Veracruz: SSP Chief Detained For Disappearances

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

The Attorney General of Veracruz reported that the SSP chief in Tierra Blanca, Marcos Conde Hernández, and Officer Otoniel Cruz Linares, were arrested for their alleged involvement in the disappearances of five youths between the ages of 16 and 27, which occurred on January 11.  Their whereabouts are currently unknown.  With the arrest of the two officers, there are a total of six police officers detained.

The Attorney General of Veracruz reported that a police chief of the Secretariat of Public Safety (SSP) of Veracruz and one of his officers were arrested for their alleged involvement in the “forced disappearance” of five youths in Tierra Blanca, on January 11.

With the arrest of the two officers, there are a total of six officers who are detained for their alleged involvement in the January 11th disappearances of five youths in the municipality of Tierra Blanca, nestled in the center of Veracruz.

In a press release, the Attorney General’s Office of Veracruz reported the arrest of the police chief in Tierra Blanca, Marcos Conde Hernández, and of Officer Otoniel Cruz Linares.

Both were charged for their alleged involvement in the forced disappearances of youths who were detained by state police and whose current whereabouts are still unknown.

The official report states that, based on the strength of evidence presented by the prosecution of ministerial investigations, the lower court judge located in the Judicial District of Cosamaloapan issued the requested arrest warrants.

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Former PRI chief Humberto Moreira ordered to "prison of the famous" by Spanish Judge

By Lucio R for Borderland Beat

Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto, issued a brief statement regarding the arrest in Spain of his friend former PRI party chief, Humberto Moreira Valdes.  EPN (Pena) says he is unaware of the particulars of the case, and that the Spanish government gave Mexico no forewarning of the anticipated arrest of former Coahuila governor Moreira.

Moreira was arrested upon his arrival in Spain, where he is seeking  a fourth master’s degree.  He is charged with money laundering and organized crime.  He went before a Spanish judge yesterday and was ordered detained in prison without bail, prosecutors were in fear Moreira was too great a flight risk, or that he would tamper and destroy evidence.

Politian Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) was very critical of EPN for once again dodging an uncomfortable situation by hiding, evading the press before leaving on a trip to the middle east.

AMLO said the president should have sought information on the Spain case that could be shared with Mexicans, and he is critical of the president for not moving on the corruption case and financial improprieties alleged against Moreira, stating Moreira’s case is just one of a pile of cases he named involving Mexican politicians looting the public coffers.

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6 Bodies Found In Michoacán

By: Francisco Castellanos J. | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

The bodies of six men, believed to be members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), were found in an area in the ranch “San Isidro”, located in the municipality of Ecuandureo.  This was confirmed by the Attorney General of the State of Michoacán (PGJE).

The bodies of the slain men showed signs of an attempted calcining.  This massacre took place about 20 kilometers from the ranch “El Sol”, where last May, 43 people were executed, including two policemen from Jalisco.

The authorities have not yet identified the victims, but all were listed as being male, aged between 30 and 35 years old.

The PGJE explained that the dead were in an advanced state of decomposition and that they also found a cardboard piece that signaled that those dead were alleged extortionists and kidnappers belonging to the CJNG.

Through their Twitter account, the local attorney reported that they already started preliminary investigations corresponding to the location of the six dead bodies, as well as the arrest of four alleged perpetrators responsible for the deprivation of liberty of the now deceased.

Also, the PGJE revealed that the victims had bullet wounds from a firearm, however, the remains will be taken to the Forensic Medical Service (SEMEFO), where they will conduct autopsies to determine the cause of death.

Source:  Proceso

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El R-3 and 8 others from Los Rojos detained

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

{ Subject Matter: Hector Crescencio de Leon Fonesca, El R-3
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required ]

Click on image to enlarge

Fonesca is the second in command of the organization, and functions as the armed wing of the Cartel del Golfo.

Personnel of SEIDO detained nine members of a cell pertinent to the Cartel del Golfo that operate in Tamaulipas. Among the detained are Hector Crescencio de Leon Fonesca nicknamed "El R-3", who is known to be second in command of the group known as "Los Rojos".

According to the PGR, the detentions were the result of investigative work by the head the Unit Specializing in investigation of terrorism, and arms trafficking together with the Investigation division of the Federal Police.

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Those Kidnapped In Route To a Wedding and others from a school Found Alive and Well

Posted by DD Republished From Yahoo News

 

Mexico's Guerrero has been plagued by violence and multiple cases of missing people, including the notorious disappearance and presumed massacre of 43 students in September 2014 (AFP Photo/Yuri Cortez)

 On Wed. of this week BB published a story , In Tierra Caliente (Hot Land) It Is Getting Hotter ,

in which we reported that a caravan of families traveling to a wedding were intercepted by heavily armed uniformed men and the 15 men in the families were put into trucks and carried away.

