The shootout that took place in Terminal 2 of the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) was triggered when suspected drug traffickers were about to be apprehended by Federal Police officers; a third officer dies in hospital.
Universal. 6-25-2012.
The shootout that took place in Terminal 2 of the Mexico City international airport (AICM) was triggered when Federal Police agents tried to detain suspected drug traffickers, according to the an official report on the incident issued by the Federal Department of Public Safety (SSP).
In the report, they indicated that Federal agents were performing investigative duties and "proceeded to take into custody suspects linked with drug trafficking."
The suspects (number unknown) were in Terminal 2 of the Mexico City International Airport and, "when the saw themselves surrounded by Federal Police, began shooting their firearms at the federal agents."
Authorities within the agency indicated to El Universal that apparently the suspects were also Federal Police officers, which is why they were carrying weapons inside the terminal area, and they managed to fire their weapons to prevent being apprehended, although the investigation will continue to try to determine the aggressors' identities.
The SSP confirmed that two Federal Police officers lost their lives in the incident and another was transferred to a hospital, where he later died.
The (SSP) also reports that in anti-drug trafficking actions they have conducted in the AICM, in 2011 Federal Police seized a total of 90 kilos of cocaine and more than 200 kilos in 2012.
The Sierras Tarahumara Indians: Mexico’s Unwilling Drug Runners
In drugwar reporting, articles of those living on the fringes of Mexican society is a rare occurrance. The forgotten people, before the war, during, and in all probability after. Proud citizens such as the people of the Sierras ,and the Mayans of the highlands of Chiapas and Mexican rain forest are largely ignored in and out of "war". Most likely few of you have ever even heard of the indigenous peoples such as the Tarahumara Indians, or Black Seminoles, or the Mayan Zapatistas. Not enough has been explored with respect to the drugwar, and how or if, the indigenous peoples have been affected. I was pleased to see this article and wanted to share it with the good people of BB.
Paz, Chivis
The Tarahumara’s native Copper Canyons have been invaded by narcotraficantes. (Jason Florio for Newsweek)
by Aram Roston for Newsweek Magazine
Camilo
Villegas-Cruz is wistful when he talks about happier times, running in the
shadowy depths of Sinforosa Canyon, in Mexico’s lawless Sierra Madre. A member
of the Tarahumara Indian tribe, renowned for their agility and running
endurance, Villegas-Cruz grew up competing in traditional rarajipari races, in
which contestants kick a wooden ball along a rocky trail. But by the time he
was 18 years old, he was running an entirely different kind of race—hauling a
50-pound backpack of marijuana across the border into the New Mexico desert.
Today, Villegas-Cruz is 21 and languishing in a U.S.
federal prison near the Mojave Desert in Adelanto, Calif.
Villegas-Cruz’s unlikely journey
from young athlete to drug mule shows how a little-known tribe, having been
catapulted into the limelight by a runaway bestseller, is being ground down by
forces out of its control, including Mexico’s all-consuming drug war, a disastrous
economy, and an unrelenting drought.
In their native language,
Villegas-Cruz’s people call themselves the Rarámuri—the light-footed ones.
Their unique physical abilities were largely unknown to the outside world until
2009, when the book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the
Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen made them famous. “When it comes to
ultradistances,” author Christopher McDougall wrote, “nothing can beat a
Tarahumara runner—not a racehorse, not a cheetah, not an Olympic marathoner.”
Among the characters in the book was a Tarahumara champion who once ran 435
miles, and another who won a 100-mile ultramarathon in Leadville, Colo., with
almost casual ease. McDougall described the reclusive Tarahumara as “the
kindest, happiest people on the planet,” and “benign as Bodhisattvas.”
Sinforosa Canyon (Photo:Richard Fischer)
The central message—that nature
intended human beings to run—struck a chord in the United States, where Born
to Run had a staggering impact on the amateur-running world (and on the
$2.3 billion per year running-shoe business). The book triggered the barefoot
running rage, including popular “foot gloves” that are as close as you can get
to not wearing shoes at all.
But there’s a painful twist to this
otherwise uplifting tale. According to defense lawyers, law-enforcement
sources, and some Tarahumara Indians, drug traffickers are now exploiting the
very Tarahumara trait—endurance—that has been crucial to their survival. Cartel
operatives enlist impoverished Tarahumara Indians to make a grueling odyssey
running drugs by foot across the border to the U.S.
Tarahumara
Indians: Mexico’s Unwilling Drug Runners
American defense lawyers on the southwest border say
Tarahumara drug runners are a growing segment of their court-assigned
clientele. Ken Del Valle, a defense attorney in El Paso, Texas, says he’s
represented more than a dozen of the Indians since 2007, all in similar
“backpacking” cases. Statistics are impossible to come by since law enforcement
agencies don’t differentiate between Indians and other Mexicans, but Del Valle
says it is precisely the Tarahumaras’ aptitude for endurance running that makes
them so heavily recruited: the cartels “can put them in the desert and just
say, ‘Go!’”
Del Valle says when the cases first
starting appearing, U.S. courts were ill-equipped to handle the defendants. In
one early case, he recalls, a Taruhamara was released when the court couldn’t
find an interpreter. Now, lawyers and judges have a translator on call.
Don Morrison, an assistant federal
public defender, first represented a Tarahumara in 2010. “I had no idea that
right across the border there was a tribe of people who lived like this,” he
told me. Many Tarahumara men still wear handmade sandals, skirt-like loin
cloths, and brightly colored tunics. “If the drug war can start involving the
Tarahumara,” he says, “then no one is immune.”
