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Monday, July 10, 2017

The end of Narco-mansions, the new life style of the Mexican drug capos

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

Subject Matter: Narco's and their homes
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Narco's are now keeping a lower profile. They have left behind their great mansions to buy more discrete homes, generally in private sub-divisions.


It has been some years that one could pass through the streets of Mexican cities like Zapopan, in Jalisco, Culiacan in Sinaloa, where it was emblematic to encounter huge mansions constructed in a peculiar manner, without a defined style, but with expensive materials like marble and grand columns.

The popular voice said that in the these houses lived the big drug capo's, who in the 80's, 90's and the start of this century gave free rein to their wealth by building these types of mansions.

That fashion was not exclusive to Jalisco and Sinaloa. In 2014, citizens of the auto-defensas, who protected themselves from criminal in the state of Michoacan, broke into four mansions of the leaders of the Knights Templar cartel, in which they discovered, swimming pools, Jacuzzis, designer clothes, huge columns, rooms with flat screen TVs, garages for large numbers of cars and extremely expensive furniture.




The apartment building where El Licenciado was arrested
 But now things have changed and narco's are seeking a lower profile. They left behind the big gaudy mansions to buy more discrete houses usually in private sub-divisions where they can blend in with common inhabitants.

This hypothesis is verified by the arrest of Damaso Lopez, El Licenciado, one of the alleged successors of El Chapo Guzman for the leadership of the Sinaloa cartel, in a luxurious apartment in a tower of condominiums in an upper middle class colonia in the countries capital city.

One of Alfredo Beltran Leyvas houses in Cuernavaca
Alfredo Beltran Leyva was killed in 2009, by the Marines also in a private condominium and not in a large mansion. (Otis: though he was nearly captured and wounded by marines in one of his large mansions, see above photo).

In the collective imagination, the images of these great mansions, such as that of Mexican nationalized Chinese Zhenli Ye Gon, arrested in 2007 for the sale of raw materials for the production of crystal meth are still fresh in the mind.

The businessman lived in a kind of palace in Lomas de Chapultepec, in the capital, one of the most expensive areas in Latin American to live. The decor included fine chandeliers, hardwood floors, and indoor swimming pool, a large garden, exclusive finished bathrooms and Jacuzzis, a luxurious gymnasium, plus 205 million dollars US in cash, which is remembered as the largest cash seizure in the history of the country.

Zhenli Ye Gons mansion
The times of narco mansions

An architect of the University of Guadalajara who asked to remain anonymous, relates that the houses of the last generation of narco's that lived in the Metropolitan area of Guadalajara like Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo of the extinct Guadalajara cartel, had huge exterior gates, decorative excess without artistic value, and a a series of walls that were not in harmony.

For them to have a great house with the greatest possible luxury was a dream come true, to show excessive money with power because they believed that the great and grandeur is powerful. Those giant rooms full of marble, the worst thing is that they built them with money corrupting authorities, builders and architects, by passing building regulations.

In Guadalajara, for a long time Caro Quintero was credited with owning a large house on the Americas and Pablo Neruda avenues, in the exclusive area of Providencia, but after being abandoned, they were demolished and are now vacant lots.

A few blocks ahead was another mansion that is attributed to "Don Neto", but no longer exists. After being imprisoned for 31 years in a high security prison, he left behind the times of the great mansions to move to an exclusive sub-division  of the Emerald Zone in the municipality of Atizapan, in State of Mexico.

House of Caro Quintero in Costa Rica, qualified as an Olympic Village
In Mexico, federal authorities seize narco-related properties and then auction them or keep them under guard. This happened with a 2297 square meter mansion of Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, of the AFO who in 1993 was seized a Spanish style property with arches and balconies in the municipalities of Tlajomulco de Zuniga, Jalisco.

The property remained for two decades under the protection of the Federal Prosecutor, but through a trial, Alicia Felix, recovered the property in 2015 to sell it months later for US$12,000,000.00, according to Zetatijuana.

In 2016 an analysis was published of registration records and it was found that only in Jalisco, the Arellanos spent 1.1 billion pesos buying 23 properties that together measure twice the size of the soccer field of Estadio Azetca (7140 square meters). Seven of these properties no longer belong to the family and rest were seized.

There has been an evolution from those houses of the 80's that were mansions with a lot of land where you could identify heavy narcos. Today I can tell you that they are more discreet, notes Juan Carlos Ayala, a researcher at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa and one of the great connoisseurs of the cartels in the State.

The last traces of these great mansions are in Michoacan, with the extinct Knights Templar Cartel. At the beginning of 2014, the auto-defensas symbolically seized the mansions of their leaders Enrique Kike Plancarte, in the municipality of Mugica.

