Mexico-US matters

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/guerrero-kids-learn-to-defend-themselves-against-crime/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/ngo-sees-potential-for-cartel-insurgency/

[Crafty_Dog]

second post

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/narcos-secret-weapon-is-whatsapp/

[Crafty_Dog]

third post

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/migrant-smuggling-networks-believed-widespread/

[G M]

second post

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/narcos-secret-weapon-is-whatsapp/

Bullshiite.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/14/tech/whatsapp-attack/index.html

[Crafty_Dog]

Tracking Mexico's Cartels in 2020
Scott Stewart
Scott Stewart
VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor
14 MINS READ
Feb 4, 2020 | 10:00 GMT

Editor's Note: This security-focused assessment is an excerpt from one of many such analyses found at Stratfor Threat Lens, a unique protective intelligence product designed with corporate security leaders in mind. Threat Lens enables industry professionals and organizations to anticipate, identify, measure and mitigate emerging threats to people, assets and intellectual property the world over. Threat Lens is the only unified solution that analyzes and forecasts security risk from a holistic perspective, bringing all the most relevant global insights into a single, interactive threat dashboard.

Since 2006, Stratfor has produced an annual cartel report that chronicles the dynamics shaping the complex mosaic of organized crime in Mexico and that forecasts where those forces are headed in the coming year. When we began producing these forecasts, the landscape was much simpler, with only a handful of major cartel groups. As we noted in 2013, the long process of Balkanization — or splintering —  of the groups made it difficult to analyze them the way we used to. Indeed, many of the cartels we had been tracking, such as the Gulf cartel, had imploded and fragmented into several smaller, often competing factions.
 
Because of this, we began to look at the cartels by focusing on the clusters of smaller groups that emanate from three distinct geographic areas: Tamaulipas state, Sinaloa state and the Tierra Caliente region (Guerrero and Michoacan). When viewed individually, the daily flow of reports of cartel-related murders and firefights can be overwhelming and often appears senseless. But the violence is not senseless when viewed through the lens of the dynamics driving it. Our intent here is to provide the framework for understanding those forces.
 
This year's report will begin with a general overview of the past year and then examine and provide an update and a forecast for each of those three areas of organized crime. For a detailed historical account of the dynamics that brought the major cartel groupings to where they are today, please read our 2017 report.

A map showing areas of cartel influence in Mexico
2019 in Review —  Mired in Bloody Conflict
The forces that shaped the violence in 2019 were much the same as those in 2018, and as 2020 dawns, the regions are mired in bloody cartel conflicts that show no sign of resolution. Part of the reason is the involvement of powerful external organizations that can supply the money, guns and men to sustain weaker local groups and prevent them from being defeated. This dynamic has been at work for several years in Tijuana and Juarez, where local proxies supported by the Sinaloa cartel and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) are locked in bitter battles for control. In Reynosa, the CJNG has thrown its support behind a faction of Los Metros, preventing it from being defeated by the more powerful Gulf cartel faction from Matamoros, attacking from the east, or the Cartel del Noreste (CDN), attacking from the west. But the CJNG is also being vexed by this same phenomenon. The Sinaloa cartel is funding a breakaway CJNG faction in Guadalajara, creating problems for the CJNG in its core area. The Sinaloa cartel is also reportedly backing anti-CJNG forces in Guerrero and Michoacan states.

As a result of these brutal conflicts, murders in Mexico set another record in 2019, hitting 34,582 — and surpassing the record 33,341 of 2018. The rate of increase, however, has slowed from the steep jumps seen during 2015-18. It is important to note that these numbers don't account for the many abducted and slain people whose bodies are buried in clandestine graves, burned or dissolved in acid.
 
Violence has been persistent in border plaza towns such as Tijuana, Juarez, Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa. It has been nearly constant along the interior routes where drugs and precursor chemicals are smuggled, as well as in places where opium poppies and marijuana are grown. Despite this, the cartel groups continue to produce and traffic large quantities of drugs, including South American cocaine and Mexican heroin. But the cartels realize their biggest profit margins in synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl.
 
Last year also saw an increase in the amount of cannabis oil that the cartels are producing and smuggling (often in 5-gallon buckets) into the United States. The oil is a concentrated form of cannabis, making it easier to smuggle than large bales of marijuana. And vaping has opened a market for marijuana cartridges, which can be manufactured using the oil.

Tierra Caliente-Based Cartel Groups
A map showing areas of Tierra Caliente cartel influence in Mexico
Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG)
The CJNG is by far the most powerful of the Tierra Caliente-based groups, and it is involved in nearly every part of the country that is currently experiencing elevated violence. In Jalisco, Guerrero, Veracruz and Guanajuato, it is acting directly. In Tijuana, Mexico City, Reynosa and Juarez, it is working with local partners or proxies. The CJNG has aggressively sought control of ports, border plazas and areas where drugs are grown and where fuel is stolen. The government has reported that the CJNG has become the most powerful cartel group in Mexico and that it has a presence in more places than the Sinaloa cartel.
 
In looking from west to east, we see that the CJNG is working with remnants of the Arellano Felix organization (Tijuana cartel) for control of the Tijuana smuggling plaza; is supporting the Chapo Isidro group for control of the smuggling plazas in Sonora state against Sinaloa cartel ally Los Salazar; is supporting La Linea in its efforts to push Sinaloa out of Juarez and the drug-growing areas of Chihuahua state; and is backing a faction of Los Metros as it attempts to maintain control of the Reynosa plaza. Farther south, the CJNG is continuing its bloody campaign in Guanajuato state, where it is fighting the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, led by Jose Antonio Yepez Ortiz, alias El Marro. The CJNG is also fighting for control of Michoacan and Guerrero states against an array of smaller cartels. In addition, it has pushed into Quintana Roo state, home to the resort cities of Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel.
 
This avarice has led to the group's leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka El Mencho, being declared public enemy No. 1. The Mexican and U.S. governments have worked with other governments to track down and arrest members of his wife's family, the powerful Valencia smuggling clan, which facilitates money laundering for the group.

Other Tierra Caliente-Based Groups
Tierra Caliente is the most heavily fragmented region in Mexico, with dozens of distinct and often competing organized crime cartels in the states of Michoacan and Guerrero. The implosions of the Beltran Leyva organization, the Knights Templar and La Familia Michoacana resulted in the creation of a number of these groups.
 
In Michoacan, the remnants of the Knights Templar, including Los Viagras, and of La Familia Michoacana, such as La Nueva Familia Michoacana, fight for control of the state with the CJNG. One interesting development this past year was the creation of the Carteles Unidos (United Cartels), a group that combined Los Viagras and a number of smaller Michoacan cartel groups. The Sinaloa cartel may be supporting Carteles Unidos as a way to foil the aspirations of the CJNG in the state.
 
The militant landscape is further complicated by the large number of autodefensas, or self-defense, groups in Michoacan and Guerrero. These heavily armed militias often set up roadblocks and charge tolls. In July, two American citizens were shot dead and their 12-year-old son was wounded when they attempted to run a roadblock in Guerrero state.

Forecast
The CJNG will remain the largest and most aggressive cartel group this year. It will continue to profit handsomely from cocaine and synthetic drugs, and those profits will pay for its far-flung military operations and support for proxy groups. The CJNG can be expected to expand its operations to San Luis Potosi, Torreon, Monterrey and perhaps even Nuevo Laredo.
 
Efforts to roll up its leadership and its financial operations are unlikely to have a major impact on the group. We do expect to see more fractures of the CJNG in 2020, and if Oseguera Cervantes is finally captured or killed, his removal would increase the infighting and splintering. Guerrero and Michoacan will continue to be excessively violent in 2020.

Sinaloa-Based Cartel Groups
a map showing areas of Sinaloa Cartel influence in Mexico
Sinaloa cartel
While a great deal of attention has been paid to the July conviction of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera and his life sentence, he isn't the only Sinaloa cartel figure who faced legal problems over the past year. In December, Ismael Zambada Imperial, the son of Guzman Loera's partner and current Sinaloa cartel leader Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia, was extradited to the United States to stand trial on drug charges. Zambada Imperial was arrested in Mexico in 2014 and convicted on drug and weapons charges. The United States requested his extradition in 2015.
 
Two of his half-brothers have already been convicted in the United States. Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla was arrested in Mexico in 2009 and extradited in 2010. He was sentenced to 15 years in May 2019 after testifying in the trial of Guzman Loera. With credit for time served, he could be released as early as 2023. Half-brother Serafin Zambada Ortiz was arrested in 2013 as he attempted to cross the U.S. border in Arizona. He was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison and released in September 2018.
 
The only son of Zambada Garcia who remains free is Ismael Zambada Sicairos, who is also believed to be involved in the narcotics trade. The U.S. indictment of Zambada Imperial lists his half-brother Ismael Zambada Sicairos; their father; and Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, the son of Guzman Loera, as co-conspirators.
 
Guzman Salazar along with his half-brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez are known as Los Chapitos (The Little Chapos). They made international headlines in October, when Guzman Lopez was arrested in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa. Guzman Salazar mobilized his group's gunmen and laid siege to the city with the support of the forces of Zambada Garcia. These gunmen entered a military housing area and captured some military personnel and their families. They used them as hostages, forcing the government to release Guzman Lopez.

Tijuana Cartel Remnants
The remnants of the Arellano Felix organization (Tijuana cartel) remain divided into two camps. The stronger faction is affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel and is run by the Arzate Garcia brothers, Rene, aka La Rana, and Alfonso, aka El Aquiles. The brothers helped Sinaloa wrest control of Tijuana from the Arellano Felix organization.
 
Their main opposition sometimes refers to itself as the Cartel de Tijuana Nueva Generacion, an acknowledgment of its affiliation with the CJNG. This conflict has been extremely bloody, and the state of Baja California has the second-highest murder rate for Mexican states (76.7 per 100,000).

Juarez Cartel Remnants
The situation in Juarez is quite similar to that in Tijuana. The Sinaloa cartel worked with a splinter group of the Carrillo Fuentes organization (Juarez cartel) to establish a firm foothold in the Juarez plaza. The CJNG is supporting other remnants of the cartel — Nuevo Cartel de Juarez and La Linea — to strike back against Sinaloa and its allies. This struggle also involves the battle for the city of Chihuahua and the drug-growing areas in the mountains of Chihuahua state.
 
Last year it appeared that Sinaloa forces Gente Nueva with support from the Los Salazar organization in Sonora were gaining the upper hand in the mountains of Chihuahua, but the dynamics changed and La Linea began to win back territory. Perhaps one of the highest-profile events tied to this fight was the Nov. 4 ambush of a family in northern Sonora near the Chihuahua border, which resulted in nine dead women and children. Most of those killed were dual U.S. and Mexican citizens.

Remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization
Fausto "El Chapo" Isidro Meza Flores continues to fight with the Sinaloa cartel. Though his organization hasn't made much headway in gaining control over a larger portion of the drug-growing areas in Sinaloa, it appears to have had more success in taking control of smuggling plazas and fuel theft rackets in Sonora. It is fighting Los Salazar, the Sinaloa faction that has long held power in Sonora.

Forecast
Despite the many challenges the Sinaloa cartel has faced in the courts and on the battlefield in recent years, the organization will remain strong in 2020. El Mayo Zambada Garcia appears to have slowed the fragmentation that has taken a heavy toll on the group since the Beltran Leyva organization split from it in 2008.
 
The CJNG has been working hard with the help of its local allies to undermine the Sinaloa cartel's control of the smuggling plazas stretching from Tijuana to Juarez. The Sinaloa cartel has lost some ground, but it hasn't been decisively defeated in any conflict zone. This is why the battleground cities have remained largely in stasis during 2019, and we don't anticipate a major shift in 2020.

Tamaulipas-Based Cartel Groups
A map showing areas of Tamaulipas cartel influence in Mexico
Gulf Cartel Fragments
Many people, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, continue to refer to the Gulf cartel as a unified entity, but it is nothing of the sort. It has disintegrated into an array of smaller, competing groups that control smaller pieces of territory, such as Matamoros or a part of Reynosa.

The border city of Reynosa remains a hot spot as several cartel groups vie for control of it. The two main local competitors are splinter groups of Los Metros, formerly a Reynosa-based enforcer group of the Gulf cartel. After the two factions exhausted themselves in years of battle, they reached out to more powerful outsiders for help. One group aligned with the Gulf cartel faction from Matamoros, which is aligned with the powerful Cardenas smuggling clan — the family of former Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas Guillen.

Los Zetas Splinters
Many people continue to refer to Los Zetas as a cohesive entity, but like the Gulf cartel it split from, it is heavily fractured. The Cartel del Noreste (CDN), based in Nuevo Laredo, has also attempted to capitalize on the Los Metros infighting and a push toward Reynosa from the west, but it hasn't been able to make much headway. It has a strong hold on Nuevo Laredo, and the territory it controls stretches into Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. CDN remains at war with another Los Zetas remnant, the Zetas Vieja Escuela (ZVE), or the Old School Zetas, for Ciudad Victoria.

The CDN has aggressively gone after government forces in recent months, specifically the special forces of the state police agency known as the Center for Analysis, Information and Studies of Tamaulipas (CAIET). The CDN has attacked hotels where CAIET forces have stayed in Nuevo Laredo and have ambushed many of their patrols. The CDN and their Tropa del Infierno (Troops From Hell) have suffered serious losses in these confrontations, and their threats are alienating the local population.

Forecast
The battle for Reynosa will continue to rage because of the support from powerful outside actors who have the resources to keep the money, men and guns flowing. In the Monterrey area, violence will increase in 2020 if the CJNG makes a concerted effort to establish its presence in the important logistical hub.
 
The CDN alienation of the local population will likely result in an intelligence windfall. However, we are skeptical that government forces will have the foresight to take advantage of the opportunity. But the weakness of the CDN will be noted by others, and it is quite possible that CJNG, ZVE or some other group will make a move on Nuevo Laredo in 2020.

Implications for Businesses and Organizations
Violence has affected almost every part of Mexico, including areas that are considered generally safer than others, such as upscale neighborhoods and tourist resorts and attractions. Most of the violence has been cartel on cartel or government on cartel, but with the organized crime groups using military-grade equipment, the risk of injury or death for bystanders is considerable. 
 
Moreover, these persistent conflicts rapidly burn through men, weapons and vehicles, forcing the groups to look beyond drug smuggling to augment their incomes. Many have resorted to other criminal rackets, including extortion, human smuggling, kidnapping, cargo theft and hydrocarbon theft. This is taking a heavy toll on businesses operating in conflict areas, forcing some to suspend operations in the states of Guerrero and Guanajuato.
 
We remain concerned that a significant breakdown or implosion of the CJNG could lead to a scramble for control of its territories, including the important commercial center of Guadalajara and the ports of Manzanillo, Lazaro Cardenas and Veracruz. Such a struggle could result in a significant increase in violence in those areas, or a drop in some cities as men and resources are pulled back to fight for control of these core areas.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/3-associates-of-el-chapo-escape-prison/

[G M]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/3-associates-of-el-chapo-escape-prison/

Does this really count as an escape when you are escorted to your ride like a celebrity leaving the Four Seasons?

[DougMacG]

Does this really count as an escape when you are escorted to your ride like a celebrity leaving the Four Seasons?
[/quote]

They went through 5 sets of doors??!!  Typically these door in maximum security don't have door handles; they are operated one set at a time by guards behind secured glass.

I don't know Mexican law but seems to me if you are a prison guard and help an inmate escape, you should serve his or her sentence until they are recaptured.

I suppose these gangs threaten to kill the families of the guards if they don't assist.

Like G M says, if you are free to go anytime you want in a limousine waiting in front, it would probably be cheaper to hold them in a Four Seasons hotel than in a prison.

Someday we will have a first-world country south of our border?

[ccp]

"I suppose these gangs threaten to kill the families of the guards if they don't assist."

remember this :


https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/12/20999191/trump-mexican-drug-cartels-terrorist-organizations-mexico-sinaloa-transnational-criminal-trafficking

since this is shot down by Mexico and the leftist media
the terror continues......  unbated really

[Crafty_Dog]

Mexico Slides Toward One-Man Rule
The president uses his authority to muscle business and suppress dissent.

By Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Feb. 23, 2020 1:55 pm ET


A recent “invitation” to business leaders from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to attend a fundraiser at the National Palace was an offer many couldn’t refuse. Some 70 of the Mexican “suits” who showed up reportedly pledged to spend 1.5 billion pesos ($88 million) on government lottery tickets.

About half the tickets in the pot—another 1.5 billion pesos’ worth—remained unsold at the end of the evening. The drawing is scheduled for September, when up to 100 winners will take home 20 million pesos each. The proceeds, if any, will be earmarked for public assistance, which the president says he will allocate to the nation’s ailing hospitals.

It’s unclear whether the scheme can succeed, but the larger problem is that it looks like pay-to-play. Presidential fundraising for pet projects has the whiff of illegality because the state dishes out valuable concessions and no-bid contracts and can let unpaid tax bills slide. Yet when AMLO—the president is known by his initials—does it, no one dares stop him.

The Mexican economy did not grow in 2019 and the standstill is expected to continue this year because business and government investment has collapsed. To understand why, look no further than Mr. López Obrador’s use of executive power to try to make himself the savior of the nation.

AMLO has a utopian vision for Mexico in which he gets to decide what economic fairness looks like and how rich is too rich. Think Bernie Sanders en español. Not all wealthy people are brought low—only the ones who get in the way.

AMLO’s decisions to scrap the construction of a new airport in Mexico City and to force the renegotiation of natural-gas pipeline contracts have received a lot of international attention. His effort to cap salaries at the central bank may violate the Mexican Constitution and is seen as a ploy to chase out qualified technocrats so he can replace them with political loyalists.

This smells bad. Behind the scenes it’s even worse, as “the law” is used to spread terror among opponents. A key tool is the Financial Intelligence Unit, which derives its power from international commitments to combat money laundering. The unit, which is inside the Treasury, is supposed to investigate suspicious financial activity and pass the information to the attorney general. In practice, critics say, it is being used to gain control of institutions that ought to be independent.

Mr. López Obrador remains popular because Mexicans still see in him a guy who is willing to stand up to corruption and crony capitalism. Hot money chasing high interest rates in Mexico has held up the peso, and U.S. ratification of a new North American free-trade agreement has removed a source of market uncertainty.

Yet 15 months into AMLO’s presidency, the weak economy, rampant violence and a breakdown of the public-health system have diminished his popularity. All eyes are now on the midterm elections of July 2021. If his Morena Party and its allies win two-thirds of Congress’s lower house and strong support among the nation’s 32 governors, he will have smooth sailing in the second half of his six-year term. If the opposition surges, he may become a lame duck.

Meantime, he is working to consolidate as much power as possible. The lottery spectacle at the National Palace showcased his muscle. He lavished praise on the tycoons, congratulating them for meeting their moral obligation to contribute to his causes.

Privately many Mexicans snickered about what was seen as a blatant act of extortion. The misuse of the Financial Intelligence Unit at the Treasury is also worrying. It has been employing its power selectively to pressure the president’s adversaries.

According to Article 115 of the banking and credit law and Article 41 of the anti-money-laundering act, officials at the Treasury must safeguard the confidentiality of ongoing investigations. Further, under Mexican law all suspects are entitled to the presumption of innocence. Yet the unit has a record of violating both norms, making public statements of condemnation and freezing the financial assets of the accused and their extended families even before charges are filed and without a judge’s ruling.

The chief of the unit, Santiago Nieto, told me Saturday that the prohibition on speaking about investigations applies only to the attorney general’s office and that he uses his freedom of speech to expose findings. He said freezing assets is an administrative tool to block the moving of money.

But Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that freezing assets without a court order is unconstitutional, and the attorney general has complained about the lack of due process. Nevertheless, the weaponization of the unit continues, probably because it gets results.

The head of the regulatory commission on energy and a Supreme Court justice were both named as suspects—along with family members—in possible financial crimes. Both maintained their innocence. But the freezing of assets meant possible financial ruin even if there was eventual exoneration. Neither was ever charged but both resigned. AMLO replaced them with his own handpicked appointees. Tick-tock, Mexico.

Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/business-group-likes-senates-marijuana-bill/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8110163/Mexico-wants-close-border-Americans-stop-spread-coronavirus.html?ito=facebook_share_article-top

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/project-python-mexican-drug-cartel-us-arrest-a9398116.html?amp


https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2020/03/11/dea-led-operation-nets-more-600-arrests-targeting-cartel-jalisco-nueva-4

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/covid-19-5-dead-405-confirmed-cases/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/sonorans-demand-tighter-border-controls/

[G M]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/sonorans-demand-tighter-border-controls/

Are they going to build a wall and pay for it?

[Crafty_Dog]

They don't need to build a wall.  How many Americans are going to swim the Rio Grande to get into Mexico? haha

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/amlo-ignores-crime-victims/

[G M]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/amlo-ignores-crime-victims/

Shocking!

 

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mailchi.mp/mexiconewsdaily/apr-10-2020-mnt?e=add05987d5

A lot of colorful stories

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/04/pentagon-urges-mexico-reopen-covid-closed-factories-supply-us-weapon-makers/164756/?oref=defense_one_breaking_nl

[Crafty_Dog]

April 22, 2020   View On Website
Open as PDF



    Mexico’s Three Economic Fronts Face a Recession
By: Allison Fedirka

Mexico is bracing for a serious economic recession this year, much like the rest of the world. But unlike many other countries, the Mexican government is not meeting the event with an abundance of bailouts, tax breaks or other fiscal measures. Instead, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (popularly known as AMLO) has opted to stay the course with his plans of austerity and social development funding, much to the chagrin of big business. He has made it clear that his goal for combating the recession is to avoid sovereign debt and mitigate the impact felt by the country’s poor. Lopez Obrador is facing three fronts in his battle against a recession in Mexico: the country’s formal, informal and black market economies. And his decision to focus on propping up and reining in the informal economy through continued social development funding is more than just a continuation of adherence to political policy. It also reflects that the government is unable to effectively address the other two economies on its own.

