The Fake Peace of Michoacan

Translated by Chuck B Alamada for Borderland Beat from a Proceso article

Written by Jose Gil Olmos (Proceso)
Thursday, 14 September, 2016

MEXICO CITY- Once again, organized crime continues to dominate in Michoacan despite the siren’s call by president Enrique Peña Nieto and the government of Silvano Auereoles (PRD political party) with the arrest of Servando Gomez La Tuta, leader of Los Caballero Templarios. It was all a lie since there was an agreement under the table between both governments (Federal and State governments) with the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) and other local narco groups disguised as autodefensas which again, have been empowered with weapons and terror.

Fuerzas Rurales showing their new uniforms. Photo by Miguel Dimayuga

The official lie begins with the then Peace Commissioner of Michoacan, Alfredo Castillo, acting on behalf of President Peña Nieto with the purpose of taking back territory away from the Caballeros Templarios via the autodefensas of Tierra Caliente. Autodefensa groups became the combat weapon, especially with all those autodefensa members that had deserted from the Caballeros Templarios and became known as the “arrepentidos” (the regretful ones) which were under the command of the brothers Uriel and Juan Jose Farias Alvarez AKA El Abuelo, both linked to CJNG.

 These two brothers are key to understanding the dark pacts of Peña Nieto with the CJNG which again have Michoacan in their hands and continue to cause suffering, violence, and terror with executions, extortions, and the trafficking of drugs, especially of meth which is shipped to the US from the Lazaro Cardenas Port. However, for this story, it is important to also notate the presence of another character that is also key. Colombian General Oscar Naranjo Trujillo, who made a pact with the Farias brothers and helped form the autodefensas of Michoacan as groups with paramilitary tactics with weapons and money from the federal government.

Read More

Tijuana: San Diego teenage girl executed

San Diego teenager executed in Tijuana

Last year Ana Hernandez, a San Diego teenager, was found shot and beaten to death in off Maket Street in Grant Hill, she had been wrapped in a blanket, and dropped in front of her mother's house. The case bore similarities to organized crime killings in Tijuana, known as encojibado's, wrapped. Ana's killers, were local gang affiliates, who killed her to possibly cover up her rape, and that she may have been being sex trafficked by the men, who weren't much older then Ana.  

In a grim parallel to that case, Destiny Memory Hernandez, 18, of San Diego, a Mar Vista High Student, who lived in Imperial Beach, was found on the 'Fast Track' area of Tijuana, in a baseball field, earlier in the month, shot 7 times, in the head, thorax, and abdomen, no signs of sexual assault.

 She had been partying in Revolucion, at a bar in Zona Rio with friends, and WhatsApp messages between her, and a girlfriend, state she was headed home with some men she met in a club, to El Florido.  The messages state the men were handsome, and include the slang, 'heavy',   Her friend advised her to be careful.  She never came home, and her family came to Tijuana to investigate, with fliers, and social media outreach.  

Read More

CJNG vs Sinaloa: Tijuana Police under threat and attack as violence explodes -part 2

Translation by BB Contributor Benny Juarez-republished article from Zeta
Part 1 link here

Cartel Jalisco settled in Tijuana; controls a third of the city

The guys from Sinaloa settled in Tijuana stemming from their intervention in the internal conflict of

the Arellano Felix Cartel (CAF), transpiring between 2008 and 2011. They provided economic relief as well as reinforcements.  They sent people that operated for both sides.

In addition to Victor Hugo Mejia Lopez “El Griego” (The greek), currently active in homicides operating for the Sinaloa Cartel,  the security council has detected Juan Carlos Parra Dominguez “El Java” and another man who is only referred to as “El Diablito” (Little Devil)

The Coordination Group had long denied the presence of CJNG and did not contest their presence effectively.

In September of 2015, when CJNG was designated by the Secretary of Security of Baja California, Daniel de la Rosa, as only being "distraction," CJNG was already utilized by CAF to restructure  and were already settled and in control of territory in Tijuana. This,  with support from local traffickers that previously operated with the Arellano’s or Sinaloa.

According to information held by the Coordination Group, the group from Jalisco started by controlling the Sánchez Taboada delegacion (*a “Delegacion” is sort of like a county), today they have expanded their criminal influence to other delegations such as “La presa”, “Presa Rural” mainly in “El Florido”, “Cañadas”, “Terrazas and Villas del Campo” in terms of territory percentage, this means about a third of the municipal territory. In addition, they control a part of “Tecate” In that whole area they focus their narcotic distribution points.