Until recently, the Tarahumara have
been partially protected by the fearsome geography of the region they inhabit—
the Sierra Madre mountains. The terrain here is psychedelic: plinths and
boulders and impossible overhangs. The canyons stretch down more than a mile,
though the Tarahumara navigate the cliffs as easily as staircases. But in the
past decades, ranchers, miners, loggers, and narcos have moved ever closer into
traditional Tarahumara enclaves. One of the last travel books to chronicle the
region was the acclaimed God’s Middle Finger, published in 2008 by
British writer Richard Grant. It describes a run-in with armed thugs, then
closes with this thought: “I never wanted to set foot in the Sierra Madre
again.”
Exacerbating the situation is what
-locals say is the worst drought in 70 years. Even in the best of times, many
Tarahumara live on the edge, tilling just enough to survive. Now farmers can’t
get most food crops to grow, and last winter an unusual cold spell killed off
much of what they did plant. That’s left the Indians desperate—and easy prey
for wealthy drug barons looking for mules to take their product north.
“You get a guy who can go 50 miles
with almost no water ... they’ve been indirectly training for [cross-border
smuggling] for 10,000 years,” says McDougall, author of Born to Run.
“It’s just tragic and disgraceful. This is a culture that has tried its best to
stay out of this mess, all of these -messes—the messes of the world—and now the
messes have come and found them.”
“I can’t even weigh the cultural
impact of what the drug industry is doing to the Tarahumara,” says Randy
Gingrich, an American based in the city of Chihuahua for 20 years. He spends
much of his time in the Sierra Madre and his NGO, Tierra Nativa, battles
threats to the Tarahumara and other Indian tribes from miners, loggers, drug
dealers, and the occasional tourist scheme. He says one former drug baron once
forcibly evicted Tarahumara from their ancestral homes so he could build a
giant Astroturf ski slope overlooking the 6,000-foot Sinforosa Canyon. The
project fell through when the trafficker died in a plane crash.
The Tarahumara are legendary for their endurance—and their reclusiveness. (Jason Florio for Newsweek)
In the town of Guachochi, a
Tarahumara woman named Ana Cela Palma says she knows four Indians who have
become “burros” and made the trek up to the U.S. for the cartels. None was paid
what they were promised, she says. “They make it back, but in really bad
condition,” she says. They were broken down physically, impoverished, and
angry, she says.
Palma took me from a little settlement called Norigachi,
along a ridge road cut by loggers, and into a small and tranquil valley. On the
east side of the valley, past a shallow rise, we found a Tarahumara shaman,
known as an owiruame, sitting on a pile of rocks. Jose Manuel Palma is
82 years old and a distant relative of Ana -Cela’s. The old man’s face lit up
when I asked about running. He used to be a long-distance runner, he said, and
was proud of it, though there aren’t a lot of races in the community anymore.
His job now is healing the sick, mostly through dreams. The Tarahumara believe
that people possess several souls, and that illness is the result of souls
losing their balance. “This is the highest level of shamanism in the Sierra,”
explains Gingrich. “They are called sonaderos—people who dream for others.”
Click to enlarge
Palma said “the traffickers have not
approached the traditional leaders of the Tarahumara,” recruiting instead the
younger people, who then recruit their friends. That’s how his nephew, Alfredo
Palma, got involved. He was approached by a Tarahumara friend, who apparently
was planning to carry a load for the traffickers and wanted company.
Court records in the U.S. show that
Alfredo Palma, 29 years old, was offered up to $800 to make the dangerous trek
across the border—more than a typical Tarahumara Indian might see in a year. As
Palma and seven other backpackers trekked through the cold desert night, over
the border into New Mexico, an infrared radar picked them up. Four men slipped
away, but the border patrol found Alfredo and two others trying to hide behind
some shrubs. Nearby, in their backpacks, was 260 pounds of Mexican pot.
Thirty yards away from where Jose
Palma sat, a man used a horse to pull a plow through some dry fields, and the
old Tarahumara said that the man was one of his sons. The old man said they
were praying for rain, but in the meantime, his other son had moved to
Chihuahua City to look for work.
It was the drought that also drove
Camilo Villegas-Cruz to look for work elsewhere. His father couldn’t manage to
grow enough beans, peas, and corn to survive on their little rancheria.
So when Villegas-Cruz and one of his brothers were approached in early January
2009 by a stranger offering to pay them each $1,500 to be burros, they quickly
accepted.
Late one evening, they shouldered
their 50-pound backbacks and set out from a small farmhouse near the border. It
was just a half-hour walk to a remote unguarded section of the barren
border-crossing into the U.S. They carried smaller packs on their chests with
food and water. Marching all night in the desert, they would stop when the sun
rose every day, and would stash the huge marijuana packs and sleep. It was a
tedious and grueling trek, and on the third day they woke up to the sound of a
U.S. Border Patrol helicopter overhead.
They were arrested and charged with
conspiracy with intent to distribute, and could have faced 20-year sentences.
The American judge in Los Cruces, New Mexico, let them off easy, sending them
back to Mexico, each with a sentence of three years of unsupervised release.
With the region suffering a terrible drought, families are struggling. (Jason Florio for Newsweek)
When Villegas-Cruz returned home,
his parents were furious, he says. His mother sobbed. But soon enough, life
went back to normal. He met a Tarahumara girl and fell in love. He went to
traditional corn-beer festivals. He volunteered during a 50-mile Tarahuma race,
holding a torch through the night to light the way for runners kicking a ball
before them in the old way of the tribe. (The race had been organized by a
legendary ultramarathoner, Micah True. True, an American nicknamed “Caballo
Blanco,” spent years working on behalf of the Tarahumara, and was a central
character in Born to Run. He died in March of heart disease, while
running.)