The Three Economic Fronts

Lopez Obrador’s strategy to confront the economic recession preserves his big-picture plan to “transform” the Mexican economy and wrestles with the fact that the Mexican economy can be clearly divided into three distinct sub-economies, each playing by its own set of rules. The formal economy is characterized by services, finance and high-end manufacturing with intricate supply chains. It generates 77.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and is concentrated in the central and northern parts of the country. The informal economy — a “gray zone” not taxed or regulated by the government but still legal — generates 22.5 percent of the country’s GDP and is characterized by precarious employment, basic manufacturing and low wages. It exists in much higher concentrations in the country’s south. The black market economy, run by organized crime, is prevalent throughout the entire country. Its economic contribution is not clearly known given the illicit nature of its activities, but recent estimates put Mexican drug sales to the United States at $19 billion to $29 billion annually. Despite its illegality, the black market injects a massive amount of capital into the economy, which generally speaking is a good thing. On the other hand, it also deters investment and infrastructure development and breeds extortion, corruption and violence. The result is a mixed bag of economic effects that is not easy to define or calculate.
 
(click to enlarge)

AMLO’s proposed solution for dealing with the segmented nature of Mexico’s economy involves diminishing the economic and development disparities across the country through youth education and job training programs, labor-intensive infrastructure projects, support for small businesses, anti-corruption measures and government austerity. In other words, he is attempting to reduce the informal economy and merge it with the formal economy. His approach has been controversial and viewed by the opposition as contrary to the ultimate objectives of developing and growing Mexico’s economy. Indeed, the segmented nature of the country’s economy makes it extremely difficult to pursue a policy that helps one segment without hurting the other two. But in the face of the recession, the government has opted to direct the few funds it has toward the informal sector, an approach that aligns with long-term goals and exists as the most viable short-term solution available.

The Formal Economy: Severe Limits

Mexico’s formal economy has a high degree of exposure to external forces and is therefore largely out of the government’s control. For starters, the Mexican economy is largely dependent on the health of the U.S. economy. Mexican exports to the United States are equivalent to about 31 percent of the country’s GDP, and the United States is the leading supplier of foreign direct investment to Mexico. Remittances, which totaled $36.05 billion last year, are Mexico’s largest source of U.S. dollars, and 95 percent come from senders in the United States.

When the U.S. economy performs poorly (or restricts border crossings), the effects are often amplified in the Mexican economy. The International Monetary Fund expects the U.S. economy to contract 5.6 percent this year, and new unemployment claims in the country at the time of publication stand at 22 million. For Mexico, this means that there are far fewer buyers of Mexican goods and that the country can’t trade its way out of the crisis, even considering the strong decline in the peso’s value relative to the dollar so far this year.

To escape its mild 2019 recession, Mexico had planned to turn to foreign direct investment in 2020. And even before a global recession became imminent, the government was struggling to attract foreign investment over concerns of regulations, crime and general doubts over management. Now, the United Nations estimates that foreign investment will drop by 30-40 percent globally this year. For Mexico, this means investment will be difficult to come by and require fierce competition with others.
Foreign investment is no longer a viable option to stimulate the economy. Lastly, other major financial sources, such as oil and tourism, not only remain out of Mexico’s control but have poor prospects this year. Admittedly, state-owned oil company Pemex has been struggling for years, but even in the company’s best-case scenario, it can do little to address low oil prices, let alone change them. As for tourism, travel restrictions and personal fears mean the cancellation of many summer trips.
 
(click to enlarge)

The Mexican government has offered little to mitigate the recession’s impact on the formal economy because the influence of external factors will outweigh much of what it can offer. The government says it only has about $10 billion available from various rainy day funds. This means the bailouts, tax breaks and fiscal stimulus called for by businesses in the formal sector cannot be executed on a scale that would have an impact on a $1.3 trillion economy. Effectively stimulating an economy takes massive amounts of money, which often means taking on debt — and the concern over government debt in Mexico predates AMLO. The government currently does not have enough reserves to cover its debt in the event of an emergency, and incurring new debt would make matters only worse. Additionally, spending money on the formal economy would largely put the two other major segments of the economy on the sidelines. The government’s financial authorities did loosen liquidity rules on banks, which they assert are well equipped to handle the pending economic crisis, but aside from that, it has taken a largely hands-off approach.

The Informal Economy: Opportunity for Impact

The Mexican government has directed its efforts toward the informal economy because its potential for impact is higher and the informal economy plays a critical role in the workforce. Mexico defines the informal economy as one that includes any economic activity that is legally produced and marketed but the production or distribution units are not formally registered. It also includes all economic activities that operate from family resources, such as micro- and small businesses that are not constituted as companies. Because informal workers tend to have lower-quality jobs, lower wages and no insurance compared to those with formal-sector jobs, they are more vulnerable to recession. And since the latest official figures from the end of 2019 show that Mexico’s informal sector employs 56.2 percent of all workers, a sizable portion of the country’s working population is highly vulnerable to recession.
 
(click to enlarge)

The actions the Mexican government has taken to mitigate the impact of a recession on the country’s economy have focused on supporting the continued employment of informal workers. Earlier this month, the government said it would provide a 25,000-peso ($1,000) credit for small and micro-companies that have retained employees and not reduced wages, offering low interest rates that increase slightly by company size. The plan allows for a million total recipients, though an estimated 5 million will request access, and money will arrive in May and June. This low-interest-rate credit will need to be paid back in three years, with payments starting after the fourth month. Lopez Obrador also announced additional credit for the creation of 2 million more formal jobs this year, but such a project was already in the works prior to the global recession.

One wild card that could impede the government’s task of easing the recession’s impact is remittances, which play a key role in many household incomes, particularly in poor segments of the economy. BBVA estimates that, this year, remittances will decline by 17 percent to $29.9 billion due to the recession and mass unemployment in the United States. Nevertheless, from the government’s perspective, it’s still more cost-effective to support working programs now than deal with millions of people eventually out of work amid economic collapse.

The Black Market Economy: A Very Large Shadow

Though Mexico’s organized crime groups are not often considered in terms of their contribution to economic activity, they must also be factored in to efforts to combat the recession. For better or worse, the large scale and high value of their operations do create jobs and support economic activity at local levels. The pervasive nature of organized crime means it touches the pocketbooks of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans. And these groups are not immune to the recession, though they are positioned better than most to confront it. Like many multinational companies, organized crime groups in Mexico experienced supply chain disruptions with the slowing global economy, particularly with respect to the chemical precursors from China used to make fentanyl. The disruptions hurt major fentanyl suppliers, such as the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

Meanwhile, alternative revenue flows, including human trafficking, fuel robbing and extortion, are not currently available due to increased border restrictions, low oil prices and businesses going on hold for quarantine. Of course, the addictive nature of drugs means that demand in that area remains. And that, in turn, has meant an increase in price due to supply chain shortages and stricter border measures.

AMLO’s government will have to face the threat of increased social and political encroachment by organized crime. The recession and health crisis have already presented organized crime groups with opportunities to intensify their presence in socioeconomic gaps in place of the government. Big-name cartels like Golf, Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa have also started community outreach and charity programs to provide locals with goods at a time when supplies and funds are scarce. In this area, AMLO finds himself extremely limited in terms of what he can do to combat organized crime, particularly on the economic end; freezing assets will not reach a sum high enough to stop operations anytime soon. This is one major reason that AMLO reiterated his plans to continue social development funding and welfare programs, which are intended (at least on paper, over time) to undermine the hold that organized crime has on local communities. That said, the president knows this remains a weak point for the government because it cannot throw money around as easily as the cartels.

The Only Real Option

Lopez Obrador was forced to choose sides in preparation for mitigating the impact of Mexico’s deeper recession, and his outlier approach of rejecting stimulus measures reflects the reality of three very distinct economic segments, none of which overwhelmingly dominates the others. He does not have the funds or enough control over the formal economy to risk stimulus; he does not have the reach or security ability to take on organized crime. What remains is the country’s informal sector, where the bang for the buck (or punch for the peso) is larger, and where efforts generally align with longer-term goals of integrating the informal economy into the formal one, thereby improving economic standards for Mexico’s lower socioeconomic classes. This may not be considered the ideal move by many, but it’s AMLO’s only decent option.   

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/cartel-puts-on-a-show-of-force-with-25-vehicle-convoy/

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/authorities-investigate-meeting-between-national-guard-suspected-criminals/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/cartels-believed-hurting-due-to-partial-border-closure/

[ccp]

"Cartels believed hurting due to partial border closure"

Well they can always have their illegal employees in the US apply for a bail out........

Newsom Como and DeBlasio AOC and the gang
already probably have helped

[Crafty_Dog]

Mexico falls 4% on peace index due to surge in organized crime
Baja California least peaceful state last year, Yucatán the most peaceful
Published on Wednesday, May 6, 2020
9
SHARES
Peacefulness in Mexico deteriorated 4.3% in 2019, largely due to a 24.3% increase in the rate of organized crime, according to a global think tank.

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) said in its report Mexico Peace Index 2020 that peacefulness has declined 27.2% over the past five years. Published on Tuesday, the report highlighted that the homicide rate in Mexico last year was 28 per 100,000 residents, seven times higher than the global average.

The IEP noted that the rate increase of 1.4% in 2019 represented “a much slower rise than the previous year’s increase of 15.7%” but highlighted that the national violent crime rate increased by 4.7%. The latter increase was mainly driven by an 18.7% rise in the sexual assault rate, the think tank said.

It said that Baja California was the least peaceful state in Mexico last year for a second consecutive year followed by Colima, Quintana Roo, Chihuahua and Guanajuato. Yucatán remains the most peaceful state, followed by Tlaxcala, Chiapas, Campeche and Nayarit.

The IEP said that only seven states have recorded improvements in homicide rates since 2015. “Baja California Sur has achieved the largest improvement, reducing its homicide rate by more than half to stand at 10.3 deaths per 100,000 people,” the report said.

The think tank said that statistical analysis shows that there are four distinct types of violence in Mexico: political, opportunistic, interpersonal and cartel conflict.

The overall economic impact of violence in Mexico last year – the first full year of the new federal government – was 4.57 trillion pesos (US $238) billion, the IEP said, noting that the figure is equivalent to 21.3% of national GDP. Homicides caused just under half of the economic damage.

“The economic impact of violence was nearly eight times higher than public investments made in health care and more than six times higher than those made in education in 2019,” the report said.

“The economic impact of violence was 36,129 pesos per person, approximately five times the average monthly salary of a Mexican worker. The per capita economic impact varies significantly from state to state, ranging from 11,714 pesos in Yucatán to 83,926 pesos in Colima.”

Despite the high cost of rampant violence, the federal government spent just 0.7% of GDP on domestic security and the justice system last year, the IEP said, highlighting that the percentage was the lowest among the 37 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Economista (sp)

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/forces-arrest-4-armed-men-handing-out-care-packages/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20200519/mexico-demands-explanation-for-obama-era-gun-walking-scandal?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ila_alert

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/us-never-came-through-with-2-billion-to-stem-migration/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mexico-city-police-chief-wounded-in-armed-attack-3-people-killed/

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/narco-state-accusation-irresponsible-hurts-mexicos-international-image/

[G M]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/narco-state-accusation-irresponsible-hurts-mexicos-international-image/

 

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/crime-rate-down-32-in-guerrero-a-major-drop-in-the-last-3-years/

[Crafty_Dog]

Pemex’s Losses Deepen Mexico’s Financial Woes
3 MINS READ
Aug 31, 2020 | 19:41 GMT

HIGHLIGHTS

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's failure to strengthen Pemex's finances and shore up domestic oil production will exacerbate Mexico's public finance woes from COVID-19.  On Aug. 24, Mexico's state-owned energy giant Pemex reported its lowest level of monthly crude oil production since 1979, with the company's July output totaling only 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) -- marking a 0.6 percent decline from June and a 4.5 percent decline from July 2019. Pemex was already struggling before the current COVID-19 crisis, seeing record losses during 2019 and the first half of 2020. Lopez Obrador's attempts to strengthen Pemex's bottom line and increase domestic oil production, however, will continue to fail without new private investment to help increase long-term production, as well as a business plan that forces Pemex to focus on the most profitable areas....

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's failure to strengthen Pemex's finances and shore up domestic oil production will exacerbate Mexico's public finance woes from COVID-19.  On Aug. 24, Mexico's state-owned energy giant Pemex reported its lowest level of monthly crude oil production since 1979, with the company's July output totaling only 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) — marking a 0.6 percent decline from June and a 4.5 percent decline from July 2019. Pemex was already struggling before the current COVID-19 crisis, seeing record losses during 2019 and the first half of 2020.


Lopez Obrador's attempts to strengthen Pemex's bottom line and increase domestic oil production will continue to fail without new private investment to help increase long-term production, as well as a business plan that forces Pemex to focus on the most profitable areas.

Mexico's current oil fields in the Gulf, such as Cantarell and Ku-Maloob-Zaap, are nearing the end of their productive life. Any substantive increase in production thus needs to come from new developments in either deep-water fields or the unconventional fields in northeastern Mexico, which Pemex does not have the resources or expertise to develop alone.

Other national oil companies, such as Brazil's Petrobras or Colombia's Ecopetrol, have engaged in strategies to get rid of unproductive assets and focus on their resources on most productive areas. These strategies have helped prevent both Petrobras and Ecopetrol's credit rating from being downgraded in recent years. Pemex's debt, meanwhile, was downgraded this year and last.

Lopez Obrador has relied on Pemex's revenue and resources to boost government spending, which has spread the company's already scarce resources thin by forcing its involvement in unprofitable activities. This has included placing Pemex in charge of building a new refinery in southeast Mexico and modernizing various other refineries.

Lopez Obrador's administration has also barred Pemex from partnering with private firms on long-term exploration projects, further accelerating the deterioration of the company's finances and profitability prospects.

Pemex will increasingly become a drag on Mexico's already stressed public finances, which will impede Lopez Obrador's ability to mitigate the fallout from COVID-19 ahead of 2021 midterm elections by robbing his government of a key revenue source.
Amid the fallout from the pandemic, Lopez Obrador is facing mounting pressure to revive the Mexican economy, which was in a recession even before the onset of the global health crisis. But this time, he Mexican government won't be able to rely on Pemex to shore up spending, especially in the absence of any tax reform that would enable the company to diversify revenues, and may be forced to redirect its scarce resources to keep Pemex afloat.

Pemex has long been a key financing source for the Mexican government, which is one of the main causes of the company's chronic underinvestment. Pemex's revenues currently make up around 10 percent of the federal government's total revenues.
The Lopez Obrador administration has provided Pemex with debt relief and even some subsidies in the hopes of giving the oil company some room to make more productive investments. But given the magnitude of Pemex's cashflow erosion, that money has instead been used to cover the company's current expenditures.

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Lopez Obrador's administration has also not passed any meaningful fiscal stimulus packages, and has instead continued to fund its pet infrastructure projects that are already underway, including the $8 billion Dos Bocas refinery.

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/national-guard-seizes-michoacan-gangs-homemade-tank/

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-embassy-issues-advisories-against-visiting-mexico-over-virus_3491081.html?ref=brief_BreakingNews&utm_source=morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb

[Crafty_Dog]

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/amlo-vows-to-quit-if-100000-protest/

Separately

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/residents-fined-for-filling-oaxaca-city-potholes/

[Crafty_Dog]

   
Brief: Blackouts Highlight Mexico's Energy Dilemma
Weekly reviews of what's on our bookshelves.
By: Geopolitical Futures

Background: The Mexican economy’s high dependency on the U.S. economy is a double-edged sword. On one hand, having close ties to the biggest economy in the world – made all the more accessible because of their proximity and trade agreements – is an advantage for many industries. On the other hand, Mexico's reliance on an external market means that many of the factors that determine the health of its economy are out of Mexico’s control. It thus has a strategic interest in reducing this dependency but faces a multitude of factors that limit its ability to do so.

What Happened: Mexico’s Federal Electricity Commission said Monday that a winter storm in Texas reduced natural gas exports from the U.S. by around 25 percent, causing blackouts in parts of northern Mexico. The shortage affected Sinaloa, Sonora, Durango, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon states and disrupted production at electricity generation stations. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador used the occasion to point out Mexico’s high dependence on the U.S. for natural gas. Mexico’s energy secretary estimated last month that 70 percent of the country’s gas supplies came from the U.S., while the remaining 30 percent was produced domestically.

The blackouts come amid the government’s recent efforts to reform Mexico’s electricity industry by increasing the role of the government-owned utility in the domestic market. The Federal Economic Competition Commission warned on Monday that the proposed changes could damage competition and hurt investor confidence. Mexican, U.S. and Canadian businesses have all expressed concerns over the proposed reforms.

Bottom Line: Solving the problems in Mexico’s electricity industry cannot be done without evaluating its supplies – namely, those coming from its northern neighbor. In the short term, Mexico can do little outside of negotiate with Washington as the weaker party. As mentioned in our forecast, energy is one front where we expect U.S.-Mexican relations to sour this year.

[Crafty_Dog]

Mexico’s Energy Conundrum
Winter storms were just the beginning.
By: Allison Fedirka

Last week, ice storms disrupted natural gas supplies to Mexico and so revived an existential question over how energy independent the country can and should be. But because Mexico’s independence is so often defined by its relationship to the United States, what started as an errant power outage quickly became a larger debate over the future of Mexico’s energy sector, infrastructure development and domestic politics as officials clamored for more energy self-sufficiency.

Their calls are hardly misplaced. State-run energy company Pemex has long focused primarily on oil, leaving the natural gas sector in a state of arrested development. What natural gas Mexico does produce is in decline. Modest deregulation has allowed for private investment and infrastructural improvement, but for now the country relies heavily on the U.S. to meet its natural gas needs. In fact, its northern neighbor accounts for about 70 percent of the natural gas consumed in Mexico, and 60 percent of the energy consumed by vital manufacturing hubs in the north is natural gas. Similarly, the U.S. meets nearly 75 percent of Mexico’s gasoline needs. (Though Mexico is an oil-producing country, it does not have the refining efficiency, ability or storage capacity to meet domestic demand with its own crude oil production.) In 2019, Pemex alone spent $14.75 billion on fuel imports; the country total is even higher once private importers have been factored in.


(click to enlarge)

Energy is a historically sensitive issue in Mexico. U.S. and British oil companies dominated the country’s oil industry during its infancy, and were put in check only in 1917, when Mexico’s new constitution stipulated that the national government had ownership over all subsoil – that is, resources. A series of taxes and other regulatory measures favoring Mexico ensued, until finally in 1938 President Lazaro Cardenas simply expropriated the assets of nearly all the foreign oil companies operating in Mexico. The move reflected years of festering discontent among Mexicans with how the oil industry operated in their country – how profits were being sent overseas, how investment was lacking, how production was low, and how poor Mexican industry workers were. Shortly thereafter, the government formed Pemex and has played an influential role in its operations ever since.

With a past like this, it’s easy to see why energy independence means more than just a best-practice of diversification. There’s an inherent wariness between the U.S. and Mexico, which lost a lot of its territory to the U.S. in 1848 and which fell victim to intermittent invasions and occupations by U.S. forces up until the start of World War I. Past energy disputes make Mexico even more uneasy. After the 1938 expropriations, the U.S. threatened to stop buying Mexican silver and its oil companies embargoed Mexican oil. Exports fell to half their volume in a handful of years. The issue was not resolved until Mexico agreed to pay $29 million in compensation to U.S. companies in 1942. Now as then, Mexico’s dependence gives the U.S. a ton of leverage. Current disagreements between the countries are plenty manageable, but this kind of leverage means Mexico has a hard time acting from a position of strength if an unmanageable conflict erupts. Energy security is thus highly politicized.

Value of Mexican Oil Exports by Destination
(click to enlarge)

It’s one thing to want independence, of course, and quite another to have it. Importing energy from other suppliers is simply not a viable option. Its proximity to the U.S. and its existing infrastructure make transport cheaper than from any other supplier. Higher prices on energy imports would drive up Mexico’s own production costs, making domestic markets more expensive and exports potentially less competitive.

In addition, the country’s state-owned oil company is in dire straits. Once the pride and joy of the country’s economy, Pemex is now a drain for the government. Crude oil production has been in decline since peaking in 2003, and the lackluster price of oil globally makes recovery difficult. Tax demands, mismanagement, barriers to reinvestment, pension plans and fuel theft have made Pemex operations inefficient and have left the company in debt to the tune of approximately $110 billion. The Mexican government has been pumping money in to keep the company afloat – and plans to provide another $3.5 billion this year – but has been unable to reverse its course.


(click to enlarge)

The administration of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is betting heavily on improving Mexico’s refining capacity. Its refineries are currently operating at 36.4 percent capacity, according to the energy office. (Lopez Obrador says Pemex refineries operate closer to 50 percent capacity.) Issues are due partly to supply and partly to the lack of upgrades. The Dos Bocas refinery project, for example, lies at the core of the government’s plans to solve the country’s refining shortcomings. Pemex owns the project, which will cost $31.3 billion over 20 years. The project’s potential value and return remain contested by members of the business community; those opposed believe the benefits are unrealistic. There is also concern over the lack of storage capacity for refined fuels.

Mexico City has meanwhile made modest policy attempts to improve its energy issues.
For example, it attempted to curb fuel imports by introducing a bill last December that significantly reduced the timeframe for related contracts. These measures were challenged in court, though, and their application was temporarily suspended under court orders.

The government also proposed major natural gas infrastructure projects. In the last quarter of 2020, it announced an infrastructure investment package worth $14 billion. Among the proposals is the Salina Cruz liquefaction project, which includes the expansion of pipeline networks and will account for $1.2 billion of the earmarked investment. While the Salina Cruz project has the domestic market in mind, two other liquified natural gas projects in the package mean to re-export LNG to Asia. These kinds of projects are designed to both stimulate economic recovery and signal to private investors that their money will be used wisely.

Mexico's Natural Gas
(click to enlarge)

The government can’t go it alone, so foreign direct investment will play a key role in helping Mexico build out its energy infrastructure. The problem confronting the government is that its hands-on approach to restructuring and revitalizing the domestic energy industry is off-putting to the very investors Mexico needs to attract. When he came to office, Lopez Obrador made several moves that discouraged investor confidence such as rewriting gas contracts, canceling electricity projects and taking steps toward ending subcontracts in the labor force. Other efforts, such as saving Pemex, have been viewed as superficial, moves that treat the symptom and not the disease. The chambers of commerce from Canada and the U.S. have both expressed concern over the growing role of the state in economic projects and warned that this could affect investment behavior going forward.

