"I quit!" says former governor Javier Duarte at his extradition hearing

by Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat with material from Reforma and Mileno

The ex-governor of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, appeared at his second hearing before the Third Court of Guatemala.

In the appearance that took place in the Tower of Courts, Javier Duarte accepted the extradition to Mexico, to face charges of the crimes that are imputed to him, as they are, abuse of power, diversion of resources, money laundering, organized crime  among others.

"I have determined to try to face justice in my country. I accept the extradition that the failed government is imposing on  me," he said during the second hearing held in Guatemala.

Appearing before the court looking somewhat different, due to his beard and mustache, he was asked, Do you reject any action in this nation?" Asked Judge Saul Martinez.

Seemingly calm and unaffected by the proceedings, he answered, "Yes, I quit!”  He was friendly and smiling at reporters.

Criminal charges will continue to mount against Duarte, including homicide.  His state of Veracruz has a record of most mass graves discovered within its borders.

No extradition date has been announced

Los Cabos: Two tons cocaine tossed into the sea

On Monday Elements of the Marina navy secured almost two tons of cocaine that was thrown off a boat into the sea.  This after the suspicions boat was spotted off Los Cabos, in Baja California Sur (BCS).

Initial reports from the Fourth Naval Region reported that 76 packages with a gross weight out of approximately 1,800 kilograms.  The interior of the packages contained cocaine in brick formations. 

PGJE Confirms the Death of Michoacan Journalist Salvador Adame

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from Proceso

Michoacan Journalist Salvador Adame Pardo
Missing for over a month

By: Francisco Castellanos J.
June 26, 2017

MORELIA, Mich. (Apro) .- The Attorney General of the State (PGJE) confirmed the death of journalist Salvador Adame Pardo, whose remains were found on Friday 14 in the Barranca del Diablo, municipality of Gabriel Zamora.

The head of the PGJE, Martin Godoy Castro, confirmed the location of the corpse of the jounalist, who was allegedly killed by drug trafficker Feliciano L. " El Chano" Ledezma. The body was found calcinated (burned), but it will be the PGJE that determines the cause of his death, after performing the necropsy of law.

15 Kidnapped from Culiacán Restaurant

From El Debate Posted by Guasa

Culiacan, Sinaloa.- An armed group stormed the Mar and Sea restaurant and deprived about 15 people of their freedom, including a pair of musicians.

The restaurant located at the convergence of the boulevards Sánchez Alonso and Diego Valadez.

It was at 00:30 hours, when several vehicles, including carrying a large group of men with high-powered weapons,  who exited  stormed the premises of a restaurant.

When the evening was abruptly interrupted, the guests tried to flee, but all exits had been blocked by gunmen.

Local employees were forced to the floor and stripped of their cell phones and wallets, while the male clients were taken from the premises.   The ladies present were not bothered, according to a witness's version.

The restaurant was about to close, in fact some customers were already saying leaving in anticipation of its closing,  when the gunmen arrived," said one eyewitness.

Tamaulipas State Police Commanders receive training from the United States

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Reforma article

Subject Matter: Tamaulipas State Police
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Benito Lopez
With resources from the Merida Initiative, 63 Commanders of the Tamaulipas State Police received training from certified instructors sent by the United States.

The training focused on front line leadership to deal with better strategies for organized crime. The head of Political and Economic Affairs of the United States Consulate in Matamoros, Jose Gutierrez, said that this was the first of its kind since the creation of the bi-national security support program.

"The project seeks to provide training to the front line supervisors, and is a joint effort between the United States and Mexico to strengthen security and support the development of Police in Tamaulipas", he said.

The Colombian War Fed by Mexican Cartels

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from Proceso

By Rafael Croda

Tumaco is a municipality of Colombia with the largest amount of coca leaf crops: 28 thousand hectares that can produce 190 tons of cocaine a year. Its port is currently the main Colombian drug outlet to the United States, Europe and Asia, and is at the same time the largest drug supply center for Mexican cartels. After the withdrawal of the FARC from this territory, different criminal gangs wage a war for their own control, a struggle that Mexican drug trafficking organizations feed with money and arms.