Today Yahoo News is reporting that Mexican authorities are reporting that 21 men who  had 

 been kidnapped earlier in the week had been found walking and they were alive and unharmed except for injuries to their feet which indicated they had walked a long distance.  They said 16 of those found were the men traveling to a wedding.  The other 5 were teachers and a principal abducted Monday  from a school as we reported in the above linked BB story.  

The above "facts" were announced by the governor of the state of Guerrero, Hector Astudillo,  on television.

The numbers don't add up though.  At the invasion and abductions at the school, it was reported that one of the teachers was female.  I also read earlier in the week that the principal had been murdered after the abduction, but the other 4 were released by the kidnappers.  We will follow up tracking this story and find out why the discrepancies.  

The armed uniformed masked men who kidnapped the 16 from the wedding caravan told the group that they were part o "a new group" and accused the men of belonging to a rival cartel.  Two men in the wedding caravan were killed during the abduction of the other 16.  

In response to the claim that the men were part of a cartel, the Mayor of Arcelia, Adolfo Torales, rejected that claim.

 "They are working people, humble people who have to go out to work every day," he said.

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Former Coahuila Governor and PRI party chief, arrested in Spain for Organized Crime

Posted by DD from material from Borderland Beat  Archives
By  DD and Chivis for Borderland Beat

"EPN: Mission Accomplished?" Same phrase tweeted  by EPN announcing Chapo's
re-capture, and the phrase used by The Natl Police of Spain announcing the arrest of Moreira  

What the U.S. wanted to do, and Mexico failed to do, the arrest of Humberto Moreira Valdez, was conducted today at the Madrid International Airport.

No details have been given by authorities, but it was the Anti-Corruption officers who made the arrest based on a Spanish warrant.  Off the record sources say the arrest was for “organized crime” and “money laundering,”funds resultant from drug trafficking.

El Espanol reports, that the Economic Crime Unit and Attorney (UDEF) investigated the funds the former governor has in Spain.

The legal team of Moreira gave a statement to Formula Group, claiming that his arrest was due to "migration issues," but gave no further details of his capture.

He resigned from Governorship to run for PRI chief, and resigned from that post under suspicion of being culpable for missing state funds and falsifying state loan docs.  a $2.6 billion state government debt accumulated when he was governor of Coahuila, financed at least in part by falsified documents.

The state now governed by Humberto’s brother Ruben.  It is widely thought Humberto cut a deal with PRI to resign to protect the Pena candidacy, leave in exile and return to have his name cleared. 

Before the scandal he was at the top of the list of probable candidates for the next Mexican presidential election.

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Sean Penn: "My article has failed"..He has "terrible regret".

Posted by DD Republished from CBS News

DD; Almost, and possibly more has been written about Sean Penn than has been written about "el Chapo" concerning the interview that Penn did with the drug lord Chapo Guzman. In this interview with Charlie Rose for 60 Minutes Penn attempts to explain why he did the interview and what he wanted to accomplish.

CBS;  Actor Sean Penn is breaking his silence about his trip to Mexico to meet notorious drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. In an interview for this Sunday's "60 Minutes," Penn spoke to "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose Thursday night in Santa Monica to talk about his seven hours with Guzman.

 

The cartel leader was re-captured a week ago, and Penn made headlines the following day when Rolling Stone published his account of visiting the kingpin in hiding last October.

"

There is this myth about the visit that we made, my colleagues and I with El Chapo, that it was -- as the Attorney General of Mexico is quoted -- 'essential' to his capture," Penn said. "We had met with him many weeks earlier...on October 2nd, in a place nowhere near where he was captured."

"So as far as, you know, you had nothing to do and your visit had nothing to do with his recapture?" Rose asked.

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Content of Chapo/Kate text messages leaked

Posted by DD republished from Vice 

 I think the content of the text messages between Chapo and Kate and some with Chapo's attorney are important in clarifying  what was behind the meeting and the interview.  The messages were leaked to the Mexican newspaper Milenio and their authenticity was verified by a "Mexican official".

I am republishing some excerpts from a story by Vice News written by Andrea Noel about the text messages.  The original text messages from Milenio in Spanish may be viewed at this link. 
Due to time limitations and my not so perfect translation skills, I recommend going to Milenio's site and reading all the text messages that Milenio says have been released.  You can Google translate it if you can't read it in Spanish.   If any readers want to translate the text messages and send the transcript to me at dad4@yahoo.com.  I will add the translation to this post.

