Mexico accepts that Yarrington will be extradited to the United States

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

Subject Matter: Tomas Yarrington's extradition from Italy
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Information has arisen that after taking careful analysis of evidence for crimes into account against Yarrington, that Italy will proceed with an extradition request from the United States and not Mexico.

"The Governments of the United States and Mexico have agreed to solicit the Italian Minister of Justice to authorize extradition proceedings of the United States, as well as seeking authorization for the re-extradition of Yarrington to Mexico, they indicated in a joint declaration of the Attorney Generals of both countries, Raul Andrade and Jeff Sessions.

The Attorney Generals met this Wednesday in Washington, and after which they gave out a pronouncement together that they highlight that the detention of Yarrington in Florence this past 9th of April was the result of cooperation between authorities from Mexico, Italy and the United States.

In the pronouncement, the Attorney Generals states that Yarrington faces serious charges both in the United States and in Mexico, which are the product of criminal acts allegedly committed by the ex Governor in both countries during his mandate as Governor between 1994 and 2004.

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Social Media Reports On Shootouts in Nochistlán, Zacatecas

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Dozens of citizens and neighbors of the municipality of Nochistlán de Mejía, located at 224 kilometers south of the capital of Zacatecas reported on a violent shootout through various social networks that lasted for several hours during the early hours of Wednesday without the authorities having so far issued an official communication in regards to the incident.

Various videos and messages of the citizenship recorded the events where strong machinegun bursts can be heard throughout various parts of the area where the presence of armed groups in the area has been denounced.

The “magical town” of Nochistlán has been a disputed area of alleged members of organized crime who are fighting for the drug trafficking corridor bordering both the north and northwest with the municipality of Jalapa, south with Yahualica in Jalisco, to the east with Apulco, to the west of the municipalities of Juchipila and Apozol, to the north and northeast with Teocaltiche in Jalisco and finally to the south bordering with the municipality of Mezticacán, also located in Jalisco.

Neighbors of the area alerted on the presence of trucks with armed men on board moving throughout highways and roads as well as in the urban area of Nochistlán.

Source: ZHN

“Video 2: Shootout some moments ago in Nochistlán, the following video shows the northern outskirts of the municipality as the two convoys of armed subjects attacked each other.”

Additional Videos:

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Pancho Chimal funeral accompanied by bursts of gunfire in Culiacan

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from an El Debate article

Subject Matter: Pancho Chimal
Recommendation: See link to article by BB Reporter J on his death

With bursts of gunfire, and the sounds of Sinaloa bands and with Manta messages for the local population, Sinaloa Cartel says goodbye to Francisco Javier Zazueta Rosales, alias Pancho Chimal.

Yesterday morning Fransisco Javier Zazueta Rosales, aka Pancho Chimal, was buried in Aguaruto, Culiacan, who was killed during a sustained firefight between Federal Forcecs and suspected criminals in Tepuche.

After a finger print test was carried out, authorities confirmed it was Pancho Chimal. Pancho Chimal was the leader of a group in Villa Juarez, Los Chimales; he is credited with having given the order for the ambush of the Military on September 31st of 2016.

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Who Said Ordinary Mexican. Citizens are Afraid to Fight Back Against Criminals

Posted by DD with material El Universal and Mexico News Daily

 

Garcia detained thief with a "full-nelson"

What could have been one more mugging in downtown Tampico in the state of Tamaulipas became the viral tale of a citizen “doing the right thing.”

Ciudad Victoria resident Lorena Rubí García Illoldi was in Tampico visiting family in the city and had gone to the market  Saturday afternoon to eat a piece of cake when she heard two people — a 30-year-old woman and her mother — pleading for help after two men had stolen their purses and phones.

García’s gut reaction was to act, and the first thing she did was to run and stop the thief and when he tried to escape she immobilized him with a wrestling  hold -a full nelson.  Other onlookers apprehended the second thief and both, identified only as Luis, 28 and Carlos, 47, were turned over to the State Police. 