But Villegas-Cruz’s family was still
struggling. So once again, he set off to find work. First, he planted chilis
for a farmer, earning $10 a day for backbreaking work in the searing summer
heat. Then a more lucrative offer came. “I’ve got a job for you,” said a man
nicknamed Cholo, recalls Villegas-Cruz. “It’s only going to be three days.”
He knew the risks but he says the money was too good to
turn down. He says the traffickers took him to a store in town and bought him
clothes, new shoes, and a coat to keep him warm while trekking during cold
desert nights. There was a catch, however: the cost for the clothes, the cartel
operatives told him, would come out of his $1,500 in pay. At least until he
completed his mission, Villegas-Cruz was in debt to the smugglers, and couldn’t
back out.
He was driven in the bed of a pickup
truck to a little ranch near the U.S. border, where the backpacks were already
prepared—heavy burlap sacks taped tight, full of compressed packages of
marijuana. Villegas-Cruz shouldered the heavy load, and with a handful of other
men, walked at night in his new shoes, behind the guide. They crossed the
border within a half hour, and soon were walking through a desert in New
Mexico. In unfamiliar territory, Villegas-Cruz got nervous and wanted to turn
back. “I was really sad, and really scared,” he says. But without a guide, he
knew he’d never find his way back to the Sinforosa Canyon.
Three days in, it began to rain, and
as he trudged with his huge backpack full of marijuana, he slipped and fell.
Covered in mud, he kept on walking. By now he was completely terrified, he
says. On the morning of the fourth day, the Border Patrol found him and two
others. The guide, who didn’t carry the same load as the “mules” he was
leading, managed to slip away.
Villegas-Cruz pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and reentering the country
illegally, and this time he was sentenced to 46 months. “Someday,” he says,
dressed in a prison uniform and sitting in a large room usually used for court
proceedings, “I’ll get home and I’ll never come here again.”
El Universal. 06-24-2012. While in countries like Colombia or Guatemala the number of properties seized from organized crime groups and subject to forfetiture actions numbered over 28,000 in one year, in Mexico, only 8 properties have been the subjects of such an action, according to the report "Forfeiture of property", drafted by the Center of Social Studies and Public Opinion (Centro the Estudios Sociales y de Opinion Publica--CESOP) of the Mexican House of Representatives (Camara de Diputados ).
CESOP's analysis shows that the most notable cases of forfeiture of property in Colombia in 2011 affected property valued over 3 billion 400 million Mexican pesos, and that between 2003 and 2009, nearly $11 billion dollars in criminal assets have been forfeited in that South American country, while in this country, the value of assets subject to forfeiture is "merely symbolic."
In Guatemala, up until February, 2012, ten months after the law on this subject matter became effective, courts have issued 12 judgments on behalf of the State involving assets that authorities have seized from organized crime and drug trafficking, amounting to around $760,000 dollars, plus 226,000 Colombian pesos.
CESOP adds that in Mexico, from the date that the 2009 Federal Law on Forfeiture of Property (Ley Federal de Extincion de Dominio) went into effect, the Office of Attorney General (PGR) has initiated only 10 proceedings, of which they have won only one, and that no proceedings have been filed in 2012.
The document also states the statutory grounds that provide a basis for initiating a criminal forfeiture proceeding in [Mexico] are fewer compared to Guatemala, [whose law] contains 40 (causal factors), and Colombia, which has 25 (causal factors), while in Mexico the law only allows 5.
In the "Report on the Results of the Superior Inspection of Public Accounts 2009" (Resultado de la Fiscalizacion Superior de la Cuenta Publica 200), the review that the Auditoria Superior de la Federacion (functionally eqivalent to the Congressional Budget Office) performed concluded that the Office of Administration and Transfer of Property did not receive any real or personal property from the operation of this law between August and December 2009.
CESOP points out that ITAM (Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico) specialists like Edgardo Buscaglia find it "incredible" that the institutions charged with combatting organized crime in Mexico lack the tools to dismantle the financial and property structures used by organized crime groups.
In Buscaglia's view, who is the coordinator of ITAM's International Program on Justice and Development, the Mexican government is not complying with the recommendations of the International Financial Group (GAFI) to prevent money laundering, nor does it use the technical and legal tools it has available to prevent dirty money from circulating through the arteries of the Mexican financial system.
Texas-based freelance journalist has been missing for a month after crossing into Tamaulipas to capture photographs of a shooting, a journalism advocacy group said.
According to the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, Zack Alejandro Plemmon Rosales, who has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico, had been staying at a hotel in Nuevo Laredo, Tamps., when he left to cover a shooting and never returned.
Nuevo Laredo is considered a main base of operations for the Zetas cartel, which has been in a bloody struggle with their former masters, the Gulf Cartel.
The Knight Center for Journalism is a training and outreach program for journalists in the Americas and the center has also kept a close eye on violence against journalists.
Because of the intense wave of violence, newspapers in the city of Nuevo Laredo have stopped publishing stories about organized crime, according to the Knight Center, which emphasized that Mexico is the most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere for journalists.
According to KABB-TV in San Antonio, the 30-year-old Plemmon was a crime photographer who had been working for the Sinaloa newspaper El Debate and had been tracking the actions of the Sinaloa Cartel. The television station reported that hotel employees said two masked men went into the building and took Plemmon’s belongings.
The following is the notice published in the Knight Center website:
A month has passed since a freelance photojournalist from
Texas working in Mexico has been heard from, reported the television station
Fox 29 of San Antonio the night of Thursday, June 21.
Freelancer Zane Plemmons was staying in a hotel in the
border city of Nuevo Laredo when he left to take photos of a shooting, the
hotel's receptionist told the journalist's sister, Lizanne Sánchez.
Zane Alejandro Plemmons Rosales, who has dual U.S. and
Mexican citizenship, was working for the Mexican newspaper El Debate at the
time of his disappearance.