Mexico has a national imperative to break free of its energy dependence on the United States, in spite of the many obstacles that stand in its way. Even under the best of circumstances, they will be difficult to surmount any time soon.

[Crafty_Dog]

Migration surge. The Mexican government is planning to send security reinforcements to the Guatemalan border to block migrants headed for the U.S. border, according to a Reuters report that cited four anonymous sources. The reinforcements, which will most likely come from the National Guard, will be deployed as soon as next week. The report comes one day after Washington announced that the U.S. was on pace to see the most migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in 20 years.

==================
Stratfor

Mexico: National Guard Prepares to Monitor Country's Southern Border
2 MIN READMar 18, 2021 | 21:05 GMT





What Happened: Mexico is preparing to use its militarized police force, the National Guard, to conduct more frequent operations at Mexico’s southern border, Reuters reported March 17, citing unidentified sources with knowledge of the matter. The purported aim of the deployment is to decrease the flow of migrants to Mexico’s border with the United States.

Why It Matters: Both U.S. President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stand to benefit from this operation. If Lopez Obrador can stop the flow of migrants to the U.S. southern border by cracking down on migration, the Biden administration will likely continue extending a hand to Mexico, as was seen when Washington announced on March 18 it would share 4 million surplus COVID-19 vaccine doses with Canada and Mexico.. Meanwhile, the Biden administration will enjoy less political and national security pressure on the U.S.-Mexico border if the volume of migrants is reduced.

Background: Mexico’s move comes days after the U.S. border patrol reported that it expects to receive more migrants in 2021 than it has in 20 years, primarily coming from Guatemala and Honduras.

[Crafty_Dog]

 

Topic # 1:  Carteles Unidos “El Fruto” Arrested in Guatemala on US Extradition Request

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/03/carteles-unidos-leader-el-fruto.html

 



Photo # 1 & 2: El Fruto was arrested in Zona 10, an affluent suburb of Guatemala City

Photo # 3 & 4: At the same time that the arrests were being carried out in Guatemala, in Miami, Florida, four members gang members linked to El Fruto were arrested at a drug lab.

 

The Story:

 

On Tuesday afternoon, authorities in Guatemala arrested Mexican national Adalberto Fructuoso Comparan Rodríguez (alias 'El Fruto'), former mayor of Aguililla, Michoacan, and suspected leader of Cárteles Unidos ('United Cartels'). The arrest was made on a formal US extradition request for his alleged involvement in international drug trafficking. The Guatemalan Public Ministry (MP) detailed in a press release that El Fruto was arrested in a residential area of ​​Guatemala City along with Alfonso Rustrián, another Mexican national wanted in the US for drug charges. According to US authorities, the two Mexicans are accused of drug trafficking, specifically conspiracy to smuggle and with intent to distribute 500 grams of methamphetamine into the US. They are wanted by the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Both of them were detected in Guatemala by US officials following an investigation that showed that El Fruto held several meetings in Colombia with other high-ranking cartel members. The two Mexicans will appear in the following hours before a Guatemalan judge who will decide in a matter of days or weeks if their extradition to Florida becomes effective. During the first three months of 2020, 16 people with an extradition order from the US government have been arrested in Guatemala. Most of them are wanted for drug trafficking.

 

Background

 

El Fruto, 57, was mayor of Aguililla, Michoacan, from 2008 to 2010, under the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). He is currently the suspected leader of Carteles Unidos, a criminal group made up of different cartels under a loose alliance. They are rival to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Prior to El Fruto's involvement with Carteles Unidos, he was a high-ranking member of the Knights Templar Cartel. One of the cited sources say he was a close associate of Servando Gomez Martinez (alias 'La Tuta'), former Knights Templar Cartel boss. He is suspected of coordinating methamphetamine and heroin shipments from Michoacan, Mexico, to the US cities like Houston, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia. In 2015, he survived an assassination attempt in Mexico, but one his bodyguard Jose Luis Garcia Mendoza was killed. Two years prior, he had served as police officer in the Fuerza Rural (Rural Force) unit in Aguililla. This rural police force was a state-sanctioned unit that was born from the autodefensa (self-defense) groups that were active in Michoacan.

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Topic # 2:  Veracruz: Victim’s Remains Delivered to Families in Plastic Gabage Bags

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/03/veracruz-victims-remains-delivered-to.html

 

 

The victim's mother at a prosecutor's office in Veracruz with the bags containing the remains of her son

 

 

The Story:

 

Eladio's family searched and found his remains on their own. Natalia Aguirre would like to take him to a cemetery and begin her grief, but the bureaucratic procedures denied her that opportunity. Meanwhile, the recalcitrant heat and a nauseating smell emanating from the black bags permeates the woman's face mask and the walls of the Las Choapas law enforcement sub-unit . An official in Veracruz has been fired over the incident: A senior law enforcement official in Veracruz has been fired after the recently-located remains of a 30-year-old man were delivered to his family in black plastic bags on Saturday. The Veracruz Attorney General’s Office (FGE) announced Monday that Alberto Torres Rivera, head of its sub-unit in the municipality of Las Choapas, had been dismissed for delivering the remains of Eladio Aguirre Chable, who disappeared in April 2020, to his family in the bags, which weren’t even sealed. His dismissal came after members of a Coatzacoalcos-based collective made of up mothers of missing persons denounced the way in which the man’s remains were handed over to his family. The Colectivo Madres en Búsqueda Coatzacoalcos called for criminal sanctions to be imposed and for Torres and Las Choapas prosecutor Lenin Juárez to be sacked. The Las Choapas sub-unit of the FGE delivered the body in “deplorable” conditions without complying with its obligations in accordance with the legal framework that applies to missing persons and without abiding by “necessary forensic standards,” it said. Eladio's body was located in recent days thanks to the work of the collective Mothers in Search Coatzacoalcos that, according to an anonymous report, inspected a vacant lot in the municipality of Agua Dulce.

 

The collective organization said the insensitive way in which the man’s body was delivered to his family  was "with great indignation and pain the cruel, degrading, inhuman and revictimizing treatment that the Aguirre Chablé family has suffered." After the discovery, the FGE came to begin the removal of the remains. And without further ado, he handed them over to the family in plastic bags, violating all the protocols stipulated in the Law for the Protection of Victims of Crime. Candelaria and her daughter Natalia spent all of March 26 completing forms until the prosecutor Lenin Juárez agreed to sign the delivery of the skeleton. However, he would have told them that it was too late, to go the next day to the Las Choapas Forensic Medical Service. The women, outraged, were crushed. The mother asked to look at the corpse in the Semefo pantheon to be convinced that it was Eladio. There were no doubts. The jaw and three overlapping teeth convinced her. Prosecutor Alberto Torres Rivera told Natalia Aguirre to notify her funeral home to pass the remains to the Las Choapas prosecution unit. The sister went to that place where there were more forms to sign. Eladio Aguirre Chable (30 years old) made a living in Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo. There he worked as a taxi driver where he transported tourists. On April 21, 2020, he paid a visit to Las Choapas to visit with his mother, Candelaria, and his children.

 

That trip was quick, because one of his children was sick. As soon as it improved, he planned to return to Quintana Roo to continue to make a living with tips in dollars. But his plans were not fulfilled: he was deprived of his liberty on a Monday and his whereabouts were not heard from again. “We demand the immediate dismissal of prosecutor Lenin Juárez and Alberto Torres; the rights of victims must be guaranteed,” they said. In addition to announcing Torres’ dismissal, Veracruz Attorney General Verónica Hernández Giadáns said Monday that an investigation had been opened to identify all of the public servants responsible for violating the General Victims Law as well as state and federal protocols that apply to the treatment of bodies of missing persons. She issued an apology to Aguirre’s family and said she was committed to eradicating practices that violate victims’ rights. The attorney general added that “exemplary punishments” will be imposed on those found to be responsible for the delivery of the man’s body to avoid any repeat of “such regrettable actions.” She didn’t say whether Juárez, the Las Choapas prosecutor, would remain in his job but issued a stern demand to all FGE employees. “The necessary investigations are carried out to impose exemplary sanctions in order to avoid the repetition of such regrettable events. I reiterate my demand to the public servants of this institution to adhere strictly to the law and to apply it with sensitivity and respect to human rights. I will not tolerate a single act that is removed from the principles that govern the institution that I represent,” Hernández said.

 

The State Human Rights Commission (CEDH) initiated two complaint procedures, one against the State Attorney General's Office (FGE) for delivering in the municipality of Las Choapas the remains of a person reported as missing inside bags of garbage. The second was against the municipal public security directorate of Atzacán - a district located in the central mountainous area of ​​Veracruz - for the murder of a man with intellectual disabilities at the hands of a municipal policeman. In the case of Las Choapas, the ECHR initiated the ex officio complaint DAV / 0093/2021 after learning that the body of Eladio Aguirre Chablé, who disappeared in May 2020, was delivered to his family in two black plastic bags. After the discovery, the FGE came to begin the removal of the remains. And without further ado, he handed them over to the family in plastic bags, violating all the protocols stipulated in the Law for the Protection of Victims of Crime. The ECHR is already providing accompaniment to the victims and is investigating the responsibilities of the FGE regional officials in Las Choapas. In her social networks, the head of the FGE, Verónica Hernández Giadáns, reported this Monday that she started the folder FGE / FIN / 16/2021 to establish criminal responsibilities against Las Choapas officials, accused of transgressing the aforementioned law, as well as than search and investigation protocols. Hernández reported that Jessica Lizbeth Orozco Prescenda will be the new prosecutor in charge of the Comprehensive Subunit of Procurement of Justice in Las Choapas, while the previous person in charge, Alberto Torres Rivera, and the prosecutor Lenin Juárez Jiménez, who delivered the body, are investigated. Candelaria expected to receive the remains found of her brother, however, the authorities gave it to her in garbage bags. The Eladio family reported his disappearance and his file began to be disseminated by the State Search Commission.

 

The months passed without news, until Candelaria Chable received an anonymous sketch that said: Look in this place for your son , there they went to throw him away. "Ignore that , they want to make you look like a fool": Candelaria received the sketch on March 25, when members of the group to which she belongs searched for bodies on properties in the Los Tuxtlas region. She gave notice to the Prosecutor of Veracruz , but the response was blunt: "Ignore it, maybe want to extort you ";  the prosecutor retorted Lenin Juarez Jimenez. The mother saved her courage and ignored those words. Sola went to a place marked on the map, near the Tonalá River, in the municipality of Agua Dulce. Candelaria rented a boat and found a skeleton that still had clothing attached to it that Eladio was wearing on the day of his disappearance . In the water floated a polo shirt , blue jeans, black tennis shoes and a cap. "It's him," Candelaria said and sent a photograph to the FGE's expert services personnel. The authorities there were surprised but  sent a vehicle to collect the skeleton. There are more than 70,000 missing persons in Mexico, including a large number of people who disappeared in recent years in Veracruz, where many hidden graves have been discovered.

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Topic # 3:  German Weapons in Mexico: German Weapons Export Cntrols Declared in Bank

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/03/german-weapons-in-mexico-german-weapon.html

 



 

The Story:

 

Federal High Court Rules on Illegal Arms Exports from Heckler and Koch to Mexico: In the process for illegal arms exports from Heckler and Koch (H&K) to Mexico, the Federal High Court of Germany (BGH), in Karlsruhe, today rejected the review of the judgment issued by the previous court, requested by the prosecution and the defendants. Heckler and Koch will have to pay more than three million euros for their illegal businesses in Mexico. In application of the law for the control of weapons of war, end-user declarations are not part of arms export licenses. The wide scope of this judgment has explosive potential for the entire German arms industry. "Today's ruling puts an end to the German arms export control system that has been applied," comments on the decision of the court Jürgen Grässlin, spokesperson for "Aktion Aufschrei – Stoppt den Waffenhandel!, (Cry to action - stop the arms trade!) and president of the RüstungsInformationsBüro (RIB e.V.), (Office of Information on Weapons). Jurgen Grässlin demands that this process have consequences, "to continue as before with arms export controls is unsustainable. Legislators must draft without delay a law that regulates arms exports, prohibits current export practices and, finally, takes into account the interests of firearms victims." The judgment shows support for this thesis: "According to Presiding Judge Dr. Schäfer, the current legal framework should be changed if necessary, this would be the task of the legislators.

 

In response to a 2010 lawsuit by Jürgen Grässlin and Tubingia lawyer Holger Rothbauer, the Stuttgart High Regional Court examined between 2018 and 2019 a case for illegal exports of H&K weapons. The court considered it proven that the authorizations for the exports of more than 4,200 assault rifles to Mexico were obtained intransparently and knowing that the end-user declarations were falsified, (EVE for its acronym in German). These declarations are a central instrument for the control of arms exports from Germany and Europe and document them to the German authorities that authorize them, where the weapons will be used. In the case of illegal exports of G36 assault rifles from Heckler and Koch, several Mexican federal states had been declared by the German federal government as unauthorized destinations for EVE declarations, given the critical situation in which they were. However, there came the rifles. The Stuttgart District Court, unlike the usual jurisprudence to date, did not consider end-user declarations an integral part of the export authorization. It was based on the Foreign Trade Law that the defendants could be convicted of manipulating the export authorization, since Mexico was cited as the destination of the weapons.

 

"This sentence is a political earthquake. Until now, the government has been arguing that end-user declarations are part of export authorizations and guarantee that weapons exported from Germany do not reach unwanted recipients," says lawyer Holger Rothbauer, who adds: "Today's resolution confirms the Stuttgart Court's interpretation that end-user declarations are not an integral part of export authorizations. Thus, a central element of the German arms export control system has been reduced to absurdity. In this way, what we knew for years is ratified, that end-user declarations have no more value than the paper on which they are printed and that they are used as vine leaves to hide dark businesses." "The sentence shows an open gap in the legislation on arms exports," adds Stephan Möhrle of RüstungsInformationsBüro: "both the Federal High Court (BGH) and the High Regional Court in Stuttgart argued that the legislator, in the Law for the Control of Firearms, has not considered the manipulation of authorizations a crime, contrary to what is provided for in the Foreign Trade Law. A manipulated authorization is still valid. This irregularity must be resolved as soon as possible by legislators and to achieve this it is necessary to draft a law on firearms exports." The victims of German arms export practices are the people affected by them, in the countries receiving exports. "The export bans of assault rifles for some particularly conflictive Mexican states were unsustainable from the beginning, if a human rights perspective is applied.  Rather, it seems that a commitment was reached to make these exports possible. In that year Mexico was already marked by violence, human rights violations, corruption and impunity. It is shameful that the victims of these irresponsible export practices have not been taken into account at any time during the process," criticizes Carola Hausotter of the German Coordination for Human Rights in Mexico: "Lawmakers must establish that arms export controls also protect victims of violence by these weapons in export-receiving countries. These people have the right to be a party to this type of process," adds Christian Schliemann of the human rights organization ECCHR.

 

Contact details:

 

German Coordination for Human Rights in Mexico – Tobias Lambert, +49-157-71730893,presse@mexiko- koordination.de

ECCHR – Maria Bause, presse@ecchr.eu, +49-30 69819797

Aktion Aufschrei – Stoppt den Waffenhandel!, RIB e.V. – Jürgen Grässlin, +49-170-6113759, jg@rib- ev.de

Aktion Aufschrei – Stoppt den Waffenhandel und Ohne Rüstung Leben – Charlotte Kehne, +49-711- 62039372, orl-kehne@gaia.de

Attorney Holger Rothbauer, DEHR-Rechtsanwälte, +49-7071-1504949 / +49-173-6577693,anwalt@dehr.eu

RüstungsInformationsBüro e.V. – Stephan Möhrle, LL.M. moehrle@rib-ev.de

 

The German Coordination for Human Rights in Mexico is a network composed of:

 

Pastoral work for Latin America Adveniat, Amnesty International Germany, A.C., Carea A.C., Franciscan Center for Development and Mission, Companer@s of Southern Mexico A.C., Initiative for Mexico of Cologne and Bonn, Initiative Mexiko (INI-MEX), Mexico via Berlin A.C., Episcopal Work MISEREOR, Ecumenical Office for Peace and Justice A.C., Pacta Servanda A.C., Bread for the World, pax christi / One World Solidarity Commission, Missionary Procurate of the German Jesuits, Promovio and Zapapres A.C.

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Topic # 4:  Magdalena de Kino, Sonora: 3 Sicarios Killed by Security Forces in Cartel Checkpoint

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/03/magdalena-de-kino-sonora-3-sicarios.html

 



 

The Story:

 

The cartel war in the municipality of Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, turned deadlier over the weekend after several shootouts and arsons were reported. There have been shootouts occurring frequently in this area since 2 March 2021. In one incident this weekend, cartel members and security forces clashed in Ejido La Cebolla. The shootout started after military personnel discovered a cartel checkpoint. The checkpoint was being used to inspect civilians coming in and out of Magdalena de Kino. Upon noticing the presence of the officers, the cartel gunmen opened fire, but the military soldiers responded and killed three assailants. Five soldiers were wounded but were reported in stable condition. Users on social media reported that cartel members burned several houses and ranches in the area.

 

Turf war

 

The wave of narco-terror in this part of Sonora began on March 2, in the Imuris and Magdalena highway, where an armed confrontation between cartel figures and the armed forces was reported. The clash caused the closure of the federal highway. Through social media, Magdalena residents reported that they were "locked up" because the entrance and exit roads to this municipality were blocked during the shootouts. Mexican federal investigators indicate that the Sinaloa Cartel is the main criminal group in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, plaza. This turf is a strategic location for drug trafficking given its proximity to the US state of Arizona. As reported by Borderland Beat, much of the violence in Sonora is driven by conflicts between several factions of the Sinaloa Cartel and local drug groups. Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel operates there with the support of Los Salazar faction. They are said to be competing with La Plaza and/or the Caborca Cartel, reportedly headed by Rafael Caro Quintero. Local reports have mentioned that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) may be working with Caro Quintero to fight the Sinaloa Cartel. Other groups have been reported in the area, including a gang known as Los Jabalies and/or Los Jabalis, formed by the Villagrana family, and Los Memos, headed by Adelmo Niebla González and/or Guillermo Nieblas Nava ('El G3').

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Topic # 5:  Catholic Priest was Tortured and Killed in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/03/catholic-priest-was-tortured-and-killed.html

 



 

The Story:

 

Catholic priest Gumersindo Cortes Gonzalez, who served for the Diocesis of Celaya, was killed by unknown assailants over the weekend. His body was found in Cerrito de Guadalupe, a rural community in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato. Investigators say Cortes was brutally tortured by his captors and killed with a firearm to the head and thorax. His vehicle was found close to where his corpse was abandoned. Cortes, 64, was a Catholic priest since 9 March 1983. He served for many years in the multiple Catholic communities in Celaya and San Miguel de Allende. Local media reports say that this incident is the first one of its kind in the Diocesis of Celaya. They did confirm that some of their priests have reported being extorted by drug cartels, but this was the first registered murder. Cortes was the second Catholic priest murdered in Mexico since Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) took office. In August 2019, priest Jose Martin Guzman Vega was stabbed to death outside a church in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. A week before his death, Guzman Vega had criticized Tamaulipas governor Francisco Javier Cabeza de Vaca for the growing insecurity in his community.

 

Why are priests attacked?

 

Clergymen in Mexico are not immune to the drug violence nor to attacks from drug cartels. Priests have been victims of extortion from organized crime groups. If a priest refuses to pay the demanding cartel, the threats can become severe and include burning of church precints, kidnappings, and even murder. Priests' outspokenness against organized crime activity can also incur reprisals, especially in areas where these crimes are high. Others have received death threats and attacks because they have protected migrants (common preys of organized crime) from abuse. As reported by Borderland Beat, priests are sometimes viewed as "social stabilizers" in communities. This is can be used against them by organize crime groups, who understand that killing a priest can cause social destabilization, thus sowing fear to be able to act at will.

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Topic # 6:  Migrant Drownings Spike in Mexican Border State near West Texas

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/03/31/migrant-drownings-spike-in-mexican-border-state-near-west-texas/

 

 

 

Synopsis:

 

Authorities in Mexico and the U.S. are documenting a spike in drownings as a growing number of Central American migrants try to cross the Rio Grande. In the border state of Coahuila, authorities documented a total of 44 drownings since the start of 2021. According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by state officials, the drownings have taken place in Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuna. In Piedras Negras, authorities documented 24 drownings in three months, while in 2020, they documented 28 for the entire year. The most recent drowning took place on Tuesday afternoon when a 25-year-old Salvadoran migrant jumped into the river to escape Mexican police officers. Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuna about the Texas border cities of Eagle Pass and Del Rio. The border river is minimally fenced in these areas, leaving the Rio Grande as the only obstacle for drug traffickers and human smugglers who are profiting from the recent spike. The rapid increase in drownings comes as authorities see greater numbers of migrants crossing the river to Texas. The Del Rio Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, which encompasses both cities, documented a 300 percent spike in apprehensions in comparison to 2020.

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Topic # 7:  Infant Tossed into Rio Grande by Human Smugglers Rescued by Texas Rangers

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/03/31/infant-tossed-into-rio-grande-by-human-smugglers-rescued-by-texas-rangers/

 



 

Synopsis:

 

A Texas Ranger worked with U.S. Border Patrol agents to rescue a six-month-old migrant girl after human smugglers threw her into the Rio Grande near Roma, Texas. The infant’s mother had reportedly been assaulted by the smugglers in Mexico and sustained a broken leg. Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officials posted a photo on Facebook showing a Texas Ranger holding an infant girl after she was rescued from the river that separates the U.S. and Mexico. Officials say human smugglers threw the six-month-old girl out of a raft and into the Rio Grande on March 16. The DPS South Texas Special Operations Group, Texas Rangers Division, assisted U.S. Border Patrol agents in the rescue effort. The report indicates the mother of the child sustained a broken leg after being assaulted by human smugglers in Mexico. It is not clear why the smugglers threw the child into the river. Breitbart Texas reached out to Border Patrol officials for additional information on the rescue. An immediate response was not available. On Tuesday, Breitbart Texas published a leaked video detailing the dramatic rescue attempt of a nine-year-old migrant child who drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, on March 20. Despite the heroic efforts to resuscitate the child, doctors later pronounced her to be deceased at a hospital. Del Rio Sector Marine Unit agents came upon a small island in the middle of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, on March 20. The agents found three people unconscious on the island where they became stranded while attempting to cross from Mexico into Texas, according to information provided by Del Rio Sector Border Patrol officials.