Excerpts from Vice News;

"A series of flirtatious mobile phone messages between Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo, appear to show the then fugitive drug lord being somewhat careless with his security, as well as ignorant of Hollywood pecking orders...

 They are spread over a period of weeks that begins a few days before his now notorious October meeting with Sean Penn that was brokered by Castillo and led to a controversial article in Rolling Stone....

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Financial Operator of "El Azul" imprisoned

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

[ Subject Matter: Mauricio Sanchez Garza
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required ]

Reporter: Zeta Redaction
Elements of the PGR detained in Zapopan one Mauricio Sanchez Garza, principal financial operator of  Juan Jose Esparragoza "El Azul" and allegedly linked to the family of the fugitive Raphael Caro Quintero.

After his capture, the alleged money launderer was incarcerated in a prison South of Mexico City on completion of a detention order with an end of extradition to the USA,

According to information released in July of 2013 by the Office of Control of Active Foreigners, OFAC, of the Treasury Dept of North America, the Sanchez Garza family were involved in money laundering in the name of the capo's Esparragoza Moreno and Caro Quintero.

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Chapo's: text messages to Kate, Penile implant, the circus continues

Lucio R for Borderland Beat

DD is working on the Milenio story of Chapo’s text messages to actress Kate Castillo.  For her part, she says most of what is reported is BS.  There are rumors she has given PROCESO an exclusive interview that will be published this Sunday. 

As for the Milenio story, it has been picked up by more news agencies  in the U.S. than in Mexico.  I conducted a quick perusal of respected main stream Mexican media outlets  and Mexican agency press releases. such as the PGR agency, and  I failed to find the story.  Perhaps later in the day, I am writing this early hours of the day.

The story says El Chapo agreed to Penn conducting the interview without knowing who he was, and  although Chapo had no clue who Penn is,  days later there was a  meeting.  

Why the leader of the Sinaloa cartel was so sloppy with his security, while being the most wanted man in Mexico is the guess of anyone.

After listening to to him in the 17 minute video, he comes across as not only uneducated, that we knew, but not the sharpest tool in the shed either. 

That came as a surprise to me, as I always harbored the impression that Chapo was this uneducated genius, who if legit could have been as powerful as Steve Jobs, speaking in a business sense.  

After viewing the video, for me, he cut a pathetic cartoonish figure, rather than the brilliance of perhaps the most successful drug trafficker of all time.

And later seeing the photos in the Doux Hotel, and his mugshots, Chapo looked differently than at any other time he was captured or mugged. At the hotel he looked, stunned and crushed, in the mug he looks infuriated and somewhat unhinged.

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In Tierra Caliente (Hot Land) It Is Getting Hotter and Hotter.

Posted by DD republished material from MexicoNewsDaily

Nearly 2 dozen people reported missing in southern Mexico in the last 72 hours

Gang storms school, kidnaps five staff

At least 30 men dressed as police officers terrorized the Technical Secondary School No. 114 in Santa Ana del Águila in the municipality of Ajuchitlán - See more at: http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/gang-storms-school-kidnaps-five-staff/#sthash.XPcInr7I.dpuf

This past Monday at least 30 men dressed as police officers terrorized the Technical Secondary School No. 114 in Santa Ana del Águila in the municipality of Ajuchitlán in Guerrero and grabbed  principal Joaquín Real Toledo four other staff members.  

The tension among the students and staff increased when one of the assailants threatened a 10 year old little girl with a rifle when he saw her holding what turned out to be a toy cell phone.  

The gang forced the principal and 4 staff members (one of them a woman) into trucks and sped away.  Students were sent home and the school was closed, and as news of the kidnapping spread, the streets of the village of fewer than 1,000 became deserted.  

None of the kidnapped has been seen since and their whereabouts remain unknown.   Two state police patrol cars and elements of the Army later arrived to guard the entry points into town and patrol the nearby Las Campanas hill in search of the missing teachers 

The kidnapped educators have been identified as Joaquin Real, the principal, and teachers Guadalupe Olea, Martin Blancas, Javier Calderon and Jose Maria Torres.

In December, Santa Ana del Águila was the scene of the murder of the director of social development of Ajuchitlán, while last year the town’s elementary and secondary schools remained closed for several days during March and April after a teacher was kidnapped by an armed gang.

Last Friday morning, 15 first-year students at an elementary school in Totolapan had to hit the floor during a gunfight just meters outside their classroom.

It was about 8:30am and students were just beginning their day when gunshots were suddenly heard nearby. Their teacher quickly instructed the children to lie flat on the floor and remain silent.

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Is Sean Penn a CIA operative?