TUMACO, Colombia (Proceso) .- The information that a criminal delinquent gave to the police was precise: on a bank of the Mira River, only 12 kilometers southwest of the urban center of the port of Tumaco, five Mexicans had stored a large amount of cocaine to be sent to the coast of the Mexican state of Colima.

Port City of Tumaco, Colombia

"They are from Sinaloa (allegedly from the Sinaloa Cartel) and gathered two tons,  they moved it near a creek to a hiding place under the ground,"  said the informant, who had attended a meeting in which Mexicans, who were moving into the Tumaco region discretely, to close a deal with their Colombian partners.

According to an intelligence report of the National Police of Colombia (PNC), to which this weekly (Proceso) had access, the Mexicans negotiated the drug price at $1,800 per kilo, which means that the total transaction was for $3.4 million dollars to be paid in cash to its suppliers, half to be received  with the first delivery at a house near the bank of the Mira River and the rest to be paid at the completion of the delivery of  the two tons of cocaine.

The money came to them by  a boat which had picked up two sacks thrown over board    from a  fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean, not far from the Tumaco coast, and transported the bundles down the Mira River to the Mexicans in a mangrove swamp.

Typical Cocaine "Processing Facility" in the Colombian Jungle 

The five "Sinaloa" envoys were led by a tall, white man with a thick mustache and long hair called Puma. The other four were of brown complexion; two of them were called Polo and Flaco.

El Rana, of the Sinaloa Cartel arrested in Baja California

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Milenio article

Subject Matter: Francisco Javier Peralta Reyes, El Rana, Sinaloa cartel
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Bernardo Cisneros
Elements of the Ministerial Police of Baja California detained Francisco Javier Peralta Reyes, El Rana, alleged sicario from a cell of the Sinaloa Cartel, headed by Teodoro Garcia Simental, El Teo.

El Rana is accused of having participated in the assassination of three agents of the Municipal Police in Tijuana in 2009, said Jorge Alberto Alvarez Mendoza, Sub Attorney General of the State.

He explained that the detention of Peralta Reyes, 29 years of age, derived from an operation from an arrest warrant that he had against him for the homicides of the Municipal Police officers Arturo Flores Espinoza, Marcos Samuel Kuk Sierra and Napoleon Garcia Perez.

Alvarez Mendoza detailed that the three uniformed officers were shot to death on the 18th of September of 2009, were found in the parking lot of a convenience store located on Paseo Ensenada Avenue in the Playas de Tijuana fraccionamiento, where minutes earlier that had been speaking with fellow workers aboard their respective patrol cars.

'You can’t trust anybody. We're on our own'

Posted by DD Republished from the Guardian

Cartel violence in Tamaulipas state has claimed 254 lives in the first three months of this year, but has largely gone unreported in the press

By Jo Tuckman in Mexico City

 When Carlos Ulivarri heard that a body had been dumped by the side of a road just outside his hometown of Rio Bravo, a few miles south of McAllen, Texas, he knew he had to act fast.

But he did not even consider contacting the authorities.

Hours earlier, Ulivarri’s son, Luís Carlos, 23, had been shot in a bar, and then dragged into the night after an altercation with a group of men presumed to be members of a local drug cartel.

At first, Ulivarri held out hope his son might be alive. But at 10am the next morning, a friend called to say that a corpse had been spotted on a road outside town which marks the frontline between two warring cartel factions. 

 Ulivarri, the president of the Rio Bravo chamber of commerce, knew that the body might disappear for good if he did not move quickly, but he did not want to risk a confrontation with either gang, who are both known to monitor the road.

So instead of calling the police and waiting for an escort, he drove alone to the site, bundled his son’s body into his car, and brought him home for the last time.

“We are on our own,” Ulivarri said in a phone interview from his office in Rio Bravo, just six miles from the Donna international bridge into Texas.

“Everybody is frightened here, there is lots of danger and you can’t trust anybody. Lots of people are sending their children away to the United States but that is not the solution.”

Argentina Police Arrest Sinaloa Cartel Members and Seize 2 Tons of Cocaine

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from Zeta

Cocaine Packaged Ready for Shipment from Argentina

By: Carlos Alvarez
June 20, 2017
Additional Material: Global Incidents Map
Mirror UK

The Superintendent of Dangerous Drugs of the Federal Police of Argentina detained 17 alleged narcotics traffickers, four of them of Mexican nationality, and seized some two tons of cocaine that were to be sent to Spain, specifically Barcelona and Canadian cities, drugs that are valued by the authorities at some 60 million dollars.

