For decades, prisons across Latin America have served as a refuge for drug cartel leaders and other criminal figures, allowing them to continue running their operations from behind bars.
From the Southern Cone to the U.S.-Mexico border, countless criminals have managed to operate with impunity from within their prison cells. That is also the case of José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, known as "El Marro," the alleged leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, who authorities say continues directing his organization's criminal operations from a high-security prison in Durango, Mexico.
According to a statement from the U.S. Treasury Department cited by Infobae México, U.S. officials say that despite his arrest, El Marro remains active in cartel operations, relaying instructions and orders to his collaborators through lawyers and family members. The sanctions announced against him on Dec. 17 also state that Yépez Ortiz helped establish the cartel's alliance with the Gulf Cartel while incarcerated.
Before his arrest in 2020, El Marro was one of Mexico's most wanted criminals due to his cartel's large-scale theft of fuel and petroleum, known in Mexico as huachicoleo. In 2022, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison after being convicted of kidnapping. He still faces additional accusations, including organized crime, money laundering, illegal fuel extraction and attempted homicide.
As part of the sanctions, the U.S. government also designated the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. According to the Treasury Department, the group's fuel-theft operations have sustained a cross-border energy black market, undermined legitimate U.S. oil and natural gas companies, and deprived the Mexican government of critical revenue.
Cefereso 14, El Marro and the CSRL's Headquarters
After spending several years incarcerated at Mexico's maximum-security El Altiplano prison, El Marro was transferred to the Federal Social Readaptation Center, known as Cefereso 14, located in a remote desert area of the state of Durango.
When it opened in 2014, Cefereso 14 had the capacity to hold up to 2,520 people convicted of serious federal crimes, including kidnapping, organized crime and fuel theft.
The facility is made up of 3-by-4-meter cells equipped with a bed, toilet, sink, desk and two small windows with openings of less than one centimeter.
According to Infobae México, communication between inmates is virtually nonexistent, reinforced by six-meter-high walls, at least 12 guard towers, and four automated security checkpoints required to access internal modules. Even so, U.S. authorities say El Marro continues directing the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel's operations.
Who is the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel?
The organization led by Yépez Ortiz was founded around 2014 in the community of Santa Rosa de Lima, in the state of Guanajuato.
According to U.S. authorities, the cartel is primarily involved in fuel and oil theft, as well as narcotics trafficking, including the trafficking of heroin into the United States.
The CSRL has been engaged in an ongoing war with the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) since at least 2017, as both groups fight for control of fuel and oil theft in the so-called "Bermuda Triangle," a cluster of municipalities in Guanajuato that includes a Pemex refinery and numerous Pemex pipelines.
As a result of the conflict between the two cartels, violence in Guanajuato has surged in recent years, making it one of Mexico's deadliest states.
According to U.S. officials, the CSRL has allied itself with the Gulf Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel. The group has also recruited former Colombian military and paramilitary personnel to operate in Guanajuato amid its fight against the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
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