Because of the intense wave of violence, newspapers in
the city of Nuevo Laredo have stopped publishing stories about organized crime.
In 2011, a journalist in Nuevo Laredo was decapitated for reporting anonymously
via social media about organized crime.
About the reporter:
Zane Alejandro Plemmons Rosales is a freelance writer who regularly has work published in Canada, the US and Mexico. Zane is a dual citizen and member of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. He is multi-lingual and was educated in three countries, traveling North America extensively; leading to his varied works.
Sources: lldefonso Ortiz for the Monitor and The Knight Center for Journalism
El Diario. 6-23-2012. A total of 14 mutilated bodies were found in an abandoned truck in the parking lot of a shopping center in Mante City, in the northern state of Tamaulitpas, reported state authorities.
A source with the state attorney general's office reported that 14 bodies with a narco message were found this morning at 9:00 a.m., local time, in the parking lot of a supermarket store in the center of this municipality. The source stated that municipal employees were the ones who discovered the abandoned truck. The source stated that the mutilated bodies were of 10 men and 4 women, with a message directed at the Gulf Cartel.
This is the second time in less than a month that dismembered bodies have been left in the center of this municipality, because last June 7, (2012) 14 bodies were left in front of the city hall in a pickup truck with a message directed at the opposing cartel, the Zetas.
Meanwhile, yesterday in Ciudad Victoria, capital of Tamaulipas, there were attacks with explosives at several locations in the city, with a total of 8 civilians injured.
Written by Buggs for Borderland Beat Originally published April 18, 2010
Note: I read this post yesterday for the first time. Buggs wrote in in 2010, I don't know how it slipped by me, but it did, and it is a gem. I asked Buggs for permission to republish this real life story for those BB readers who, like me, , missed it the first time around. Buggs not only wrote the article but all the photography is his work. Jefe is not only a talented writer, but a talented photog as well.....Paz, Chivis
Many people in the U.S. are always asking me how safe it is to travel to Mexico with all the daily reports of violence. And I am very reluctant to tell them my opinion. One of the reason is because there is a legitimate risk. And the second reason is because I love to travel to Mexico, and sometimes do despite the potential danger.
My friend Everestt while descending the switchbacks of Copper Canyon last December
I am an avid dual sport motorcycle adventure rider and have done many rides in to Mexico. Last December, I and another rider from the U.S. decided to ride the "Tarahumara Sierra" of Copper Canyon. We started our journey in Creel and spent about four days in the back country of the Sierra Madre. I usually keep a journal of my travels and to help people decide as to what can happen, I have decided to post some of my entries of the journey. The following entry is day two and it starts in Batopilas.
December 25, 2009, Batopilas Chihuahua
The motel Mary is in the heart of Batopilas, right across from the main church. The sounds of children singing Christmas songs and Christmas music from a loud speaker serenaded us late into the night. We woke up in Batopilas on Christmas day.
I saw that Everest was getting ready for the day, cleaning his helmet. It is amazing how one day he is lying in the middle of the road breathing his last breath and the next day he is full of life waiting to ride out of the Copper Canyon.
We ate a quick breakfast in the motel restaurant and headed out. Today we try to make it to Urique. On our way out we stopped in the Cathedral of Satevó. I tried to get direction out of the canyon from here, but no one seemed to know.
We went south on a dirt road and when we came on a fork we were not sure which direction to go. We asked a young man in an old beat-up truck. He looked nervous looking around as if someone was watching him and seem upset that we had approached him. He pointed to the right up a huge mountain.
We could see the road winding its way up the top of the crest. As we were climbing we came to another fork and decided to go left, but after a while the road was getting really rough. We had to track back as we saw that we were going the wrong way.
The dirt road up the mountain was very good, rocky in some areas, but not bad. We continued the climb up the road, eventually we made the left turn and continued through a few small towns reaching a small town of Rodeo where we stopped for a break. Some kids came out to greet us and I bought them some candy at the small local store.
We continued on some very interesting roads and scenery. It was a nice day, it was Christmas day and we were having a blast riding in some of the more interesting roads in Tarahumara country. The accident from yesterday was still fresh in my mind and I attempted to put it out of my mind, but I still had the strange and unexplainable premonition.
It actually started to get warm and Everest wanted to stop to shed some clothing. Suddenly the road took us to a river without a bridge. It was not very deep, perhaps knee deep, but there was a lot of gravel made up of huge rocks. I thought Everest would stop to talk about how to enter the river, but he stood up and accelerated his bike to enter the river.
I don’t have to tell you what happened next. He went down right on the middle of the river. The current was strong and I was trying to still find a good place to set down my side stand on the huge rocks. Somehow Everest was able to pick up his bike and push out of the water. He was soaked. I placed my camera and clothed in a plastic bag and rode through the river at a slower pace.
We continued to ride, it was starting to get late and we were not sure how far we were from Urique. As we came around a bend and started to climb a hill, I could see a large white truck coming down the hill. I could see several indian men on the back of the truck. There was a narrow gap between some trees just enough for the truck to fit. Everest managed to cross the gap before the truck made it through. He sped up the hill and I had to wait for the truck to make it through the gap so I could get through.
But the truck stopped in the middle of the gap blocking my path.
I could see two men inside the cab of the truck. Suddenly the driver got out and I could see he was wearing a military jacket with blue pants. He was carrying an assault rifle, AR-15.
I did not like this a bit.
I tried to back up to turn around fast, but he was moving too fast toward me. I then saw that the passenger had also exited his truck and he also was armed with an assault rifle. I became afraid of what they might do and thought for a second of ditching the bike and running as fast as I could, but I knew I didn’t have time to do anything.
I could see that Everest was reaching the top of the hill kicking dust in the distance.
