Mexico appears to be turning up the heat on 'El Chapo' Guzman's embattled empire

In the months since former Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was turned over to US authorities, Mexico has seen spiraling violence in the territory controlled by his cartel, as rivals, underlings, and siblings compete to assume control — a battle that started in the months after Guzman's January 2016 arrest.

In response to rippling violence, the Mexican government appears to have stepped up its efforts to capture or kill Sinaloa cartel lieutenants and members of other groups vying for control.

The most recent major apprehension came in early May, when Mexican authorities arrested Damaso Lopez Nuñez, 51, a longtime confidant of Guzman who, in recent months, is believed to have mounted a violent campaign to assume control of the Sinaloa organization.

Mexico has targeted cartel leaders throughout its 10-year-long drug war, but recent months have seen the government zero in on members of the Sinaloa cartel and its rivals specifically.

While the Sinaloa cartel is generally considered to be a horizontally organized operation run by groups with some degree of autonomy, Guzman's absence as a referee for disputes, his sons' inability to assume his role, and the declining health of Guzman's partner, "El Mayo" Zambada, have prompted Mexican authorities to address looming instability.

"They're really intensifying their efforts on the Sinaloa cartel, because the Mexican government now sees the extradition of 'Chapo' Guzman as weakening the Sinaloa cartel," Mike Vigil, former chief of international operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, told Business Insider.

"They feel that this a very vulnerable stage for for them, so they're going to attack," he said. "

Mexico City appeared to be pursuing a "top-to-bottom dismantling" of cartel organizations, Vigil told Business Insider, breaking from the Kingpin Strategy that had security forces targeting the top-tier leadership, which has largely led to splintering of major cartels and in turn leading to more violence.

As with the Kingpin Strategy, increased arrests at all levels of criminal organizations may be met with greater turnover in cartel ranks, as operators rise to fill the vacancies left by those detained. Moreover, Mexican prisons have proven ill-equipped at isolating cartel members from their compatriots.

Guzman himself broke out of ostensibly high-security prisons in 2001 and 2015. A month before his killing, Sinaloa cartel member El Pancho Chimal broke out of jail with the son of "El Mayo" Zambada — both of them had obtained judicial authorization to remain in a lower-security facility.

Even inside jails, Mexican authorities seem to exercise little control. Mexican news site Milenio published video on Tuesday of a party hosted by a CJNG kingpin inside Puente Grande prison (the first jail "El Chapo" Guzman broke out of). "I'm the one who gives the orders here," he is heard yelling. "Ask what you want, I will give it to you."

The video prompted the state attorney general to say that the kingpin has no privileges or control within the facility. Damaso Lopez, however, doesn't seem confident in Mexican prison authorities. According to El Universal, Lopez — recently transferred to the Chihuahua jail that until January held "El Chapo" Guzman — told officials he feared being assassinated in jail and would rather be extradited to the US.