Specialized Packaging: including special wires and magnetic fields to avoid Scanners

According to the Argentine authorities, this is the largest drug seizure in the last 25 years in the country.

 A half-ton of the drug was packed in hundreds of hidden panels in eight steel coils,  found in a warehouse in an industrial park in the city of Bahía Blanca, 650 kilometers southwest of Buenos Aires, the capital of that nation.

Argentinian Port City of Bahia Blanca

The firefighters spent several hours cutting the metal from the coils to remove the drug. Meanwhile, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich told Todo Noticias that the coils covered with eight layers of metal were specially prepared so that the scanners could not detect the prohibited substance.

Industrial Warehouse in Bahia Blanca

Another 500 kilos of cocaine were seized in the city of Mendoza, about a thousand kilometers west of the Argentine capital, near the Chilean border hidden in bags with precious stones. in the framework of the operation that culminated after four months of investigations.

"It's a huge organization...... we believe that the drugs entered from Chile," Bullrich said, adding that with increased vigilance in northern Argentina, drug trafficking networks changed routes. However, the official did not specify the identity of those arrested.

Bullrich also said the authorities are investigating whether these same criminal traffickers worked previously in very similar operations in 2012 and 2013.

The organization was led by six Mexicans, and two of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel members escaped arrest and international arrest warrants were issued. According to local media, the Argentine authorities presume that the drug was sent from Mendoza to Bahia Blanca by land and there packed in steel coils.

According to the Portal Infobae, the  Mexicans arrested are part of a cartel in Michoacán and arrived in Argentina in early January to settle in Bahia Blanca with the intention of trafficking cocaine to Europe.

 However, according to the newspaper La Gaceta, the detainees are part of the Sinaloa Cartel.

During the seizures, authorities also found $ 220,000 in cash, $ 158,000 Argentine pesos, five vehicles and several firearms. The alleged narcotics traffickers analyzed the shipping of the drugs from three different ports: Bahía Blanca, Campana and Buenos Aires.

The Biggest Drug Bust in Argentine History

This is the third time that Mexican cartel cell operations are being demonstrated in Argentina, since in the 1990s, when the Juarez Cartel laundered in that South American country, at least 21 million dollars through the purchase of properties. In 2008, the traffic of ephedrine of different organizations of Mexicans and Argentines was handled by the Sinaloa Cartel.

MAY 2017 : The Most Violent Month in 20 Years

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from Zeta

The Baja California Peninsula / West Coast of Sinaloa and Sonora
The Gulf of California

June 21, 2017

According to data released Wednesday by the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP) of the Ministry of the Interior, in May of this year there were 2 thousand 186 intentional homicide cases, which surpassed the record figure  of this crime in the last two  decades, since the compilation of data is made monthly from 1997 to date.

The level of intentional homicide in May 2017 is greater than the maximum recorded, which was the number of 2,112 intentional killings in May 2011 during the last leg of the government of Felipe de Jesus Calderón Hinojosa.

The 2 thousand 186 records of intentional homicide cases of May of this year, signify 2 thousand 452 victims of violent acts. The figures are different because in a same preliminary investigation, open in state procurator's offices and state prosecutors, more than one death may be included.

The highest number of intentional homicides in May occurred in the State of Mexico, with 225 cases. It is followed by Guerrero, with 216 and Baja California with 197.

But considering the number of inhabitants of each entity, the highest percentage of intentional homicides occurred in Colima, with 31.69; Followed by Guerrero, with 26.47, and the states of the Baja California Peninsula, with 20 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

Mexican State of Colima Active Volcano

 June is getting off to an equally grim start: On June 14 their were six murders and six attempted murders in less than 24 hours inn Tijuana.

Using Texts as Lures, Government Spyware Targets Mexican Journalists and Their Families

Posted by Yaqui and DD Republished from the New York Times

By AZAM AHMED and NICOLE PERLROTH
 Leer en español

President Enrique Peña Nieto, center, vowed last month to take concrete steps to ensure the safety of journalists in Mexico. Since 2011, the Mexican government has bought around $80 million worth of spyware for the stated purpose of combating crime. Credit Alfredo Estrella/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s most prominent human rights lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists have been targeted by advanced spyware sold to the Mexican government on the condition that it be used only to investigate criminals and terrorists.

