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Monday, October 3, 2022

From Inside The US's Most Secure Prison, 'El Chapo' Is Pointing Fingers At What He Says Are The Real Powers In The Drug Trade

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Mexico's attorney general holds a photo of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán at a news conference in Mexico City in July 2015

* Three years after his conviction, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán remains in the US's most secure prison.

* The former Sinaloa Cartel chief says high-level officials are the real powers in the drug trade.

Ciudad Juarez, México — Five years after being extradited to the US, Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán is pointing fingers at what he says are the real powers behind the drug trade on both sides of the border.

Through his attorney, Mariel Colón, one of the few people allowed to have regular contact with him, Guzmán said that for the drug war to stop, authorities would have to go after "politicians on both sides of the border."

"For years, authorities have put away these alleged leaders but it is not serving any purpose, but if you go after politicians that are allowing this to happen, it's a different thing," Colón told Insider. "That's what he has expressed before. That's what he thinks."

Guzmán is aware that he may just be a political instrument for the US and Mexican governments, Colón said.

"Every new US president has his trophy. With Trump [it] was Chapo. After him, Biden has his trophy as well," Colón added. "It's always been just politics."

In 2019, Guzmán, who is now believed to be 65, was sentenced to life in prison on multiple drug-related charges. Since then, he has been held in solitary confinement at ADX Florence, a "supermax" facility in Colorado regarded as the US's most secure prison.

The Federal Correctional Complex, including the Administrative Maximum Penitentiary, or "Supermax" prison, in Florence, Colorado.

Guzmán receives only one hour outside a day and is only allowed 15 minutes of phone calls a month with three people previously vetted by the US government: his mother, one of his sisters, and his youngest child.

"Guzmán has been in complete isolation. He had no access to any recreational area or access to any other area around the prison other than his cell," Colón said.

In 2020, his legal team submitted an appeal complaining that he faced "inhumane conditions," which was dismissed by a federal judge. Guzmán's treatment, which his attorneys say is "torture" and the result of a "political vendetta," has not changed.

US authorities said the security measures are meant to prevent Guzmán from escaping or engaging in illegal activity, but even with Guzmán behind bars since his capture in January 2016, business has been booming for the Sinaloa Cartel.

During the 2016 fiscal year, which ran from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016, more than 5,000 pounds of cocaine was seized by the US Border Patrol. That spiked to more than 9,000 pounds in 2017. After a decline in 2018, US Border Patrol seizures of cocaine rose to over 11,000 pounds in 2019 and to over 15,000 pounds in 2020.

Seizures of other drugs in the US have also risen over that period — a trend that experts say shows the flaw of focusing on the capture of cartel leaders, as US and Mexican authorities have done for decades.

'The agents are bought'

Packets of cocaine seized from a ship at a Philadelphia port in June 2019

Testimony during Guzmán's trial named several Mexican presidents, chiefs of police, and high-ranking military officers as involved in the drug trade.

Jesus "El Rey" Zambada, the youngest brother of Sinaloa Cartel drug boss Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, alleged on the witness stand that "the real leaders" of the cartel were Mexican government officials and US law enforcement.

Zambada pointed specifically to Genaro García Luna, who was Mexico's secretary of public security from 2006 to 2012. García Luna was arrested in the US in December 2019 and accused of taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel.

García Luna has pleaded not guilty. His trial was supposed to start in October this year but was delayed until January 2023 at the request of his lawyers.

García Luna is accused of accepting millions of dollars to allow Guzmán to "operate with impunity in Mexico" for more than a decade, according to the US Justice Department. At the same time, Garciá Luna was allegedly making deals with high-ranking officials inside top US national-security and law-enforcement agencies.

In October 2020, Salvador Cienfuegos, Mexico's defense minister from 2012 to 2018, was arrested as he arrived in Los Angeles on a flight from Mexico City.

Cienfuegos also faced drug-related charges, allegedly as part of the investigation of the Sinaloa Cartel and Guzmán's connections. He was accused of using his authority to protect a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel while ordering operations against its rivals.

US Border Patrol agents near the US-Mexico border fence in Imperial Beach, California in November 2021.

Cienfuegos pleaded not guilty at his first hearing, and in a surprise move, US prosecutors dropped the charges against him after negotiations with the Mexican government. The ex-general was sent back to Mexico and released.

García Luna and Cienfuegos have not been convicted, but a cartel enforcer in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez has said Guzmán's accusations are not far from reality.