In an interview with the newspaper  El Universal when asked if she was worried about exposing herself to risk by what she did, she replied "I didn't have time to think about it". She told interviewer that when she was younger she had been a member of the state and national judo team and had won a national championship.  She told the interviewer she had a black belt in Judo. 

Her daughter snapped photos of the incident.and posted them on Facebook the next day.    The story and photos went viral on the internet and Garcia quickly became famous. 

She said she was surprised by the reaction and that the last thing she was after was public attention. “I did not want publicity or anything like this.”  She was referring to all the comments on her Face Book page after her daughter posted the photo. 

“What I am is satisfied with is doing the right thing as a citizen.  I was not abusive, I used only the force necessary. Violence should be the last resort"

García is a literature and theater professor at the Autonomous University of Tamaulipas (UAT), and is a writer, poet and actress. Besides judo, she has practiced lucha libre, a Mexican form of professional wrestling.

The victims were a 30-year-old woman and her mother are from Monterrey and it was their first visit to Tampico.  The incident took place in a very busy pedestrian street near the Plaza de Armas of Tampico.

At the end of the interview with El Universal , the literature teacher said: "I did not think to be heroin, I just want people to know that there are good people in Tampico\". 

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Mexican Capo's that will never return to see the light of day

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from an El Debate article

Subject Matter: Mexican Capo's that received life sentences
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman could be added to the list of Capo's with life sentences

Dozens of Capo's have been extradited to the United States,  many of them have been sentenced to life sentence without parole, in the most recent case, Alfredo Beltran Leyva, one of the leaders of the Beltran Leyva Cartel, was sentenced this past Wednesday.

Beltran Leyva, "El Mochomo", was extradited in January of 2014 to the United States. The Capo was identified as a leader of the Federation, as well as being identified as head of a sicario cell known as "Los Pelones" in the south of Guerrero, and Los Gueros, in the north of Sonora.

But Beltran Leyva is not the only Capo extradited and sentenced to life without parole, no less than another six have this sentence, and others that have given money and cooperated with information to the United States authorities to change or reduce their sentences.

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Today is a Day to Celebrate. Javier Duarte, ex-governor of Veracruz arrested

Posted by DD from material at El Pais, Milineo, BB Archives,
my files and dozens of others  across the internet

By DD for Borderland Beat 

The first question most people are asking about Javier Duarte, ex-governor of Veracruz, and for the last 6 months a fugitive from justice in Mexico.

"Where is Javier Duarte?"
On Oct 10  of last year  he had asked the Legislature for a "leave of absence" from his job as Governor in order to clear his name.of the accusations being made against him.  On Oct. 14 a judge issued an arrest warrant against him for his probable responsibility in the crimes of organized crime and operations with resources of illicit origin. 

After he was no longer seen on the golf course where he used to go and the opposition leader and future governor, Miguel Angel Yunes, reported that he had fled in a helicopter to Puebla and that he flew to Ciudad Juárez . Other versions located him in the area of the Desert of the Leones, in the Mexican capital. In recent days, it was speculated that he was in Canada and in Guatemala. 

It was determined a few days his request to the Legislature that  the interim governor had provided them a helicopter on Oct. 12 and  Duarte and his wife were lifted off the ground and they have not been seen or heard from since then. Some think he may have received a tip that criminal charges were imminent.

The file was issued by Interpol on November 14, 2016. So far, the PGR has been able to secure 112 bank accounts, five companies and four properties that presumably belong to Duarte, as well as relatives, friends and former public servants who Which the former governor are sought after in Mexico and other parts of the world. 

In November a former aide to Duarte was detained near the Guatemala border and he had in his possession 2 fake passports that had photos of Durante and his wife.  From that point on the PGR investigators focused on Guatemala. 
 
While on the lam, Duarte was supported by a network of Mexicans who helped him evade justice, Omar Garcia Harfuch, head of the Criminal Investigation Agency in Mexico's Attorney General's Office, told a press conference Sunday.

