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Texis Cartel
The Texis Cartel is a drug cartel based in El Salvador. The three alleged founders are Jose Adan Salazar Umaña, Juan Umaña Samayoa, and Roberto Herrera. More than veterans of the Salvadoran underworld who worked their way up, these men are respected figures in Salvadoran society. From its start, the group has relied less on the frequently brutal tactics of Latin American mafia — i.e. responding to any slight or business disagreement with bullets and bloodshed — in favor of more subtle methods, namely bribery and corruption.

History
More than any other group, the Cartel de Texis is characterized by a patina of legitimacy. Jose Adan Salazar Umaña is the best example: He is not only the president of the Salvadoran Primera División, but also a respected hotelier and one of the nation’s most recognized businessmen. (His business empire also serves as a valuable tool for money laundering, for which he first came under the suspicion of U.S. agencies.) In the Texis leadership circle, he is allegedly joined by Juan Umaña Samayoa, the mayor of Metapan, where the gang’s power structure is centered. Other politicians supporting the Cartel de Texis include Armando Portillo Portillo, the mayor of Texistepeque, a mid-sized city south of Metapan, and Reynaldo Cardoza, a federal congressman from Chalatenango, a city located near the Honduran border.

The intimate connections with the highest level of Salvadoran politics has allowed the group to evade the attention of law enforcement. Their political links, which are useful for sweeping those investigations that do exist under the rug, have allowed the Cartel de Texis to branch out into the security agencies, buying off police and soldiers, so as to ensure the integrity of their shipments, as well as judges and prosecutors, so as to further reduce the chances of charges against them. Whereas other Salvadoran gangs like the Perrones and the “maras” have long suffered blows to their upper-echelon leadership, the Cartel de Texis bosses have largely remained immune from government pressure.

In April 2017, the group suffered a damaging blow to its leadership after El Salvador’s Attorney General’s Office arrested José Adán Salazar Umaña, alias “Chepe Diablo,” the alleged leader of the Texis Cartel. The arrest further raises questions about links between Salazar Umaña and Vice President Óscar Ortiz. However, the suspected connections to El Salvador’s elites don’t stop there. Two additional main suspects, Juan Umaña Samayoa, the mayor of the northwestern town of Metapán, and Wilfredo Guerra, the president of the Gumarsal grain company that has been linked to Chepe Diablo’s business network, evaded capture during the operation.

Leadership
The group is not hierarchical. It is, rather, a circle of leadership and an alliance of convenience, in which each boss has their own chain of subordinates. They collaborate and coordinate as needed, and apparently without a great deal of rancor. In fact, Salazar is said to discourage gang members from even carrying weapons, preferring instead to rely on the protections of those who are legally armed–the police and the military.

Territory
The Cartel de Texis’ network extends across a northern slice of El Salvador, from the border with Honduras to that of Guatemala. Typically, the cocaine moved by the Cartel de Texis arrives from South America to Honduras by sea via go-fast boats or semi-submersibles to the city of Gracias a Dios, or by plane, in which case they land in the vast farms of the state of Olancho. The Honduran shipment is then transferred into the hands of the Cartel de Texis in San Fernando, a remote border town in northern El Salvador. From there, the shipment cuts an overland path through the northern Salvadoran backwater region, with much of the terrain covered by unpaved roads. It heads first slightly south through the small town of Dulce Nombre de Maria, then west, and finally juts north through the gang’s headquarters of Metapan, crossing the border with Guatemala north of the gang’s home base. This path is known alternately as the Northern Route or as “el Caminito,” the little pathway, and it may soon get even easier to move drugs across it, as the government is moving ahead with plans to pave much of the highways in the region.

Investigation
Salvadoran authorities have been investigating the group since at least 2000. In 2001, the DEA mentioned Salazar Umaña as a suspected drug trafficker and money launderer. In 2014, the US Treasury Department put him on its “Kingpin List” of suspected money launderers. In April 2017, however, the Treasury Department reversed its decision and took him off the list, although the department has said it may bring other legal actions against him in the future.

Despite investigations into himself and the Texis Cartel, Salazar Umaña has managed to avoid criminal conviction. Critics have said this is not a sign of innocence but of strength. Salazar Umaña is allegedly supported by a large network of official protection, ranging from prosecutors and congressmen to police officers and judges, leading many cases against him to be shelved. Authorities have also said Salazar’s business empire and veneer of legitimacy have given him added flexibility as a money launderer. The amount of legitimate cash flowing through Salazar Umaña’s accounts make it easier to hide illicit revenues.

In April 2014, Salazar Umaña was formally charged with tax evasion, amid attempts to topple Texis Cartel leadership by targeting financial operations. However, he was exonerated in January 2015, after paying some hefty fines. In 2016, the Attorney General’s Office announced that it was actively investigating Salazar Umaña for money laundering, again. This investigation led to Salazar Umaña’s April 2017 arrest in a police operation involving raids on about 50 of his properties, which authorities claim had been used by the Texis Cartel to evade taxes or launder money from illegal activities. Salazar Umaña is suspected of crimes related to drug trafficking and money laundering. The Attorney General’s Office believes he used dozens of companies to launder some $215 million.