RCQ's Girlfriend Tries to Register Her Brand for TV

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Excelsior

Photograph Courtesy:  Diana Espinoza provided by US Govt.
By: Laura Sanchez Ley
Jan 31, 2018 Mexico City

Rafael Caro Quintero's girlfriend registers her brand for TV series; Her Brand: Rafael Caro Quintero

It is the second attempt of Diana Espinoza Aguilar, to register her Brand before the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property in Mexico; the US Treasury Dept has listed her as a drug trafficker and money launderer.

Diana Espinoza Aguilar , was listed by the United States Department of the Treasury as a drug dealer and money launderer of her  "concubine" , Rafael Caro Quintero , one of the best-known drug traffickers in the history of Mexico. 

Opinion: "Anonymous" Commenter's rebuttal to "Tyranny of the Majority: U.S.-fueled Instability in Mexico"

Written by Anonymous Guest Reporter 'Lurker'

Readers: I have not a clue who this anonymous commenter is. Fact of the matter is, I have never pulled a comment out of thread, to create a post. What I do know is he has been a BB follower since 2010, the same year I began following BB. He has never before posted a comment, refers to himself as a “lurker”.His commentary is thoughtful, expressive, fact-filled and a good counter to the article “Tyranny of the Majority: U.S.-fueled Instability in Mexico and the Case for a North American Economic and Security Community”[if you have not read it, please use this hyperlink] Whether or not I completely agree with his opinion doesn’t matter, it remains an excellent counterpoint.

“I think he misses the mark entirely about what really afflicts Mexico in its current condition” .….Lurker

Look man, I’ve been a BB reader since 2010 but have never written before. I’m a lurker, as many of you are, but this article really got me, so here goes my .02 centavos…..

Though I think the author made some good points with this article, I think he misses the mark entirely about what really afflicts Mexico in its current condition. He goes on to quote some great minds like Alexis de Toqueville, Rousseau and Madison, et al, but he takes their statements wholly out of context and using sleight of hand, 3-Card Monty type word tricks, tries to fool us into his globalist, left-leaning ideology that Mexico’s homicide woes are caused by US drug consumption! There’s some truth to it, no doubt, as we are the number one consumer, but it’s reeks of the same old argument the Left has been making for years – if only we amend or get rid of the 2nd Amendment, the senseless killings will stop! But, as all dictators know, once you disarm the citizenry, then rebellion becomes an easy-peasy matter to stop!

Six men and two women found dismembered and decapitated in Chilapa

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Noreste article with additional information from Digital Guerrero

Subject Matter: Decapitations, Chilapa
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Noreste Redaction
This morning authorities found the remains of 6 men and two women in black plastic bags close to a road near Terraceria that leads to the community of Texcan, besides the Chilapa river.

The remains were left on the banks of the river, in the Juquila colonia inside black plastic bags, the majority were men who had been mutilated, dismembered and decapitated.

The discovery was notified to authorities by citizens of the community, at this point agents of the police and the Attorney General of the States arrived to carry out their due diligence.

WARNING STRONG GRAPHIC IMAGES ON NEXT PAGE VIEW WITH CAUTION

Upoeg kidnap member of Los Ardillos in Guerrero, 4 Upoeg member die in the aftermath

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

Subject Matter: UPOEG, Los Ardillos, Guerrero
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

The kidnapping of an alleged narco-trafficker in the rural zone of the State Capital provoked diverse armed attacks and blockades on the Mexico-Acapulco Federal highway, where four members of UPOEG were executed and burnt.

Reporter: Ezequiel Flores Contreras
Five persons were also wounded, four men and a woman, all involved in the conflict, who were circulating on board various vehicles on the Federal highway, where groups of auto-defensas and criminal groups set up check points from the village of Petaquillas, Chilpancingo, until the town of Juan R Escudero.

According to official reports, the violent events that were registered last night, provoked the closure of school classes in five villages: Rincon de la Via, Cajeles, Mohoneras, Buena Vista and El Ocotito.

The official reports also detailed that the new conflict in the rural zone has its origin in the confrontation that UPOEG maintains against the criminal group Los Ardillos, for control of the heroin production zones in the central region of the State.