By Lucio R. Borderland Beat written with material from Reforma and Daily Mail

'Is Sean Penn a CIA spy?' 

That’s the buzz being generated.  There are always those who look for oddities that lend towards theories of conspiracy, we have more than our fair share here at BB. One of my favorite conspiracy comments from the Sean Penn/Chapo story, is the reader saying he thought maybe Penn insisted on shaking Chapo’s hand when he did, because the actor may have had a location “tracking” film he transferred to Chapo.  An invisible GPS film. 

But, in the case of Penn, and his history, it is not out of the bounds of reason to speculate. 

For me, the eyebrow arching fact in this drama, is the timing of the interview release.

From Daily Mail:

Conspiracy theorists claim actor's interview with El Chapo was an elaborate government plot to capture fugitive drug lord

As news emerged of the peculiar series of events that led to El Chapo's capture, Twitter was ablaze with one question: Is Sean Penn a CIA spy?

The actor met with the world's most wanted drug lord in the jungle to ask him a handful of Hollywood-worthy questions such as 'do you dream?' and 'how would you define yourself?'

And then just hours after the Sinaloa cartel leader was detained by Mexican marines, the Rolling Stone published a lyrical 10,000-word account of their meeting.

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Pablo Acosta "El Zorro de Ojinaga" Final Part ( not an el chapo article )

Written for Borderland Beat by Otis B Fly-Wheel, with images from Drug Lord by Terrence Poppa

[ Subject Matter: Pablo Acosta Villarreal
Recommendation: Read Pablo Part 1 of this article here
                              Read Pablo Part 2 of this article here]

Marco and Becky were growing their own business alongside Pablo's. They paid piso per load and Pablo was happy to let them traffic as much as the wanted. This is where Armado Carrillo Fuentes enters our story.

One particular night a load had gone across the river at Big Bend, the load drivers had their trailer slide off the road into a ditch. They had travelled back to Ojinaga on foot to advise Pablo of their predicament. Pablo, once he had calmed down, set off with a caravan of Sicario's in four vehicles.

With them was Armado Carrillo Fuentes, from the Guadalajara Cartel. Pedro Aviles had sent him to Ojinaga to learn how Pablo was carrying out his smuggling business. To learn his links and contacts, his methods and places to smuggle, then to ultimately take over the Ojinaga Plaza, as Pablo was earning far too much money for Pedro Aviles to ignore.

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Tijuana bloodshed continues

Executions continue in Tijuana

Far from Hollywood studios and lounges where execs, stars and their handlers casually discuss movie rights and casting directors, far from a nation captivated by the celebrity interview, the executions continue on the streets of Tijuana.

A few encojibados to start the year, again wrapped in a green blanket, and bound with industrial yellow rope, bound at the knees, and neck laying in the dirt.  Human life returned to the fetal position Another found just before last weekend. 

On Sunday morning, three were murdered in separate incidents, one man executed inside a tattoo shop, another a 'free taxi' driver gunned down in Colonia Libertad, another 31 year old man was murdered outside his apartment complex.  Two were executed on Saturday, in different areas of the city. 

The bodies are anonymous, often without name in the news, and this story is no different.  Their deaths are like a grim Greek chorus that sweeps through the city, through it's streets, the taco stands, the sex shops, funeral parlors...yet they continue.  And they devastate the families, the loved ones, the children, and yet it continues. 

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Rolling Stone:Full 17 minute video of Sean Penn/Chapo interview

DD for Borderland Beat  video: Rolling Stone Magazine/Kate Castillo Productions
My thanks to Chivis for her help in acquiring  and embedding the video and helping put this together.

It is hard to believe that last Friday, just shy of six months on the lam, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera was recaptured and now is once again incarcerated in Mexico’s only “super-max” prison, No.1 Altiplano, Centro Federal de Readaptación Social Número 1, in Mexico State.  The capo, premier leader of the Sinaloa Cartel,  famous for his narco tunnels,  escaped from Altiplano in July, 2015,  in a Chapo-tunnel,  engineered with precision, having been constructed from a farm house a mile from the prison, to Chapo’s cell shower floor.

His days of freedom, relatively short lived, came to an end because of the successful operation, “Black Swan” of the Mexican Navy.  He once again was prepared and almost eluded capture using a secret door to a staircase and sewer system.  He was successful in using an alike escape plan, February, 2014 plan in Culiacan, Sinaloa. 

Few people knew there was another shocker coming, about the man whose life history, is a gift that somehow keeps on giving.

Within 48 hrs news broke that Actor Sean Penn had traveled to Sinaloa, in October 2015, just three months ago, met with Chapo and conducted an interview for Rolling Stone Magazine.

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