The driver reached me first but he was laughing and that made me relax a bit. One thing you never want to do in these kinds of situations is show fear. He stopped right in front of my bike and asked where I was going. I told him Urique and he asked where I was from. I said the U.S.
I told him we were just doing a motorcycle ride to see the country. I notice he had two beer cans of Tecate in his hands. He reached out and tried to give me one saying “here cabron have a beer.” I said no thanks and I could see in his facial expression that he did not like my response.
He stood there looking at me and I could tell he was intoxicated as he swayed in his stance. His friend pointed at me with his weapon, “did this cabron just say no?”
“Listen guys, I would be happy to join you for a beer, but it is getting late and we are trying to reach Urique before it gets dark. Otherwise, I would be honored to join you for a drink.” I pointed up the hill.
“You see up there?”
Everest had reached the top of the hill and had stopped far up the distance.
“That is my friend up there and he is waiting for me, so I need to go,” I said trying to sound unalarmed, but my heart was beating a hundred miles an hour.
They both looked up and they could see a tiny figure of Everest waiting for me to come up. The driver came around the bike and looked at me real closely. He could not really tell who I was, as I was wearing my helmet and sunglasses.
He seem to relax a bit and was smiling at me, "do you want some perico?'
"No thank you," I responded while playing with the buttons of my GPS. He got even closer to get a better look at my GPS that looked like some form of communication device.
“Are the gringos in the bicycles up ahead your friends?”
He kept playing with his rifle and I could see that he had two more magazines sticking out of his jacket pocket.
“No,” I responded.
He started to laugh real loud.
“Well we scared the shit out of them, not sure where they went,” he said while both he and his friend laughed out loud.
They both turned around still laughing and went inside their truck. They both were having a hard time keeping their balance and I could tell both were very intoxicated. I could hear the gear grinding as he shifted to first and drove past me, even the men in the back of the truck were laughing.
I started to ride up the hill and met Everest mid way, he was coming down to see what was the holdup. I was glad he did not make it down any time sooner. I motioned him to keep going.
We travelled another hour or so and we came to a “T.” We decided to turn left to reach a small town down the hill called Tubares. In the small town of Tubares I saw a small church that was falling down. I parked my bike to take some pictures. As I was taking pictures I could detect movement underneath a pile of wood inside the dark shadows of the church.
I called out to Everest and I saw two blond men come out of the shadow with their eyes wide open. They were bicyclists from California and they told us they were hiding from two drunken armed Mexicans that were making them drink beer. They said that the two armed men had been shooting down toward their feet and they were very scared.
They asked me if I thought it was safe to stay here for the night. I did not think it was a good idea. On my way in I saw several houses with a bunch of pickup trucks and SUV’s parked in the front. I could also see a bunch of men drinking beer outside. This is narco territory and I myself would not feel safe staying here. I told them they should ride out and find a secluded hidden area to sleep for the night.
It was getting dark and we still had many miles to reach Urique. Everest and I decided that we would ride to Urique even if it took us all night. I watched as the bicyclist rode out and we mounted our motorcycles to try to reach Urique in the dark of night. I could hear gunshots in the distance, echoing in the walls of the far away canyons.
I asked Buggs if he had any other material about this trip, he directed me to THIS LINK
Some of the information provided came from Borderland Beat reporter Chivis Martinez
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
A man detained by a Mexican naval infantry special forces unit in Zapopan, Jalisco Wednesday was not Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar AKA El Gordo, the son of Sinaloa drug cartel boss Joaquin Guzman Loera AKA El Chapo, but a hapless used car dealer from Guadalajara caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to various Spanish and English language news reports.
The counternarcotics operation took place in Jardines de la Patria colony where the misidentified detainee now identified as Felix Beltran Leon, a used car dealer by trade with family in Los Angeles California.
According to a statement, Mexican marines found two rifles, two handguns, four grenades and USD $135,000 (MX $1,867,454.96) and MX $295,000 (USD $21,325.81) in cash. Kevin Daniel Beltran Rios, 19, was also detained at the scene and identified in Secretaria de Marina (SEMAR) news release as a Sinaloa cartel operative.
An attorney for the family sent out several emails Friday to various Mexican media outlets and had released an oral statement on MVS Radio saying the detainee was not Guzman Salazar.
The attorney. Jesus Alfredo Guzman, had scheduled a news conference for 1100 hrs CDT Friday in Guadalajara, but to date the media event has not taken place.
A juicio de amparo suit has already been filed in Mexican federal court challenging the extradition of Beltran Leon to the United States. Under Mexican jurisprudence, amparo suits must be adjudicated before prosecutors can move forward on any criminal case, even in a high profile extradition such as the putative Alfredo Guzman Salazar detention.
Juicio de amparo suits are procedural appeals meant to slow down legal procedures and to ensure an individuals' rights under the law.
Despite the amparo suit Beltran Leon will likely serve prison time for possession of illegal guns and cash.
The errors likely committed in this case are of epic proportions. Loera Guzman himself was detained by Mexican authorities in 1993 but escaped in 2001. That means that the Mexican Subprocuraduría de Investigación Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada (SIEDO) the organized crime unit of the Procuraduria General de la Republica or attorney general probably had a DNA profile on Loera Guzman. A report could have easily been prepared in advance of the marine operation that could have compared DNA profiles taken immediately following the raid.
Word on the narco blogs is that the operation was a DEA operation from the very start, which if true means the raid and subsequent news of the capture was from its basis a political operation by an American administration in deep political trouble at home trying to score cheap points by using a foreign counternarcotics operation.
For example, the administration of US president Barak Obama has been milking the 2011 assassination of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for months using questionable leaks to reliable news outlets such as the New York Times.