The targets include lawyers looking into the mass disappearance of 43 students, a highly respected academic who helped write anti-corruption legislation, two of Mexico’s most influential journalists and an American representing victims of sexual abuse by the police. The spying even swept up family members, including a teenage boy.

Since 2011, at least three Mexican federal agencies have purchased about $80 million worth of spyware created by an Israeli cyberarms manufacturer. The software, known as Pegasus, infiltrates smartphones to monitor every detail of a person’s cellular life — calls, texts, email, contacts and calendars. It can even use the microphone and camera on phones for surveillance, turning a target’s smartphone into a personal bug.

The company that makes the software, the NSO Group, says it sells the tool exclusively to governments, with an explicit agreement that it be used only to battle terrorists or the drug cartels and criminal groups that have long kidnapped and killed Mexicans.

But according to dozens of messages examined by The New York Times and independent forensic analysts, the software has been used against some of the government’s most outspoken critics and their families, in what many view as an unprecedented effort to thwart the fight against the corruption infecting every limb of Mexican society.

“We are the new enemies of the state,” said Juan E. Pardinas, the general director of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, who has pushed anti-corruption legislation. His iPhone, along with his wife’s, was targeted by the software, according to an independent analysis. “Ours is a society where democracy has been eroded,” he said.

The deployment of sophisticated cyberweaponry against citizens is a snapshot of the struggle for Mexico itself, raising profound legal and ethical questions for a government already facing severe criticism for its human rights record. Under Mexican law, only a federal judge can authorize the surveillance of private communications, and only when officials can demonstrate a sound basis for the request.

It is highly unlikely that the government received judicial approval to hack the phones, according to several former Mexican intelligence officials. Instead, they said, illegal surveillance is standard practice.

“Mexican security agencies wouldn’t ask for a court order, because they know they wouldn’t get one,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a former analyst at the Center for Investigation and National Security, Mexico’s intelligence agency and one of the government agencies that use the Pegasus spyware. “I mean, how could a judge authorize surveillance of someone dedicated to the protection of human rights?”

“There, of course, is no basis for that intervention, but that is besides the point,” he added. “No one in Mexico ever asks for permission to do so.”

The hacking attempts were highly personalized, striking critics with messages designed to inspire fear — and get them to click on a link that would provide unfettered access to their cellphones.

Carmen Aristegui, a Mexican journalist, has been targeted by spyware, as has her teenage son. Credit Edgard Garrido/Reuters

Carmen Aristegui, one of Mexico’s most famous journalists, was targeted by a spyware operator posing as the United States Embassy in Mexico, instructing her to click on a link to resolve an issue with her visa. The wife of Mr. Pardinas, the anti-corruption activist, was targeted with a message claiming to offer proof that he was having an extramarital affair.

" El Cenizo " Arrested in Michoacán, Leader of the Caballeros Templarios

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from Debate

WANTED : "El Cenizo"

Michoacán.- On Wednesday morning, June 21, the arrest of Ignacio Andrade Rentería, alias El Cenizo, in Parácuaro, was confirmed. The action was coordinated between the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena) and the Attorney General's Office (PGR).

CAPTURED: "El Cenizo"

The information on the capture of one of the most powerful criminal of Michoacán, after the fall of Servando Gómez Martínez alias "La Tuta", former leader of the organization Knights Templar  (Caballeros Templarios) in 2015, was confirmed by the PGR.

WOUNDED: " El Cenizo"

Shoot Out

Authorities moved into the community on September 1, where they had intelligence information about the presence of the criminal cell that supposedly was in charge "El Cenizo" aka "Nacho" Rentería.

The locality deployed the troops that at one point were attacked by gunfire and immediately repelled bullets detonated by the gunmen.

In the fray two soldiers were injured and were carried off for medical attention. The officers managed to retract several gunmen and in the end as a result of the operation  "El Cenizo" was apprehended.

This was the plaza chief of the municipality of Múgica, and also the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación.