Garcia Harfuch said investigators "identified many homes, telephone numbers and vehicles related to people who supported Javier Duarte from Mexico City in the logistics of his stay and movement in Guatemala."

"During the investigation, it came to light that various private airlines offering services to the region were charged with transporting (Duarte) to different points in Guatemala," he said.
 

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A crime reporter who wrote for a Los Cabos blog was murdered yesterday.

Published by DD from material at Colectivo Pericu and Mexico News Daily
 

A crime reporter who wrote for a Los Cabos blog was murdered yesterday.

Minutes before noon on Good Friday in La Paz,  Maximino Rodríguez Palacios had just parked his car in a handicap parking space outside of the store known as  City Club Forjadores,  As he was getting out of his blue Honda sedan  to go get a wheel chair for his disabled wife so they could go shopping,  gunfire, apparently from high powered rifles,  erupted from a white pickup truck behind his car. 

His wife was not injured but he died at the scene and his lifeless body fell back into the car. 
 

Rodriguez, 73, was the crime beat reporter for the online blog Colectivo Pericú and was also a correspondent for the newspapers El Heraldo and Excélsior, writing a column on security.

Maximino Rodríguez Palacios became the fourth journalist to be killed in Mexico in less than two months.  He was the second journalist targeted in the state in less than a month. 

Julio Omar Gómez Sánchez survived an attack in Cabo San Lucas March 28, but his bodyguard was killed.

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Sinaloa: Marina kill Pancho Chimal outside Culiacan

Pancho Chimal killed outside Culiacan 

Francisco Zazueta Rosales, El Chimal, was killed during a gunfight with Marines, in the town of San Cayetano, in Tepuche, Sinaloa, north of Culiacan.  His identity was confirmed through fingerprints. Numerous weapons including a grenade launcher and .223 caliber rifles, tactical and communications gear were secured at the scene.  it is unknown if others were detained in the action.

Chimal was said to be the leader of Ivan Archivaldo Guzman's cell of enforcers, Los Chimales, and Pancho was one of 5 ranking Sinaloa Mayo Zambada branch members who escaped from Aguaruto, a prison outside of Culiacan. 

Tepuche, Sinaloa

These inmates had cells that resembled condos, with drugs, alcohol, and prostitutes easily available, as well as beds, televisions, and food from outside the prison.

Among them were Juan Jose Esparragoza, "El Negro", Alfonso Limon Sanchez, Jesus Pena Gonzalez "El 20", and Guadalupe Felix Rafael Nunez, El Changuito Antrax.  Rafael Nunez, and Limon Sanchez were both named in Operation Narco Polo.  A federal indictment out of San Diego, which targeted upper level Sinaloa operators, and their San Diego distribution and trafficking networks.

Pancho Chimal was captured a month before his escape, initial reports stated it was Ivan Archivaldo who had been detained, in February Pancho Chimal was said to be leading the fight against Los Damaso, upon his escape from prison. 

Sources: ZETA Tijuana, Rio Doce 

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Mexican Journalist’s Case Suggests Changes to Asylum Process under Trump

Published by DD republished from El Paso Herald-Post

A Mexican reporter who sought asylum in El Paso after receiving death threats has been detained by federal officials —despite having passed an initial test to determine whether he faces a “credible fear” back home, his attorney said.

When Martin Mendez Pineda fled the Mexican state of Guerrero in February, he escaped a living hell where being a reporter meant he had a constant target on his back. Yet he walked into a new nightmare after seeking asylum in El Paso, according to his attorney.

Mendez Pineda, 26, has been in a detention facility in the Texas border city even after American authorities agreed the reporter had a credible fear of returning to his country. His attorney, Carlos Spector, said it’s symbolic of a change under the Trump Administration where prolonged detention — even for people with no criminal history — is the latest tool in the White House’s effort to discourage people fleeing violence from seeking help in the United States.

Spector’s immediate concern isn’t the asylum process that could lay ahead but instead the continued detention of someone who would normally be released while his case is meandering through the long and complicated series of hearings and interviews. He fears the detention will become a pattern and be used against other foreigners seeking safe harbor after Trump issued his Jan. 25 executive order on immigration.