The US DEA has played politics with Mexican politics and politicians in the past. A good example is the 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles in the New York Times which smeared, among others, then Sonora governor Fabio Beltrones as having connections with organized crime. Nearly every source in that series were unnamed or were from the DEA itself. None of the rumors and allegations against now Senator Beltrones has ever been proved.
Most dismaying to all concerned with legal reforms about to be imposed on Mexico is Marisela Morales, Mexico's current PGR who took over that post two years ago. Her elevation to the top legal job in Mexico has been praised by US news outlets such as the Los Angeles Times as exemplary of how far Mexico has come in jurisprudence. SIEDO was Morales' job prior to becoming attorney general.
Far more revealing is the current US administration that is under intense pressure because of its refusal to provide Congress with documents pertaining to the failed gun running monitoring operation dubbed Fast and Furious. That operation has allegedly cost the lives of 300 Mexican citizens and three US Federal agents from weapons illegally purchased in the US and permitted to cross the border into Mexico.
It is hard to imagine the DEA not trying to score points for its boss as well as itself by rushing a questionable bust. It is equally hard not to imagine no fallout coming from such as sloppy attempt.
The current Mexican national administration under President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa is on the way out as its longtime political rival the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) is about to retake the Mexican presidency as well a substantial portion of the Chamber of Deputies in next week elections.
It is therefore very likely the Mexican government did nothing more than react to a set of facts provided by the US DEA.
SEMAR, Admiral Mariano Francisco Saynez Mendoza must be furious as a tremendous waste of his best counternarcotics forces.
Mother of man arrested says her son is an American born in Los Angeles...DNA being tested, Mexico says the information of identity came from the U.S.
While the U.S. says the information came from Mexico...Both are reportedly testing DNA independently. The person arrested is Felix Beltran Leon the leader of a cell
under the command of the son of "El Chapo" in Jalisco.
The Federal Attorney General's
Office reports:
On 21 June elements of the Secretary of Navy presented two people, one of which was identified as
Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, therefore, the public prosecutor of the
Federation launched an investigation following PGR / SIEDO / UEIARV / 051/2012,
for his alleged responsibility in the crimes of organized crime, possession of
firearms for exclusive use of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and operations..
After performing the necessary tests to know their
identity, has been determined that those presented are Felix Beltran Beltran
Leon and Kevin Daniel Rios, 23 and 19 years of age, respectively. The men are half brothers.
Read additional update information at the bottom of this post.
In the video below is the attorney and mother of the man misidentified as a son of El Chapo. Elodia is the name of the mother.. The attorney offers proof of the mistaken identity by displaying photos & documents.
Yesterday this reporter posted a photo of a person
said to be Jesus the son of Chapo Guzman.Reporting the presentation would be within
hours.After the presentation and
viewing the photos, in my opinion the people in my early photo and that at the
presentation looked strikingly different.Thinking I had mistakenly posted a photo that was not in reality that of
Jesus Guzman, I removed it from the post and posted new presentation photos.
Later in the day, rumors flew that in fact questioned if the man was in fact Jesus Guzman. Today the attorney representing the Guzman Family announced they would present a news conference to reject the notion that the man arrested is El Chapos son.
It is hard to believe as true that the federal agencies and the Marina could make such an error, so hopefully the attorney's will present a video of the true person or some iron clad proof that it is not the man presented.
At 11AM this morning, the family lawyer of Guzman
Loera is holding a press conference to
deny the arrest of Alfredo Guzman Salazar as being the son of El Chapo.
A man who was introduced yesterday as the alleged son
of "El Chapo" Guzman is not the son of the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel,
says the family. By means of an email
sent to several media outlets,family
lawyers announced there would be a news conference at 11 AM in Sanborn's Plaza Pavilion in
Guadalajara, Jalisco.
"Gentlemen communicators, (press) this Friday June 22 at
11 am we expect the presence of representatives of the media to raise awareness
of important issues relating to detention of an individual who federal authorities
sayis part of Guzman Loera family.We'll
show them otherwise.
(Beltran's attorney displaying photos at news conference)
Below is video of transfer
Lawyers and
family members Guzman Loera, I call for the press to be at the conference at 11
am at the Plaza Pavilion Sanborn coffee. " Grupo Reforma reported that the
lawyer Jesús Alfredo Guzman, Heriberto Rangel Mendez, said the arrested man is actually Felix Beltran Leon who bears no relationship to the Sinaloa
cartel leader but his nickname is
"El Gordo."
Yesterday
evening, the Marina of Mexico arrested Alfredo Guzman Salazar, whom he
introduced as the alleged son of Joaquin Guzman Loera, however, according to
another version says that the subject would be really presented Felix Beltran
Leon, who is engaged in buying and selling cars in Guadalajara. For its part,
the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) applauded yesterday as a
"tremendous victory" the arrest of Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar.
Another related fact is that Mexico has plans to extradite to the U.S. Jesus Guzman, pending the person arrested is in fact the son of Chapo.
UPDATE: Man arrested is an American born in Los Angeles, family charges the government with planting weapons:
Guadalajara, Jalisco,; the attorney and family of the arrested man identified as
the son of the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, assure that he is not the son of "El Chapo" Guzmán.They are
working gathering documents such as
birth certificate and official credentials to prove the identity of the young
man arrested by Semar.They contend the man is Félix Beltrán Leon and not Jesus Alfredo
Guzman Salazar.
In an interview with Radio Formula, Veronica Guerrero,
the León Beltrán family lawyer said that the arrest of Felix was "mere
confusion" and they will lodge an appeal.
He explained that in addition to presenting official
documents to prove the true identity of his client they would resort to a DNA test.