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Topic # 8:  THEY GO FOR 'EL REY SAPO' WHO KEEPS THE SECRETS OF MENCHO AND IS FROM HIS CLOSE CIRCLE

Source:  https://elblogdelnarco.com/2021/03/30/van-por-el-rey-sapo-quien-guarda-los-secretos-del-mencho-y-es-de-su-circulo-cercano/

 



 

The Story:

 

A powerful but low-key capo is the government's new concern. He is the right hand of Mencho, founder of the CJNG. And it is the criminal mind behind important cartel operations. The Mexican government wants to catch him before he grows any more, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, is no longer the man most wanted by the Federal Government. His place has been taken by a boss who few know his name, alias and history. The team of Rosa Icela Rodríguez, head of the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, has changed the peephole and now has it on a Michoacan who is considered the right hand of Mencho, for whom the United States government offers 10 million dollars reward. His nickname is King Sapo, or simply El Sapo, Gonzalo Mendoza Gaytán, a violent operator of the most powerful cartel in the country whose stronghold is in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. The security cabinet attributes to this man dozens of kidnappings and murders, as well as the collection of extortion fees from businesses and hotels in that tourist destination, whose objective would be to finance the containment barrier for his boss. El Sapo had gone almost unnoticed in the media until December 18, 2020, when the former governor of Jalisco, Aristóteles Sandoval, was assassinated in a complex ambush set up by the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel in Puerto Vallarta. Since then, federal investigations have intensified and pointed out that this man with a robust complexion and 174 centimeters tall would have orchestrated the attack against the PRI politician who ruled Jalisco between 2013 and 2018.

 

Keep the secrets of Mencho

 

He is only 34 years old - his file locates October 2, 1988 as his date of birth - and he has high responsibilities within the cartel: he is in charge of conquering cities for his boss and he is also the recruiter of the bosses of hitmen. As the person in charge of the cartel's expansion plans, El Sapo designed the offensive in Guanajuato to seize the huachicoleo business and extortion from the rival to the death of his boss, José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, el Marro, founder of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel. And it is also the maximum operator of the alliance between the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel and La Antiunión of Mexico City, whose objective is to displace La Unión Tepito and stay with the criminal businesses of the country's capital. By paying attention to El Sapo, the security cabinet realized that he was the key man to stop the violence generated by the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, since he is the boss who keeps the most important secrets of Mencho. According to an analysis made by the National Intelligence Center, Gonzalo Mendoza Gaytán is - in addition to all the previous responsibilities - in charge of the cartel's political relations and the payment of bribes to the local authorities that protect them. Government investigators believe that he administers the cartel's payroll - which ranges from plaza bosses and mayors who take care of them to hawks and hitmen - as well as Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes' most prized assets, including ranches, houses and even luxury vehicles, such as sports and armored cars. “El Sapo is a priority because, if we catch him, we will have all the necessary information to attack the CJNG in the weakest points and we will know where we can do the most damage. It's like opening a safe with secrets. And in this type of operation, information is the best tool. If we want to limit the power of the Jalisco Cartel, it must be done with data, with intelligence, not with bullets, ”an official who is on the hunt for the kingpin assured EMEEQUIS.

 

Your close circle

 

In the government they already have a thick folder with data on this elusive criminal: they know his areas of influence, his weapons and who is part of his close circle. In the government they already have a thick folder with data on this elusive criminal: they know his areas of influence, his weapons and who is part of his close circle. Investigators know, for example, that he is married to Liliana Rosas Camba, a 27-year-old woman, who is the leader of several money laundering schemes to launder the profits obtained by her husband and El Mencho. And that among its most prominent partners is a Colombian, located as "C", who is the cartel's link with South America and who trains the hit men who are part of the bodyguard squad of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes. His importance in the criminal organization has grown steadily since the son of his boss, Rubén Oseguera González, el Menchito, was arrested in 2015 and later extradited to the United States. Later, he jumped to the top of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel when Menchito's sister, Jessica Johanna Oseguera González, was also arrested in February 2020 and is currently imprisoned in the United States. With his sons incarcerated, El Mencho had to find someone to name as his heir and, they believe in the federal government, chose El Sapo as the next in line of succession. “It's not a minor thing, huh? There are very strong rumors that Mencho has been ill for a long time. A kidney problem, apparently. And he has been in serious condition, so much so that he had to have a hospital built for him just because he required surgical interventions. “If El Mencho dies, is killed or is imprisoned, the king of the entire Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel will be El Sapo. And I say king because that is how they also nickname him King Toad, because he handles himself as if he were royalty. He could be the next big headache of this government or the one that follows ”, said the source consulted. That is why, he says, is that the federal government has changed the peephole: they are not going against the sick king who has been giving up power, but against the violent, healthy and strong prince who is going for the crown of the most powerful cartel in the country.

[Crafty_Dog]

 

Possible Sinaloa Cartel Feud Leaves 4 Mexicans Dead in Guatemala
San Luis Potosi, SLP: CJNG Video Message against CDG and The Ministerial Policemen Cartel (Video in Link)
Construction Workers Under the Yoke of Organized Crime
EXCLUSIVE: Photos Show Migrant Camp in Mexico near Texas Border
370 Pounds of Meth Seized in Tractor-Trailer at Texas Border Crossing
Border State Cops in Mexico Rescue Migrants Kidnapped by Gulf Cartel
Exclusive Video: Endless Waves of Migrants Fleeing Poverty Overwhelm Border Patrol
REYNOSA TRAIAN ON THE NAIL JUST OVER 1 MILLION DOLLARS (Translated Spanish to English)
 

 

Topic # 1:  Possible Sinaloa Cartel Feud Leaves 4 Mexicans Dead in Guatemala

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/03/possible-sinaloa-cartel-feud-leaves-4.html

 

 

Photo # 1: The victims, presumably Sinaloa Cartel drug traffickers, could have been killed after Mexican authorities seized 3 tons of cocaine in Chiapas earlier this month

Photo # 2: At least two of the victims have ties with Puebla Public Security chief Raciel Lopez Salazar

Photo # 3: The two vehicles had license plates from Queretaro and Mexico City. They were found abandoned in Tuxtla Chico, Chiapas



Topic # 4: Gilberto Rivera Amarillas was arrested in Mexicali in 1999, but he was quickly released due to lack of evidence. In 2004, two of his teenage children were killed in an attempt on his life

 

The Story:

 

A possible drug cartel feud in Guatemala left 4 Mexican citizens dead. The killing occurred in Nica, Malacatan, a rural community in San Marcos Department. After residents reported a shooting, the National Civil Police of Guatemala mobilized and reached Nica, where they found the bodies of four people scattered on a property. All of them victims were executed with a coup de grace blow to the head. The National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF) in San Marcos has only identified three of the victims: Guillermo de Jesús Tovar Gómez (aged 28), José Luis García Gutiérrez (aged 42), and Eduardo Galaor Torres Vera (aged 43). The first two are from Comitan and the last one is from Tonala, two municipalities in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Torres Vera was the brother of former Institutional Revoluationary Party (PRI) deputy Judith Torres Vera. She is currently a Public Security Department head in Puebla under Racial Lopez Salazar. Investigators say that the four victims crossed the Mexican border into Guatemala last Wednesday via Suchiate River and left their two vehicles on the Mexican side. The route they took to get there is known as La Pedrona and is notorious for human smuggling. At some point, the four victims were intercepted by an armed group and killed. In one of the vehicles, investigators found an ID card from Juan Carlos Gomez Roman, a resident of Comitan who works in the Ministry of Health in Chiapas. Authorities are unsure if this man was with the four victims, if he managed to escape, or if he was taken by the assassins. Guatemalan authorities say that the local cartel in Malacatan is known as Los Melendez Merida, which has presence in parts of Central America and southern Mexico.

 

Possible drug feud

 

Guatemalan officials believe that the mass murder may be drug-related and linked to a large cocaine seizure carried out by Mexican authorities two weeks prior. On 10 May 2021, the Chiapas Attorney General's Office seized close to 3 tons of cocaine in Puerto Arista in the municipality of Tonala, Chiapas. Seven people were arrested: Pedro U., Leobardo R., Manuel I., José Natividad G., Oscar C., Daniel T., and Carlos C. Investigators say the drugs were owned by the Sinaloa Cartel. Intelligence sources from Mexico's Attorney General's Office (FGE) say that they were investigating two of the victims, Torres Vera and Garcia Gutierrez, for their alleged involvement in drug trafficking in Chiapas. They are believed to have been part of a criminal group once headed by Gilberto Rivera Amarillas AKA El Tio and/or El Señor de la Frontera Sur. Rivera Amarillas was born in Culiacan, Sinaloa, and controlled much of the drug trafficking operations for the Sinaloa Cartel in southern Mexico. Authorities say he was one of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's leading operators in the area. Rivera Amarillas frequently moved between southern Mexico and Guatemala. In June 2016, he was arrested at La Aurora International Airport in Guatemala and extradited to the US in February 2017. He died from a terminal illness five months later.

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Topic # 2:  San Luis Potosi, SLP: CJNG Video Message against CDG and The Ministerial Policemen Cartel

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/03/san-luis-potosi-slp-cjng-video-message.html

 

Video translation is as follows:

 

Good morning citizens of the entire state of San Luis Potosí. We are the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación of Mr. Mencho. And through this statement we want to inform you of the reality of the violent events that have occurred with businessmen and politicians this March in the Potosina capitol. We completely distance ourselves from the murder of the president of Coparmex, Julio César Galindo Pérez, the politician Rodrigo Sánchez Flores AKA El Ferrari, and his wife, Miriam Luna Contreras. We all know those who ordered the attacks were Evaristo Sánchez Cruz AKA El Vaquero, leader of the Gulf Cartel. And Alfredo Aleman Narváez AKA Comandante Aleman, leader of Los Alemanes Cartel. The are the ones who sent José Pedro Bárcenas Martínez AKA Peter Carreteras, intellectual author of the two events who was fighting the plaza of the Piedad prison for the sale of drugs with El Ferrari. Since he was an inmate in the prison. Peter Carreteras ordered him to kill the guard Jorge Luis Arteano, who smuggled the drugs, the wine, and the beer in for El Ferrari. And also to benefit politics and his friend José Ricardo Gallardo Cardona AKA El Pollo Gallardo, candidate of the Green Party for the governorship of the State. Why is he being financially supported by these aforementioned kidnappers and murderers of innocent civilians?

 

They work hand in hand. To commit crimes against the citizens who hinder them in their illicit businesses and money laundering. Another person that we leave on the list for you of those linked to these events, they know very well who the guilty are and refuse to detain them. They’re good at playing dumb asses. As is the case of the sons of bitches who executed Rosalinda, a municipal police officer, in the most cowardly way. This was a crime that was organized and ordered by her own ministerial colleagues. Quico, Mike, Fuerte, and his superior Daniel Chávez are also involved. So is Jose Guadalupe Celestino, leader of the Ministerial Policemen Cartel. This is a cartel that here recently was exhibited nationwide on television by journalist Denise Maerker from Noticieros Televisa. For engaging in illegal activities such as theft of vehicles and businesses, drug trafficking after seizures, and charging civilians for not executing their arrest warrants. Something that everyone in San Luis Potosí already knew for several years. As we have told you in previous communications.  We came to stay. And little by little we will accommodate the state so that citizens can live in peace. Free from kidnapping, extortion, and fee collection.

 

So it’s best you strengthen yourselves Golfos, Alemanes, and Ministerial Policemen. Because we’re coming after all the Golfos, commanders, and the criminal cells that we have identified as being directly responsible for the intentional homicides in the state. Comandante San Fe, Tigre, Londo, Guasel, Polaris, in charge of Matehuala. And Carlos López, in charge of San Vicente. And as for the children of Aleman, who seem to think that they’re still living in the past. When their father was the leader of Los Zetas and could kill and do whatever they wanted. Luis aka El Mongol, Checo Aleman, and Adrián Aleman. The comandantes of the Peter Carreteras cells: Lalo Salazar, Michis, Guacho, Fresa, Jimmy, and that fucking faggot Daniel Chavez, compadre Alemán, as well as your filthy cell of narco Ministerial Policemen. Thieves, collector of fees, extortionists and drug dealers. Made up of your black lover El Quico, Nicky, Fuerte, Ahueca, Pato, Marcelo, and Caballero. With an advance warning there is no betrayal assholes. Sincerely, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación. San Luis Potosí Branch Office.

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Topic # 3:  Construction Workers Under the Yoke of Organized Crime

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/03/construction-workers-under-yoke-of.html

 

 

 

   

 

The Story:

 

Workers who lay the foundations of the hotel infrastructure of Isla Blanca, an extension of Cancun, live stories of terror, as organized crime pressures to recruit them and, if they refuse its demands, they are victims of extortion, disappearance or homicide. Every day some 35,000 construction workers build the foundations of the hotel infrastructure of Isla Blanca, an extension of Cancun, at an annual growth rate of more than 7,000 rooms. But apart from this successful industry, these workers live stories of terror as organized crime pressures to recruit them and, if they refuse its demands, they are victims of extortion, disappearance or murder. Isla Blanca, Quintana Roo: The Planet Hollywood Cancun hotel offers its guests the possibility of vacationing like a movie star in Isla Blanca, as it is inspired by the glamor of the seventh art. It is the first lodging in Mexico operated under the brand owned by Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Demi Moore and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In contrast to the dream environments that invite you to live a fantasy experience, this property has been the scene of terror for workers who have been tortured, disappeared or killed during the construction stage. The inauguration of this 898-room hotel complex, whose investment reached 200 million dollars, was scheduled for December 15, 2020. However, it was postponed a few weeks due to the discovery of the bones of four people in an adjoining lot, in November 2020.

 

The identities of the victims have not been officially released. It is not an isolated case. Organized crime has infiltrated to the ground in the Mexican Caribbean tourism industry, considered the main economic engine of the region, admit authorities, businessmen and workers. Catalonia, Atelier, Excellence, Majestic, Palladium, RIU Dunamar and RIU Beach Palace are accommodations whose construction works were also co-opted by extortionists and drug sellers, the testimonies of ex-workers and a member of the State Ministerial Investigation Police coincide with diligences in the area, who for security reasons asked not to reveal his identity. During a meeting with deputies of the Justice Commission, on December 18, 2020, the head of the General Attorney of the State of Quintana Roo (FGE), Óscar Montes de Oca Rosales, assured that the escalation of violence in the entity is directly linked to migrants employed in the construction sector. “Of the homicides (in Quintana Roo) –both perpetrators and victims–, 80% are not from here; They all come from neighboring states and have to do with construction. There they are taken and taken, first, to help in the sale of drugs and, later, they are turned into hitmen, ”said Montes de Oca.

 

A photograph of violent crimes:

 

On June 18, 2020, seven months before the official opening of Planet Hollywood Cancun, Ángel de la Cruz, a worker from Tabasco, was taken to a basement inside the resort by a criminal group infiltrated in the work day. What is known is that he was beaten and tortured for 12 hours, his weekly payment and his cell phone were stolen. Then they released him. It was a warning for Manolo, his employer, to pay the forced fees that he owed to the criminal group that had taken over the work, according to what Ángel himself was able to narrate by phone to his family in Tabasco, thanks to a cell phone they lent him. The threat materialized on July 21 and Ángel disappeared: two hooded men kidnapped him from his workplace, in full view of his colleagues. Since then, his family has been desperately searching for him, and it is personal. At Planet Hollywood, William Ariel Llanes, Carlos de la Cruz, Juan Pablo Pech and Carlos Ramón López were also disappeared between 2019 and 2020, while Jesús Moisés Gómez and Laureano Méndez were disappeared from the Catalonia hotel works. So far the investigations have not yielded clues as to his whereabouts or those responsible for his disappearance. Extortion at construction sites, the recruitment of workers, their torture, disappearance and homicide are part of an organized crime operation scheme that began to be identified two or three years ago in Isla Blanca, spread to Cancun and currently it covers the north coast of the state, confirms James Tobin Cunningham, a member of the National Security Council. Isla Blanca is the epicenter of the problem. Called to be "the new hotel zone of Cancun", here the construction of 29,400 hotel rooms is projected, according to the Partial Urban Development Plan. However, there, in addition to the disappearances of construction workers, there are reports of violent executions to the detriment of this sector. At least three alleged workers were found dead outside the RIU, Planet Hollywood and Catalonia hotels in 2020. One more appeared with signs of torture last January. Who could be behind this scene of violence? A diagnosis on security matters prepared by Lantia Consultores in 2016 located the operation of two large organized crime groups in the state: the Pacific Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, ie CJNG, with a presence in Cancun and Chetumal, dedicated to drug trafficking , people, goods, extortion and kidnapping.

 

"Modus operandi":

 

The pattern of extortion is similar in all works where the presence of people linked to criminal groups is reported: working has a cost or there is "tablazo", a method of torture in which pieces of wood are used to beat the victim. All workers have to pay floor fees (piso) : engineers, architects, construction managers, bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, helpers and even street vendors and public transport workers. The charge varies, depending on the position and the work in which it works. It is mandatory and can be in two ways: a weekly fee of approximately 500 pesos or a dose of marijuana that the employee has to pay for forcibly. René paid the drug trafficker about 1,500 pesos a week, a third of his income, for 10 bags of marijuana that they forced him to buy. He is a worker who worked at the Catalonia, Majestic and Planet Hollywood hotels. His name, and that of all the employees interviewed for this report, have been changed so as not to jeopardize their integrity."The Engineer", as his direct employer is called, has to give an additional fee to that paid by each worker. If you do not give that payment, the first warning is to hit one or more of your workers, as happened with Ángel de la Cruz. Each construction site in large resorts, with surfaces of up to 40 hectares, houses an average of 800 workers. Mixed with this army of workers are the thugs. Criminals keep track of attendance and how much each worker earns per week. The vendor offers them drugs all day. The situation worsens if, in addition to the weekly quota, workers go into debt to be able to consume, describes Jacinto. Tobin argues that criminals identify constructions when they are just starting, they look for those responsible for the works and also for contractors; they research your personal data and then address it. On March 15, 2021, the FGE reported in a statement about the arrest of three individuals identified as Marcos, Martín and Carlos, related to crimes of extortion, as well as possession, trafficking and sale of drugs in hotel buildings, coinciding with the modus previously described operandi.

 

Calvary of the invisible victims:

 

Driven by the promise of higher wages and better living conditions for themselves and their families, men and, to a lesser extent, women, migrate from marginalized populations in southeastern Mexico to Quintana Roo, in order to be employed in the manufacturing industry construction. Of the 74, 764 people that this sector employs, 51, 351 are registered with the IMSS; that is, 23, 413 are in an informal scheme, without labor benefits, social security or an employer responsibility contract. Even so, Catalina Portillo Navarro, head of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare of Quintana Roo, affirms that working conditions in the state are much higher than those of workers in their states of origin. However, the contribution of construction employees to an economy that extends year after year is not proportional to working conditions, historically marked by exploitation, informality and security risks, laments Juan José Chilón, former leader of the Union of Construction Workers, Laborers and Employees (Sitec). The economic deprivation and almost zero social mobility currently place them in the crosshairs of organized crime. For the criminologist and security specialist Mónica Franco, these young people, living in poverty, alone and far from their families, do not have support networks, which increases their vulnerability.

 

These conditions, the expert adds, have made it practically impossible for workers to have the opportunity to report extortion and acts of torture. The FGE recognizes that there are 18 investigation folders for disappearances related to workers in the construction industry, according to an official response. However, the prosecution does not have data on the operations carried out in the construction works and declared that there is no record of clandestine graves between January 1, 2015 and November 31, 2020, which leaves out the findings near the Planet Hollywood. For the families, the search has become an odyssey, due to their financial shortcomings, lack of legal knowledge, apathy from the FGE and poor support. They have also stated that neither the hotels nor the construction companies for which they worked have agreed to assist with the investigation. Although the Planet Hollywood and Catalonia hotels are subject to reports of disappearance of workers within their facilities, these tourist complexes operate normally. In a destination like Cancun, whose economy depends on the more than 23 million visitors that arrive annually, it is a priority to take care of the image of the tourist centers.

 

The prosecutor Montes de Oca put it in those terms during the December meeting with legislators: “All the events (homicides) are regrettable, but for a state that lives off tourism, we have to take care of our raw material, which is precisely tourism. so that it does not happen that they decide not to come ”. For her part, the head of the Quintana Roo Tourism Secretariat, Marisol Vanegas Pérez, ruled out that it was a serious situation. He dismisses that it inhibits the arrival of tourists to the state and adds that so far no investment has been stopped for security reasons. Vanegas acknowledges that drug trafficking groups have "sneaked" into the hotels under development, but states that this is resolved in a "simple" way: by certifying the supplier companies "before the Mexican Chamber of the Construction Industry." This position is shared by Ramón Roselló, manager of InverHotel, a company that groups 16 hotel chains that add up to 50,000 of the 114,000 rooms that operate in the Mexican Caribbean. Although Roselló acknowledges that there is a problem of insecurity in buildings, he believes that it is not "so serious" and qualifies as "exceptional" the work of the authorities. He says that if the news about violence in construction is repeated a lot, that could have a negative impact on the image of Cancun as a destination. For his part, Tobin mentions that there are already investors who have stopped projects due to insecurity in the works. While tourism in the area shows signs of progress, the Stations of the Cross does not end for the victims and their families. For Chilón, the Tourist Brand has weighed more than the workers' own lives, and concludes: "It is very regrettable that information is hidden in order to preserve the image of the city and prevent tourists from not coming."