Andrade Renteria was injured and was treated at the Regional Hospital of Apatzingán. Both were transferred to Morelia by air for presentation to the Attorney General's Office.

A security operation was implemented in the state against possible actions (disturbances) on the part of the criminals by the capture.

 Daniel Rubio Ruiz, aka "El Cabezas", CNJG also Captured 

"El Cabezas"

In this regard, the governor of Michoacán, Silvano Aureoles Conejo, in his Twitter profile, sent a message congratulating the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) and the Secretary of Public Security of Michoacán for arresting "one of the Main Objectives in our security strategy ". He stressed that they will continue to work "without respite or rest for the safety of the Michoacans".

Gov of Michoacan, Silvano Aurelos Conejo

Morelia, Michoacan after being arrested in the municipality of Parácuaro by members of the Ministry of National Defense and Police Michoacán , Ignacio Andrade Renteria, "El Cenizo" , leader of the criminal group "Knights Templar" and one of its operators, Daniel Rubio Ruiz, "El Cabezas" , were transferred to the premises of the Delegation in Morelia of the Attorney General's Office. (PGR)

Narco-millienials: the sons of the Mexican Capos take control

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Noreste article

Subject Matter: Sons of Mexican Capos
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

The new generation of narcos are unpredictable and volatile

The detention or assassination of the big Mexican capos has obligated the next generation. Now their sons are fighting for control of the organizations.

More than the sons of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, there are a series of narco junior millenials, some in prison and others at liberty, that maintain the leadership and conserve the relation of power, that for their fathers would not be so easy.

The behaviors of this new generation will be unpredictable and volatile, affirms Carlos Flores, expert in criminal organizations and an academic of the Centre for Investigations and Social Anthropology.

They are unpredictable because they don't know who really has the power among their fathers. They don't know properly about leadership and agreements.

San Jose del Cabo: Body Count Rises to 18 in Clandestine Grave

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from El Debate

NOTE by Yaqui:  There have been plenty of more murders in CSL, SJ del C and La Paz and in other communities in Baja California Sur since these events although I have not read of more graves or seen a report from the Investigation.

Extra Material from BCS Noticias

Los Cabos, Baja California Sur 

     

Beloved Veteran Journalist Max
Colectivo Pericue
War Correspondent in the 1980's
 Central America
73 Years Young

The discovery of these clandestine graves or "narcofasas", as they are known, came about due to the ongoing investigation into the murder of Journalist Maximino Rodriguez Palacios, locally known as Max, who was lost his life in April.

The Governor of Baja California Sur, Carlos Mendoza Davis, thinks the discovery of the graves could be related to the territory dispute of rival cells within the Cartel de Pacifico. He added " that few clandestine graves are usually found in BCS, it is rare, but sadly, with intelligence and a good investigation we are coming upon them".

BCS Governor Carlos Mendoza Davis

It was around 15:00 hours on Tuesday, when the institution's staff located the clandestine burial site at kilometer 4.5 of the San José del Cabo-Cabo Pulmo road, where they found human remains of four males and two females.

No Caption Needed

The search continued on Wednesday and the unit reported seven more men and one woman were found buried for a total of 14 corpses located in one place, bringing the number up to 11 men and 3 women.

The recovery work was interrupted by the lack of natural light, but tomorrow (Thursday), the search will continue.

According to the information, the bodies are in an advanced state of decomposition, so forensic  experts from the Department of Experiential Services will be in charge of taking DNA samples to be able to identify them.

Likewise, the PGJE invites relatives of disappeared persons to come to its facilities to obtain a genetic profile and thus help them to be able to identify the bodies that have been found.

On Saturday, June10, minutes before 11am Security Agencies received a call to alert them that a cooler with human body parts and heads had been discovered. The finding was reportedly at Kilometer 17.5 under the El Tule Bridge near Cabo San Lucas.

Authorities were immediately deployed to the area and corroborated the report and found the cooler with body parts and more partially buried very near by, all appearing to be that of two males.

Puente El Tule / Coolers

The area was cordoned off for forensic specialists to begin their investigation and hopefully, identify the 

bodies. This latest finding brings the total of badly decomposed corpses to more than 18 individuals found in "Narco Fosas" (clandestine graves) near the center of the Municipality of Cabo San Lucas.