Tijuana: The heartbreaking reality of a small massacre

The heartbreaking reality of a small massacre

Last week, in a small home, the kind of half self shelter built into the colonias in Tijuana, and across Mexico, hard concrete floors, doors reinforced with plywood, fencing around the sides.  It is one of thousands across the city, where families live, laugh, eat, and go through unspeakable and silent tragedies, behind closed doors.  It was also said to be a point for sale of drugs, one of the hundreds in the city alone.  

El Florido is one of those colonias where killing and violence, bodies bound with tape and bearing notes, severed and disarticulated limbs are found on the street routinely.  Hundreds have been killed, families broken apart by death, and 9mm shells, ejected onto the blood stained sidewalks.  

Scene of the killings, El Florido

That night at least 15 people, mostly related to Bibiana Ponce Sanchez, "La Bibi", gathered in the yard of the home.  There was a slot machine, where many children came to play after school.  There were mothers, aunts, friends, cousins, in the loose, multi generational style, of so many families.

Tyranny of the Majority: U.S.-fueled Instability in Mexico and the Case for a North American Economic and Security Community

Posted by El Profe from Small Wars Journal by Bryan Baker

 

“...we as Americans must confront that we are the market. There is no other market for these activities. It is all coming here. But for us, Mexico wouldn't have the trans-criminal organized crime problem and the violence that they're suffering.”  Sec of State Rex Tillerson

 

 A majority taken collectively may be regarded as a being whose opinions, and most frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another being, which is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach?[i]

                                                - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Rule of Law vs. State of Nature

In a well-governed State, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a State is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity.[ii]

- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

The social contract has been breached in many Mexican states. Instead of rule of law, impunity reigns. Crimes go unreported, uninvestigated, and unpunished. Life, liberty, and property are no longer secured by the state.[iii] Government forces have lost their monopoly on coercion and citizens are left with little to no protection from the violent and anarchic state of nature. The situation is reminiscent of the breakdown in society that Thomas Hobbes recorded after watching armed bandits rampage through Europe during the Thirty Years War:

Tamaulipas: Who is “El Pelochas”? And what is the conflict about?

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat from La Silla Rota, Zocalo Saltillo

Who is “El Pelochas”?

Luis Alberto Blanco Flores, "El Pelochas" or "Metro 28", leader of the Gulf Cartel (CDG), is one of the major objectives of capture in Tamaulipas. He has already been in custody three times on both sides of the border.  He was arrested twice in the United States. They deported him into the custody of Mexico. Mexico released him. In February of 2017, in a national television newscast, reported his death.

That took six month to refute, but it was in August 2017,  when confronting elements of the Army in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas. Skill and the money and influence, allowed "El Pelochas" to evade Mexican justice and elude rivals who seek to kill him. 

"El Pelochas" belongs to "Los Metros", a faction of the CDG with a presence in Rio Bravo and Reynosa. Through deaths and betrayals he was promoted and became second in command in the criminal structure. The distinction of his new command position, dropped the code/key "M"of "Metro" and now has the title of " Commander” Pelochas ".  He has the task of defending the plazas against "Los Ciclones" - another group of the CDG - and Los Zetas to maintain control of drug trafficking routes to the United States, human trafficking, fuel theft, kidnapping and the extortion.

30 minute shootout in La Paz , 6 sicarios arrested (video)

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

Subject Matter: Shoot out in La Paz
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

For more than half an hour, Federal and State forces had a shoot out this afternoon in the locality of Fraccionamiento Juarez in La Paz, Baja California Sur. It is reported that no less than six alleged criminals were detained, among them two women.

The shoot out culminated in the inside of a house that appeared to be a safe house of the arrested, located in Calles Insurgentes, between Margaritas and Constructores.

Recounting torture: "to speak and not be listened to"

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Horizonal

                         
Torture is a current practice in Mexico. To the pain of having lived it in their own flesh, the victims add the impossibility of talking about it.