In an October 2016 interview with Mexican newspaper El Universal, the mid-level boss in La Línea, the armed wing of the Juárez Cartel, said several US border agents were on their payroll.

"The agents are bought," the enforcer said at the time.

As of 2016, the Center for Investigative Reporting documented 153 cases of corruption investigations targeting US border officers, the majority of them members of US Customs and Border Protection.

Drug trafficking was the most common offense, followed by bribery and human smuggling, and the vast majority of the cases cited by the CIR involved agents with 10 or fewer years of service. Most of the incidents were in Texas, followed by California and Arizona.

55 comments:

  1. But...but...but the gringos on BB say it's just Mexico that's corrupt! Even the most jingoistic Americans must wonder, even a little, why the streets and schools of America are flooded with an ever increasing amount of drugs! The dea motto is "Never work your way out of a job"!!! For law enforcement that means failure is success!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. correct, a few border patrol agents. Not the entire government

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    2. I wanna see all Americans talking about sending American Forces to Mexico what they have to say about this oh wait they gonna blame Liberals, oh and blame migration.

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    3. 9:33 Not happening on a realistic scenario, but you can write a fictional story. ☺

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    4. 7:27 Why didn't you just say "patriotic" instead of "jingoistic"? I'm not impressed.

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    5. Period point blank drug trafficking is a very lucrative business. For the traffickers as well as people that let them through. It will never stop , only evolve. It’s not an American or Mexican thing , it’s a money thing. Always has always will be.

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    6. Mariel Colon is hot.

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    7. 8:15 WHAT?
      Let"s see picshurs...
      Pinchi Chapo la va a empanzonar, ni FECAL, ni Fox, ni Garcia Luna se le escaparon

      Delete
  2. Chapo is snitching again

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's ok to snitch what do you care.

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    2. He may be snitching and I don't agree with snitching if your part of that life but this is actually good snitching these people need to be exposed on a global level

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    3. Told ya all snitching is fine.

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    4. After you 🐁 and 👉 in court request to go to a GP yard and ask for your welcoming 🎉, the inmates will gladly celebrate your arrival 🔪

      Delete
  3. The corrupt Mexican government and their employees and drug cartels are a bigger threat to the world than the Taliban and the corruption goes right to the top not just a few DEA or border agents. Time for regime change and armed intervention

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It’s interesting you bring up the taliban who who did not go all in the heroin game till the grand US of A showed up!!!!! But of course the USA is just the innocent bystander. USA does nothing shady behind the scenes to destabilize other countries. They spend trillions in covert activity to keep america safe only! Nunca pasa nada!

      Delete
    2. Try to be like Canada not like Mexico

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    3. 9:33 the world needs more Canada at the moment fucking love this country

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    4. 8:36 Armed intervention on US soil?, Dont think thats happening.

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    5. US should copy Canadian immigration policies... No need to spend billions on deportation programs.

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    6. @11:24 is a Trudeau minion-bot

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    7. 9:33am What do you mean?
      11:24am Our country was good until hyper-delicate, flaccid, poltroon Trudeau emasculated our armed forces and stripped/imprisoned citizens of basic rights.
      12:37 Canada is only spared mass millions of illegals due to geographics but we do have sinister traitor Trudeau who paid $10 million dollars to middle Eastern terrorist and his filthy family to live here in Canada.
      1:02pm More likely it's Justin typing in the basement at 24 Sussex.

      Canadian girl 💋

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    8. Immigration process still MUCH better.

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    9. The only thing I don't like about Canada are the stealthy cross-border scammers who steal tens of millions of dollars from Americans every year but everyone screams about the Mexicans. The competition bureau in Canada is well aware of what I'm talking about.

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    10. 5:32 your country's air commander emasculated himself stealing and wearing panties and brassieres, (he recorded himself), lucky he got caught before doing much more murdering, being part of the Commonwealth brings a lot of kinky people im the baggage.

      Delete
    11. Poor Canadians, saddled with:
      English Cooking,
      French Technology
      and American Culture...
      Makes Canada the worst of the unluckiest countries in a world that only needs Zapatos Canadá

      Delete
  4. Have a backbone and call it what it is! Cartels are not bribing the government! The government is renting out turf to cartels like a slum lord! Franchising crime out and using the cartel as a buffer and the poor as cannon fodder!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I once read an article that American politicians admitted saying "there will always be corruption in the world. Let's just try and keep it to a minimum".