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Topic # 4: EXCLUSIVE: Photos Show Migrant Camp in Mexico near Texas Border

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/03/29/exclusive-photos-show-massive-migrant-camp-in-mexico-near-texas-border/

 

 



 

Synopsis:

 

mber of Central American migrants are camping outside of one of the international ports of entry in Reynosa. The growing group has been ignored by the Mexican federal government, presenting concerns for local and state officials. Breitbart Texas visited one of the makeshift camps in the main plaza near the Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge area. The group is made up largely of migrants who were recently deported from the U.S. and have nowhere to go. Others are hoping to cross the bridge and request asylum. Breitbart Texas journalists only saw state police officers in the plaza. No officials from Mexico’s National Immigration Institute (INM) nor the National System for Integral Family Development (DIF) were visibly present. “It hurts to see how they treat us like if we aren’t humans,” Maria Perez from Guatemala said about being ignored by Mexican federal officials. “Look at the children, how they are being forced to lay on the floor.” According to Brenda Ordonez, a deported migrant from Honduras who has been in Reynosa for five days, she and others are waiting for INM and the UN Migrant Agency (ACNUR) to help them get home. “I don’t, not anymore,” Ordonez said in tears about trying to cross the border. “I would like for governments to look at us, that we traveled to other countries to look for a better life. We want jobs, we want something for our family, it is impossible to live in Honduras.”

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Topic # 5: 370 Pounds of Meth Seized in Tractor-Trailer at Texas Border Crossing

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/03/29/370-pounds-of-meth-seized-in-tractor-trailer-at-texas-border-crossing/

 



 

Synopsis:

 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized nearly 370 pounds of methamphetamine at a Texas border crossing commercial lane. The officers found the $7.3 million in drugs in a tractor-trailer attempting to enter from Mexico. CBP officers assigned to the Laredo Port of Entry on March 25 observed a tractor-trailer approaching from Mexico to enter the United States via a World Trade Bridge commercial border crossing, according to information received from Laredo, Texas, CBP officials. The driver presented a manifest listing the cargo as industrial magnets. Officers referred the driver to a secondary inspection station where they conducted a K-9 search and a non-intrusive imaging system inspection, officials stated. During the inspection, the officers observed anomalies in the cargo. This led the agents to conduct a physical search of the load. During the secondary inspection and search, the officers found 104 packages allegedly filled with methamphetamine. Officials said the drug load weighed 367.24 pounds. They estimated the value of the shipment to be $7,344,845. “The level of methamphetamine abuse in the U.S. continues to rise,” Acting Port Director Eugene Crawford, Laredo Port of Entry, said in a written statement. “Seizures like this one underscore the vital role that CBP officers play in advancing our overall national border security mission and protecting the public from illegal narcotics.” The officers seized the drug shipment and turned the case over to ICE Homeland Security Investigations for preparation of charges.

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Topic # 6:  Border State Cops in Mexico Rescue Migrants Kidnapped by Gulf Cartel

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/03/28/border-state-cops-in-mexico-rescue-migrants-kidnapped-by-gulf-cartel/

 

 

 

Synopsis:

 

Authorities in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, rescued a group of migrants who were kidnapped by the Gulf Cartel. The cartel members held the migrants against their will while they extorted ransoms from their loved ones. The incident took place last week when Tamaulipas state authorities responded to a call to their 911 system about a group of migrants that were being held against their will. The kidnappers held the migrants in the rural community of Buena Vista, located on the outskirts of Matamoros. Police officers responded to the scene and found 37 Central American migrants including 7 described as minors. The migrants claimed they were trying to reach the U.S. border the cartel members took them hostage. The migrants claimed that they had been held against their will for approximately 15 days. Authorities did not find any human smugglers or cartel members at the house. Authorities did not disclose the nationalities of the migrants. Officials turned the case over to Mexico’s National Migration Institute to process their deportation or, in the case of unaccompanied minors, to turn them over to another government entity. The kidnapping comes at a time when Mexico’s Gulf Cartel dramatically ramped up their human smuggling operations in the border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa. The cartel seeks to cash in on the perception held by migrants that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is welcoming them unlike his predecessor Donald J. Trump.

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Topic # 7: Exclusive Video: Endless Waves of Migrants Fleeing Poverty Overwhelm Border Patrol

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/03/28/exclusive-video-endless-waves-of-migrants-fleeing-poverty-overwhelms-border-patrol/

 

 

 

Synopsis:

 

Video shot this week in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas shows firsthand, the never-ending stream of migrants illegally entering the United States. Many of the migrants shared their stories as they made their way to a receiving area set up by the Border Patrol. The migrants, depending on where they illegally enter, walk up to several miles to reach the area where they will surrender. In a few short hours, near Mission, Tx, Breitbart Texas observed more than 250 migrants illegally crossing the border from Mexico. The endless groups of migrants consisted mostly of whole families and unaccompanied children. Some unaccompanied children, as young as 9 years old, walked through the brush and farm fields in search of Border Patrol agents. The migrants guided themselves by following makeshift signs on sheets of plywood placed strategically to keep them from getting lost. All of the migrants Breitbart Texas spoke to were from Central America. Some claimed to be fleeing poverty in their home country while others hinted at persecution. Very few Border Patrol Agents could be found in the area as many are removed from front-line patrols due to the humanitarian needs of caring for the surge in unaccompanied children.

 

Border Patrol facilities are reported to be overcrowded due to the sheer volume of apprehensions made during the last two months. A never-ending stream of Border Patrol buses arrived at a temporary processing center near the Rio Grande to transport migrants to other facilities for later release. Earlier this week, the Border Patrol implemented a plan to release migrants into the United States with minimal processing of their asylum claims. Their cases are not being reported to immigration courts, saving Border Patrol Agents processing time in order to accommodate the increased migrant flow in the area. The increased migrant traffic is still troubling to Border Patrol agents in the field. Border Patrol Agent Chris Cabrera, in his role as vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, finds the situation concerning. “This is more than a crisis; we need more boots on the ground in this area,” Cabrera told Breitbart. “We still have aliens running from us and not enough agents to chase them.” “We don’t know who those people are and what threat they may pose unless we can apprehend them,” the veteran border agent explained. “That’s getting harder every day”. Although some migrants are returned swiftly due to the CDC’s Title 42 COVID-19 protection protocol, those with small children are exempted and released into the United States. There simply are not enough Border Patrol agents to respond to the surge of crossings, process, and provide care for those currently in custody.

 

The Border Patrol is struggling to even provide transportation from the river to processing centers as the numbers continue to grow. Border Patrol Agent Cabrera is concerned that the situation could prove deadly as the summer months approach. “The dangers out here are deceiving,” he said. “A person can become dehydrated in this heat in a very short amount of time.” “The river poses an equally dangerous hazard,” Cabrera continued. “We’ve seen enough drownings out here as well”. As darkness fell, the groups continued to cross the Rio Grande searching for the Border Patrol. Many carried small children on their shoulders on the long walk through the brush country. Many appeared worried and exhausted. Helicopters flew overhead at times, attempting to assist the few Border Patrol agents in the area to round up those migrants attempting to escape apprehension. The migrants who flee are usually those who do not qualify for release. The number of those who escape apprehension by the Border Patrol increases daily. As for the Border Patrol agent’s morale, Agent Cabrera says, “The job has never been easy, we still have to come to work and give it our all. That’s what we always do”.

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Topic # 8:  REYNOSA TRAIAN ON THE NAIL JUST OVER 1 MILLION DOLLARS

Source:  https://www.valorportamaulipas.info/2021/03/reynosa-traian-en-el-clavo-poco-mas-de.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

Tamaulipas.- Police from the Special Operations Group, secured $ 1,115,000 in cash in bills of various denominations that were transported in a trailer. The seized money was hidden between the pallets of a load of plastic waste. The vehicle was stopped on the Reynosa - San Fernando highway on its way to Villahermosa, Tabasco. Two people were traveling in the cargo transport unit, a man and a woman who were detained.

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[Crafty_Dog]

 

Topic # 1:  Sonora, Mexico: Mexican Leaders Say  Human Trafficking Driving Disappearances of Women and Girls

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/sonora-mexico-mexican-leaders-say-human.html

 



Marchers hold a banner that says "We're the voice of the ones who are no longer here"

 

Synopsis:

 

Mexican officials say they believe human trafficking is driving high numbers of disappearances of women and girls in neighboring Sonora and across the country. Calling the numbers of missing women and girls worrisome, officials with the Mexico's human rights and searching commissions said Thursday that women represent 25% of disappearances in the country. Of those nearly 60% are girls under 18. "Sonora is one of the states with the highest number of missing women, most of whom are adolescents or young adults," said Karla Quintana, head of the National Searching Commission. "The working hypothesis for searches is human trafficking." Most women who go missing in Sonora are young, and many share similar physical traits. But while the cases are being investigated as human trafficking, she said, the commission is still working to better understand the context. Across Mexico, more than 85,000 people have gone missing and never been found since 2006. Sonora is among the 10 states with the highest number of disappearances, and in the top five with the most clandestine graves.

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Topic # 2:  Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas: The Cartel del Noreste Threatens Transportation Drivers

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/nuevo-laredo-tamaulipas-cartel-del.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

The Cartel del Noreste (CDN), headed by Juan Gerardo Trevino Chávez AKA El Huevo, has just released a statement online warning all shipment drivers not to drive into Nuevo Laredo outside of regular business hours. This narco message started circulating on social media over the weekend. This warning goes out to all transportation drivers. Avoid for yourselves the penalty of us having to physically hurt you by not working outside of normal work hours. If you enter Nuevo Laredo it should be between 5 in the morning to 12 at night. Beware of consequences after hours for you and your company. This is you final warning. Sincerely, The Northeast Cartel.

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Topic # 3:  San Fernando, Tamaulipas: Secretary of the Tamaulipas Prosecutor’s Office Killed

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/san-fernando-tamaulipas-secretary-of.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

A secretary belonging to the Attorney General's Office of Tamaulipas was murdered in San Fernando and his body was found inside his home located in the north of the municipality. Information provided by the Police Station confirmed that the deceased male responded to the name of Juan Gerardo "T" and worked within the Attached Agency of the Public Investigative Ministry. The public servant had three stabs in the chest and others in his arms. A cousin identified as Carlos "N" made the discovery of the body at 5:20 p.m. respectively. The relative explained that from early on they were fixing the house and that for a few moments he left him alone. Upon returning he found him lying on the floor deceased. For its part, the Police Station reported that so far no suspect has been arrested.

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Topic # 4:  Queretaro, Mexico: A component for Making a Dirty Bomb Has Been Stolen

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/queretaro-mexico-component-for-making.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

The federal agency reported that if the radioactive source is removed from its container, handled or there is direct contact with it for a few minutes or hours, it can cause permanent injuries. An industrial radiography equipment, which contains a radioactive source, was stolen this Sunday morning on the road to the municipality of Teoloyucan, State of Mexico, reported the National Coordination of Civil Protection of the Government of Mexico (CNPC). For the theft of the radioactive source, Federal Civil Protection alerted the population of the following states to, in case of finding the equipment, not open it and notify the local authority in Querétaro, State of Mexico, Mexico City, Hidalgo, Michoacán, Guerrero, Morelos, Tlaxcala and Puebla. In a statement, the agency detailed that the aforementioned container houses inside a radioactive source of Iridium-192 with serial number TT3303, with an activity of 68.89 Curíes, which was violently stolen along with a 2016 Toyota Hilux with license plates NRU3128. The federal agency reported that if the radioactive source is removed from its container, handled or there is direct contact with it for a few minutes or hours, it can cause permanent injuries. If you stay in direct contact with the source for hours or days, its effects can be fatal. If the source is located, it is recommended to contact the number 911 or 800 111 3168. Do not handle the equipment, establish a security perimeter and guard with a minimum radius of 30 meters and notify the competent authorities.

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Topic # 5:  Mayor’s Brother Killed Outside a Grocery Store in Chiapas

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/mayors-brother-killed-outside-grocery.html

 



 

The Story:

 

Lucio Flores Gómez, brother of the mayor of Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacán, Chiapas, José Luis Flores Gómez, was shot to death on Thursday. The events occurred on the afternoon of April 8, when the brother of the mayor of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party was killed by armed individuals in the vicinity of a grocery store located in the central part of the city. According to witnesses, the subjects fired at Lucio Flores, 50, several times. He was accompanied by several people who were also attacked. The victims were taken to the Pueblo Nuevo Community Hospital, where several hours later the death of the mayor's brother was confirmed. Policemen and prosecutors from the Public Ministry Department arrived at the scene to initiate an investigation. Subsequently, elements of the National Guard, as well as units of the State Preventive and Municipal Police, implemented an operation to search for those responsible. So far there is no report of people detained for these events. It should be noted that according to residents, the attack is related to the dispute between leaders of political parties in the town.

 

Background

 

On January 21 in the same municipality, two paramilitary groups, "Los Diablos" and "Los Marianos", fought each other for a gold statuette in the shape of a donkey, a symbol for luck for some members of that indigenous community. The shooting left four people dead and five injured in the state of Chiapas. The events were reported at Aurora Ermita, a rural community in Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacan, Chiapas. This community is predominantly Tzotzil, an indigenous Maya people of the central Chiapas highlands in southern Mexico. According to the Prosecutor's Office, the shooting began when members of “Los Diablos” tried to snatch the golden donkey figure from the hands of one of the leaders of “Los Marianos”. Local media reports indicate that the confronted groups were led by Enoc Díaz, leader of the Revolutionary Movement Number Seven, and José Luis Flores Gomez, the mayor of the town. According to local residents, since 2015 armed groups have installed checkpoints throughout the region. They reportedly extort people and terrorize them during electoral season.

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Topic # 6: Shooting in the Mexican Border Area Kills a Hitman and Wounds 2 Military

Source:  https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/04/12/balacera-en-zona-fronteriza-mexicana-mata-un-sicario-y-hiere-2-militares/

 



 

Synopsis:

 

A series of ambushes against Mexican soldiers killed a hitman and wounded two Mexican soldiers in a rural area near the Texas border. The confrontation took place over the weekend near the city of Guerrero, east of the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras. According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by Coahuila state officials, a group of gunmen shot a squad of soldiers patrolling the highway between Piedras Negras and Nuevo Laredo. Later, the hitmen fled, unleashing a high-speed chase, however, the hitmen were apparently heading to a point where another group of hitmen was preparing an ambush. The hitmen fired at the soldiers, prompting a short but intense shootout in which one hitman was killed, while two soldiers sustained gunshot wounds. The scene of the shooting is just 20 miles north of Villa Unión, a small rural community that in late 2019 was the scene of a large-scale incursion that left 23 people dead, by the Cartel del Noreste faction of Los Zetas. As Breitbart Texas reported, the governor of Coahuila revealed that at least 150 hitmen had carried out the attack as a way to terrorize locals. The scene where the most recent shooting occurred has become one of the main smuggling corridors used by members of the Los Zetas Northeast Cartel faction to move drugs and certain migrants across the Rio Grande. Most of the Texas border with Coahuila has a minimal number of fences or walls, making the shallow waters of the Rio Grande the only barrier to human and drug traffickers.

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Topic # 7:  Criminal Groups Zero in on Mexico Resort Construction

Source:  https://insightcrime.org/news/criminal-groups-hotel-industry-riviera-maya-mexico/

 



 

The Story:

 

Criminal groups in one of Mexico’s most popular tourist regions have found yet another sector to extort and terrorize: hotel builders. Everyone — from engineers, to plumbers and painters — is systematically extorted during the construction of Cancun’s hotels, according to an investigation by Aristegui Noticias in alliance with Connectas. When workers or their employers don’t pay, they have been tortured, disappeared, and even killed, according to accounts from victims and their families. A map in the report highlights several hotels built along the Caribbean coast of the state of Quintana Roo — home to the popular beach destinations of Cancún and Riviera Maya — that have been the targets of crime groups. The modus operandi is always the same. When the construction of a hotel begins, crime groups demand what has been dubbed “floor rights,” weekly fees from construction workers or their bosses. For low-level employees, many from other Mexican states — the quota can represent a third of their earnings, according to the investigation. Construction workers have also been press-ganged into working for the criminal groups themselves. They “are captured and taken, first to assist with drug sales, and later they are converted into hitmen,” Quintana Roo Attorney General Óscar Montes de Oca told Aristegui Noticias. According to James Tobin Cunningham, a member of Mexico’s National Security Council who is cited in the report, between 30,000 and 40,000 construction workers may be victims of this type of scheme. However, few complaints to authorities are ever logged, out of fear.

 

ANALYSIS BY INSIGHT CRIME:

 

The tourist corridor of Riviera Maya, visited by more than one million people a year, has attracted criminal groups involved in a range of illicit activities, including extortion of restaurants and bars, street-level drug sales and human trafficking. It was was only natural that they would begin to target the hotel construction sector, which has seen major growth in recent years. Several criminal groups have a presence in the Riviera Maya, including Mexico’s two most powerful cartels, the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación — CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel. Remnants of the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas are also present, while foreign groups like the Romanian mafia have found a foothold there as well. Due to its perch on the Caribbean sea, the region also serves as a gateway for cocaine arriving in Mexico via the Atlantic routes from South America. In September 2020, for example, almost three tons of the drug were seized in the port municipality of Mahahual. Criminal groups now regularly battle over control of territory and illicit activities. In 2020, Quintana Roo state registered 581 homicides. In December of this year, more than 160 disappearances were reported. At least three local politicians were also shot dead, reportedly after receiving threats from crime groups. Though important efforts have been made by authorities in Quintana Roo to combat organized crime, officials often downplay violence aimed at people who are not tourists to maintain an image of safety. For example, in January, the Planet Hollywood hotel in Cancun opened to much fanfare. Two months before, however, authorities had found the remains of four missing workers on land adjacent the hotel. Family members claimed that this might be a clandestine grave, where other remains could also be found, but they have not seen any subsequent investigation taking place. “All [the homicides] are deplorable, but as a state that lives off tourism, we have to take care of our raw material, which is tourism, so that [tourists] do not decide not to come,” said Prosecutor Montes de Oca, according to the report by Aristegui Noticias.

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[ccp]

and the DNC Harris and Pelosi
   and the entire Dem party

for their votes

[Crafty_Dog]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNnbdZWBwpz/?igshid=w7nzzbvqk3vz&fbclid=IwAR3RZAhkHqHFPwsV7c6yivCZUenUyS5JrYwA0XeO7uYTLVihQiczKBzS_0Y

[G M]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNnbdZWBwpz/?igshid=w7nzzbvqk3vz&fbclid=IwAR3RZAhkHqHFPwsV7c6yivCZUenUyS5JrYwA0XeO7uYTLVihQiczKBzS_0Y

I can't view Instagram.

[DougMacG]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNnbdZWBwpz/?igshid=w7nzzbvqk3vz&fbclid=IwAR3RZAhkHqHFPwsV7c6yivCZUenUyS5JrYwA0XeO7uYTLVihQiczKBzS_0Y

I can't view Instagram.

Looks like 20 humans packed like sardines  hidden under floor boards being smuggled and trafficked as prisoners.  The American dream in the Biden Harris era.

[G M]

Enroute to NY State for the 15K handout?

https://www.dailywire.com/news/ny-to-give-illegal-immigrants-covid-checks-of-up-to-15600-republicans-hit-back-in-new-york-it-pays-to-break-the-law

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNnbdZWBwpz/?igshid=w7nzzbvqk3vz&fbclid=IwAR3RZAhkHqHFPwsV7c6yivCZUenUyS5JrYwA0XeO7uYTLVihQiczKBzS_0Y

I can't view Instagram.

Looks like 20 humans packed like sardines  hidden under floor boards being smuggled and trafficked as prisoners.  The American dream in the Biden Harris era.

[Crafty_Dog]

Topic # 1:  Cartel Operatives Criticize DEA Map of Cartel Influence in the US: “It’s Bull ---,” They Said

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/cartel-operatives-criticize-dea-map-of.html

 

 

Photo # 1: Mexican soldiers stand guard next to packages of marijuana at a military base in Tijuana

Chart # 1: Major Mexican organized-crime groups' areas of influence in the US, according to the DEA's 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment. (2020 National Drug Threat Assessment)

Photo # 2: Pedro Flores, left, and his twin brother, Margarito Flores, in undated photos from a wanted poster released by the US Marshals Service



Photo # 3: A fraction of the cocaine seized from a ship at a Philadelphia port on display at the US Custom House in Philadelphia

Chart # 2:  The cartel areas of influence map from the 2016 National Drug Threat Assessment. (DEA NDTA 2016)

 

The Story:

 

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently released its annual National Drug Threat Assessment, in which it maps out the states where Mexican drug cartels have gained "influence." Asked about that depiction of cartel presence in the US, security experts and cartel sources told Insider "it's bulls---." The DEA's report says Mexican transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, "maintain great influence" in most US states, with the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion showing the "biggest signs of expansion." A map included in the report shows the Sinaloa Cartel, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Cartel del Golfo, Organización de Beltran-Leyva, and Los Rojos as the most "influential" drug organizations with presence in Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Chicago, New York, Florida, Kansas, Colorado, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, among other states. "Mexican TCOs continue to control lucrative smuggling corridors, primarily across the SWB [Southwest Border], and maintain the greatest drug trafficking influence in the United States," the report says. But operatives for the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion interviewed by Insider said their criminal organizations maintain "only clients or helpers" across the border and "not members of our organization."

 

"You would never see anyone in the US saying they are part of the organization [Sinaloa Cartel], because that is bulls---. The members and leaders of the organization are in Mexico, not in the US. What we have there are clients or associates, people helping transport, or gang members working with us," a Sinaloa Cartel operative told Insider. The operative explained that most of the gangs or "associates" in the US work as independents. "We wholesale to them and what they do to that merchandise is their problem. We don't give a f---. They can loose it, sell it, snort it, whatever, as long as they pay up," he said. One of the most prominent cases used to prove Mexican cartels' presence in the US was that of Pedro and Margarito Flores, two brothers from Chicago accused of importing cocaine for the Sinaloa Cartel. The Flores brothers admitted to smuggling at least 1,500 kgs of cocaine for the Sinaloa cartel into the US every month between 2005 and 2008. According to their guilty pleas, they also sent more than $930 million in "bulk cash" back to the cartel in Mexico.

