Explosion in pipeline in Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo has left 66 dead and 76 injured

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Animal Politico     
                 
               

Pemex confirmed that the explosion resulted from the manipulation of a clandestine pipe. State authorities explained that several of the injured people were near the pipeline trying to collect fuel that was leaking. 

Editor's note: Update on the number of victims: 7:00 am on Saturday.   

The Pemex Tuxpan-Tula pipeline exploded on Friday, January 18, at around 7:00 pm in the community of San Primitivo, located in the municipality of Tlahuelilpan, Hidalgo, after a clandestine fuel intake.

 

The governor Omar Fayad and the Secretary of State Government, Simón Vargas, confirmed that there are at least 66 deaths and 76 injured people, who were transferred to nearby hospitals and some to the La Raza hospital in Mexico City; most of them with burns.

Juarez: Security alert issued after violence by La Linea and Los Mexicles

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat-Thank you JF-material from El Diario and OSAC

For two days violence has permeated Juarez.

"La Línea" and "Los Mexicles" allied to orchestrate and execute  attacks against municipal police.

Eight officers have been shot, 2 critically.  

12  alleged perpetrators were arrested, including two leaders of "Los Mexicles" identified as Jesus Daniel LR and Luis Santiago EC, nicknamed "El Miclo". All were consigned to the PGR, he reported.

12 of the alleged perpetrators were arrested, including two leaders of "Los Mexicles" identified as Jesus Daniel LR and Luis Santiago EC, nicknamed "El Miclo". All were consigned to the PGR, he reported.

The first attack recorded at the home of a commander of the SSPM, at 14:53 hours, on the streets El Principio and Puerto Cádiz, five alleged perpetrators were arrested who wounded three police officers by gunshots.

El Chapo Trial: Former mistress Lucero Sanchez takes the stand against Chapo

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat

Chapo ran naked in the sewer to escape capture

Pregnant Lucero visits Chapo in prison

On of Chapo’s mistresses took the stand Thursday to testify as a cooperative witness.

She says that That February 17, 2014, when Joaquín "El Chapo " Guzmán managed to escape minutes before the sailors raided the house where he lived in Culiacán.

Lucero Guadalupe Sánchez López, former congresswoman and the mother of his Chapo’s child, who fled from her side that day, detailed his escape in her testimony. The affair began in 2011 when Lucero was 21, when Emma was pregnant with the twins.

Naked and afraid--the sewer escape

On the day of the bathtub tunnel escape, Lucero fled with Chapo from one safe house to another she had not been to before.

Around 4AM she was awaken by a loud thump and yelling as Mexican marines using a battering ram on the front door.

The ringleaders who control extortion and drugs in CDMX's Roma and Condesa

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from La Silla Rota         

             

While Union B is reorganizing, other criminal cells are taking advantage of control over "derecho de piso" and the sale of drugs

It was 3:00 o'clock on January 17, 2016 and in the Dalinde Hospital, in the Roma neighborhood, a man was hospitalized, who paramedics picked up in the Condesa neighborhood.

 
A bullet entered and went through his right cheek. He was lucky not to die after being attacked outside the Dussel bar, where there was a trail of blood, chaos, and three other wounded people.

That man who was attended to by doctors, guarded by policemen, was the owner of the bar, according to information from the Mexico City Police.
 
But as a result of the aggression, the victim handed over the Dussel and was never seen again.

In November of that year and in March of 2017 a young man was murdered outside the bar and the new owner would not save his life like the previous one did. He was shot dead and is in file FCUH / CUH-1 / UI-3C / D / 537 / 03-2017.

New hypothesis: Ayotzinapa normalistas went to Iguala via bus that had "special cargo", according to the CNDH

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Animal Politico

According to the CNDH, the "trigger" of the aggressions against the normalistas on the night of September 26, 2014 could have been the capture of the Costa Line bus 2513.

by Paris Martínez

After four years of investigations into the forced disappearance of 43 normalistas in Iguala, Guerrero, the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) presented its conclusions on the case in November, among which a new theory on the origin of the attacks against the students: the taking of a bus that contained a "special load" and that, finally, the Ayotzinapa students did not manage to take with them.
 
This hypothesis is not based on any particular proof, that is to say, in no part of the file does any specific element speak of the "special cargo" of the bus, but, as explained by José Trinidad Larrieta, in charge of the investigation carried out by CNDH, this theory was constructed from conjecture, based on what he called "evidence management."
 
Below, we present a summary of the pieces that the CNDH uses to formulate this new hypothesis, based on the "special cargo," and on the interest that the normalistas supposedly had in it.