      Delete
  5. Question for BB readers. Lets say CIA, DEA approach you and make you and offer. Drug deal make an insane amount of $ which you can keep and do whatever for 10-15yrs. But then get caught and spend the rest of your life in a US jail. How many would don this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would never do that. Ever.

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    2. I have a scratch on my head I hope no bugs are there.

      Delete
  6. Dea and fbi are in on it for sure I used to be in the business would move 20 to 30 kilos every other week for a couple years US government agencies are 1000% getting a cut

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  7. Jaja chapo snitched

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  8. Oh hell he is bringing the Political curupt officials in Mexico, he suppressed for a while, don't know why, he is singing like a Canary, I don't think it is going to shorten his prison time.

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    Replies
    1. It won’t shorten his prison sentence at all ! But he’s making damn sure those corrupt officials he greased for years go down with him .. it’s all about retribution

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  9. All the state governors for California Arizona Texas know what going on with the situation on the border but they can’t do anything because it’s a federal level issue so they have to listen to their higher up …theres arrangements for traffickers human smugglers to get through . It’s all a business and the US politicians are 100 percent involved aware and in accord . Yes US has corrupt politicians too . It should be of no surprise to anyone . These drug lord are simple scapegoat that’s all. They do put order while there in charge but facts are facts everyone gets there hands dirty in The drug trade from politicians to Narcos to the banks to the accountants etc .

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  10. There shouldn’t be no surprise I’ve lived in Tijuana my whole life I’ve never at that time understood why CIA had to do in Mexico and Columbia yes they say those countries push drugs but why always only drug figure’s get arrested but even after there arrest there’s more drug’s but tons of drug’s come through the border every day but no weapons of mass destruction also why USA always stick there nose we’re it doesn’t belong take care of you’re own country before trying to fix another like I’ve said before I’ve lived in Tijuana my whole life and the local Cartel is bigger and stronger how’s that if they keep publishing it’s hanging on to a lifeline this it’s ridiculous

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Colombia* not Columbia.

      Delete
    2. Cu lom bia...
      That right ticher?
      Lemme tellya, what they do in México and Culombia was diverting attention to the contra Nicaragüense with their "Comandante Zero" whose main source of cash was stealing his contras' rations while his Padrinos in the CIA/ NSA trafficked pirated oils in international waters of the high seas and weapons for hostages AND COCAINE AND GRIFA to the US through México and Cuba with Carlos Lehder and Pablo Escobar and DOLLARS OUT of the US to the Cayman Islands Laundromats...
      pinche Fidel and the US patched shit up on the low down, sealed with entrapment and murder of Che Guevara in bolivia and blamed on cuban air force General Arnaldo Ochoa who got sent to the firing squad while all the narquiza danced to the banks

      Delete
  11. Everybody knows all the tops dogs are in charge .... El Chapo is dumb though, because he had it made and then he thought he was God and found out he wasn't with a life sentence .... If he didn't act stupid and embarrass the government and keep paying his bribes he would be at home right now

    ReplyDelete
  12. Now his wife free to chop whoever whole his dumbas- rots in prison .... And they said he was smart but he must not be to smart

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mayo Zambada is smart, decades operating on low profile.

      Delete
  13. @12:32 knows his shit

    ReplyDelete
  14. el chapo aka el rato

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ehh I am a Reddit kid, ehhh capo snitched.

      Delete
  15. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what chapo is saying is true.
    So many Mexican capos locked up in American prisons just to be used as trophies and to put blame on.
    Now more cartels are operating thanks to the infighting after the big boss gets captured and everyone wants that too spot.
    The drugs however never stop flowing.
    This war on drugs is a failure from the start. Because I'm reality there is no intention of stopping the drug flow.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I don’t understand this powerful capos. Chapo the King Guzman had everything on a Mexican prison. Why escape just to make things worse for himself. USA just wants to make an example of him. They are not interested on stoping the drug business.

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    Replies
    1. Worst enemies for CDS is anyone with Guzman last name. Zambada make it big, Guzman make it "famous"

      Delete
  17. Free chapo Guzman. Abolish the DEA, CIA, NSA .

    ReplyDelete
  18. Live One Hour Special Edition
    Chapo tells all about the Curupt Mexican government. Aqui ye la Otra Semana.

    ReplyDelete

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