of federal troops; and for the first two weeks that Talamantess man was formally recognized as municipal president, the council led by Quevedo still functioned.139 In addition, the PRM conceded the quevedistas (including Guillermo and Lorenzo) several deputy seats in the senate in May 1937.140 Furthermore, some of the Quevedos surfaced sporadically in politics and the military in subsequent decades; and through the 1970s they held a substantial amount of cattle and land.141 Less than a year after Rodrigo Quevedo left office, the family lost
136. Wasserman, Oligarchs, 58. 137. Langston, Impact, 239. 138. Wasserman, Oligarchs, p 61, 63, 141. Under him, the Chihuahuan agrarian reform reached its zenith. See:Noe Palomares, Propietarios Norteamericanos y Reforma Agraria en Chihuahua 19171942, Ciudad Jurez, 1991, 15. While he was Governor, Talamantes was the Secretary of Agrarian Action of the National Executive Committee of the PNR, and also the President of the Agrarian Commission of the State of Chihuahua. Roderic Camp, Mexican Political Biographies 19351975, Arizona, 1976, 312. 139. Chvez M., Jefes, 31819. 140. Wasserman, Oligarchs, 61. By the time Jos Quevedo relinquished power he was ill, so he registered at the Hospital Militar in Mexico City and later died there. See: Chvez, M. Jefes, 320. 141. Chvez M., Jefes, p 31819; Charles Hershberger, The Death of Borunda, Alcalde of Ciudad Jurez, Chihuahuan Politics During the 1930s, Arizona and the West, The
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the power they had acquired in the drug trade and gambling. Gustavo Talamantes took over Jurez gambling and in El Universal, the head of the Department of Health referred to Jurez as possibly the most dangerous center where traffickers operate, and noted that they are corrupted by newcomer Allende El Bravos gangsterism and defend their trafficking with gunfire.142 Conclusion There were important differences between the ways Fernndez and the Quevedo brothers became politically powerful. For the Quevedos, it was not until they dominated local and state politics, achieved enough power to buy off state officials, censored the local press, and either coopted or killed Fernndez gang members that they secured outright dominance of the drug scene. The Quevedos used their already existent political influence to gain control of the Jurez drug trade and gambling, and in turn, used the resultant revenue and connections to maintain their control over Jurez gambling and continue advancing their control over both politics and the drug trade between 1930 and 1936. As for Enrique Fernndez, only after becoming the uncontested force in the Jurez drug trade did he influence politics and acquire control over gambling, if only for a brief time. Unlike the Quevedos, Fernndez never held a political office. But he did become informally politically powerful because he had been so successful in his dealings in drugs. This article shed new light on the history of the drug trade in Ciudad Jurez by sketching the structure of the gangs and recounting their battle for leadership of the trade. Furthermore, in detailing and analyzing the continuities and changes in the connection between the drug gangs and local and state politics, it showed how politics affected the drug gangs and at the same time clarified the political histories of Ciudad Jurez and the state of Chihuahua. It thus added a new facet onto the argument Mark Wasserman has made about how winning factions were determined in Juarense and Chihuahuan politics during the 1920s and 30s. He credits gambling revenues as the crucialdeciding factor.143
University of Arizona Press, Vol. 8, Nu. 3, 212. The PNR conceded the quevedistas (including brothers Guillermo and Lorenzo Quevedo) several seats as deputies in the senate in May 1937. Guillermo Quevedo served out his term as federal deputy, and was re-elected to serve the 194346 and 195558 terms. After the end of his governorship, Rodrigo was a Senator from 19581964. He was also Commander of the 25th Military Zone in Puebla between 1936 and 1938, and of the 1st Military Zone in the Federal District between 1941 and 1945. Camp, Biographies, 568. 142. Quoted in Astorga, Organized Crime, 69. 143. Wasserman, Oligarchs, 44.
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But, as has been shown, studying the narcotic trade in addition to the gambling industry is necessary in order to understand Juarense and Chihuahuan politics. Given how lucrative the narcotic trade was, it is likely that both Enrique Fernndez and the Quevedo brothers used part of the profits they reaped from it in addition to the wealth they received from owning the gambling concession in order to advance their political agendas at the local and state levels. In addition, the lucrative drug trade probably contributed along with gambling revenue to the considerable degree of autonomy Chihuahua enjoyed from the federal government. Thus, in the midst of continual political instability and economic depression, the funds generated by both the gambling and narcotics enterprises provided important sources of power, opportunity and patronage. More research remains to be done on the Jurez drug trade. What more can we learn about the members of the gangs? How would the trade connect with local and state politics for the rest of the twentieth century? And the connections between politics and drug trades around Mexico also need to be examined further for, local particularities aside, it is unlikely that Ciudad Jurezs story is unique.

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Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States

Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez: 19281936

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Mottier, Drug Gangs and Politics in Ciudad Jurez

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

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