"Before, as a policeman, I earned $270 a month. Now, with the fuel, I can get up to $50,000"

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from El Pais

In the bastion of gas thieves in Mexico, a policeman who entered the business explains his motives, his life change, and other ins and outs of an activity that is growing unchecked.

by Pablo Ferri

Tecamachalco (Mexico)

The man tries to justify himself. Creates an excuse, but does not put too much effort to defend it. "Look," he says, "I know this is wrong, but the need ... If I lived in a fishing community, I would be a fisherman." You can go live by the sea ..." Yes, but the money is very ... Go, see that the money is very addictive. You buy everything with money, everything."
 
Accompanied by his family, the man just returned from a vacation in Cancun. He looks relaxed, with theatrical sorrow. A grimace between shame and pride. Comments about money, lack, and abundance colors the conversation: what he earned when he was a policeman, what he started to earn when he started in the business of stealing fuel, what he can buy, what he could not afford... 

El Chapo Trial: Chapo is on the witness list says defense

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat

government photo evidence--Chapo with his Gold AK-47

Federal prosecutors informed Judge Cogan, the judge presiding over the El Chapo trial, that they have yet to receive the list of defense witness list.

That question in of itself is an indicator that the government is about ready to finish their presentation of witness testimony. 

The big surprise is when defense attorney Jefferey Lichtman replied to the issue of the defense witness list; “You have Mr. Guzman’s name?” stating that Chapo’s name is on the witness list.

He added that it was not a fait accompli but supposedly he is on the list.

Puebla/Central de Abasto de Huixcolotla: Federal Police Officer Killed by Presumed Huachicoleros

Oaxaqueño for Borderland Beat

On Monday shortly after 22:00 hrs, three elements of the Gendarmería Nacional (which is part of the Federal Police) were wounded while being on patrol when they were attacked by alleged huachicoleros (fuel thieves). On Tuesday, it was confirmed that one of them had succumbed to his wounds. The incident took place on the federal highway Puebla-Tehuacán at the height of Central de Abasto de Huixcolotla, situated about 50 kilometers southeast of Puebla. Reportedly, the security forces were attacked by armed individuals aboard two trucks.

Oaxaqueño Analysis:

Given that the region (known as Red Triangle) is the most prominent hotbed in Mexico for huachicoleros, with Central de Abasto de Huixcolotla being one of the hotspots for illegal fuel sales, the initial reports suspecting huachicoleros to be behind the attack are more than credible. Having said that, it can only be speculated which group has perpetrated the assault. 

El Chapo Trial: Cifuentes testifies Enrique Pena Nieto received 100M from Chapo

Chivis Martinez and Mica Borderland Beat

 Explosive testimony by Alex Cifuentes today

Defense attorney, with his own problems, Jeffery Lichtman, during cross examination asked Cifuentes; “You gave a story that Mr. Guzman paid a bribe to [former Mexican president] Mr. Peña Nieto of $100 million,”

Cifuentes answered; “That’s right.”

This allegation has long lingered since just prior to Pena taking office.  Supposedly it transpired in October 2012 which is after he was elected but before but before December 1st when he formally took office.

Lichtman tried to hook him into the story that Pena was paid 250M.  Cifuentes said, “No he wasn’t paid 250M but that was what Pena asked for”, I said that Chapo was requested a different amount than what Pena was paid."

Morelos: 8 Killed During Violent Weekend, Four Minors

Throw-Away for Borderland Beat from Proceso

CUERNAVACA, Mor.- Violence claimed the lives of four minors, as well as four adults in the state during Friday and Saturday this weekend.

The events occurred in the municipalities of Yautepec, Temixco and Jojutla.

Three minors and one adult were murdered at a Patron Saint's Festival in the community of Ixtlahuacan, in the municipality of Yautepec. An unknown assailant on a motorcycle fired at the crowd gathered outside the local church.

Two minors and an adult died at the scene, while another 14-year-old boy died in the general hospital of Cuautla. Seven other people were also injured.

According to reports, three of the dead were related to PRD Mayor Agustín Alonso. So far the motive of this unknown and the identities of the people who unfortunately lost their lives have not been disclosed.

Veracruz/Sayula de Alemán: Four Mutilated Bodies Dumped by CJNG

Oaxaqueño for Borderland Beat

A week ago, on Monday night, four mutilated corpses were left on a road leading to the community of Almagre, which is part of Sayula de Alemán, located some 190 kilometers southeast of Veracruz. The killed men were identified as two 24-years-old, a 27-years-old, as well as a 41-years-old, who were all living in the area or the wider region. Their corpses showed signs of torture, particularly when it comes to their hands and genitals, as well as a bullet wound to the heads. Additionally, a narcomensaje signed by CJNG was left. In it, it was written that this happens to all who pretend to be members of CJNG. Furthermore, the narcomensaje warns that women are not to be touched.