Past and present of torture in Mexico

On September 19, an earthquake collapsed a considerable number of buildings in Mexico City. One of them was the Attorney General's Office, whose rubble revealed the existence of clandestine prisons, as well as corpses with torture marks. Some media and international human rights organizations reported these macabre discoveries. [I] In response, the Attorney General's Office "described as a lie everything reported in Mexico and in the world about the findings after the earthquake." [II] It was the year of 1985 and the country was governed by the authoritarian regime of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), led by President Miguel de la Madrid, in which serious human rights abuses were committed and which was characterized by its aversion to transparency, their indifference to accountability and their hostility to the scrutiny of the international community. [III] "Office of darkness," recalls Juan Villoro, the exercise of power in Mexico "depended for almost a century on the political value of the inscrutable." [IV]

Family of "Betito" travel from Texas to identify his body in Reynosa Tamaulipas

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat  from La Manana and others

It is reported on social media, Pelochas daughter died with Betito 

Reynosa, Tam.- On Sunday, family members of Humberto or Steven Loza Méndez, alias "Betito", positively identified a body in the Forensic Medical Service, as their loved one.

Although the authorities continue to conduct  tests to fully establish the identity with certainly.

Loza Méndez was reportedly killed Saturday along with three other gunmen in the Las Palmas neighborhood, in an operation by a special group of elements of the Marina [Mexican Navy].

But still the authorities have not given an official confirmation, pending the tests by the PGR [attorney general office].

Sources close to the investigation confirmed the identification by the relatives of the "Betito", who was born in Hidalgo, Texas. The family traveled from Texas to make the identification.

9 killed : Another suspect arrested, implicated in San Nicolás massacre

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat  from Proceso

MONTERREY, NL (appro) .- The Attorney General's Office of Nuevo Leon announced the capture of Iván Alejandro Cisneros, another person suspected of being  involved in the murder of nine people in a house in San Nicolás.  Two other men have already been arrested.

Saturday at 9:00 pm, three hooded men broke into a house on Raúl Murrieta Street, in the Constituyentes de Querétaro neighborhood and shot 12 men, nine of whom died.

On Sunday, the capture of  two, who authorities say were involved.

First, the prosecutor, Bernardo González Garza, announced the arrest of  Raúl Sergio Esquivel, 32,  a taxi driver, after  searching  in a house in the same neighborhood.

Hours later, the agency announced that Ivan Alejandro, Kiko, 38, who works as a printer, had also been apprehended. His capture occurred in a raid by state ministerial agents at an address in the Niño Artillero neighborhood, north of the capital.

Cartels disputing prisons in BCS, Marines take over guarding

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

Subject Matter: Prisons in BCS, Sinaloa Cartel, CJNG
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Custodians of La Paz prison refused to carry out guarding duties after alleged threats from the CJNG. "Everything went downhill like a snowball, since the confrontation on the 6th of January and the fall of a Sinaloa Cartel cell that weakened their structure", a mixed command told Zeta. The Navy has taken control of prisons in Baja California Sur.

Reporter: Zeta Investigations

On Saturday, January 13, at least 15 custodians of the morning guard of the Center for Social Reintegration (Cereso) of La Paz refused to enter the prison to perform their work, fearing reprisals to which they were threatened by groups of criminals who operate inside and outside said center.

"Everything fell like a snowball, since the confrontation on January 6 and the fall of an important body of assassins under orders of the Sinaloa Cartel, their structure was weakened, followed by this, members of Jalisco (CJNG) say that they took advantage of the momentum to seize the territory demonstrated in the penitentiary of La Paz and that of San José del Cabo, "said an officer of the Mixed Command in La Paz.

From September 13, 2016 it became evident who maintained the control of sale and distribution of drugs, cell phones, protection and other things, including water inside the Cereso de La Paz, when at dawn members of the Secretariat of the National Defense (Sedena), in the company of the Navy and police, entered each of the cells of the prisoners, managing to find on that occasion more than 150 thousand pesos in national currency, hundreds of dollars, drugs, several cell phones, scales grameras , weapons and other prohibited items.

Simón Guillermo Hernández Peña alias "El Simón" or "El Sepulturero" had all the aforementioned in his cell, hence his transfer by the Deputy Attorney General specialized in Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO), carried out three days after the find.

