Investigation Links Mexico's Security Secretary's Father to The Origins of The Modern Cartel Era

Long before Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada became the elusive patriarch of the Sinaloa Cartel, he was a municipal cop moonlighting as a marijuana field guard in the mountains of Badiraguato. And according to a deep-dive investigation by journalist Jesús Lemus, his trajectory from small-time guardian to cartel kingpin was quietly enabled by one of Mexico's most powerful security figures — the father of the country's current security secretary.

Javier García Paniagua, the former director of the now-defunct Dirección Federal de Seguridad and father of current SSPC Secretary Omar García Harfuch, allegedly provided protection and strategic guidance that helped El Mayo and his associates transform from regional growers into Mexico's first corporate-structured criminal organization: the Guadalajara Cartel.

The timeline stretches back to 1975. El Mayo was simultaneously working as a local police officer and guarding marijuana crops for early capos like Pedro Avilés Pérez and Lamberto Quintero. Around the same time, Rafael Caro Quintero was recruiting young men in Sinaloa — names like Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Héctor Luis "El Güero" Palma, and Manuel Salcido "El Cochiloco" — all operating under the protection of a faction of the Federal Judicial Police that reportedly answered to García Paniagua.

The turning point came with Operación Cóndor, a binational eradication campaign that pushed traffickers out of the Sierra Madre. Facing pressure from US and Mexican authorities, García Paniagua allegedly used El Mayo as his intermediary to tell the criminal network to relocate to Guadalajara. That move effectively birthed the Guadalajara Cartel — Mexico's first organized crime group to operate with a corporate structure rather than as a loose collection of family outfits.

After leaving the DFS, García Paniagua reportedly continued to facilitate connections within the Secretaría de Gobernación during the Miguel de la Madrid administration, maintaining a protection network that eventually laid the groundwork for the Sinaloa Cartel.

The revelation hits close to home for the current administration. Omar García Harfuch has built his reputation as Mexico's hardline security czar, leading the fight against the same cartels that his father's network allegedly helped create. Lemus's investigation doesn't accuse Harfuch of any wrongdoing, but it draws a direct line from his father's actions in the 1970s and 1980s to the organized crime structures Mexico is still battling today.

The story is a reminder that Mexico's war on drugs didn't start with Felipe Calderón in 2006. Its roots go back half a century, woven into the fabric of the same institutions that were supposed to stop it.