Guzman controls drug production, sales and smuggling throughout much of western Mexico. He's long had his eye on the territory — and profits — of his rivals

“El Chapo Guzman,” they were signed, referring to the Napoleon-sized man who is Mexico's best-known and arguably most powerful gangster.

The handwritten notes warned that the men's brutal fate — the state coroner determined that they were still alive when their heads were removed with an ax — would be shared by any who “attempt to enter the territory.”

If the men were murdered on behalf of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, it means the drug lord, who is listed by Forbes as one of the richest men in the world and by the U.S. Justice Department as worth millions of dollars in rewards, is laying claim to the Pacific Coast resort.

That portends even more violent days ahead for an already bloodied city that's both a prime gateway for imported South American cocaine and a lucrative market for selling drugs to locals and visiting tourists.

The slaughter Jan. 8 might also signal that Guzman, whose gunmen already are battling rivals for control of Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana and other cities, is willing to employ a barbarity that has rarely been his trademark.

“It really isn't his style to use these types of actions,” said Luis Astorga, a leading analyst of Mexico's drug trafficking organizations, expressing doubt that Guzman is behind the beheadings.

“But each organization wants to show itself as more terrifying than its competitors.”

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Top-gangster-may-be-extending-reach-960567.php#ixzz1BbisilSRTop gangster may be extending reach - San Antonio Express-News: "Mexico's army commanders consider

their primary target, he's easily evaded every attempt to kill or capture him. He's believed to spend much of his time in the marijuana- and heroin-producing Sierra Madre, mountains that separate Sinaloa and Durango states, protected by hundreds of gunmen, loyal villagers and corrupt police.

But Guzman also is believed to be living at least part time in Central America, far from the upscale neighborhoods of Mexico City and Guadalajara, where many of his colleagues have been captured.

As head of the so-called Federation, an alliance of smuggling gangs based in Sinaloa, a Pacific Coast state, Guzman controls drug production, sales and smuggling throughout much of western Mexico. He's long had his eye on the territory — and profits — of his rivals."

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