Reports of commander "Betito" killed in Reynosa shootout with Marina

Chivis Martinez or Borderland Beat info from El Mañana and Menytimes

Note: There are questions surrounding the photo of the person social media identifies as Betito a CDG leader.  MenyTimes blog questions the validity of the claim.  Pointing out that members often replicate tattoos.  Sometimes to create confusion.  

Here is the story from El Manana

In a gun battle against elements of the Secretary of the Navy ( SEMAR ), four armed civilians were killed.

Unconfirmed by the authorities, at the close of this edition, there was the persistent reporting on social networks,  that among the civilians killed is the leader Humberto or Steven Loza Méndez, aka Betito or Betillo one of the priority objectives of the Government of Tamaulipas  State, for which it has an offer of a two million pesos reward.

It was around 17:10 yesterday when it was reported that the armed forces surrounded an address located in the streets Cuarta con Amor of the Las Palmas neighborhood, behind the Maternal and Children Hospital.

Graphic fotos on following page.

The smart phone App offering the navigation of border crossing perils crossing into the U.S.

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat republished from Motherboard By Brian Anderson

Note from Chivis: A guidance app for illegal migration and drug trafficking? Federal Government is well aware of this device and ICE is tracking its license.

“Imagine Waze, Google’s free GPS-based traffic and navigation app, only for transiting the borderlands undetected and in one piece…”

The Mexican Border-Crossing App That Suddenly Disappeared

On Monday, while a stopgap spending measure was being approved in the Senate as part of a new February deadline for immigration reform, a curious teaser video appeared online.

“What if there was a smarter way that gave people the power to freely enter and reenter the United States with just a few taps of their smartphone?” a narrator asked.

What if?

Nayarit: A Nightmare of Disappearances and Mass Graves

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Proceso

Special Report by: Patricia Davila
Mexico City, Jan 27, 2018

The Nayarit nightmare does not end with the new governor. Antonio Echevarría García (PAN-PRD), who took office in September, has maintained the prosecutor's office that was controlled by Édgar Veytia, arrested in March at the US Border, accused of drug trafficking. There in lies the problem because the agency continues to work for the cartels, according to complaints from the Familias Unidas de Nayarit Collective, made up of those who have lost children, brothers and fathers during the wave of kidnappings that has not stopped since last June; with and by their own means, they have begun to discover clandestine pits.

Search dogs led authorities to the grisly discovery of four clandestine graves containing at least 33 bodies in a sugarcane field in Mexico’s Pacific coast state of Nayarit and officials said Wednesday the killings were likely linked to the drug trade. The Familias Unidas group's story differs somewhat.

90% impunity in cases of murdered journalists in Mexico: CNDH

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Proceso

Photo: Germán Canseco

By Pedro Zamora Briseño, January 25, 2018

COLIMA, Col.- Aggressions against journalists in the country have increased in a ”very alarming" way, while prevailing impunity in cases of murders is 90%, warned the director of the Program of Grievances to Journalists and Civil Defenders of Human Rights of the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), Rodrigo Santiago Juárez. 

According to their numbers, from 2000 to date, 131 journalists have been murdered in Mexico (including 13 women), 20 have been missing since 2005 and there have been 52 attacks against media facilities since 2006.

At a press conference held at the facilities of the Human Rights Commission of the State of Colima (CDHEC), the representative of the national body commented that, after an analysis of 176 preliminary inquiries related to killings and disappearances of journalists, as well as attacks on communication media, the CNDH concluded that only in 17 cases there was a conviction, that is, only in 10% of the cases was justice obtained.

Video: gunshots ring out during mayoral event in Nuevo Laredo

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat

▶ Durante la inauguración de un mural en #NuevoLaredo, una balacera tomó por sorpresa al alcalde y los asistentes del lugar pic.twitter.com/2peYPriWNB

— Milenio.com (@Milenio) January 24, 2018

On Wednesday, a shootout occurred in the  city of Nuevo Laredo Tamaulipas during a mayoral event.The city borders with Laredo Texas.

The mayor of Nuevo Laredo, Enrique Rivas Cuéllar was inaugurating a mural around 2pm when shots rang out.

The event was being held in Silao Park, an area known for violence.  The shootout was unrelated to the mural event but security instructed the 150 guests to hit the ground for safety.