His excesses were captured by the French photographer Jerome Sessini and published in Time magazine.

A room in the house of Kike Plancarte
In the municipality of Paracuaro, they secured a mansion of a capo identified as El Botas. Here the autodefensas found rooms with rustic finishes, swimming pools and high ceilings, where he signed his signature to make clear exactly who owned the property.

Although narco's now live in more modest houses, they are not willing to give up their Jacuzzis, confirms the researcher and the architect.

A real estate expert who also wanted to remain anonymous said that almost all new sub-divisions that have been built in recent times have a jacuzzi, a convenience that customers demand, but that does not mean that everyone that buys here is a delinquent.

The terrace is another pleasure to which they do not want to give up, because for the capos. the jacuzzi is a place for them to relax and the terrace is also a space that serves for relaxation and to have in sight all the women that they take to their houses.

Another Knights Templar property
Somehow, Ayala said, the new bosses not only want to be more discreet, but have also changed their preferences, for them, having a big mansion is now not a status symbol.

What they are looking for now are designed branded things and luxurious items like cars for example. On the outside the houses look normal like anyone else's, but inside they are full of luxury and they still have those basements and false doors where they hide money and weapons.

Don Neto's new neighbourhood
They also seek to not make the mistakes of their predecessors, who with those large houses seized by the Office of the Attorney General, lost millions of dollars.

Such is the case of the house of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, founder of the Guadalajara cartel, but born in Sinaloa. He had a house in Culiacan in the San Miguel hills area that overlooked a stream where he had slides, but that was confiscated, then looted and now lies in ruins.

Ines Calderon Quintero, one of the great narcos of the 70's and 80's, had a house in the Guadalupe of Culiacan, which had three floors, canteen, billiards, pools, but was also looted to such a degree that the floors were destroyed.

They are left for the vandals, they become nests for addicts or dumpsters, instead of them being donated to some cause.

The architect says that they can not be put up for sale because of the series of false doors, and walls that seem to have no function, and other structures that make them not functional to live in or give them another use.

Original article in Spanish at Noreste

45 comments:

  1. Times have changed. Unless you are legitimate one can splurge and bling. Unfortunately those free passes of impunity have disintegrated.
    Governments and criminal alliances shift from personal influences and associations.
    Nevertheless the the fortunes gained remain and firmly secured.
    Living content fully engaged.

    E42

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you related to E 40?

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    2. The rapper??

      E42

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    3. So right E42....let the fortunes continue to flow

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    4. Ah Hahahahahah, Concord cousin.

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    5. OK, if you're done cutting the cheese, you may notice that as the mexican super narcos stars of the cartels and the cartel wars were falling off their precious exclusive residences, the mexican narco-policitians started buying condos, apartments, houses, in california, "Niu Yoargk", florida, san diego, tejas... and yatchs, investments, "buying 10 billion dollars stocks and shares from DOW JONES", making million dollar deposits on the Netherlands banks, in panama papers, in televisa videos to compromise opposition candidates, giving government contracts to spanish corporations without technology and to brazilian companies like Odebrecht...
      At least the narcos invested some in mexico.
      --the narco politicians just rob and steal from everybody and sell cheap what they can't steal,
      --they really need unos pinchis escopetazos por el jundillo.

      Delete
  2. Isnt Don Neto a wanted man currently? And this one guy found him very easily.

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    Replies
    1. Don Neto has been locked up For some time now they don't want him they have him lol

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    2. Don Neto was order to pay a couple of millions to Camarenas family. He also was requesting home arrest due to health issues. Let me tell you, the millions will never get paid n he will die in prison.

      Delete
  3. You confused Alfredo for Arturo. Mochomo was arrested not killed

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL I notice things like that all the time on here. Especially when the articles (which 99% of or more are copied and pasted from other media sites) are long. They have no clue who or what they're talking about just playing with their new hobby. But anyway back to the article, this isn't exactly new news they've been laying low a very long time. Yes some have been caught or had large mansions exposed but they own so many scattered out across Mexico and other countries.

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    2. Nop, the author confused the owner of the house, I believe that property was owned by Arturo not Alfredo, my statement is correct.

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    3. Arturo Beltran Leyva "El Barbas" used to run around Cuernavaca and DF, Monterrey, running all the turf he used to run for amado carrillo fuentes until he died, he was to pay for Amados fall withhis own fall,
      --the error is under the house's photo, names alfredo as the owner...But it is no problem, the only problem I see is the unhappy commenter @3:30 that can't find a home blog more to fit his exquisitely polished tastes...
      IDNK why some bitter CS's can't live with themselves and come here to play blowtards, but hey, you got posted...