Elodia Leon, who claims to be the mother of León Beltrán,
meanwhile, said that his son was born on October 8, 1988 in Los Angeles,
California and is married to Karla Giovanni Pacheco and the couple has lived in Guadalajara
for two years.She is quoted as saying “
my son has no connection to the Sinaloa cartel.
The attorney for the man arrested had arrived to the conference, but said she needed to wait for the family before answering questions. The family is 7 hours late and reporters have begun to leave feeling that no one is arriving.
This puts another spin on the story, that perhaps it was not the attorney for the Guzman family that was staging the news conference after all. It was from the man the Beltran family is referring to as Felix.
Or so it would seem.
The Mexican
navy identified him as Alfredo Guzman Salazar, saying he is believed to be the
son of Sinaloa Cartel head Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, as well as a
rising operator in the international drug trafficking organization.
"There
is total confusion," said his lawyer Veronica Guerrero said, "...
which is having a serious effect on their personal and family situation."
The Mexican
Attorney General's Office issued a statement Friday saying its information came
from the U.S.
The U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration said the information came from Mexico.
Both say
they're checking DNA.
"The Mexican Navy and Mexican law enforcement have said this is El Chapo's son
and that's is who was captured,". said DEA spokesman Rusty Payne, noting that the
DEA is working separately to confirm the man's identity.
Pacheco
showed The Associated Press what she said were her husband's voting credential
and driver's license. The man arrested bears only slight resemblance to a
photograph of Guzman's son recently issued by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Elodia
Beltran appeared with Guerrero at a press conference Friday saying she is the
mother of the detained man.
"He's
never been arrested," she said. "This is a real injustice."
Pacheco said
the couple and their 1-year-old were sleeping in their home in Zapopan, a
suburb of the western city of Guadalajara, when marines kicked in the door and
arrested her husband and his half-brother, 19-year-old Kevin Daniel Beltran
Rios.
Authorities
identified Beltran Rios as an alleged member of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The men were
found with a grenade launcher and four grenades, two assault rifles, two
pistols and $135,000 in cash, the navy said. Pacheco said there were no drugs
or guns, but the family did have the cash because of a recent home sale.
Another
lawyer, Heriberto Rangel Mendez, said the government planted the weapons.
Zapopan has
been the scene of much drug violence and arrests. It's where Guzman's other
son, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, also known as "El Chapito," was
detained on money laundering charges in 2005, and where top Sinaloa lieutenant,
Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, was killed in a 2010 shootout with Mexican
army.
Pacheco said
her husband works at Autos Pacheco, a used car dealership that gunmen attacked
in May, killing one man. The target was a customer looking at cars, not the
business, Pacheco said, though media reports said the dealership owner was
killed.
"We've
never had any links to drug traffickers," Pacheco said. "He's not the
person they say he is.
NOTE: It was in the afternoon that reports from the attorney representing Beltran, that Beltran had been born in Los Angeles, this supposedly from the mother, and Beltrans father born in Durango. Subsequently, in the late afternoon a few reports were that it was the arrested man born in Durango. I really don't know and frankly no longer care about this merry go round.
I find it interesting that Mexico gave no mention of the US being involved with the capture of "El Chapos's son", yet the tide whipped fast once Chapo's "son" became Felix Beltran, when at that time Mexico was quick to blame the US, and stated that it was DEA that lead the arrest by the information they gave to Mexico.
And interesting again is the family declaring the weapons planted BUT the 135K in cash was theirs.
I am not buying it. Why would the DEA then congratulate Mexico after the arrest? The entire scenario is best described as the Keystone Cops in a pit of revolving "truth" and a landslide of incompetence, on both sides the border.
The players in the Zetas horse racing laundering scandal.
By Nick Carraway Mason County Daily News
The general manager of a U.S. horseracing track denied allegations Monday that the chief of Mexico's most violent drug cartel had fixed a $1 million race so his own horse would win.
According to two confidential FBI informants, Zetas leader Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, also known as "40," bragged that he had paid the gatekeepers at New Mexico's Ruidoso Downs $10,000 "to hold back the horses" competing against his own horse, Mr. Piloto, in the 2010 All American Futurity Race, which Mr. Piloto won.
Trevino Morales and 13 other defendants were indicted last week for allegedly laundering at least $20 million in cocaine profits through horse racing, breeding and training in the U.S. The informants' claims were part of an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant for an Oklahoma horse ranch allegedly owned by a Zetas front corporation.
Shaun Hubbard, general manager of Ruidoso Downs, adamantly denied the informants' alleged charge.
"We have looked at the videotape of the 2010 All American Futurity from every angle many times in recent days and can see no evidence of any horse being held or denied a fair start," said Hubbard in a statement to ABC News.
"We can find no evidence that there was any wrongdoing by our starting-gate crew," added Hubbard. "We also want to make it clear that we have totally cooperated with the FBI investigation and will continue to offer support for this investigation."
One of the confidential informants also alleged in the affidavit that his horses had competed against horses belonging to Omar Trevino Morales, AKA 42, in Mexico but, that 42's horses "would always win because of CI #1's knowledge that '42' would get upset at a loss and most likely kill his opponent as a result."
A third confidential informant allegedly stated that in 2007, in Monclova, Mexico, an individual named Triana had entered his own rooster in a cockfight against a rooster owned by 42. Triana's rooster won. "Approximately 15 days after the rooster fight, '42' had Triana killed because '42's' rooster had lost the fight," CI #3 allegedly said.
Miguel Angel Trevino and Omar Trevino allegedly laundered their drug profits through a horseracing operation run by a third brother, Jose, and his wife, according to the U.S. indictment handed down in Texas last week. Jose Trevino Morales, his wife and six other defendants were arrested. Miguel Angel and Omar remain at large in Mexico. The Drug Enforcement Administration has offered $5 million apiece for information leading to the capture of Miguel Angel and Omar.