 

US authorities allege the brothers were part of the Sinaloa Cartel, but a phone call of a negotiation with then-Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman that was made public during Guzman's trial in 2018 revealed Flores brothers bargaining over the price of a 20 kg shipment of heroin. "Do you think we can work something out where you can deduct five pesos from those for me?" said a man identified as Pedro Flores. "How much are you going to pay for it?" said the other man on the call, allegedly Guzman. 'It just doesn't make sense.' Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico and former official with CISEN, Mexico's top security intelligence organization, said the DEA warns of Mexican drug cartels being active in the US in order "to keep asking for money." "It's DEA's bulls---. They have been doing this for years, and it just doesn't make sense. Cartels today are not structured [like] a hierarchy organization, but more like a decentralized network," Hope told Insider.

 

"The logic behind the DEA [report] is to argue there is an invasion of external forces so they can justify more budget and support from the US," he said. Neither DEA headquarters nor its offices in Texas and Arizona responded to requests for comment on the map. The report describes the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion as "one of the fastest growing cartels" and says the organization "smuggles illicit drugs into the United States by accessing various trafficking corridors in northern Mexico along the SWB including Tijuana, Juarez and Nuevo Laredo." "The cartels dominate the drug trade influencing the United States market, with most cartels having a poly drug market approach that allows for maximum flexibility and resiliency of their operations," the report states. The report doesn't describe how these organizations maintain their presence in the US. "The DEA has a problem with semantics. What does influence actually mean? What does presence even mean? An associate is no other thing but a client," Hope said. An operative for Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion said the organization maintained a large group of members in Mexico who are "mostly on the armed side of the operations," while most contacts in the US were clients.

 

"Most of what we can call members of the Jalisco organization are on the arms [side], like sicarios, and some producers that are on a payroll, but everyone else is either a client we are selling to or an association to have access to certain route" for distribution in the US, he said. Some intelligence officials believe Mexican cartels do have a real presence on US soil but function differently there. "The substantial difference is that drug criminal enterprises are not displaying force at the border with the US because it is not needed. We should take into account that keeping a low profile is good for their activities and business, just as any other corporation," said a high-level foreign intelligence official in Mexico who asked for anonymity. The official said cartel associates in the US have something like membership, even if they aren't part of the cartel structure, and "are using the brand" to prove their drugs' quality. "We need to consider that they act just as another transnational company, with their level of organization, distribution, reach, and territory control. They do have a presence in the US in how their drug has a brand backing up certain quality," the official said.

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Topic # 2:  San Luis Potosi: Cartel del Noreste Suspected in Police Execution

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/san-luis-potosi-slp-cartel-del-noreste.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

A Capital policeman by the name of Jose de Jesus Tapia was murdered by a group of armed men as he was walking past them. The officer was a Municipal Policeman in the capital of San Luis Potosí (SLP). His execution took place in the Nuevo Progreso neighborhood. On the road that leads to Guanajuato known as Camino Viejo to Guanajuato. The community of Nuevo Progreso lies just south east of the city’s center. A cardboard narco message was found at the crime scene. The message has yet to be released to the public at this time. Sources are claiming that the Cartel del Noreste (CDN) was behind his murder.

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Topic # 3:  FBI Searching For Arkansas Man Who May Be a Victim of Kidnapping in Mexico

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/fbi-searching-for-arkansas-man-who-may.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) believes that a man from Bentonville, Arkansas, is missing in Mexico and may have been kidnapped. Luis Davila, 31, went to Mexico to visit his girlfriend near Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, according to a news release sent by the FBI's Little Rock Field Office. Davila was last seen on March 29, 2021, near Monterrey. He was driving a silver 2016 Nissan Maxima with the Arkansas license plate 936 VET. He was wearing a white shirt and jeans at the time. Davila is about 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighs about 190 pounds and has brown eyes and black hair. The FBI believes Davila may still be in Mexico, possibly near Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. This case comes weeks after three women from Laredo, Texas, went missing in Nuevo Laredo. Their whereabouts are unknown and FBI investigators say that there is no indication the women did not plan to return to Texas. As reported by Borderland Beat, Nuevo Laredo is under the control of the Northeast Cartel (Cartel del Noreste, CDN), a splintered group of the old Zetas cartel. It is rival to the Gulf Cartel (Cartel del Golfo, CDG), based east of Nuevo Laredo all the way to Matamoros. In the past, the CDN has targeted American drivers in Nuevo Laredo by forcing them to pay money or "cartel tax" (cuota). Most of these incident happened near Luis Donaldo Colosio Avenue, which connects Nuevo Laredo with the federal highway leading to Monterrey. A source consulted by Borderland Beat confirmed that the cartel has several outlooks posted across the highway that notify other cartel members of potential targets driving through. Borderland Beat published a story with videos showing how the CDN sets up blockades to extort drivers.

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Topic # 4: Ex-Governor of Tamaulipas To Pay US$9.5 Million as Part of His Plea Agreement

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/ex-governor-of-tamaulipas-to-pay-up-to.html

 



Tomas Yarrington, former Mayor of Matamoros and Governor of Tamaulipas

 

Synopsis:

 

The US government released the final seizure order for the former Governor of Tamaulipas, Tomás Yarrington. He will have to forfeiture between US$3.5 and up to $9.5 million, a figure investigators determined he made for 15 years while laundering money for the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, and the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO). They say that Yarrington bought multiple properties in the US with these drug proceeds. Among them included properties in San Antonio, Laredo, and Port Isabel, Texas. Yarrington faces up to 20 years in prison for his money laundering charges. Yarrington pleaded guilty last month and will receive a soother sentence. During his plea deal, Yarrington also detailed how he accepted bribes from individuals and private companies in Mexico to do business with the state of Tamaulipas while he served as governor. Originally, Yarrington faced up to life in prison if he had been convicted of the racketeering or drug trafficking conspiracy charges the U.S. government leveled against him eight years ago. On more than 15,000 digital documents consisting of 100,000 pages, US investigators detailed how Yarrington took bribes from the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, and the BLO, and actively participated in drug trafficking operations. Authorities from multiple law enforcement agencies had pictures, information about warrants, seizures, and protected witness testimonies framing him as a top cartel figure. Borderland Beat records show that Yarrington was a key figure in the Gulf Cartel's ascension as one of Mexico's leading criminal groups in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During that era, the cartel was headed by legendary kingpin Osiel Cardenas Guillen. US prosecutors walked away from the allegations and dismissed these serious charges after Yarrington pleaded guilty.

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Topic # 5:  Children in Guerrero Arm Themselves Against Cartels

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/children-in-guerrero-arm-themselves.html

 

 

Photo # 1: This Saturday, April 10, minors between the ages of six and fifteen led a column of armed self-defense groups in the mountainous region of the state of Guerrero. They are defending themselves from the criminal group Los Ardillos

Photo # 2: It is not the first time that the community guards have armed and paraded the children of the community, but this protest has been the largest so far

Photo # 3: Some children fire rounds into the air after leaving their wooden rifles



Photo # 4: In the town's main square of the community of Ayahualtempa, members of the community police ask the federal government to help them against drug traffickers

 

The Story:

 

Under a zenith sun, armed children parade one after another throwing cheers at orphans, widows, indigenous peoples, and General Zapata. “Live! live! live!”. For the third consecutive year, the infants have joined the adults of the community police in a kind of military parade that is a call for help to the Government of Mexico and also a show of force before the organized crime groups that besiege them in the Low Mountain of the State of Guerrero. They are now just an irreducible village of 600 inhabitants in an area where poppy cultivation has been gaining ground by gunfire. Los Ardillos want the land and semi-slave labor for the opium gum. Whoever does not fold pays it dearly. And in the municipality of José Joaquín de Herrera they do not want to fold. Last year, the strategy of arming children, even with toy shotguns for the seven to 12-year-olds, paid off. The government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador was forced to react to the international outrage. Armed children in Mexico. This year, the community police have forced the pulse a little more: the kids have fired into the air in an open field after launching slogans and demanding that the Government “support the widows, orphans and displaced people. Enough of crime and discrimination against the indigenous peoples of Mexico”. The shots also looked like toys, but they weren’t.

 

The so-called self-defense groups have a long tradition in Guerrero and have spread throughout the country. Ordinary people arm themselves to protect themselves from the dangers that threaten them. After all, the Constitution establishes autonomy for indigenous peoples in matters of justice and police, among others. And they exercise it, not always very wisely. The siege of organized crime has turned these local patrols into defense forces that every year lose lives in their shootings with drug cartels. On both sides, people lose lives. In 2020 there were six attacks, according to the accounts of Bernardino Sánchez Luna, 48, a veteran guerrilla member who organizes these militias in the area. The armed defense of these communities was born with a community security objective, but, at the same time, it became a quasi-military group to which they now add children to train them. Why involve children? Why raise them with a shotgun in their hands? “The Government has not complied with us. We asked him for help against the groups and he has not given it. We ask him for secondary school teachers, because we cannot leave the town, and they have not arrived. Our task is to cultivate the fields, if he does not want us to arm ourselves, then he must give us security”, says Bernardino, as they all call him. “The Government has not complied with us.” There is the pulse. The rest is bravado so Los Ardillos know who they are playing it with.

 

The line of black-haired and dark-skinned soldiers parade through town. They wear a peaked cap and stiff leather huaraches. With a bandana tied to the neck they cover their nose and mouth, as if they were guerrillas. Little flesh and blood figures who smile with all their teeth at the package of cookies. The dust of the dirt streets covers everything and the sun does not give its arm to twist. They carry wooden weapons, toy guns; the smallest holds sticks. And they throw cheers with a megaphone while on the truck of a vehicle. It almost seems like a holiday. The procession has been led by women, who have little voice in these towns. Then come the kids, then the adults. Their shotguns also reveal years of struggle: the worn handles, the dull barrel, homemade straps. More than a show of force, it looks like an army returning home after years of battle. Defeated. The journalists have arrived in a car caravan. By driving together they protect themselves from dangerous roads with checkpoints of all kinds of uniformed men. They are welcomed to a place where nobody enters, because the hosts want to send a message “to the world”. “We are not criminals,” the children tell the Government at the microphone in a sports hall. In many parts of the Mexico, citizens now wear self-defense shirts without it being fully known who they are or what they stand for. In this municipality there is only one certainty: they are poor and they don’t want violence, but generation after generation they go through arms. Sitting at the edge of the court, three women seem oblivious to the matter.

 

The oldest speaks Nahuatl, like everyone else, and pretends not to understand. The youngest, 27, does not want her children to carry rifles. “It will be what God wants. I would not like my children … but if the people chose that way, then no way”. Her name is Claudia Bolaños and she has a 5-year-old boy and a baby who sleeps in her arms. Men choose. Among them they vote for the Communal Council that governs in assembly. They will decide whether set up the polls on June 6, when Mexico will vote for 20,000 public offices and 15 governorships, among them that of Guerrero. Half the country has raised its hands to its head because the candidate to govern this land by the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party, the same as President López Obrador, is accused of rape and his candidacy has been annulled due to fiscal inconsistencies. What do they know on the mountain of Félix Salgado Macedonio? Bernardino says little or nothing. There is no television here. Nothing to add about a case that has been on national headlines for weeks. No candidate, also according to the guerrilla, has appeared in this community yet. The assembly will vote if they consent to a vote on the 6th. The absence of the State in this area is obvious. Are they in abandonment? “One could say, Yes. Faced with a simplified discourse that attributes everything to drug trafficking, the authorities end up looking the other way, there is nothing to do, they seem to say,” said Franco-Argentine anthropologist Romain Le Cour. She has been in Mexico for 12 years and works for the international NGO Noria, specialized in violence around the world.

 

Le Cour knows a lot about the Mexican people. “What happens here is much more complex. It is a social problem, of poverty and neglect. It is not enough to blame the violence on the drug traffickers and let the indigenous communities govern themselves without help,” she explains. Simple messages end in simple solutions. And the lack of peace that exists in this mountain requires something more. There is a blurry relationship between local leaders (caciques), narcos, and politicians in this area. Interests more crossed than the bullets themselves. In José Joaquín de Herrera Municipality there are nine widows, 14 orphans and 34 displaced people from nearby besieged communities. And they are isolated. The doctor approaches when there is an emergency. Nobody stops him on the road, because he also heals the afflicted in other towns. Some merchants arrive to supply the basics, after paying the one who charges. And, of course, the Cola-Cola truck. “And the one with the Pepsi,” laughs Bernardino. When they finish primary school, the students do not continue studying because they would have to travel a few kilometers further, where the danger lies: bullets or kidnappings, they say. Nor do they come to see the relatives who live in the entrance of the region. In this town, when they point to the mountain, they see shotgun barrels instead of thinking of corn, beans, or squash. On one side some goats browse, two black-and-white pigs are tied by a rope, a donkey brays beyond. The sweaty troops enter the field. “Community children, firm now! Embracing weapons, now! If there is no one to defend us, then we are going to respond with fire to the hit men, sons of the bitch!”. A dozen shots leave puffs of smoke in the air. And the mountain echoes them. Firm now! Embrace weapons, now! If there is no law defending orphaned children in Mexico, nor government that protects us, then we are going to respond with fire to all sicarios, sons of the bitch!

 

Bernando Sanchez - Founder of the Community Police: We have 30 comrades who have died against cartels. Every time one dies or is kidnapped, we go to the military to ask for help. But they tell us they do not have orders to leave their barracks. We were forced to bring kids into our ranks. Since kids go out on patrols, we want them to be armed to be able to defend themselves. Like we like to say around here: 'It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.' We have 14 orphans. Right now we have no support from the government. Los Ardillos criminal group is trying to dominate our communities and live us in misery by taking our natural resources. I ask the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who says he sides with the people, who says he will help the indigenous people. I tell him that here we are and have not received help from the federal government. We have widows, orphans, and displaced, and not even this makes the government want to help us. I ask him to not only make promises. Political campaigns are underway and this will be the time where people will be tricked with fake promises. Lots of promises will be made but nothing will be done.

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Topic # 6:  Bar Attack Leaves 5 Dead in the Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Area

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/bar-attack-leaves-5-dead-in-monterrey.html

 

 

Photo # 1: The bar, 'La Zertuche Clamateria', is now permanently closed in this location. Two other branches remain open

Photo # 2: Two of the five victims that were killed

Photo # 3: Example of the vandalism done in San Pedro Garza Garcia

 

The Story:

 

Five men killed and four seriously wounded was the ending balance left this weekend during an armed attack at a bar in Guadalupe, a municipality of the Monterrey metropolitan area in Nuevo Leon. This is the first massacre reported in this municipality in 2021. According to witnesses, the attackers arrived at the bar in two vehicles and began shooting at the victims. They then fled to the Miguel de la Madrid Boulevard, where authorities located a gray car that was likely used as the getaway vehicle. The bodies were found between the entrance and behind the bar. The bar was celebrating its first year of opening and there were many people in attendance. "I was drinking at the bar when I heard loud gunfire. I ran to hide and avoid getting shot," a witness said. After witnesses called the emergency line, municipal police officers and paramedics from the Green Cross of Guadalupe and the Red Cross arrived at the scene. Paramedics confirmed that eight people were shot and that five of them were killed. Their names were not released to the public by press time.

 

Brazen attacks at business establishments are an usual occurrence in Nuevo Leon, and particularly in the Monterrey metropolitean area. Attacks at bars were more common in the early 2010s, when the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas were competing for control of this urban area. Investigators say that the attack in Guadalupe was drug-related; the bar was reportedly had a punto (drug sale spot) of a local gang. Most of the murders committed in the Monterrey metropolitan area are driven by gangs competing over street corners and businesses to sell heroin, cocaine, and meth. Several drug cartels have been reported in the area, including various Gulf Cartel (CDG) factions, the Northeast Cartel (CDN), the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), and even remnants of the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO). Unofficial reports say that this bar attack was between the CJNG and the CDN.

 

More incidents in the region

 

In the municipality of San Pedro Garza García, considered the richest city in Mexico, several residences and cars were vandalized and had the acronyms of "CDN" painted on them. The paints were made with red aerosol and were marked in at least five residences and three cars in the Villas de Santa Engracia neighborhood. According to intelligence and police sources, the BLO has had a strong presence in the municipality of San Pedro Garza Garcia for several years and has not allowed other organized crime groups to settle. The head of the cartel in this plaza is José Rodolfo Villarreal Hernández ('El Gato').

 

More Information

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2021/04/12/exclusive-mexican-border-state-shooting-leaves-five-dead-amid-turf-war/

 



“El Rodo”

 

A weekend cartel attack that killed five men and left three more injured in the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon is linked to a turf war over street-level drug sales. One of the main figures in that war operates from inside a state prison. The attack took place over the weekend in the suburb of Guadalupe in the Monterrey metropolitan area. Gunmen used a small sedan to pull up to a business in the San Rafael neighborhood with 9mm and .40cal handguns, shooting a total of eight men. Five of them died at the scene. The gunmen fired 43 rounds into the building, injuring and killing anyone inside. Authorities found the vehicle used by the gunmen a few blocks from the initial scene. The case is currently listed as the most violent shooting in Nuevo Leon in 2021. Breitbart Texas consulted with U.S. law enforcement sources who operate in Mexico about the motives behind the shooting. Current information points to a turf war between independent drug dealers, where a cell of hitmen under orders from  Joel Rodolfo “El Rodo” Ramones Barba attacked a distribution spot run by another independent dealer known only as “El Kamala.” Breitbart Texas previously exposed El Rodo, who has been operating from inside the Apodaca state prison in Nuevo Leon. With the help of corrupt state police officers, El Rodo has been able to control parts of the prison and give orders to gunmen on the outside as he seeks to control the suburbs of Guadalupe and Juarez. The Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas previously targeted El Rodo.

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Topic # 7:  Badiraguato, Sinaloa: The Mexican Navy Combs Through Rafael Caro Quintero Birthplace

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/badiraguato-sinaloa-mexican-navy-combs.html

 

Synopsis:

 

A contingent of members of the Mexican Navy this morning began an operation in the mountainous area of ​​Badiraguato, Sinaloa. Witnesses and residents told Riódoce that since Sunday morning, sailors in helicopters arrived in the communities of Guanajuato, Babunica and Bamopa, near La Noria, where Rafael Caro Quintero was born. The town of Guanajuato is located 5 minutes from Santiago de los Caballeros, while the other two towns are passing La Noria. Residents of Babunica and Santiago de los Caballeros confirmed the mobilization of the Armed Navy with the support of helicopters from the Air Force that were in the military base of the latter community. Other residents point out that the operation on the ground and in the air is supported by unmanned ships. Since the release of Caro Quintero, accused of participating in the murder of the DEA agent, Enrique Camarena, in the Sierra de Sinaloa, specifically in the towns around La Noria, Navy operations have been carried out trying to locate Rafael Caro. The capo was released in August 2013 by a federal judge, but still claimed by the US authorities and by whom they offer a reward for his capture. Known as the Narco de Narcos, Caro Quintero founded, together with the drug trafficker Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, the extinct Guadalajara cartel in the 1980s. Caro Quintero was imprisoned for 28 years accused of the murder of the DEA agent, Enrique Kiki Camarena, registered on March 5, 1985, and in 2013 he was released after obtaining protection from federal justice in the absence of a formal sentence.

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Topic # 8:  Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala deploy troops to lower migration 

Source:  https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/immigration/central-american-nations-deploy-troops-to-reduce-migration/

 



Young unaccompanied migrants wait for their turn at the secondary processing station inside the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, the main detention center for unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley, in Donna, Texas

 

The Story:

 

The Biden administration has struck an agreement with Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala to temporarily surge security forces to their borders in an effort to reduce the tide of migration to the U.S. border. The agreement comes as the U.S. saw a record number of unaccompanied children attempting to cross the border in March, and the largest number of Border Patrol encounters overall with migrants on the southern border — just under 170,000 — since March 2001. According to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Mexico will maintain a deployment of about 10,000 troops, while Guatemala has surged 1,500 police and military personnel to its southern border and Honduras deployed 7,000 police and military to its border “to disperse a large contingent of migrants” there. Guatemala will also set up 12 checkpoints along the migratory route through the country. A White House official said Guatemala and Honduras were deploying troops temporarily in response to a large caravan of migrants that was being organized at the end of March. Psaki said “the objective is to make it more difficult to make the journey, and make crossing the borders more difficult.”

 

She added that the agreement was the product of “a series of bilateral discussions” between U.S. officials and the governments of the Central American nations. While Vice President Kamala Harris has been tasked with leading diplomatic efforts to tamp down on the increase in migration at the U.S. border, Psaki declined to share details on her involvement with the discussions and said only that the discussions happened at “several levels.” She noted that Roberta Jacobson, who will depart her role as the administration’s southwest border coordinator at the end of the month, was involved in talks. Mexico announced in March that it was deploying National Guard members and immigration agents to its southern border, and it has maintained more personnel at its southern border since Trump threatened tariffs on Mexican imports in 2019. On Monday, Mexico’s Foreign Affairs ministry said, “Mexico will maintain the existing deployment of federal forces in the its border area, with the objective of enforcing its own immigration legislation, to attend to migrants, mainly unaccompanied minors, and to combat the trafficking of people.”

 

Honduras Foreign Affairs Minister Lisandro Rosales said Monday that Honduras maintains a multinational force at its border with Guatemala that works closely with that government on not only immigration, but also organized crime and other illegal activity. But “there was no commitment on the part of the Honduran delegation to put soldiers on the border, even though there is a clear commitment by the Honduran government to avoid this kind of migration that generates death and mourning for Honduran families,” Rosales said. But Honduras Defense Secretary Fredy Santiago Díaz Zelaya, who was part of a Honduran delegation that met with U.S. officials in Washington last week, said later that the military was studying the possibility of sending more troops to the border to assist in migration control. He said the military always works under a plan and that planning would determine how many troops would assist national police and immigration authorities at the border. “We need to do a correct analysis of the situation, increase troops if it’s necessary,” Díaz Zelaya told local press. He said Honduras would do so “in response to this request that comes from the great nation to the north (the United States) to be able to help on the issue of immigration.”