Click on any image to enlarge

Read More

'Burning bodies' experiment casts doubt on fate of missing Mexican students

Posted by DD Republished from Science Magazine

A big thanks to TDR for the story.

This article is available in Spanish

By Lizzie Wade

Burning pig carcasses failed to support the government's contention that 43 students were incinerated.

In September 2014, 43 university students disappeared in Guerrero state in southern Mexico. The Mexican government has maintained that a drug cartel murdered the students and burned their bodies at a trash dump. But forensic investigators and human rights groups were doubtful, citing gaps in the evidence and a federal investigation that they contend fell short of international standards. Now, a renowned fire scientist says his latest experiments rule out the government’s explanation once and for all.

Using pig carcasses as a proxy for human bodies, José Torero, a fire scientist at the University of Queensland, St. Lucia, in Brisbane, Australia, incinerated up to four pigs at a time and determined that the inferno necessary to consume 43 bodies could not have occurred at the dump. “José knows what he’s doing,” says John Lentini, an independent fire investigator in Islamorada, Florida, who wasn’t involved in the research but has participated in other high-profile cases. “It doesn’t make any sense that you can make 43 people disappear like that.”

Torero’s experiments “are one more element that says the so-called ‘historical truth’”—how a former attorney general labeled the government’s theory of the crime—“is impossible,” says Francisco Cox Vidal, a lawyer and member of an expert group (known in Spanish as the GIEI) convened by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights in Washington, D.C., to examine the disappearance and the official inquest. Deputy Attorney General for Human Rights Eber Betanzos Torres did not respond to requests for comment. 

Read More

Mexican Billionaire Tried to Buy U.S. Election

Published from Los Angeles Times and The Voice of San Diego

By Dana Littlefield and Greg Moran
Posted by El Wachito

A wealthy Mexican businessman accused of making illegal campaign donations to candidates in San Diego’s 2012 mayoral race was convicted Friday of 36 counts, including conspiracy to make campaign donations by a foreign national.

Jose Susumo Azano Matsura also was found guilty in federal court of making contributions in other people’s names and falsifying records related to campaign finance.

José Susumo Azano Matsura leaves federal court in San Diego on Aug. 21, 2014. (K.C. Alfred / San Diego Union-Tribune)

The jury, which deliberated about a week, was unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether Azano unlawfully possessed a firearm, as well as several other charges related to the other defendants in the high-profile case.

U.S. District Judge Michael Anello declared a mistrial on those counts.

Federal prosecutors had also charged campaign services specialist Ravneet Singh, lobbyist Marco Polo Cortes and Azano’s son Edward with the same charges of conspiracy and falsifying records.

Read More

CJNG vs Sinaloa: Tijuana Police under threat and attack as violence explodes -part 1

Borderland Beat Article translation by BB Contributor "Benny Juárez"
Republished from ZETA part 1 of 2

"The image she was exposed to was horrifying,  a mess of blood and human flesh that crashed into her car’s front windshield...
it was the torso of a man"

Click on any image to enlarge

The experience that a 59 year old woman lived through during the first minutes of Saturday, September 3 of 2016 in the Benitez of Tijuana boulevard was terrifying, when from a bridge a severed body of a man fell on her windshield which in turn caused her to lose control andcrash against against an asphalt fence. The mutilated cadaver was part of a threat from the Sinaloa cartel against the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG).

Read More

Tijuana: Bloody Tuesday

Bloody Tuesday

A week after mutilated corpses were thrown onto the street, limbs and heads collected in plastic bags, with a mocking note to Arturo 'Gross' Herrera and his crew of defectors, who represent CJNG in Tijuana, violence continues.  

Yesterday, at least 4 were killed in violence connected to retail drug feuds, and inter gang conflicts, two more were killed, one in a suicide, and another in dispute at a rehabilitation center. A municipal police officer was also wounded in an attack in the Hills Dam colonia, in a wave of continuing executions and targeted killings, since last week. 

A couple was killed late yesterday morning in Colonia Ninos Heroes in their home, where another man was killed in the same colonia the night before.  In Colonia Nidos De Aguila, another man, nicknamed 'The Skull' was executed, and left in the street.  Another executed by men in a grey Cherokee was left in Colonia Chilpancingo.  