“This process of incarcerating immigrants seeking refuge in the United States has been a policy that has existed that has just gotten worse under Trump,” he said. “We’re here to demand his freedom and to denounce the criminalization of the political asylum process as a political tool.”

The federal Department of Homeland Security indicates it is just vetting asylum applicants to make sure the revamped process is fair.

“The goal of DHS is to ensure the asylum process is not abused,” the agency explains on its website. “The asylum officer shall make a positive credible fear finding only after the officer has considered all relevant evidence and determined, based on credible evidence, that the alien has a significant possibility of establishing eligibility for asylum, or torture protection.”

Mendez Pineda fled the resort city of Acapulco after he was attacked by Mexican federal officers and later threatened at gunpoint by six armed men, according to case documents provided by Spector’s office.

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Mothers bring peace to Mexico with a new interactive documentary

Posted by DD Republished from open Democracy

By Mary Ryder **

“If we talk about the war on drugs we will win. They cannot silence our voices and hide our cries of pain, our anger, our fear, or our courage.”

So says Araceli Salcedo Jímenez, mother of Fernanda Rubi, a young Mexican woman kidnapped in 2012. Araceli’s voice was recorded as part of Anyone’s Child: Mexico, a brand new project telling the real-life stories of families and communities whose lives have been wrecked by the international drug war, and their fight for safer drug laws.

Anyone’s Child: families for safer drug control was formed 2 years ago, as families in the UK united to tell their stories, including Anne-Marie Cockburn whose 15 year-old daughter, Martha, died of an accidental ecstasy overdose in 2013.

Anyone’s Child aims to expose the human cost the drug war and show that moving away from prohibition and criminalisation will better protect families and young people.

Why Mexico?

The Anyone’s Child campaign was initially built around domestic concerns but has since expanded internationally. We are building support in Belgium, Canada, Kenya and now Mexico, thus illustrating the collateral damage caused by failed drug policies at every stage of the drug trade across the world.

The official public UK launch of Anyone’s Child: Mexico will be on 19 April 2017 in London, as part of the global effort to change public opinion about the urgent need for reform, to bring drugs under government control.

Nowhere is the human tragedy of prohibition more evident than in Mexico, the front-line of the global drug war. Officially, over 150,000 people have been murdered and thousands more have disappeared since the Mexican state intensified its drug war in 2006. Every one of these casualties was someone’s child, sister, brother or friend. Their families are now fighting for a solution and their stories can be heard through this innovative campaign which connects a free phone line in Mexico with an online interactive documentary that can be accessed from all over the world.

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Bloody Holy Thursday

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Reynosa, Tamaulipas— Members of the Mexican military, marines, and Fuerza Tamaulipas repelled attacks by armed groups yesterday in the cities of Matamoros and Río Bravo, in a battle scenario that left a total of 10 dead: six aggressors killed and four others were executed with a coup de grâce in a dispute between rival groups.

In the municipality of Río Bravo, members of the Navy of Mexico responded to gunfire in two separate incidents that killed four suspects belonging to organized crime groups.

The first violent incident occurred in the neighborhoods Paraíso and Paraíso Norte, where several individuals traveling in a pickup truck with Texas plates fired on the Mexican Navy, who were carrying out patrols.

The infantrymen repelled the aggression and a persecution was unleashed in the area.  After the confrontation, one of the alleged offenders died and the navy seized a vehicle, a high-powered weapon, and communication equipment.

Through a statement, the Tamaulipas Coordination Group specified that later, another group of individuals on board two trucks attacked members of the navy, as it passed through gap #109, located at kilometer 14, in the rural area of the municipality.

These events resulted in the deaths of three alleged delinquents, which had assault weapons, magazines, and various equipment.  

In social networks, it was said that one of the armed clashes resulted in the death of a man known as “Comandante Charmín.”

Ministerial authorities were informed of the two assaults on navy personnel, in order to follow up on corresponding investigations.