Video: Children of the Narco Zone

Posted by El Profe from NYTIMES/ Youtube

From the NYTIMES: This week we continue with “A Moment in Mexico,” our special series of six Op-Docs by Mexican directors. The second film in the series is Everardo González’s haunting “Children of the Narco Zone,” which is a companion piece to his stunning feature documentary, “La Libertad del Diablo” (or “Devil’s Freedom”). In both films, González explores the personal toll of organized crime and the drug war through searing interviews with people with direct experience either of violence or its social ramifications. In “Children of the Narco Zone,” the focus is specifically on how a climate of violence affects children and shapes their understanding of what’s right and wrong. As in “La Libertad del Diablo,” González dresses all his subjects in masks — partly to give them anonymity, and partly as an eerie aesthetic choice. But the result is a mosaic of deeply individual testimonies.

From the Archives: Child Sicarios

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from La Prensa, Archivos Historicos

        

[I will be periodically translating and publishing stories from La Prensa's "Secret Police Archives". These are older stories that are worth another look. Here is a past post: Public Enemy #1 -El Profe]

With the devil inside

 

He was born, how should I know, because he wanted the destiny God wanted. I don't know why it was ... he understood that life is a game that is very difficult to play, that child does not know love.
- EL TRI

by Alfredo Sosa 

The events came to light in December 2010, and you, dear reader, found out in the pages of this newspaper LA PRENSA about the nauseating and sinister story of "El Ponchis", El Niño Sicario.

The files reveal that "El Ponchis" was born with the devil inside, separated from the love of his parents since birth. He never liked school, his teachers were bad influences and in the streets he learned to be a thief. At the age of 11 he carried out his first crime, robbed a business and was arrested.

 
It was on December 3 of that year, at night, when elements of the Mexican Army detained Édgar Jiménez Lugo, aged 14, at the Mariano Matamoros airport in Cuernavaca, when he intended to board a plane bound for Tijuana in the company of his sister Elizabeth. In fact, "El Ponchis" was already being tracked due to a series of videos put on social media networks, where he appeared torturing enemies of the South Pacific Cartel (the organization that recruited him) and confessed that he had killed at least four people.

El Chapo Trial: "There is no code of silence among narcos"

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat

"My brother said if I went to trial-he would be the first to testify against me"..Alex Cifuentes

Alex Cifuentes with Chapo---Remember this foto?

A Colombian man named Christian Rodriguez was an IT guy---not any IT guy, but the tech prodigy who happen to work for the most powerful cartel in the world, the Sinaloa Cartel.

 Rodriguez is the person who had built an encrypted communications network for the Sinaloa Cartel. 

Rodriguez, then 25, was invited to meet in NYC with a “Russian organized crime figure”, in 2010.  The Russian supposedly wanted to hire Rodriguez to encrypt his system.  Rodriguez did not consider this out of the ordinary, so he traveled to Manhattan for the meeting.

It was a year later when it was revealed to Rodriguez, that the meeting was part of a sting operation by the FBI.  It wasn’t long before the FBI was able to convince Rodriguez to work for them and hack the Sinaloa Cartel communications network, that he had created. He became a cooperative witness in the trial.

From that ‘hacking’ of the network, which he, himself, had built for Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, it led to the Brooklyn Courthouse and the trial of El Chapo.

El Chapo Trial: Mexican attorneys appeal to AMLO and supreme court to annul Chapo's NYC extradition

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat from Reforma

Lawyers for Joaquín "El Chapo " Guzmán protested outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) to demand that the process of extradition of the drug trafficker to the United States be reestablished.

The dissenters asserted that from the beginning they opposed this one because there were three amparos, in progress on the day of extradition.

"Since that time we are now in the Supreme Court, we hope we have a favorable ruling for El Chapo to be returned to Mexico because it was illegally taken," said José Luis González Meza, the drug trafficker's advocate, outside the Chancellery headquarters .

In a letter that was delivered to the agency, the defense of the Chapo asked the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to cancel the authorization granted by the Administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, to extradite and prosecute the capo in the Federal Court of the Eastern District, in New York.

The Duarte-backed policeman with a license to kill

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from La Silla Rota

                        

Countless forced disappearances were systematically carried out between 2012 and 2016, in delegations where Marcos Conde was appointed as subdelegate

Xalapa, Ver. - This 11th of January is a date of mourning for 13 families in Veracruz, victims of the crimes of Marcos Conde, commander of former governor Javier Duarte.

As chance led to a dark series of events, on that same date but in a different year, in 2013, eight municipal policemen disappeared, and then five students in 2016, in an action operated by this policeman who commanded a group of police officers from the Ministry of Public Security of Veracruz for their execution.
 