Read More

Mexico arrests drug lord's wife

Posted by DD from Yahoo News Borderland Beat Archives  and ANG

Clara Elena Laborin, 52, wife of of Hector Beltran Leyva, (alias "H") was detained on Monday in Hermosillo, northwestern Sonora state, along with another cartel operator, Alan Contreras, according to the federal police.

Borderland Beat reported in November of 2015 that  Laborin, nicknamed "La Senora",  assumed leadership of the Beltran Leyva cartel after the arrest of her husband, the alleged drug trafficker "H"  in 2014.  

Like many of the women who have gained power and prominence in the cartels, Clara Elena Laborin had been a contestant in a beauty contest where  she was crowned Miss Sonora/

She has a home and members of her extended family live in Hermosillo.  Her  arrest on Monday was not the first time she had been deprived of her liberty in the city.  In April of 2010 she was abducted in front of her home in the community of La Alameda, not far from the headquarters of the Sonora State Preventive Police. by operatives working for Nacho Coronel..    

The kidnapping had been brought about by bad feelings between the BLO organization and Nacho Colonel after a dispute between the 2 over a joint enterprise they had been engaged went sour and Nacho wound up controlling  the profitable enterprise.  After the splt Arturo Beltran "El Barbas", head of the Beltran Leyva clan ordered the execution of Nacho Coronel.  

In early April of 2010 suspected gunmen allied with the Beltrán Leyva killed Nacho's son , Alejandro Coronel, age 16.  Assassins in the service of Colonel counterattacked. In Nayarit they killed 10 people and burned their bodies. Weeks later in Sonora they kidnapped Clara Elena Laborín Archuleta.  

Read More

Many from La Ruana fled to the US, due to Los Caballeros Templarios violence

Translated by Chuck B Alamada for Borderland Beat from a Milenio article

Written by Liliana Padilla (Milenio)

Friday, 09 September 2016

Jose Luis Torres Valencia, son of "autodefensa,"    
Rafael Sanches AKA Pollo (picture by Hector Tellez)

A year had passed after the uprising of frustrated civilians that were tired of the harassment by Los Caballeros Templarios when on March 8, 2014, twelve days after the first anniversary, blood spilled again in La Ruana, the first community in Tierra Caliente to challenge this criminal group. Despite the Federal Operation to stop the submission in which Los Templarios had most parts of the state, a double homicide in La Ruana demonstrated the differences between the different groups of autodefensas.

On March 18, 2014 Rafael Sanchez, AKA El Pollo and Jose Luis Torres AKA El Nino were found burned to death in a truck near La Rauna. A wedding band, a lead fragment, a bracelet, and part of his hand, were the only items that enabled the identification of Jose Luis Torres’ body. March had not been over when the Torres family fled La Ruana and moved to California. Two years later, the double homicide is still unsolved and the family hasn’t returned to their home in the heart of Tierra Caliente.

 

A folder with newspaper clippings from the March 8^th incident was the only life insurance that they took with them.

They traveled to Tijuana and crossed over to the US where they asked the government for political asylum to so that they did not have to relive that nightmare where the Torres family lost their patriarch.

Read More

"El Mexicano": Detain the leader of Las Maras in Spain

Lucio R. Borderland Beat  story translated by BB contributor "Benny Juarez"

From El Diario 

Madrid, Spain - Madrid's National Police arrested a leader of a criminal gang nicknamed "El Mexicano" (The Mexican), who allegedly had instructions to establish this organization in Spain.

This individual had several pending cases with the police and at the moment of his capture carried falsified documentation, the police informed. Later it was discovered that he had established his legal situation in the country with a fake identity. 

"The arrest is fruit of acts that are developed systematically to avoid the establishment of this and other similar organizations in Spain" authorities indicated.

The subject, whose real identity or nationality was not revealed, will be under arrest until he can be expelled from the country.

Read More

Acapulco: Human Remains Left As An Order of Tacos

By: Uriel Sánchez | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Acapulco, Guerrero, September 12, 2016— The mutilated hands of a person were found on a disposable plate on 4^th Street and Mexico Avenue in the neighborhood of Bellavista.

A phone call to the emergency number 066 warned of the finding as police rushed to the scene to verify the information.

Upon arriving at the location, a disposable plate was found with a lid, and under the lid was a pair of hands with radishes, onions, and cilantro, as if it were an order of tacos.