The brothers, whose numeric aliases refer to their alleged rank within the Zetas at the time of the cartel's creation several years ago, are now allegedly top leaders of an organization that controls drug trafficking in the east and south of Mexico. Miguel, or "40," allegedly runs the Zetas along with "3," Heriberto Lazcano.
The Zetas began in 1999 when former members of the Mexican military signed on to work as security for the Gulf drug cartel. The Zetas went into business for themselves and are now at war with the Gulf Cartel. The Zetas are based in Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas state just across the border from Laredo, Texas.
Indictment Links Prominent Texas Family's Horse Stable to Zetas Money-Laundering Case
Grahams have made campaign contributions to Texas' top elected officials
By Andrew Wheat and Forrest Wilder The Observer
A prominent Texas family with connections to the state’s top officials is alleged to have purchased and boarded horses for a Mexican drug cartel engaged in money laundering, according to court records.
Federal indictments recently unsealed in Austin allege that 14 defendants with Spanish surnames used elite U.S. racehorses to launder millions of dollars of drug money for Mexico’s ruthless Los Zetas cartel. The indictments also implicate the renowned Southwest Stallion Station breeding stables outside Austin, run by a veterinarian named Charles Graham and his grandson Tyler.
It all begins in the steamy mountains of Colombia, up mist
covered hills, hidden under the lush canopy of forests; a plant is being
cultivated. The farmer growing the plant
knows little of the journey his crop will take.
This is an examination of that journey.
Every day from his humble one room shack nestled in one of
Colombia's many rural departments, he waters and tends to his crop. If he is lucky enough to survive the weather
or the fumigation from government planes he is able to harvest. After he harvests his crop he must go through
the laborious and time consuming effort of converting the leaves into what is known
as coca base. After his work is through
he looks at his harvest and thinks of how lucky he is. This should provide just enough money for his
family survives till the next crop is ready.
He meets a man known locally as El Leche at local village, El
Leche is a known as a go between for the farmer and the FARC. He meets with the farmer and pays him his
salary for his work. He tells the man he
will be sending some of his people to collect the base and that they will speak
again soon.
Later at the man’s farm, a small armed group shows up at his
shack to collect their payment. They are
all young, dressed in military fatigues, worn out boots and rifles rusted from
the humid jungle heat. They look tired and dirty, the result of
living in the forest and moving from camp to camp. These are the front line troops of one of the
armed wings of the FARC. The look
tattered, paranoid and scared, they take the paste from the farmer and leave,
vanishing back into the forest.
The small group consisting of both young men and women trek
through the forest, each one listening for the nightmarish low thumping sound
of helicopters in the distance. They all
seem on edge, they have spent too much time in the forest, moving from location
to location, unable to enjoy the small luxuries we all take for granted. If they stay in one spot for too long they
may not see tomorrow. So they trek on
for what seems like miles. After days of
hellish hiking through dense and rugged terrain they approach a clearing; they
have reached their destination, a large scale laboratory which sole purpose is refinement
of the coca base into cocaine.
As the walk up to the compound it is easy to see the many
guards standing around with their assault rifle at their sides. The group drops off their merchandise and
once again vanishes into the mist of the jungle. This factory is run by the Rastrojos, a group
which was formed out of the now defunct AUC.
These labs are known as high value targets for the Colombian Government
and are often targets of the US/Colombian effort to eradicate the production of
cocaine.
Once the coca base has been converted in to what most would recognize
as cocaine it is pressed into blocks and loaded on to a beat up, rusty truck. Smoke pours out the back as the truck is barley able to turn over its engine. Loaded
up with its precious cargo, the overworked truck rumbles down the precarious
road towards the mangrove swamps to the north.
There waiting for them in the cover of the mangroves is what
could only be described as a testament to the shear will of the traffickers; a
fully submersible submarine. The ship
has a crew of 3 and they are all waiting on this payloads arrival. Everyone starts packing the cramped space
with as much cocaine as would fit. The
journey ahead for these sailors will not be easy. They
will be out in the open ocean for days with no one but themselves to insure
delivery of the product. In this cramped
space the men will have to navigate the thousand mile journey to Guatemala,
their final destination.
After docking in a remote region of Guatemala the shipment
is unloaded to group who works for a family known as the Lorenzanas. The Lorenzanes are intermediaries whose sole
purpose is to move the product from one end of the country to the other. Guatemalan Soldiers provide them with
security. This is generally the smooth
part of the operation with little risk due to the deep ties the family has
fostered within the government. Once the
shipment has been moved, contact will made with a coordinator of the Sinaloa Cartel,
one of the largest cartels in Mexico. Arrangements
will be made to move the contraband into Mexico.
Once inside Mexico, our shipment will traverse the country,
making several stops along the way, all the while being broken up into smaller
parcels and given to different plaza leaders.
The broken down shipments are then housed in safe houses until they are
ready to be moved towards the border with the US. These leaders are responsible for ensuring
the distribution of the product along the various parts of the border which the
Sinaloa Cartel controls.
Various methods will then be utilized to move the product
across the border and into the United States.
Each area has a variety of ways of managing this; some techniques are locally
based while others are used throughout the border region. In the area of Arizona, where our shipment
has arrived; has been using an innovative way of crossing drugs; remote controlled
toy airplanes. They are too small for
radar to pick up and can been flown for some distance, it is a highly effective
method of smuggling. Our Kilo is taped to
the bottom of one of these planes and flown to spotter on the other side. GPS is often used to locate the planes once they
have crossed the border. Throughout this
whole process those responsible watch in the shadows making sure everything
runs smooth. They know that if a load
doesn’t make it, they will be left with the bill.
Spotters and decoys are used to throw off law enforcement and further
the odds of success.