Busted: 100 Pounds of Fentanyl and A lot More

Posted by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: La Frontera

Jan 23, 2018

All non Mexican news sites are reporting the AP Story, including The NYT, UK's Daily Mail, US MSM News , Abc.

Mexican cops found enough fentanyl to kill more than one million people stuffed into back of SUV alongside cocaine, heroin and meth just 90 minutes south of  the US border.

Mexican police found a multi-drug shipment that included an astonishing 100 pounds (45.5 kilograms) of the synthetic opioid fentanyl in a vehicle south of the city of Ensenada in Baja California, officials said Thursday.

Fentanyl can be fatal in doses of just a few milligrams. To put the size of the haul in perspective, a seizure last year of 4.5 pounds (2 kilograms) of fentanyl in Columbus, Ohio, was said by prosecutors to be enough to potentially kill the entire population of the city of 860,000 people.

Relatives Beg for Help Directly Addressing Sinaloa Cartel Capos

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Proceso

   Relatives of Two Missing Policemen beg for help .......... from the Sinaloa Cartel.......In Public

By: Gloria Leticia Diaz , Jan 23, 2018
Extra Material from: El Pais, Culiacan, Sinaloa

More than 365 days have passed without knowing anything about them:  the two policemen of the municipality of Culiacán, Sinaloa, José Antonio Saavedra Ortega and Yosimar García Cruz who were kidnapped by a group of armed men on  January 23 and 26, 2017. One year after their disappearance, the official investigations do not advance. Despair and pain have led family members to ask for help directly from the Sinaloa Cartel , one of the most powerful drug trafficking structures in Mexico. 

Through a letter , released to the media, the relatives of Saavedra Ortega and García Cruz request the support of organized crime to find their loved ones: "We only ask the big bosses, the bosses of the Sinaloa Cartel and those who took our relatives for support, to help  return to us or at least tell us where we could find them. The worst torture of families is not knowing where our loved ones can be found. We appeal to their great hearts, to give us a little peace, or complete peace in finding our beloved children, our brothers, our family. "

Interview: The Life of a halcón in the CDN

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Valor Por Tamaulipas

Although organized crime recruits its "halcones” [hawks] or vigilantes, among young people under 20, it can also be the lady who sells corn on the corner or bus stop, the taxi driver, or even students.

A cuazito decided to ask openly about the obligations and cost of working as a halcón for a group from the Northeast Cartel [CDN] and this was the response he received.

Cuazito:

Some "friends" of the neighborhood told me that I would not want to work as a halcón but the truth is I don’t know much about it, my friends tell me not to get into it since it's a crime, and truthfully, they may pay well, according to what they told me, it's 7,500 every quincena [payday, 15th day of the month] and P.S. the truth is I really don’t understand them very well, please help me.

Secretary of tourism proposes recreational marijuana for BCS and QRoo, states with increase in homicides

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Animal Politico
                         
                       

The tourism official said that legalizing marijuana would help not to lose these centers for the fight against drug trafficking.

Legalizing marijuana in Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo in order to prevent violence driving away tourism, was the idea launched Thursday by the Secretary of Tourism, Enrique de la Madrid.

"It is absurd that as a country we do not already take that step. I would like to see that, what could be done in Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo, the two main tourist destinations in Mexico that do not have to be victims of violence," the official told reporters in Mexico City.

De la Madrid gives examples of what was done in California, where the recreational use of the substance is legal, although at the federal level, the United States maintains the prohibition.

San Diego: Sajid Emilio Quintero Navidad "El Cadete" pleads guilty, a legend dies.

El Cadete pleads guilty 

For years his name was barely above a whisper, in the corridos they play in Sonora, in cities and small towns across the state.  They knew Cadete's name in the mountains, the hills of Tubutama, Sonora, where in June 2010, a running gunfight and ambush, was a full scale battle for control of the region.  

Cracked glass and bloody suburban car seats, X painted onto the windows, men died with rifles in their hands, under the Sonoran desert sun, the body count was said to be 50.  It was probably more.  Gunmen threw the fallen into trucks and cars, corpses, evidence, and buried them in the hills they were defending.  The hills still belonged to the Beltran's after that day.  Maybe they still do.