Rival Groups

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Sinaloa: Two bodies thrown from plane in El Dorado

Two bodies thrown from a plane in El Dorado

In the stillness of the moments right before daybreak, in Sinaloa, before the golden dawn, as the overwhelming sun casts across the ranchos of El Dorado, they heard the soft whirring of a small plane overhead. 

Such planes, such sounds are not uncommon in the area, they aren't discussed in open conversation, the small single engine planes, that land, fly, and transport cargoes of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, meth, or men known across the the world, like Chapo Guzman, Mayo Zambada.  

Private planes, private pilots, to destinations like Los Cabos, across the shimmering Sea Of Cortez from the roads of El Dorado.  Places like La Paz, where gunmen arrive on ferries, from Sinaloa, and fight for the plaza, under the orders of these men, including Damaso Lopez. 

Lopez, who came into the spotlight when Chapo Guzman was detained in Mazatlan, has allegedly formed his own group, Cartel De La Baja Sur, and declared his innocence in the escalating feud with Los Chapitos.  These are rumors, passed quietly, whispered softly....as the propellers on the small plane flying low over El Dorado....

The bodies fall silently, each about 175 pounds, picking up speed, as they rush through the beauty of morning clouds, and sweeping sunrise.  They hit the concrete with enough force to shatter every bone in their bodies.  Did they die upon impact, or before they were thrown? Did they scream helplessly into the nothingness of the clouds?  Did they pray for redemption, for safety, before they were pushed out?  

The sun rises, over El Dorado, where sugarcane is produced, 54 kilometers from Culiacan, the birthplace of Damaso Lopez, his rancho, his home, his people..... The bodies lay on the concrete, bloodied, bruised, broken in all ways a man can be broken....underneath an unforgiving sun.

Sources: Rio Doce, El Sol De Sinaloa 

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This sunny Florida town has a shady reputation for fueling America’s illegal drug trade

Posted on the Forum by Mica from a story in USA Today

 In an undercover investigation in and around Doral, Fla., police were supposed to crack down on businesses taking in drug money, and helping the drug cartels convert it into Pesos. Here's how the money-laundering process worked. By Ramon Padilla, Frank Pompa, Shawn Sullivan and Michael Sallah, USA TODAY

DORAL, Fla. — In a leafy office park in the suburbs west of Miami, local undercover officers set up an elaborate sting inside the Sevilla Trading Corporation.

Beyond the neatly furnished front office, a courier working for drug dealers carted in a shoe box stuffed with thousands in drug cash collected on street corners in cities across the country.

A police informant counted the cash in a back room, divided it, then delivered it to computer stores down the street in the first step toward turning the dollars into pesos and sending them to drug kingpins in Colombia.

The investigation in Doral in 2002 was supposed to crack down on rampant laundering in the area and shut down the businesses taking in drug money. But in the following years, just the opposite happened.

Internal police records reviewed by USA TODAY Network show the drug groups quietly turned Florida’s fastest-growing suburb into a money laundering haven that has empowered the largest criminal organizations in the Americas to hide their illicit profits and dominate the narcotics trade in the United States.

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Tijuana: "El Chacal" of Los Monitos detained

El Chacal of Los Monitos detained

Alberto Avila Alverado aka "El Chacal" was arrested by Los PEP, after being out of custody for just over a year. Chacal, reminiscent of Manuel Luis Toscano, 'El Mono" has been arrested repeatedly over the past 6 years, his arrests chronicling the shifting fortunes of Tijuana's retail drug cells.

El Chacal in 2011

This time, Chacal was detained with a firearm and doses of crystal or heroin, in Colonia Villas De Alamo.  He is said to have warrants for homicide, and kidnappings from 2014, which didn't seem to deter him from being released last time.  

In early 2011, Chacal was arrested in possession of weapons and two kilos of cocaine, he was said by press reports to be a direct subordinate of Fernando Sanchez Arellano.  Chacal's responsibility was managing Zona Norte's drug trade, under his relative "El Mono's" banner, which was aligned with CAF, at the time.  