The police cordoned off the area while staff from the Attorney General’s Office of Guerrero conducted the relevant proceedings, to then order the transfer of the human remains to the medical forensic service.

Source: Quadratin 

Pictures on next page

(GRAPHIC)

Read More

Alfredo Beltran Leyva: Hearing for Wednesday and Thursday is cancelled

Lucio R. Borderland Beat with C.E.M.

 Motion to continue sentencing hearing and request for forensic evaluation

A request for a continuance was filed on behalf of Alfredo Beltran Leyva aka El Mochomo. The motion was granted vacating the 2 day hearing, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, which now will be a status hearing.

In his filing, counsel for Alfredo, Washington D.C. attorney Eduardo Balarezo,  states that recent events have occurred, that gave him cause for concern enough that a forensic evaluation is necessary.

The reasons for this request are under seal.  On the following page is the filing.

Read More

TJ: Meth Becomes the Most Prominent Drug on the Baja Border

Posted by El Wachito republished from ZETA

Written by Ines Garcia Ramos
Friday, 9 September 2016

In the region between Tijuana-San Diego, meth has position itself as the most commercialized, trafficked and consume drug. In the last 10 months, American law enforcement agencies have confiscated more than 9 tons of meth at the border. Small doses of meth have also become the most common drug that has been found in the streets of Baja California.

Its early in the morning. From American soil, along the border region that is patrolled by the Border Patrol one can hear songs from Vicente Fernandez and rooster crows coming out of houses that are made of wood in Tijuana. There is almost one kilometer that separates the houses and the border patrol guard post, however not even the fence that divides the United States from Mexico can't stop the folk music nor the sound of the birds which create a special vibe along the border of San Diego, California. Early in the morning, some residents from la Colonia Libertad, which is located east from the San Ysidro border crossing, start to carefully observe border patrol officers through binoculars. A border patrol agent explained to a ZETA correspondent that this is a common practice. The idea is to locate an access point or a moment of distraction by the border patrol in order to warn immigrants who are trying to cross the border illegally or drug traffickers. Once the drugs make its way into the border, its value increases significantly. For example, the cost of one pound can go up to 10 thousand  dollars. In the case of cocaine, a pound exceeds 12 thousand dollars.

Trafficking methods vary. Marihuana is usually not trafficked through ports of entry because of its strong odor and volume, while synthetic drugs such as meth and cocaine are being hidden in secret compartments such as gas tanks and glove compartments. An old piece of cloth with oxidized metal spikes which go through one the extremes and is wrapped around with ropes, is one the many tools that traffickers used and have been recently found by border patrol agents in one of their most recent patrols. The agents claim that this tool is used to hook it to the top of the fence and then use it to climb it and jump from it. Some of them use it just to cross the border, however others, use it to carry drugs across the border.

Read More

Ohio: 4yr old boy in car seat while mom and companion OD on heroin

Lucio R. for Borderland Beat by C.E.M.

"In attempts to publicize the effects of the Ohio heroin epidemic, the East Liverpool, Ohio police department  released these stunning photos.   

Over 3,000 Ohioans died from accidental drug overdoses in 2015, heroin is killing 8 Ohioans a day…"

A police officer was driving when he spotted the Ford Explorer SUV moving  erratically.  The SUV would cross the yellow divider line, then pull back again into the right edge of the roadway. 

The driver slammed on his brakes, skidding towards a school bus stopped while students exited, the

bus pulled away, and the SUV then drifted to the side of the road and stopped.

The officer then made contact with the driver, identified as James Acord.  The officer asked Acord what was going on.  He observed Accord’s head bobbing around, pinpoint pupils and almost unintelligible.  Accord pointed to an unconscious woman, identified as Rhonda Pasek, who was sitting in the passenger seat, explaining  he was taking her “to the hospital”.

The officer noticed a child in the back of the SUV, a four year old male, sitting in his car seat, looking confused. 

Read More

El Mencho orders Jalisco police commander to "relax" his subordinates (Audio)

Proceso has in its possession an audio on which the leader of the Cartel de Jalisco New Generation (CJNG), Nemesio Oceguera Cervantes, alias El Mencho, recently orders a police commander of Jalisco to "relax" his subordinates in the municipality of Chapala. After threats and insults, you can clearly listen the authority give certainty to El Mencho that his instruction will be obeyed. "You know me and you know that we have respect for you," the police chief tells the drug lord. The veracity of the audio was authenticated by Semanario Proceso.

Read More