Inside The Sinaloa Drug Cartel

A sidewalk shrine glows in front of Guadalupe "Lupita" Villalobos' house in Compton, Calif. The psychic offered guidance on drug shipments to Gabriel Dieblas Roman, a Sinaloa cartel cocaine smuggler who sometimes left her a $2,000 tip for a $20 reading. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times / August 11, 2009)

Inside The Cartel: The Strands Of The Sinaloa Drug Cartel Web -- L.A. Times

Channeling the Mexican cartel's nonstop river of cocaine onto trucks bound for cities in the U.S. requires a vast labyrinth of smugglers working in L.A. And women like Lupita, a no-nonsense psychic with a short fuse.

Gabriel Dieblas Roman took orders from cartel bosses in Mexico, hard men who ruled by fear, but he wouldn't approve a shipment without talking to a plucky, middle-aged woman from Compton.

Guadalupe "Lupita" Villalobos ran a storefront botanica where Virgin of Guadalupe statuettes sat beside grinning Saint Death skeletons. She would threaten to turn neighbors into toads, and her clients believed she could divine the future by studying snail shells scattered on a tabletop.

Roman, a client, called her one day for advice on an important matter.

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My Comment: This series is an excellent read. This is the second of a series in the Los Angeles Times, the next installment is tomorrow.