He was said to be 21 years old at the time, making him closer to 27 now.  Chacal was released sometime after, and continued to work with "El Mono", and his brothers, and extended family in Zona Norte, as the blood feuds in Tijuana, and Zona Norte escalated.  

El Chacal in 2015

Mono was arrested in summer 2012, released, re arrested in 2013, and released, and finally executed in April 2015, shot multiple times at closer range, at a La Mesa taco stand, after meeting his probation officer.  His death was linked to Los Aquiles, but rumors persisted he was betrayed by inner circle, those more loyal to CAF then to Mono, who had become increasingly reckless.  

By that time, El Inge had been captured, the previous summer, and CAF had largely disbanded, in any real force or form.  It's top members had been arrested, and then came a wave of executions, targeting former or current members, throughout 2015, including the brother of Melvin Gutierrez, "El Kecho", "El Illames", and "El Sailor", who was placed in trash bags with a note from Los Aquiles, though it was revealed his own people killed him. 

In May 2015, El Chacal is arrested again, in his familiar position of running and operating tiendtas in Zona Norte, as the CJNG and CTNG begin to accelerate their control of neighborhoods for retail drug cells, pushed back against "El Griego", and Los Aquiles, principal Sinaloa backed cells in the city.

El Chacal in 2017

El Chacal was arrested in Playas De Tijuana, by municipal police, in possession of weapons, money, and drugs just after the killing of El Mono.  He was said to be at war with Raul Miranda Ordaz "El Alejo", and Aquiles backed cell leader, accused of dozens of kidnappings and killings.  It was also revealed he was the brother in law of El Mono. 

In the near two years since then, Chacal was released again, and continued to operate in Zona Norte, said to be aligned with elements of CTNG, in their two front battle with Los Uriartes and Los Aquiles, the former said to be operating in a truce, after years of killing.  It's difficult to say where exactly his loyalties lay now, likely to his family members in Los Monitos, Los Iqualitos, and some form of relationship with CTNG. 

The tale of El Chacal, whose family members have been killed, executed, arrested, in the name of blood money, crystal, and betrayal illustrates the realities of Tijuana, from Zona Norte, to the corrupted, co opted law enforcement, legal system, and all branches of government.  

Chacal will again be released, the charges against him are likely minor, and he has enough currency and clout to be set free.  He will kill his enemies, and they will kill him.  It's the only fate for those marked men who walk through the blood, and the meth pipes, the killings and strangling, the bodies wrapped in blankets, with messages on their chest, and ice picks through their heart.  

La Zona will go on, the fever dreams of meth addicts and sex tourists, others, innocent of such behavior, but trapped in a world of vicious killings, casual brutality, small caliber bullets behind the ear, in barely furnishedstash houses, the stench of death washes over the streets, clings to the globitos, the crystal, the heroin marks on a homeless addicts arm, curled in the fetal position, on Calle Coahuila. 

Sources: Zeta Tijuana, AFN Tijuana

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Eight Bodies Found on Mexican Highway to Acapulco

Posted by DD  from New York Times material and from Agencia Red Noticias

By REUTERS APRIL 10, 2017, 3:18 P.M. E.D.T.

ACAPULCO, México — The bodies of eight men were found stuffed in a SUV  along the highway that connects Acapulco with Mexico City, in one of the latest violent episodes to shake the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, a government official said on Monday.

The bodies were discovered close to midnight on Sunday, wrapped in plastic bags and secured with plastic tape.

Roberto Alvarez, spokesman for Coordination Guerrero, which coordinates state and federal law enforcement, said in a video announcement sent to reporters that the men were aged 25 to 35 and died from suffocation. The bodies showed evidence of torture, he added.

Two had their faces exposed, and six were covered with sheets, according to police sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. 

KSI reported that the eight bodies initially appeared to be gagged; while Alvarez did not specify how they were asphyxiated, drug gangs in Mexico frequently wrap their victims' faces and heads with packing tape, cutting off their breathing.   

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