Marcos Conde, now a prisoner, operated for the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) for years, giving them anyone who seemed "suspicious."

The same modus operandi was evidenced in the municipalities of Úrsulo Galván and Tierra Blanca, where the events of 2013 and 2016 occurred, after videotapes and testimonies were collected in the trial.

The tentacles of the Mexican cartels in the United States

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Vanguardia

                      

Mexican criminal organizations maintain the greatest influence in drug trafficking to the United States of America, since they have kept growing and expanding.
    
They control contraband corridors across the southern border of the United States. There is no international organization that rivals their level of influence.

 

According to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, year after year, Mexican criminal organizations export significant amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana and fentanyl to the United States.

 

The expansion of Mexican criminal organizations has reached the New England area; and they continue to move to expand their market, especially, heroin and methamphetamine.

 

In the greater Chicago area, Mexican criminal organizations dominate the wholesale supply of methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana and heroin. There do not seem to be competitors of Mexican criminal organizations.

Illegal Logging in Chihuahua is Now Mexico Cartel Territory

 Posted by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Insight Crime

                           

Among the most vibrant criminal markets in Mexico is illegal wood, and in the northern state of Chihuahua, there is increasing alarm that drug trafficking organizations are fighting for control of the trade.

The six bodies, minus their heads, were dumped just before dawn on a morning in late October. They were left in front of a gas station on the outskirts of Creel, in the state of Chihuahua — each corpse wrapped in a black bin bag and secured with brown tape around the neck, waist and ankles.

The scene was typical of the violence that has long played out during Mexico’s drug war, now more than a decade old. But the message taped to one of the bodies referred not to drug trafficking, but the local illegal wood market.

Three additional bodies found on Tamaulipas Ranch total now 24

Chivis Martinez from Reforma

The ministerial and military authorities found three more bodies on the site of the massacre between criminal groups that occurred early Wednesday morning at the Hinojosa Refugio ranch in Miguel Alemán, Tamaulipas.  Although initially the Sedena reported 19 burned bodies, then 21, and in the morning Irving Barrios, head of the Attorney General of Tamaulipas, bumped up that number to 24 bodies.

This afternoon the Sedena revealed that in support of the State Prosecutor's Office, another search was conducted through the massacre site,  and three more bodies were found..

 The Attorney General's office confirmed the citizen's denunciations of the finding of three more bullet-riddled corpses in the place of the massacre of the Honojosa Refugio ranch.

[Part II] La Terreur to El Terror: The Mexican Drug War’s place in the history of the expression of social power

By Jeremy Sideris—from Coffin Bell [republished by permission of the author-- to access Part I use this hyperlink

"And prior to this century, a cartel’s rival tended to find his end in a hidden shallow grave, and not in the cynical immortality granted by being featured in an execution video..."

The Cártel del Golfo (CDG), Mexico’s oldest cartel, formed the Zetas as an armed wing to resist the Cártel de Sinaloa’s (CDS) incursion; however, after the Zetas broke away, CDG realigned with CDS to fight the Zetas together. Regarding nuance, CDG has blended the propagandistic charity associated with the aforementioned Robin Hood ethos and the Zeta’s hyper-violence. CDG has failed to capitalize on this interesting synthesis, nevertheless, as it has become wracked by its in-fighting. The Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO) had an interesting nuance, too. Related to the CDS, the BLO shared a Western Mexican character, but under the sanguinary leadership of Arturo Beltrán Leyva and outsider South Texan Édgar Valdez Villareal, the organization was as violent as the Zetas. The BLO fought at first for the CDS against the Zetas until the Beltrán Leyva family thought itself betrayed to the Mexican government by Guzmán Loera of CDS, when it then aligned with the Zetas. Following Valdez Villareal’s later betrayal of the Beltrán Leyva family to the FBI, the BLO splintered into a hydra of 28 factions (Slater, 2015; Grigoriadis & Cuddehe, 2011; Malkin, 2009).

And in two of Mexican organized crime’s most idiosyncratic turns, members of the quasi-religious, divine justice-based La Familia Michoacana followed a leader said to have written a ‘bible’ centered on self-actualization and mindfulness, while its successor, Los Caballeros Templarios (The Knights Templar) advertised its followers’ strict adherence to a chivalric code. La Familia Michoacana began as something of a peasant uprising, an insurgency of vigilantes meant to combat corrupt public officials and the growing number of cocaine traffickers in its state; however, following La Familia Michoacana’s corruption, it became the largest exporter of methamphetamine to The United States. Los Caballeros Templarios were defeated by new local vigilante groups known as autodefensas, but a number of these vigilantes have gone on to form a new cartel called Los Viagras, which fights The Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) now.