They knew Cadete's name in Ciudad Obregon, way down in Sonora, on the border of Sinaloa.  Obregon, known from the days of Amado Carillo Fuentes, and the old guard of narco traffickers.  They say Cadete gave the order on Tito Torbellino, a singer executed in early 2014, as Cadete's faction went after Los Salazar, a longtime family allied with Sinaloa.  Adan Salazar Ramirez, son of Don Adan, 48, was dropped off, dead, in front of a funeral parlor in Navojoa, Sonora in May 2016.

Analysis: Beheading, dismemberment, heart ripped out in Maryland park

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat from Small Wars JournalJohn P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker.

Third Generation Gangs Strategic Note No. 7: Suspect in Brutal Montgomery County, MD Beheading and Dismemberment Arrested—Suspected Link to MS-13 -Note This murder occurred at the end of November this report includes SWJ complete analysis

Police in the Washington, DC suburb of Montgomery County, MD have arrested a suspect in the brutal gang murder of a still unidentified man whose body was found in a pre-dug grave in a park in Wheaton.  The victim was stabbed over 100 times, beheaded, and his heart was cut out of his body.  The suspect is an alleged member of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and was arrested during a US Marshals Service raid on MS-13 fugitives in North Carolina and extradited to Maryland where he was charged with first-degree murder. 

 

Miguel “Timido” Angel López-Abrego

WASHINGTON — Gory details are emerging in the gang killing of a man who was stabbed more than 100 times, decapitated and had his heart cut out of his chest before being dumped in a pre-dug grave in a Montgomery County park.

El Mini Lic and the brother in law of el chapo in court, another hit for the Sinaloa cartel

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

Subject Matter: Sinaloa Cartel
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

As well as the internal disputes for control of the organization, the Sinaloa Cartel continues its fragmentation in court. The cases of El Mini Lic and the brother in law of El Chapo in the Federal Court of the South District of California,  shows that the Department of Justice continues to dismantle the drug trafficking network and money laundering rings, although they still cannot locate Ismael El Mayo Zambada.

Reporter: Ines Garcia Ramos
While Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera continues his incarceration in a New York prison as the case goes slowly in court, the proceedings against his financial operators of the Sinaloa Cartel on the border of Baja California and California, to launder the money from the transit of tons of drugs, advance in the Court of the South District of California.

Reynosa: "Scorpions of the CDG" against Sedena leaves 1 soldier dead and 5 wounded

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat from VXT

Reynosa, Tam.- A strong deployment by elements of the Ministry of National Defense is recorded this afternoon at a maquiladora company called Kimball Electrónicos de México.

An armed commando of the CDG Escorpion group attacked elements of SEDENA in the Colonia Nuevo Reynosa, resulting in 6 wounded elements; one of them died while receiving medical attention.

The six elements of the 19th Motorized Cavalry Regiment of Sedena,  were transferred to receive medical attention.

And this regarding the murder of Comandante Panilo

U.S. Prosecutors want anonymous, sequestered jury, in El Chapo Case

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat

Anonymous or innominate jury is atypical but is sometimes requested in high profile cases. If a court grants the request, it will order jury members kept anonymous. Either the defense or prosecution can request an anonymous jury, for such reasons as to protect jury members from jury tampering, the media or a serious threat of juror’s safety.  Or to protect the jury process itself.

There can be concerns for jurors after an unfavorable verdict.   As in the O.J. Simpson trial.  Or that of a young Florida mother, Casey Anthony, accused of murdering her toddler daughter. The backlash was severe over the not guilty verdict; one juror left Florida because of it.

Jury sequestration is rare. A judge may order a jury sequestered to prevent interference by publicity, media reporting or even social media compromising objectivity. Or tampering.

In the case of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the prosecution has requested both, an anonymous, sequestered jury. 

The Prosecution 

The following arguments are made by prosecutors:

• The Seriousness of the Charges Against the Defendant Weigh in Favor of an Anonymous and Partially Sequestered Jury
• The Defendant’s Past Interference With and Present Means to Interfere with the Judicial Process Support Anonymity and Partial Sequestration
• Extensive Press Coverage Justifies an Anonymous and Partially Sequestered Jury.

