Brutal cartels fight over Mexico's 'conflict-free' gold revenues

Reuters: Heroin traffickers linked to the abduction and disappearance of 43 students a year ago are battling over millions of dollars paid by Canadian mining giant Goldcorp to a village in Mexico's southern gold belt, leading to a wave of murders.

As a signatory to a Conflict-Free Gold Standard drawn up by the World Gold Council industry group, Goldcorp (G.TO) commits to extracting the precious metal in a manner that "does not fuel unlawful armed conflict or contribute to serious human rights abuses." Read more. 

Recriminations Over El Chapo's Escape Cast Pall Over U.S.-Mexico Ties

El Universal (Translated by WorldMeets): Since escaping from the "maximum security" prison in Altiplano, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman has managed to strain relations between Mexico and the United States.

Migration, of course, is not being affected, nor is the billions of dollars in daily bilateral trade. Those are running in the other direction.

But meetings between officials from both countries have been marked by a more prickly tone than usual. Hints of suspicion and mistrust and mutual recriminations have appeared during rounds of talks about which only the noblest face has been publicly reported: two countries cooperating on the intelligence to capture the world's most powerful kingpin. Read more. 

Sinaloa Cartel Boss Smuggled Drugs from Mexico into U.S. Using Various Means

Note: It seems strange that we have these US court filings on El Chapo only now that they do NOT have him in custody. There are still a lot of questions about whether the US ever requested extradition while El Chapo was being held and just exactly what the government's relationship with the Sinaloa Cartel is.

Latin American Herald Tribune: Fugitive Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman used planes, submarines, trains, sailboats and tunnels to smuggle narcotics from Mexico into the United States, court filings show.

The man who became public enemy No. 1 in the United States after the death of terrorist Osama Bin Laden escaped from a Mexican prison a month ago and the Obama administration has repeatedly said it would like to extradite and try the drug lord. Read more. 

Mexican Authorities Destroy 25 Tons of Narcotics

Note: Incinerating or otherwise destroying illegal drugs is common practice and arguably prevents corrupt cops and other law enforcement agents from selling confiscated substances on the market. But clothes?

There are people who need clothing, including children in many parts of the country. The soil gave a growing cycle to produce the plant, the farmer sowed and harvested it. The seamstress sewed it. Likely none of them were involved in the presumed contraband operation.

The Mexican law specifically refers to drugs and "items used to commit crimes". A t-shirt? What about children's homes. or orphanages, poor communities or rural schools? Wouldn't this be a better place for 41 tons of clothing to end up? This is an absurd interpretation of the law. It is grossly wasteful and designed only to benefit gougers who use brand names to charge exorbitant prices for simple products.

Latin American Herald Tribune: More than 25 tons of narcotics and 41 tons of clothing were incinerated at a facility in Tamaulipas, a state in northeastern Mexico, the Attorney General’s Office said Tuesday.

The drugs and clothing were seized in more than 60 investigations in cities in Tamaulipas, which is on the border with the United States, the AG’s office said in a statement. Read more. 

‘There's No Real Fight Against Drugs’

The Atlantic: The slight man at the breakfast table seemed more like an evangelical minister than someone who once brokered deals between Mexican drug lords and state governors. He wore a meticulously pressed button-down, a gold watch, gold-rimmed glasses, and a gold cross around his neck. His dark brown hair was styled in a comb-over. And when his breakfast companions started to tuck into their bowls of oatmeal and plates of salmon benedict, he cleared his throat and asked for a moment of silence.

“Would you mind if I say grace?” he asked.

The gathering last week at Le Peep café in San Antonio would seem unusual almost anywhere except south Texas, where Mexico kind of blends into the United States—and so does the drug trade. Seated next to the cartel operative was a senior Mexican intelligence official. And next to him was a veteran American counternarcotics agent. They bowed their heads for prayer and then proceeded to talk a peculiar kind of shop. Read more.

Mexico arrests seven officials over escape of drug kingpin

Reuters: The Mexican Attorney General's office said on Friday it had arrested seven officials over suspected involvement in the jail break of drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

Guzman's escape last Saturday from a maximum security prison through a mile-long tunnel built into his cell was a profound embarrassment for President Enrique Peña Nieto, raising pressure on the government to do more to battle public sector corruption. Read more. 

Final round: Cartel twins vs. cop-backed kidnapper

The Sun Times: To Pedro Flores, the two men who pulled him over had looked like cops.

But moments later, face down in the back of a windowless van, his hands and feet zip-tied, Flores realized he’d been duped.

At 22, he had been quietly working with his twin brother, Margarito, to create the most successful drug-dealing partnership in Chicago’s history. Read more. 

