[imagesource: Omar Torres / AFP / Getty Images]

Chances are you recognise that bloke above.

Yes, that’s Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the one-time leader of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, who will now spend the rest of his life in a maximum-security prison referred to as the ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies’.

Arresting baddies is a good thing, but there are repercussions to removing the kingpin atop a massive crime operation.

For the residents of Culiacán, a city of about 800 000 in northwestern Mexico, it’s been a rocky few years. The city serves as the headquarters of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the last few months have been more violent than ever.

In a recent segment for VICE’s The War on Drugs series, the strategy of kingpin removal is under the spotlight:

Any attempt to shut down the trade in drugs such as heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine or weed invariably sets off a chain of events that just makes things worse, leaving a trail of death, illness, violence, slavery, addiction, crime and inequality across the globe. Everyone loses – except, in a weird kind of way, the drugs themselves.

For decades, this ‘war’ has been defined by the ‘kingpin strategy’ – the idea that you can take out a trafficking gang by killing or imprisoning the boss. The reality? This approach almost invariably leads to more misery and bloodshed, as rival gangs battle it out to fill the power vacuum and an already-volatile drugs trade is plunged deeper into chaos.

As you will see below, it’s really not as simple as chopping off the head:

[source:vice]