Cherán Activist Found Strangled to Death

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Proceso   

                                           

Maria Guadalupe Campanur Tapia

By: Francisco Castellanos Jan 19-20, 2018

Yaqui: For background on this Community of Cheran, Michoacán see my Post from July 12, 2015:

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2017/07/one-mexican-town-revolts-against.html

As most of us know citizen activists, especially indigenous peoples everywhere are frequent targets of violence, repression and murder by the powers that be, irregardless of their causes, which are often environmental issues. Defending resource extraction of all types are most notorious. Latin American activists are among the hardest hit , especially environmentalists and defenders of their traditional lands. The list is endless and deserving of its own post. The recent events in Guerrero are a good example, the backstory, ie, of why the people were attacked and what they were trying to protect.

The murder of this beautiful young woman, brimming with positive energy, is as heartbreaking for me personally as the horror of the recent video posted by Chivis or the story of The Little Girl with the Red Socks by DD. These brave defenders of their culture, their lands, and traditions will have to continually fight back against exploitation of their resources, their lives, the corruption and the violence which surrounds them until the end of time, all the while looking and working towards a better future with innovative ways to sustain themselves. They are usually fighting multi-national corporations, business interests, organized crime, terrorists and their own governments. It is a universal story, an uphill battle, timeless, endless, an ongoing story the world over; not just the story of one woman, her cause or her community.

Video: Cartels threaten tourism in Cancun, locals fear same fate as Acapulco

by El Profe for Borderland Beat      

              

                

Cancun, known as the safest place to visit in Mexico, saw at least 205 people murdered in 2017—more than double from the year before. With continuing extortion of businesses, locals fear it could go the way of Acapulco: a city once equated with glamorous beach getaways for celebrities that has for years possessed the nefarious title of the most murderous city in Mexico. (In the first six months of 2017 alone, statistics range from 412 to 466 murders in Acapulco.)

Government-tracking hackers hide out in the woods to keep surveillance on what they see as government collusion with cartels. This is just one of the ways in which people are trying to put an end to this devolution of Cancun before it truly starts.

The group was formed by Carlos Mimenza, a real estate developer recently turned 21st-century vigilante leader, in the Mayan Riviera tourist city of Playa Del Carmen, about an hour's drive from Cancun in the state of Quintana Roo. 

Tamaulipas: Decapitated head left in Walmart parking lot message from CDG

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat

On Sunday night, the Gulf Cartel left a human head in the parking lot of Walmart announcing its arrival, threatening the Northeast Cartel [CDN] who are currently controlling the  city.

The macabre scene happened around 20:00 hours when assassins of The Gulf Cartel,  left a human head inside a shopping  cart.

The cartulina narco message essentially establishes their intent to challenge the plaza of Victoria and is signed by “CH”.

Victoria is the capital of Tamaulipas and is located in the central west part of the state, halfway between Monterrey, Nuevo Leon and Tampico Tamaulipas .

New Cell of Sinaloa Cartel in Baja California

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

Subject Matter: Sinaloa Cartel, Baja California 
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

El Brusco, El Ocho, El Polo, El Poncho and El Morrillo, are operators of Rene Arzate, La Rana, they are in the sights of  the State Council for Security of Baja California and under fire of the sicarios of the CJNG, that the authorities have still not identified.

Reporter: Zeta Investigations
The criminals that represent the Sinaloa Cartel in Ensenada, together with their criminal enemies of the Cartel Arellano Felix (CAF), allied with the CJNG in their fight over territory, have been identified by the Group for Coordination.

Video: El Molca, his view of the transition of Milenio Cartel to CJNG and his La Resistencia

Chivis Martinez from Truth Witness-Thank you Char and Chava

The Milenio Cartel, or Cártel de los Valencia, was a Mexican criminal organization based in Michoacán. It relocated in Jalisco in the early 2000s.