 

The Guatemalan government denied there was any signed agreement with the United States to place troops at the border to stop migrants. “The Guatemalan government has undertaken protection and security actions at the border since last year, on its own initiative, it is a constitutional mandate,” said presidential spokeswoman Patricia Letona. “In the context of the pandemic, the protection of the borders has become a fundamental aim for the containment of the virus.” Guatemalan troops have been responsible for breaking up the last several attempted migrant caravans. The increase in migrants at the border is becoming one of the major challenges confronting Biden in the early months of his first term. Numbers grew sharply during Trump’s final year in office but further accelerated under Biden, who quickly ended many of his predecessor’s policies, including one that made asylum-seekers wait in Mexico for court hearings in the U.S. Mexicans represented the largest proportion of people encountered by the U.S. Border Patrol, and nearly all were single adults. Arrivals of people from Honduras and Guatemala were second and third, respectively, and more than half of the people from those countries were families or children traveling alone.

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[Crafty_Dog]

 

Four Policemen from Morelos Wanted For Kidnapping Two Businessmen
Leaks From the National Guard Database Expose Gulf Cartel Kingpins
Links Between Sinaloans and Mafia Group ‘Ndrangheta Are Uncovered In Italian Investigation Involving Two Detainees
Municipal Police Officer Arrested Was the Leader of La Empresa in Chihuahua City
The Mexican Women Who Kicked out the Cartels
The Private Empire of Tamaulipas Governor Garcia Cabeza de Vaca
Body count from drug cartel wars earns Mexican cities label of ‘most violent in the world’
Closing Prisons Only Postpones Real Issues in Mexico
 

 

Topic # 1:  Four Policemen from Morelos Wanted For Kidnapping Two Businessmen

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/four-policemen-from-morelos-wanted-for.html

 



Synopsis:

 

The Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office in Morelos disclosed the faces of four ex-police officers and offered a reward of almost MXN$25,000 to anyone that provides information that leads to their arrest. These police officers are wanted for kidnapping two businessmen in eastern Morelos. The former police officers have been considered fugitives since last January after one of their colleagues was arrested for the same crime and confessed their participation in the kidnapping. Their full names are José Mario Gómez Guillén, Gabriel Iván Fuentes Galicia, Carlos Ricardo Cabello Hernández, and Isaías Pérez Martínez. The victims are Román Martínez García (aged 39) and his stepson Luis Fernando Ogazón Ariza (aged 23), who were reported as missing since last January 16, after they were detained by the officers in Yautepec municipality. These two people were owners of a gas station. His family and friends reported their kidnapping to the police. After failing to get a response, they organized their own search and protests to bring attention to the case. The investigations revealed that two of the four police fugitives are members of the state police assigned to the municipality of Yautepec; all four abandoned their weapons and cargo vehicles to flee without a trace. Based on these investigations, elements of the Criminal Investigation Agency detained Jesús Fernando Soriano Ramírez a Yautepec police force, for his alleged participation in the kidnapping. He has been collaborating with investigators to find the other four officers involved.

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Topic # 2:  Leaks From the National Guard Database Expose Gulf Cartel Kingpins

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/leaks-from-national-guard-database.html

 



Map of the state of Tamaulipas above; Four drug kingpins from the Gulf Cartel were exposed over the Internet earlier this week when someone within the National Guard leaked their information. Below is the breakdown of each of these figures

 

The Story:

 

Citizen journalists in Tamaulipas published several leaks from a National Guard (GN) database that include sensitive information about multiple fugitive Gulf Cartel kingpins. The information released includes pictures, full names, addresses, family trees, DOBs and POBs, work and/or criminal history, and other general information about them. Some of these criminals are only wanted by federal authorities while others are fugitives at both state and federal level. To comply with our privacy guidelines, Borderland Beat omitted the exact addresses of these suspected drug kingpins. We removed the streets and house numbers but kept the city and state. We have also removed the names of the suspects' children as many of them are minors.

 



Cesar Morfin Morfin, alias "El Primito"

 

This first display shows the information about El Primito, the Gulf Cartel plaza boss in La Frontera Chica (also known as La Ribereña), a border region along Tamaulipas. The municipalities of Guerrero, Mier, Miguel Aleman, Camargo and Diaz Ordaz make up La Frontera Chica. According to the data presented, El Primito was born in 1987 in Colima, Colima, Mexico, and does not have previous criminal history. The GN confirms that El Primito has up to 10 known addresses under his name.

 

Location of properties

 

Reynosa, Tamaulipas

Colima, Colima

Villa de Alvarez, Colima

El Palomar, Jalisco

Mexico City

Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco

Pihuamo, Jalisco

Pihuamo, Jalisco (different address)

Pihuamo, Jalisco (different address)

Pihuamo, Jalisco (different address)

 

Family members

 

Father - Remigio Morfin Moreno

Mother - Maria De Jesus Morfin Galvan

Wife - Alma Rosa Magaña De La Mora

Brother - Alvaro Noe Morfin Morfin (1978)

Brother - Alejandro Morfin Morfin (1981)

Sister - Blanca Trinidad Morfin Morfin (1984)

Brother - Remigio Morfin Morfin (1991)

 



Carlos Humerto Acuña de los Santos, alias "Comandante Mono", "M-36", and "Metro 36"

 

This second display shows the information of El Mono, the Gulf Cartel plaza boss in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, the bastion of Los Metros faction. He is the successor of both Juan Manuel Loza Salinas ("El Toro") and Petronilo Moreno Flores ("Panilo"), who were killed and arrested in 2017 and 2018, respectively. GN information shows that El Mono is close to El Primito. According to the data presented, El Mono was born in 1989 in Llera, Tamaulipas, and does not have previous criminal history. One of the observation notes in the display says that El Mono was in the Mexican Army from 1 August 2007 to 19 May 2014. He was stationed in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital of Tamaulipas, as an infantry soldier.

 

Location of properties

 

Llera, Tamaulipas

Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas

 

Family members

 

Fathers - Humberto Heisy Acuña Cantu

Mother - Maria Epifanias de los Santos

Spouse - Ana Keren Vargas Sanchez

Former Partner - Cindy Natali Cedillo Sanchez

 



Hector de Leon Fonseca, alias "Mario Gonzalez Martinez", "R3", "Teto", and/or "Chenco"

 

This third display shows the information of R-3, the Gulf Cartel plaza boss in the Tampico metropolitan area. This conurbation includes the municipalities of Tampico, Altamira, Ciudad Madero, Pueblo Viejo, and Pánuco. As reported by Borderland Beat, R-3 worked closely with Silvestre Haro Rodríguez, alias "R-1" and/or "El Chive", and his brother Marco Antonio Haro Rodriguez, alias "R-2" and/or "Toñin". The Tampico faction reportedly has an alliance with the one in Matamoros. The information revealed shows that R-3 was born in 1977 in Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

 

Location of properties

 

Reynosa, Tamaulipas

 

Family members

 

Father - Jose Humberto de Leon Hernandez

Mother - Guadalupe Fonseca

Brother - Jesus de Leon Fonseca

Sister - Gabriela Nohemi de Leon Fonseca

Spouse - Erika Daniela Murillo Dominguez

 

R-3's directs and plaza structure

 



 



 



Odilon Hernandez Valdivia, alias "Tango Uno" and/or "Tango

 

This fourth display shows Tango Uno, the Gulf Cartel plaza boss in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital of Tamaulipas. The leaked information reveals that Tango Uno was a Supervisor in the Reynosa Transit Police from 2005 to 2007, when Governor of Tamaulipas Francisco Javier Cabeza de Vaca was mayor. Data shows that Tango Uno was born in 1979 in Tamaulipas (the exact municipality was not provided).

 

Location of properties

 

Matamoros Tamaulipas

 

Family members

N/A - None listed

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Topic # 3:  Links Between Sinaloans and Mafia Group ‘Ndrangheta Are Uncovered In Italian Investigation Involving Two Detainees

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/links-between-sinaloans-and-mafia-group.html

 

 

Photo # 1: The two Guatelamans in Italian custody worked for fugitive Sinaloa Cartel trafficker Jose Angel Rivera Zazueta, alias El Flaco. He is one of the Sinaloa Cartel's main operators in Europe

Photo # 2:  El Flaco arrived in Italy in 2019. Reports say he lives in Asia and may be related to one of the nephews of legendary drug kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes

Photo # 3:  Daniel “Tito” Esteban Ortega Ubeda and Felix Ruben Villagran Lopez in Verona, where they traveled from southern Italy for a cocaine deal.

 

Synopsis:

 

Two Guatemalans imprisoned in Italy for smuggling drugs for the Sinaloa Cartel are scheduled for trial on May 18, 2021. They are accused of trafficking 385 kg (848 lbs) of cocaine into Italy. The two defendants are Daniel Esteban Ortega Úbeda, alias Tito, and Félix Rubén Villagrán López. They will face trial for drug trafficking at a tribunal court in Catania. Italian prosecutors were initially looking to have both of them sentenced to 21 years, but since both defendents agreed to a summary judgement (i.e. partial trial), the sentence recommendation was reduced to 14 years: eight for organized crime involvement and six for drug trafficking. Defense attorney Ofelia Liñán Aguilera, flanked by her Italian colleague Luigi Tozzi, has asked for the acquittal for her clients, believing that during the investigation that led to their arest, police officers 'induced' the commission of the crime.

 

They stressed that at some point during the investigation, the defendants thought of backing down from the drug deal the police were setting up to catch them. They said that the undercover agents encouraged them to do a crime and that this diminishes their culpability. "The agents were fully involved in this drug deal that they are partially responsible for it as well," the lawyer explained by phone. Liñan-Aguilera, who is based in Sevilla, Spain, but was hired by the defendants for this case, said that she is optimistic about the court's resolution. The court will have to determine in the next few days if the two defendants are allowed to be moved to house arrest. A third defendant, currently on the run, is Mexican national José Ángel Rivera Zazueta, alias El Flaco, a close operator of Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael 'El Mayo Zambada. Liñan-Aguilera said that she will push for a summary judgement trial for him as well should he be arrested.

 

Investigation

 

The trial is part of an investigation that tried to uncover an initiative of the Sinaloa Cartel to introduce drugs into Europe through new routes such as the Catania Fontanarossa Airport. Investigators say that the Sinaloa Cartel is working with the Calabrian mafia group 'Ndrangheta. El Flaco is believed to be in charge of directing the Catania cell of the Sinaloa Cartel and of receiving cocaine from countries such as Colombia. The Guatemalans Ortega and Villagrán were arrested in Verona in January 2020, where they flew from Cartagena, Colombia, to close a drug deal. Behind the facade of a soap import and export business, El Flaco controlled fentanyl production laboratories in China, Vietnam and Taiwan, which have been on the radar of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for four years. A native of Sinaloa state, El Flaco relied on four trusted men: Salvador Ascencio Chávez —of Mexican origin, convicted on two occasions for trafficking hundreds of kilos of cocaine to Canada— and three Guatemalan citizens settled in Europe: Luis Fernando Morales Hernández, alias 'El Suegro', and the two Guatemalans in question. Once in European territory, the drugs are handed over to the ‘Ndrangheta, an Italian mafia group that dominates the cocaine trade in Europe. This group is based Calabria, one of the poorest regions of Italy. The OCCRP revealed details of the intentions of the Sinaloa Cartel to establish itself in the European market. They said that the 385 kilograms were a test that would be followed by more tons. According to court documents, the investigation is code-named Operation Halcon. It was established with the help of an informant, who was involved in the shipment of the cargo. This subject alerted the authorities and provided access to meetings with El Flaco.

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Topic # 4:  Municipal Police Officer Arrested Was the Leader of La Empresa in Chihuahua City

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/municipal-police-officer-arrested-was.html

 

 

Photo # 1: Mauro Mendoza Bailón ("El Mendoza") is currently facing trial for murder

Photo # 2: René Gerardo Garza Santana ("El 300") is the founder of La Empresa, one of the deadliest gangs in Chihuahua. His trial for a triple murder is currently underway

 

The Story:

 

Mauro Mendoza Bailon ("El Mendoza"), a municipal police officer in Chihuahua, Chihuahua, was the local leader of a criminal group known as La Empresa. One of his main duties as gang leader was to maintain control of the crystal meth distribution and sales in Chihuahua. Most of the drug sale spots were located in the southern part of the city. El Mendoza ordered his triggermen to kill rivals who tried to sell drugs in his turf. According to evidence presented by the State Prosecuto's Office (FGE), El Mendoza is believed to be behind the kidnapping and murder of Luis Carlos Arroyo Lerma (“El Golo”), an Uber driver who also distributed drugs without his approval. El Golo was kidnapped on 20 July 2020 and found dead hours later. El Mendoza had several drug dealers and triggermen on his watch. His closest associates were a lady simply known as Blanca O. and a man known as Jorge Alberto M. H. ("El Cabe"). They were responsible for selling methamphetamine in Cerro de la Cruz neighborhood in southern Chihuahua city. The FGE confirmed that El Mendoza was arrested on 15 April 2021 following an extensive investigation involving a network of corrupt police officers. The investigation shows that more than a dozen officers from different police corporations in Chihuahua city work for La Empresa or other rival gangs, to whom they provide protection, sell drugs for, capture or kill opponents, and collect drug proceeds.

 

ANALYSIS BY BORDERLAND BEAT:

 

La Empresa emerged in June 2018 after gang member Rene Gerardo Garza Santana ("El 300") had a disconnect with several leaders of La Linea and Los Aztecas, two groups once allied to the old Juarez Cartel. Cartel bosses Eduardo Ravelo ("El Tablas") and Juan Arturo Padilla Juarez ("El Genio") considered that El 300 was getting out of line and trying to take over more street drug spots in Ciudad Juarez. When confronted, El 300 and his close associate Luis Gerardo Mendez Estevane ("El Tio") deserted and formed La Empresa. As violence rose in Ciudad Juarez, law enforcement efforts against La Empresa, La Linea, and Los Aztecas increased. Ravelo was arrested in June, and El Genio was killed two months later. El 300 was arrested in November 2018, but he continued running La Empresa while imprisoned at the Ciudad Juarez federal penitentiary. He then formed an alliance with Los Mexicles, once allied to the Sinaloa Cartel, and gained support of their leaders Jesús Eduardo Soto Rodríguez ("El Lalo") and Luis Elías Cardoza Santiago.

 

In Chihuahua city, the cartel dynamics have a slightly different twist. In early 2021, a Ciudad Juarez newspaper reported that much of the violence in this city was driven by a gangland dispute between Gente Nueva on one front and La Empresa and Los Aztecas on the other. Gente Nueva gets support and reinforcements from Parral, a municipality close to the border with the state of Durango. There is also information that Gente Nueva works with a faction known as Los Salguieros. La Empresa is currently headed by Omar Alejandro Garza Santana or Omar Alejandro Chávez Santana ('El Nomo', The Gnome), and two individuals simply known by their aliases 'El Saavedra'/'El Menos' and 'La Guera'.

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Topic # 5:  The Mexican Women Who Kicked out the Cartels

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/the-mexican-women-who-kicked-out-cartels.html

 



 

Synopsis:

 

Adelaida Sánchez is a member of the community police force in Cherán, a Purépecha indigenous town in Michoacán, Mexico, which declared itself autonomous in 2011. When the town was under siege from illegal logging, cartel criminals, and corrupt authorities and the men of the town stood by and did nothing, it was left to women to lead the fightback. On the tenth anniversary of the uprising, Adelaida patrols the town and its forests, providing an oasis amidst the murder, kidnap and extortion across the state.

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Topic # 6:  The Private Empire of Tamaulipas Governor Garcia Cabeza de Vaca

Source:  http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2021/04/part-i-private-empire-of-tamaulipas.html

 

 

Photo # 1: Francisco Javier Cabeza de Vaca, current Governor of Tamaulipas

Photo # 2: Simplified overview of the Cabeza de Vaca clan

Photo # 3: Cabeza de Vaca's mugshot following his arrest in McAllen, Texas

 

Photo # 4: Simplified overview of the Gomez Reséndez clan

Photo # 5: Manuel Gómez García, cousin of Francisco Javier´s wife Mariana when he was president of the CANACAR

Photo # 6: Gustavo Cárdenas Gutiérrez, political godfather of Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca

Photo # 7: Overview of the Gomez Resendez / Cabeza de Vaca initial political contacts

 

The Story:

 

During the last months we have been witnessing the development of an interesting story: current Tamaulipas Governor Francisco Javier Garcia Cabeza de Vaca is facing multiple criminal charges. Following years of news, rumors, and accusations against Cabeza de Vaca himself and most of his family members, during the first months of 2021 the official debate and public opinion finally placed the Governor in the middle of the bullseye. The old rumors evolved into formal and public denouncements that have revealed what was always known: Tamaulipas, as many other Mexican States, has been the private fiefdom of a predatory elite composed by corrupted politicians and public officials that have abused public and private resources allocation for their own profit, earning hundreds of millions of dollars while their State fell into violent anarchy and widespread corruption.

 

Although Cabeza de Vaca has not been declared guilty yet, we can infer that he will face the same ending as other former politicians such as Tomás Yarrington, Eugenio Hernández Flores, Humberto Moreira, César Duarte, Roberto Sandoval, or Javier Duarte. Today, Cabeza de Vaca is still in power and can use his political position as a cover. He has allies, from his own party and in certain layers of society, have defended his honorability because he still controls the allocation of public contracts, certain areas of the criminal panorama, and the granting of job positions. Nevertheless, it is a matter of time before he falls. It will likely be before or after he ends his mandate in 2022. At that moment Cabeza de Vaca will be left alone by his current friends and allies. He will likely go into hiding and probably will try to leave Mexico like former Tamaulipas governor Yarrington or Coahuila governor Moreira did. We have witnessed the same stories enough times to understand that this is another card in the wide and wicked deck of Mexico's criminal governors.

 

In order to offer a better hindsight into the facts and circumstances that surround Cabeza de Vaca's case, Borderland Beat presents a series of investigative reports that will dig into the Governor's past and present times. We will study how he got into the higher layers of Mexico's first alternative to the dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the National Action Party (PAN). Borderland Beat will also analyze how he got into the city hall of Reynosa, how he was able to develop strong ties with both former Mexican presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, and how he created a vast network of associates, strawmen, and accomplices with whom he sacked the State of Tamaulipas since at least 2005. For doing this series, Borderland Beat spent hours of investigative reporting and invested a considerable amount of resources to gather its findings. We sincerely hope to match up to the challenge. We owe it, not just to our readers, but also to the beleaguered, mistreated and incredible Mexican people.

 

THE McALLEN INCIDENT:

 

Son of the marriage between María Lourdes Cabeza de Vaca Wattenberger and Manuel García Uresti, Francisco Javier Garcia Cabeza de Vaca was born on September 17, 1967. He has two brothers: José Manuel and Ismael. His family was traditionally based in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and from this border city the clan has managed the strings of municipal and regional politics at least since 2005. The first relevant event in the life of Cabeza de Vaca as a youngster is possibly one of the darkest. Not because of its relevance but because it evidences the nature of the individual. Although it is true that one cannot be judged by a single action, the circumstances, accomplices, the fate of such accomplices, and the future of Cabeza de Vaca after this specific incident offers a great glipmse through which his life and personality can be interpreted. On February 9 1986, Cabeza de Vaca and three other individuals where detained by a police officer in McAllen, Texas. That night the four youngsters (all of them minors except Cabeza de Vaca) stopped their car next to a pickup parked at the Cinema Gemelos Plitt. One of them came out from the car, entered into the pickup and stole everything he found inside. The police officer saw it and stopped the car later, which was being driven by 16-year old Alfredo Cerda Ramos AKA El Paya. Next to the driver was Cabeza de Vaca. Behind them there were 17-year old Antonio Barba Villanueva AKA El Toño Barba and 16-year old Alberto Gómez AKA La Chona.

 

They were hiding a cardboard box, a rifle, and a shotgun they had stolen from the pickup. Among the items found by the agents inside the car were two screwdrivers, a package of batteries, a pair of gloves, a knife in a black case, a pair of spurs with the initials E.R. and a cardboard box containing a telephone with an automatic answering machine. This machine was propriety of Emilio Rodríguez, the owner of the pickup that Cabeza de Vaca and his pals robbed. Since his friends were all minors their cases did not go through the criminal procedure. But Cabeza de Vaca was 18 years old and had the capacity to answer for his crime. How did he get away from the subsequent criminal procedure? In later interviews he said that he was inside the car, but defended himself by saying that he did not steal anything. "The incident occurred as we were coming out from a cinema," he said in an interview with Radio Fórmula decades later. "The police came and a boy tried to open a car, they captured everyone, it was a mischief." Mischief or not, they stole two weapons, not vegetables. Although it is true that the Hidalgo County Criminal District Attorney René Guerra (the one who handled the case) recognized these allegations in a TV interview in the 2000s, the defense and praise he gave to Cabeza de Vaca, who was just one of the hundreds of cases Guerra managed from 1984 and 2014 was a District Attorney, should be considered at least suspicious.

 

Officially, the case was dismissed because the one stealing the pickup was a minor and it was not possible to link any of the other youngsters, including Cabeza de Vaca, to the crime. We will probably never know what happened between the Cabeza de Vaca family and Texan authorities, but the truth is that all four of them left McAllen as free men after paying a $5,000 fine and negotiating with the victim, who granted their pardon. The only trace that the murky event ever left is the police mugshot of a young Cabeza de Vaca holding a plaque with the number of his criminal case: 33696 0209.  What we do know about is the end of his three friends. All of them were murdered in a time span of less than 3 years. On October 9, 1998, Alfredo Cerda Ramos AKA El Paya (the driver of the car) was murdered. Son of the high-ranking PEMEX labor union boss Alfredo Cerda Hernández, El Paya appeared executed with a bullet to the head with two other individuals from Reynosa in the Cuautitlán Izcalli delegation of Mexico City. Antonio Barba Villanueva AKA El Toño Barba was murdered on August 20, 1999. The last of the McAllen quartet was Alberto Gómez AKA La Chona, who had evolved quite a lot since he was captured with Cabeza de Vaca. According to available press archives, he became a lawyer and started working from Monterrey in cases linked only to drug issues.

