Female cartel boss known as ‘La Doña’ jailed in US after her two sons murdered as a warning

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A female cartel boss known as “La Doña” has been sentenced to 22 years in prison in the US after her two sons were murdered in killings that could have been a warning not to cooperate with US prosecutors.

Luz Irene Fajardo Campos was also referred to as “La Comadre” and “La Madrina”, words denoting a big female boss.

Some of her collaborators also called her Jenca, the name she stamped into some of the cocaine packages that were sent off to the US.

Fajardo Campos received her sentence late last month after running an international drug-trafficking network along with her adult sons. They obtained their cocaine in Colombia and imported precursor chemicals to Mexico. They then sent off cocaine and meth to the US, according to prosecutors.

She was sentenced on 27 July in the US District Court for the District of Columbia for her role in a “conspiracy” to transport “thousands of kilograms of cocaine and dozens of pounds of methamphetamine” into the United States, the Department of Justice said in a press release.

She was convicted of conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and to manufacture and distribute 500 grams or more of methamphetamine in Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, as well as other places, while being aware that the substances would make their way to the US. Her trial lasted seven days in December 2019.

The organisation she ran with her sons was a “prolific ally” of the Sinaloa cartel, according to the DOJ.

She hired pilots and made deals to buy jets to fly the cocaine from Colombia to Mexico and Central America and partnered with traffickers from the Sinaloa cartel to get the drugs into the US.

Her meth lab was located in the desert outside Hermosillo in northwestern Mexico, from where the drugs were transported to several US locations, including Tucson, Arizona, and Jackson, Mississippi.

She bribed law enforcement officials in Mexico and Colombia in order to use an international airport to import cocaine. She also tried to bribe other officials to “secure the arrest of rival drug traffickers and the release of precursor chemicals seized at Mexican shipping port,”, the DOJ said.

Fajardo Campos was also sentenced to five years of supervised release and to forfeit $18m.

“Just as the role of women is growing in legitimate businesses as women have demonstrated they are every bit as capable as men if not more so, the same trend is occurring in the drug world,” Bonnie Klapper, an attorney who has represented several female drug traffickers, told Vice.

The 57-year-old was arrested at the international airport in Bogota, Colombia in April 2017 before being sent to the US. Officials said during her sentencing on 27 July that they had “cut the head off of the snake”.

“Drug traffickers like Fajardo Campos tear at the very fabric of our communities,” Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge Cheri Oz said. “She made millions of dollars from pushing thousands of pounds of poison into Americans’ communities while at the same time fuelling violence and crime across the United States.”

Following her arrest, Fajardo Campos’ sons were both murdered in Hermosillo in the Mexican state of Sonora, which neighbours the state of Sinaloa.

The last name of both men was Aviles Fajardo, but their first names remain unknown. They were abducted and their bodies were later found dismembered and burned in a vehicle, Vice reported.

Court documents show that Fajardo Campos’ mental health has taken a turn for the worse since she was taken into custody, which could be related to the deaths of her sons. It’s possible that the killings were a warning to Fajardo Campos from the Sinaloa Cartel to not collaborate with US prosecutors on investigations into other Mexican cartels.

If so, the violent hint was noted, because Fajardo Campos pleaded not guilty and proceeded to trial.

“Luz sacrificed herself by going to trial because of what happened to her children,” her defence lawyer Robert Feitel told Vice. “It was like a Greek tragedy.”

Fajardo Campos’ parents and siblings still live in Sinaloa.

“Who is going to see two of their kids kidnapped and murdered and then do anything to put the rest of their family at risk? Nobody is going to do that,” Mr Feitel added.

Fajardo Campos was raised around the drug business but went to school to become a lawyer before entering the narcotics trade. She had connections from Colombia all the way to Mexico via Panama and Ecuador.

“Women are just as powerful and just as diabolical and just as organised as men. And at some level women are underestimated by people in society,” Mr Feitel told Vice.

Ms Klapper said that Fajardo Campos “was no different from any other trafficker except that she happened to be female”.

“Many male traffickers actually prefer to deal with a serious woman as they believe she will be more responsible, less likely to consume the product, and more trustworthy as she may be more concerned for the safety of her children,” she added.