The Milenio cartel first appears in the late 1970s when the Valencia family, an avocado farmer family from Tamaulipas [article says this but they are from Aguililla , Michoacán] started to grow cannabis and opium poppy in Jalisco and Michoacan, and started selling these drugs to bigger cartels. By the mid 1990s they had close connections with Colombian traffickers like Fabio Ochoa Vásquez of the Medellin cartel and by the early 2000s they were working with synthetic drugs provided by Zhenli Ye Gon. By this time the cartel had taken several hits from the government, like the 2003 capture of their leader Armando Valencia, so in order to protect their structure the new leader, Óscar Nava Valencia, associated with the Sinaloa cartel, and the Milenio cartel became a branch of what was known as the Sinaloa federation, under the direct orders of Ignacio Coronel Villarreal.

Luis Valencia Valencia and Óscar Nava Valencia took control of the cartel after the arrest of Armando Valencia Cornelio on August 15, 2003. The cartel operates in at least six Mexican states: Michoacán, Colima, Jalisco, Mexico City, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas, where it produces marijuana and heroin. Another relative and close associate is Oscar Nava Valencia.

The suspicious prison release of Erick Valencia Salazar “El 85”, leader of “Matazetas”

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat

Justice in Mexico: Mass murder of 35 people among other crimes, out in less than 5 years

On March 9, 2012, the Mexican Army arrested Erick Valencia Salazar, alias El 85, at the time he was the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel in Zapopan, Jalisco . Valencia Salazar has a long history of criminality.

After the death of Nacho Coronel, killed by the Army in 2010, Valencia Salazar joined forces with another of Coronel's operators, Rubén Oseguera, and formed the organization we now know as the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación [CJNG].

According to Army information when he was arrested in 2012.   Together with El Mencho  "Valencia Salazar assumed the leadership of the 'Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación', taking actions to prevent cells from the 'Resistencia- Zetas' from settling in some municipalities of Jalisco.

Additionally, they took control of the transfer of drugs using part of the Pacific route, mainly the port of Manzanillo, Colima, where he coordinated the reception of cocaine and ephedrine, from Colombia and China.

"Under his orders, the 'Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación' expanded to Michoacán, Morelos, Guerrero and Veracruz, to act against the allies of the 'La Resistencia', in some states with the self-designation of 'Matazetas', of whom the most outstanding event was his infiltration in Veracruz in September 2011, where they are responsible for the execution of 35 people.

Mexico has an answer to the violence; women steal your husbands weapons when they are at work

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat from Reforma

• Mexico asks citizens to turn in weapons
• Children trade play guns for stuffed animals
• Stiffer penalties for possession of  weapons

War Toys for Stuffed Animals

The Head of Government’s the Voluntary Disarmament program, Miguel Ángel Mancera, called on women, to take advantage when their partners go to work,  destroy  any  weapons that are in the  home..

"Ladies, when the husband goes to work, remove those weapons and we will take care of destroying them.”

“Mothers,  you have to take those weapons out of the house, to the grandmothers who have helped us a lot, I’ll never forget a grandmother who said, after  taking advantage when she was alone, ‘here I bring you this gift’, and arrived  with five long guns.”

Starting today and until next February 1, the Metropolitan Cathedral will be able to accept  firearms and cartridges, which will be destroyed by the country's military forces and in return the citizens will receive monetary compensation. 

Sicarios, bodyguards are the new drug trafficking Capos

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

Subject Matter: Narco trafficking people
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Infobae
Every time a drug capo falls in Mexico, there appears another: less known but more violent. We are not talking only about blood ties of the largest narco trafficking cartels, there have been sicarios who  rise through the ranks of their organizations and today head some of the 120 criminal groups that operate in the country.

This is the script of the film that Mexicans have seen since the Federal Government undertook the "wrong strategy of decapitation" of criminal gangs, says Martin Barron, a researcher at the Institute for Criminal Studies.

If at the start of the 21st Century there were seven large cartels in Mexico linked to drug trafficking, there are now approximately 130 groups, he says. "The authorities claim that there are nine large organizations, but they forget all the factions in the different States".

These factions are very violent, compact criminal gangs that control their territories of influence under fire, under the orders of leaders without the base or control capacity that the big capos once had. On the contrary, they are groups that operate in very specific areas, with a light structure and high capacity to multiply.