 

According to El Norte newspaper, he became a lawyer for the Juárez Cartel and was particularly close to Amado's brother Vicente Carrillo Fuentes AKA El Viceroy. La Chona was kidnapped on the first days of November 2000. According to Mexican reporter Jesús Blancornelas, he was abducted and killed by people linked to Arturo Guzmán Decena AKA Z-1, founder member of Los Zetas. Z-1 was the head of Osiel Cárdenas Guillen's security circle and commanded offensives against members of Sinaloa Cartel in northeastern Mexico. Z-1 was killed in November 2002 in Matamoros. It is difficult to determine the circumstances of Cabeza de Vaca's life during the aftermath of the McAllen incident. If we have to believe his own version, he already was a popular football player and a clever student in the area of McAllen, so he continued with his bright career. He got two degrees from the Houston Baptist University, one in Business Administration and the other one in Marketing. He also met his wife Mariana Gómez Leal in a ball in 1990 in Reynosa, right after he had arrived from playing a football match in McAllen. This event would mark Cabeza de Vaca's future and career since Mariana was member of one of the multiple family clans or dinasties that have ruled Tamaulipas through local fiefdoms since before the revolutionary period.

 

Mariana was the daughter of Graciela Leal de Gómez and José Ramón Gómez Reséndez. José Ramón was probably one of Reynosa's most powerful businessmen. An engineer, he studied at the Tecnológico de Monterry, where he met and befriended a young Economics student called Manuel Cavazos Lerma, who between 1993 and 1999 would be the PRI Governor of Tamaulipas. José Ramón was also the founder of Transportes Gor, a transport company founded in Reynosa in 1981 that would become a transport emporium absorbing several smaller companies and eventually becoming Autofletes Gómez Leal SA de CV, which still bears the brand name "Grupo Gor" in memory of the initial company. During the early 2000s, Transportes Gor was in the middle of a scandal that erupted when several trucks of the company were caught redhanded transporting illicit fuel that had been brought illegally into the country. Among other episodes, we can cite the one happening on July 22, 2002, when three tanker trucks belonging to Transportes Gor were seized containing illegal kerosen imported from the US.

 

The relationship between Cabeza de Vaca's political family and organized crime have always been a dark shadow orbiting around him. In 2009, his brother-in-law José Ramón Gómez Leal (one of Transportes Gor's shareholders) launched his campaign as a PAN candidate for a seat in the State Congress. As journalist Ana Lilia Pérez points out, in the middle of the campaign, several photos appeared in the internet showing José Ramón hugging and partying with Armando Montes de León, a former policeman who at the time was working as enforcer for Jaime González Durán AKA El Hummer, one of the original Los Zetas founders and a heavy hitter in the city of Reynosa at the time. Borderland Beat was not able to find these pictures, but did confirm that such photographs were in circulation when reports from that time were consulted. During those years, Transportes Gor was owned by Cabeza de Vaca's father in law, José Ramón Gómez Reséndez, and his two brothers in law, José Ramón and Manuel Gómez Leal. The manager of the company was Manuel Gómez García, who was also Gómez Reséndez´s nephew. Manuel Gómez García left Transportes Gor at the end of 2002 to create his own transport company, Intertransports Inc. SA de CV, which immediately managed to obtain public contracts from PEMEX in order to transport oil and gas and that would also be pointed as a company engaged in oil theft and kerosen smuggling.

 

In 2001, Manuel Gómez García would be nominated as the head of Mexico´s National Chamber of Cargo Trucking (CANACAR), the national union of the haulier elite. From there, and until the end of his mandate in 2003, he would continuously praise and develope strong ties with Vicente Fox Quesada, who at the time was Presidente of Mexico. The President himself would attend meetings of the CANACAR organized by the union´s leader. Manuel Gómez Garcia's blazing career would have an abrupt end on February 3, 2008, when his corpse was found with several gunshots in a wasteland near Reynosa. But by then Fox was a friendly retired old man enjoying the fruits of his career in his ranch in Guanajuato and Cabeza de Vaca was a local deputy for the Tamaulipas State Congress. It was just another cadaver rounding on the orbit of the future Governor of Tamaulipas.

 

THE NOT SO HUMBLE BEGINNINGS OF A BUREAUCRAT:

 

The origins of Cabeza de Vaca's involvement in politics are clouded by the distance of time and the unbearable number of campaigns, elections, marches, speeches, and promises of dozens of candidates appearing in Tamaulipas during the last 22 years. What we know is that during most of the 1990s, he devoted himself to the management of his family's businesses. The first contact with real life political implications happened in 1998 when he became a precandidate on the elections for Reynosa's townhall. He did not go too far in an atmosphere where the only possibilities of success were linked to the factic powers represented by the PAN and the PRI, which still controlled Mexico's political destiny. The future Governor immediately saw the possibilites of joining one of Mexico´s political forces, and that same year Cabeza de Vaca jumped into the ranks of the PAN. Today most people might not remember how Mexico was back in the 1990s. A rare exception among the long and terrible list of Latin American dictatorships of the XXth century, Mexico managed to remain relatively stable and politically peaceful. The price for such a stability was the creation of a "civilian dictatorship" that would rule Mexico's social, political, and economic spheres for nearly 60 years through an almost unique party, the PRI.

 

Once labeled by prominent writer Mario Vargas Llosa as "the perfect dictatorship", the PRI managed to maintain Mexico within a certain level of order combining an old-fashioned and artificial revolutionary rhetoric, the mismanagement of the public resources coming from the exploitation of gas and oil through PEMEX, a widespread regime of corruption and clandestine, accurate and fierce repression against potential threats that included forced dissapearances of revolutionary students and intellectuals, a generalized practice of police torture, and a sporadic displays of violence (such as the Tlatelolco massacre or the scorched earth campaign against the armed movements in Guerrero and Michoacán). Nevertheless, during these years of obscurity, the PRI was not the only political party acting inside Mexico. As a method for legitimizing its own system, the PRI allowed certain political organizations to organize themselves as some sort of "opposition" as long as their reivindications did not go too far. Thus, in 1939, a group of conservative and religious businessmen founded the PAN. The PAN originally represented the ideas and aspirations of a certain (and minority) group of citizens opposed to the policies and political projects of President Lázaro Cárdenas, who always charaterized himself as a nationalist, with a clear idea about the progressivism, laicism and patriotism that should guide Mexico's founding principles.

 

With the years, as the PRI's hegemony turned into a wicked regime of nepotism and corruption, the PAN did not stay silent. Things began changing in the 1980s when it was clear that the revolutionary movements of Central America would not achieve any significant victories and the US started loosening the ties that linked what they saw as America's security to the stability of Mexico's political system. Thus, in 1989, the "panista" politician Ernesto Ruffo Appel managed to become the first opposition candidate winning a Governorship (the one of Baja California). During the 1990s, Mexicans suddenly realized that the PRI´s regime would not last forever. Suddenly, new PAN candidates started being elected as mayors and Governors, and the press could publish articles critizising the hegemonic party. It was also possible (to some extent) to organize a political meeting without fearing the appearance of "porros" or secret policemen who would start a quarrel. Certain surreal events such as the murders of the PRI's presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and General Secretary José Francisco Ruíz Massieu, both linked to the obscure spheres of influence orbitating around the Salinas de Gortari political clan, contributed to the destruction of the remaining party's influence and credibility. By the last years of the 20th century it was clear that the PRI would loose the Federal elections and that the monopoly over the industry created around the public contracts through which the PRI's last administrations had started privatizing Mexico's economy would change hands.

 

This was a turning point in the history of Mexico that few have studied with rigor. A system created for achieving political stability had shaped a country, defining its economy, molding its institutions, stating a way of doing business ... This system was crushed in 2000 when Vicente Fox Quesada, the PAN opposition candidate, was elected as President of Mexico. And with the new President came a new system that was different from the preceding one in the colors of the party flag, because the objective remained the same: sacking Mexico.The PRI bureaucrats were followed by a cohort of PAN politicians that without any political experience would cope with the facilities and temptations of absolute power very soon. By the end of the 1990s, Cabeza de Vaca was one among the thousands of young individuals that saw in the PAN not the possibility of a democratic future and an end to the PRI´s reign of corruption, but the possibility of acquiring power and money. And, obsiouly, he joined the party. As any other "young turk", Cabeza de Vaca entered into the PAN ranks with the aid and support of a godfather: Gustavo Cárdenas Gutiérrez. Son of three-time mayor of Matamoros Jorge Cárdenas González and nephew of  former Tamaulipas Governor Enrique Cárdenas González (1975-1981),

 

Gustavo Cárdenas was initially a member of the PRI. In 1993, when the party refused to present him as candidate for the mayorship of Ciudad Victoria, Gustavo changed colours and joined the already successful PAN, winning the position and becoming the mayor of Ciudad Victoria. In 1995 he managed to become a local Deputy at the Tamaulipas State Congress. By this time Gustavo had managed to become the PAN's heavyhitter in Tamaulipas, controlling the party at the State level (he would be the PAN's delegate for the whole State between 1999 and 2000). Due to his large political influence, he tried to run for Tamaulipas' first opposition Governor. He lost in 1998 against the PRI's golden candidate: Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, who would make an art of corruption and collusion with organized crime, as Borderland Beat has reported in detail. Gustavo would try again in 2012, but this time it was Yarrington's puppet, Eugenio Hernández Flores, who beat him for the Governorship role. After two failed attempts, Gustavo's political image was totally burnt and after four years in the Federal Senate (2000-2004), he finally left the PAN in 2013 amid allegations of corruption and despotism. He immediately chose a new political party, Movimiento Ciudadano, which he would use to run again for the Mayorship of Ciudad Victoria (he failed once again) and to become a Federal Congressman between 2015 and 2018.

 

Although today there is a bitter rivalry between both men, it was Gustavo Cárdenas Gutiérrez the one who initially sponsored Cabeza de Vaca inside the PAN. Cabeza de Vaca's first task for his political godfather was to organize Gustavo's electoral campaign for the Governorship in 1998 as Coordinator for the PAN's pre-candidacy. He also directed Gustavo's formal candicacy in the northern area of Tamaulipas. From these new positions, a young and relatively inexperienced Cabeza de Vaca, had to sell the image of his boss and mentor to the people of Tamaulipas. Given the PRI's de facto control over Tamaulipas, it is worth noting that Gustavo managed to obtain a meager 26.02% of the votes against Yarrington's undisputed victory with 53.66% of the vote. By the end of 1999, Cabeza de Vaca had become someone important inside the PAN's state ranks. Using his influence, contacts, and unquestionable social skills, he managed to climb positions inside a party which was clearly defined as Mexico's next ruling party. Cabeza de Vaca knew this, and once his first obstacle (the obtention of contacts and reputation inside the State PAN elite) had been achieved, he immediately turned towards the second goal: reaching the Federal level. Hence, Cabeza de Vaca targeted a new political patron: PAN's presidential candidate Vicente Fox Quesada.

 

TARGETING MEXICO'S OWNERS: CABEZA DE VACA AND THE FOX-SAHAGÚN CLAN

 

The relationship between the current Governor of Tamaulipas and the Fox family started in the late 1990s and probably was the consequence of indirect contacts. In other words, Cabeza de Vaca was introduced to the Fox family through someone who knew both families. In this case the relationship was established not with Vicente Fox, the presidential candidate, but with his spouse Marta Sahagún, and especially with the three sons of the would-be first lady: Manuel, Fernando and Jorge Alberto Bribiesca. Where did this relationship come from? The most probable answer is a man called Sergio Amaury Flores Pérez. Originally from Reynosa, Amaury studied in Celaya, Guanajato, where he met and befriended Marta Sahagún's son Manuel Bribiesca. As Cabeza de Vaca recognized, he also knew Sergio Amaury very well, "even before Manuel Bribiesca". Eventually, Sergio Amaury would join the Customs division of the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), Mexico's equivalent of the US's Internal Revenue Service (IRS), where we worked as sub-administrator in the customs of Guadalajara, Jalisco, and as Chief of Customs Operations in the border crossings of Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo during the 1990s.

 

While stationed in these two border cities, he introduced his friend Manuel Bribiesca to several transport elites. It is worth noting that a Federal Investigative Commision revealed that Sergio Amaury participated in the diversion of seized smuggled items for private profit. What happened that linked Sergio Amaury, Cabeza de Vaca, and Manuel Bribiesca? We may never know, but we can suppose that the link between Amaury and Reynosa's customs and transport elites may have facilitated contacts between Cabeza de Vaca and Manuel Bribiesca. In any case, Amaury's services were rewarded when Cabeza de Vaca became mayor of Reynosa in 2005. He appointed Amaury as Director of Transit and Land Transport. In 2006 it was revealed that Amaury and Cabeza de Vaca's brother, Ismael had created two companies, Compañía Difusora de Radio del Norte SA de CV and Corporativo de Radio Norte SA de CV. These two companies tried to obtain hundreds of TV and radio licenses issued by the local Government. We will return to this issue in the next episode of this series. The fact is that it is almost unquestionable that it was through Sergio Amaury that Cabeza de Vaca contacted Manuel Bribiesca. Manuel Bribiesca, in turn, introduced the would-be Governor to his mother, Marta Sahagún, through whom he got access to his ultimate objective: Vicente Fox Quesada.

 

Nevertheless, the initial relationship between the Fox-Sahagún clan and Cabeza de Vaca would be bolstered by the articulation of a support platform and civil organization for the presidential candidate: "Amigos de Fox" (Friends of Fox). Born in the State of Guanajuato, Vicente Fox Quesada was the son of an American citizen and a Vasque immigrant. Bred inside considerable levels of economic and social well-being, Vicente Fox joined Coca-Cola Mexico in 1964 as a mid-level manager. In the late 1970s, he left the company after serving as President and Chief Officer and managed his family´s businesses and ranches in Guanajato. By 1987, he entered in the PAN's ranks and founded an internal political trend known as "neopanismo". This faction was headed by young businessmen that managed to win their first victory in 1989 when Ernesto Ruffo Appel won the Governorship of Baja California. In the early 1990s, several of Fox's friends conceived the project of presenting him as candidate for the Governorship of Guanajuato, which he won in 1995. Two years later, these same friends and businessmen started developing a plan to help prepare Fox for the 2000 presidential elections, but for such a campaign they needed a formidable public relations campaign.

 

On February 1998, this clique founded Amigos de Fox. This organization constitutued itself as a civil association whose purpose was to act as a powerful multimedia platform that would sell the image of the ideal alternative to the PRI. Amigos de Fox soon became the key to future success for multiple insightful individuals that immediately understood that if they provided Fox with support and favours, they would be rewarded once the PAN had conquered Los Pinos, Mexico's former presidential office. Hundreds of people, most of whom intially were rich businessmen from Jalisco, the State of Mexico and Guanajuato, started joining the group. They provided money to print T-shirts, polos, caps, flags, key rings, and banners with the face of Fox and his electoral slogan: "Sacar al PRI de Los Pinos" (Take the PRI out from Los Pinos). Amid this wave of sudden Fox supporters was a young Cabeza de Vaca. He already knew the son of Fox's fiancé, Marta Sahagún (at the time, Fox was preparing the divorce from his first wife). Cabeza de Vaca was also one of the closest advisors to Tamaulipas PAN delegate Gustavo Cárdenas Gutiérrez. With such contacts it was no surprise that Cabeza de Vaca was able to be nominated as Coordinator of Amigos de Fox for the Northern Zone of Tamaulipas at the beginning of 2000. That same year, he joined the State Committee of Amigos de Fox, where he coordinated the campaign of the future president, who was elected as President of Mexico with 42.52% of the votes. A new century had started for Mexico. A century that would bring a new wave of public contracts awarded by the PAN's leadership, the sharpening of the climate of violence caused by organized criminal groups, and the strengthening of the Cabeza de Vaca clan, which from its native Reynosa would raise him to the mayorship. From there, the future of the clan was going to speed up towards massive corruption, nepotism, and a tacit alliance with organized crime.

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Topic # 7:  Body count from drug cartel wars earns Mexican cities label of ‘most violent in the world’

Source:  https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/border-crime/body-count-from-drug-cartel-wars-earns-mexican-cities-label-of-most-violent-in-the-world/

 

Study: Celaya, Tijuana and Juarez have highest homicide rates as AMLO sticks to hands-off policy against cartels; Central American cities no longer as deadly

 



Photo # 1: Members of the National Guard walk near the crime scene where 24 people were killed at rehab center in Irapuato, Guanajuato state, Mexico

Photo # 2: Jorge Nava

 

The Story:

 

Seven Mexican cities, including the border towns of Tijuana and Juarez, are among the world’s most violent, says a group that tracks homicide rates worldwide. This has to do with Mexico being the home of several warring drug cartels that try to kill each other off in a country where the government has taken a “hands off” approach toward organized crime and impunity is high, according to the group. “Mexico for the past two years has been the world’s epicenter for homicidal violence. This is no fluke. In 2019 and 2020, the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has applied the worst crime-control policy,” the Mexico City-based Citizens Council for Public Safety and Judicial Justice said. The group says Lopez Obrador hasn’t moved against organized criminal groups, which it says are responsible for much of the violence, under the assumption the criminals “will behave well” if police leave them alone. The government also is pursuing a policy of social spending hoping people will say no when gangs try to recruit them. The council calls both strategies “questionable.” The council every year publishes a list of the most violent cities in the world based on murder rates. Tijuana was number one in the 2019, study, followed by Juarez. Celaya, a city in Guanajuato, Mexico where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) made it a point to wipe out a local gang named Santa Rosa de Lima in an effort control drug trafficking and large-scale gasoline theft had the highest homicide rate in the world in 2020, according to the group.

 





 

Celaya’s 109 murders per 100,000 inhabitants were greater than Tijuana’s 105. The group ranks Juarez as the third-deadliest city in the world with 103 murders per 100,000 population. Mid-sized Mexican cities in Sonora, Guanajuato and Baja California followed, with St. Louis, Mo., coming in seventh with 87.83 murders per 100,000 people. Baltimore is 16th on the list. And even as citizens of Central American countries stream to the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum because of violent crime, the council said fewer homicides were reported in major cities in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador in 2020 than in prior years. The council says Guatemala City and San Salvador are no longer among the world’s 50 most violent cities and San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the world’s homicide capital from 2011-2014, now ranks 34th, with 41.19 murders per 100,000 population. Chihuahua City, where the old Juarez cartel now known as La Linea is trying to expel Sinaloa cartel proxy Gente Nueva, had a higher murder rate with 42.87. In Juarez, a Honduran migrant named Victor as well as Chihuahua Deputy Attorney General Jorge Nava questioned the survey’s conclusions.

 

Victor got shot in the foot while fleeing a criminal who tried to rob him on a pay day in Olancho, southeast of San Pedro Sula. “Crime is bad all over Honduras. Maybe they don’t kill you, but not because they don’t try,” he said. Nava doesn’t dispute the numbers but says to refer to cities as “most violent” based solely on homicides is misleading. “What makes a city less safe? Kidnappings, robberies and carjackings directly impact people’s safety and threaten business stability,” the deputy attorney general said. “We don’t deny Juarez has a high number of homicides […] but most of the homicides have to do with drug-trafficking, drug sales, violence from one gang to another. What makes citizens less safe? Violence among people aware something could happen to them because of the activities they are engaged in, or random crime against citizens at large?” He said few non-drug related murders, kidnappings, extortion and robberies happen in Juarez.

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Topic # 8:  Closing Prisons Only Postpones Real Issues in Mexico

Source:  https://insightcrime.org/news/closing-prisons-delays-problem-mexico/

 



 

The Story:

 

The shuttering of a state prison in Mexico is an unconventional response by officials trying to combat poor living conditions for inmates but this will do little to address fundamental problems in the country’s penitentiaries. The facility in Temascaltepec, State of Mexico, was permanently closed this week due to security failures and a lack of basic resources, according to a statement from the state’s security secretary. The prison reportedly did not have adequate health and education services or sufficient recreational areas for inmates. Without these services, the state government considered that prisoners did not enjoy adequate living conditions but also lacked access to the services needed to help them transition back into society. Officials also said they were unable to provide adequate security to maintain order within the prison. While it is unclear how violent it became inside, a good indicator might be that the prison lacked “disciplinary areas” where inmates were supposed to be held after breaking the rules, according to a 2019 report from the Mexico State Commission on Human Rights. The report also included the prison on its list of state facilities suffering from overpopulation. The 164 inmates are being transferred to other facilities in the state of Mexico, including in Valle de Bravo and Almoloya de Juárez. The recently opened Tenancingo del Sur prison, which was reportedly constructed with an emphasis on social programs in line with United Nations prisons standards, will also be taking some of the inmates.

 

ANALYSIS BY INSIGHT CRIME:

 

While acknowledging that the Temascaltepec prison did not offer the right conditions is a positive step, closing it permanently may be counterintuitive to long-term progress. Instead, it worsens the burden on other prisons and does little to address nationwide structural flaws. The Mexican prison system has been characterized as understaffed, with poor sanitary conditions and a lack of “opportunities for inmates to develop the skills necessary for social reintegration,” according to the 2020 United States Country Report on Human Rights. Nearly half of all prisons in Mexico suffer from overcrowding – sharing a cell with five or more people – and thirteen percent share a cell with more than fifteen, according to the report. The State of Mexico is no exception. Temascaltepec prison was one of a number of facilities identified by Mexico’s Commission on Human Rights as having issues with overcrowding, security and basic resources. This was despite the fact that many of the prisons listed were temporarily closed for reforms in the early 2010s. “There is no use in having fewer prisons but the same or greater population of people deprived of their freedom. This situation only allows for more human rights violations,” ASILEGAL, a prisoners advocacy group in Mexico, wrote in an October 2020 statement. Finally, an investigation by Milenio last year found that the government had invested over $2 million over 14 years into the infrastructure and security of six prisons around the country, only for them to close anyway, or become inactive.

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