      Delete
  4. Sinaloa style is out the question, no more flaunting in Instagram or Facebook posting guns and tiger cubs lol keep it discrete children lol

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 10:44 yesiree, I gatcha, tweeting is reserved to EPN's kids and the Donal' from now on, make sure the Super Secure Cybersite puts all the classless asalariados, proles, journeymen, farmeros, braceros and other descerebrados out of their unique exclusive limitless domains, Putin will be happy to help.

      Delete
    2. Com inspanal sinanola I live haha!!

      Delete
  5. Alfredo Beltran Leyva nunca lo mataron; esta en EEUA. Al que mataron fue a su hermano mayor Arturo.

    ReplyDelete
  6. i wonder how many are living in chula vista?

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    Replies
    1. good one!!! i wonder how many are living all over the US?!?!?!?

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    2. cali, nevada, oregon you'll find many of them living among lawyers, docs, bankers, teachers, tv reporters, hookers, mechanics, dish washers, pretty much any place they can blend in. nothing new...

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  7. They don't make Capos like they use too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There ALL the same , greedy, backstabbers, snitches and power hungry

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    2. Lmao bring back the the Miami vice big cell phone capos back

      Delete
  8. Hey Otis, Arturo was the one that got killed not Alfredo...just trying to help out...good read by the way

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alfredos just washed up in the American federal system, might as well be dead

      Delete
  9. Rafail caro quintero IS wanted, Don Neto isn't due to advanced age and poor health.
    --The arellanuses house must have sold for $12 000 000.00 million PESOS,
    --EPN's White House was worth about 7 million dollars which is a LOT of money for a mexican career politician to posess.
    Of course, drug trafficking made epn a lot of money and helped him buy the presidency from where he can make even more money.
    --Donal' trump envies "enrique", he's got it all so easy.

    ReplyDelete
  10. DON neto lives in a home and is under house arrest in Guadalajara. Must be real nice....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Due to poor eyesigh, don Neto no ve, he cant see, who he facks up, I hope somebody gives him a mountain cat that rips his ass to shreds. By the way, try and find "The Autobiografia de Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo" says Guillermo Gonzalez CalderonI was his friend but chose to fack him up at the first opportunity.

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    2. Don neto can have a nurse now, I would love to have me one to pinch her ass all the time, I hope she would not beat me up with the chamberpot. And the best part is OBAMACARE WILL PAY FOR IT ALL, with my Obama phone my life will be complete.
      Don neto does not qualify.

      Delete
  11. There's a very nice house on the outskirts of San Sebastián del Oeste, Jalisco, that used to belong to the mayor and now belongs to the narco who whacked him, rumour has it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. You forgot a head of the cjng in puebla living in a gated community amongst the rich folks. He got smoked last month but lived in that community undisturbed for 5 years until he got the chief of the federal police killed and that's when they went to his house. Dumb move but his neighbors said he was really quiet and reserved and never had big fiestas or flaunting his ca$$h money

    ReplyDelete
  13. Green Eyed Plancarte Had A Dope Mansion He Still Has A Few They Didn't Confiscate & Each Of His Children & Wife Have One Too

    ReplyDelete
  14. Arellano's house and club were vacant and under 24/7 guard into like 2005! The club Franky Ohs sat empty facing the ocean for like 20 years.

    ReplyDelete
  15. You guys forgot hector beltran leyvas house or more like his own private mansion

    ReplyDelete
  16. High floor condos and lease late model popular cars, look like just going to the golf course everyday ;) golf bag can hold a million in cash and a few kilos.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Is that how they do it in mid to upper class neighborhoods? oh now the laws is going to be all up in some tails. they'll be happily waiting for that million dollar payday... you never know what is going to be around the corner.. it could be Jacky Chan, Samuel L Jackson or something else.. LOL

      Delete
  17. Very good article. This is the stuff we like to read about.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Criminals can steal, smuggle, collect ransom and extort but when they die which is always sooner than later if the government don't keep your fortune EL SANCHO sure will.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A Real Chaka has something in place in the time of his death. Including a nice severance package for sanchito I can assure u of that

      Delete
  19. no more mansions, homes. buying condo, but really hiding in the bush. fuck this game. fuck the money.

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    Replies
    1. Is why many choose to hide in the jungle, they can build mansions in there because monkeys can't snitch on them.

      Delete
  20. We had OBAMA gangster in the white house - Golf is how he wasted his time and polluted our streets with open boarders.

    ReplyDelete

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