Son of Mexico cartel boss pleads guilty to U.S. smuggling charge

Reuters: The son of a former Mexico cartel boss faces up to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to trying to smuggle ammunition across the Texas border into Mexico, federal authorities said Wednesday.

Osiel Cardenas, Jr., is the son of Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, who headed the Gulf Cartel in Northeastern Mexico until he was sentenced to 25 years in prison after his arrest in 2003. Read more. 

Twins who became 'significant rats' to cartel await sentence

AP: In the underworld of illegal drug trafficking, identical twins Pedro and Margarito Flores rose from middling Chicago dealers to partners of Mexico's most notorious cartel lord, eventually building a nearly $2 billion franchise that spanned much of North America.

Anyone convicted of trafficking a fraction as much cocaine and heroin could normally expect a life sentence. But the twins can enter their sentencing hearing Tuesday confident of receiving far less. Because they spilled secrets that led to the indictments of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, a half-dozen of his lieutenants and about 40 lower-level traffickers, prosecutors are asking for a remarkably lenient term — around 10 years. Read more. 

Mexican Drug Cartels Are Using Magnets To Create Unwitting Mules

Business Insider: Drug smugglers are turning "trusted travelers" into unwitting mules by placing containers with powerful magnets under their cars in Mexico and then recovering the illegal cargo far from the view of border authorities in the United States.

One motorist spotted the containers while pumping gas after crossing into Southern California on Jan. 12 and thought it might be a bomb. Read more.

How Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel Fed US Heroin Market

El Universal (Translated by Borderland Beat): The Sinaloa Cartel has taken control of New York’s heroin market, replacing Colombian and Asian groups as the principal supplier of the drug, according to an investigation by the Dromomanoscollective, winner of the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Awards.

Jeen Blake, a 40-year-old truck driver, drove from Queens, New York to Riverside, California. The cross-country trip, which took at least 42 hours, had an extremely profitable end: deliver $750,000 in exchange for 15 kilos of heroin.

Blake, an employee of the company Good Guys Transport Corporation, spent a week driving. His truck was filled with the soles of shoes in which some of the drugs were hidden. The rest was concealed in square packets located in secret compartments. After driving 4,800 kilometers, the driver entered New York this past August 26, without knowing that he was being monitored as part of a special operation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the state police.

Possibly 30 Years for Canadian Narco with ties to Sinaloa Cartel and the Mafia

Borderland Beat: Canadian Drug Kingpin , Jimmy Cournoyer, with Ties to the Rizutto and Bonanno Crime Families, the Hells Angels and the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel Plead Guilty in 2013 to Narcotics Trafficking Crimes Carrying Sentence of 20 Years to Life and $1 Billion in Forfeiture.

He will discover his fate on August 20th when his sentence will be handed down.  Read more. 

Mexico’s President Joins Regional Debate on Marijuana Legalization

InSightCrime: Mexico's President Enrique Peña Nieto has said he is willing to discuss legalizing marijuana, becoming the latest regional leader to question the drug prohibition paradigm and begin to confront the failures of interdiction-based policies.

In an interview with El Pais, Peña Nieto called anti-drug measures employed over the last 30 to 40 years "failed" policies, stating that they had led to increases in both consumption and production. He argued that with the recreational use of marijuana now legal in two US states -- Colorado and Washington -- it did not make sense for Mexico to have policies that differed from those of the "most important consumer market" for Mexican drugs. Read more. 

Capture of El Chapo: Like a Drop of Water in Rain (La Jornada, Mexico)

February 25, 2014

La Jornada 

Translated by WorldMeets

In December 2013 , the Attorney General's Office released a list of 69 of the 122 capos most wanted for drug trafficking who were arrested or killed during President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration. This was a follow up on previous arrest priorities implemented under the administration of Felipe Calderón, the success of who's security strategy was measured based on the number of criminal detainees, and without connection to the nation's prevailing insecurity.

 

On February 21, during a presentation on governance and the rule of law as a strategy for development at the 2014 National Industrial Convention, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said that of the 122 criminal ringleaders, 74 have been detained.

Now, with the arrest of Joaquin Guzman Loera, alias El Chapo, the number of captured organized crime leaders has reached 75. However, it wasn't only the Mexican authorities that targeted El Chapo. The drug trafficker was one of the U.S. government's most wanted criminals, with the Obama Administration offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. Read more. 

OAS proposes decriminalizing marijuana use in the region

La Jornada

September 28, 2013 

Original Americas Program Translation 

The secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, said yesterday in the Senate that the strategy to combat drug trafficking in the region has been wrong because it has focused solely on the repression of the supply of narcotics and not on attacking the economic power of the drug cartels, which has become increasingly violent.

He called for decriminalization of marijuana, and warned that focusing efforts only on the sale of drugs, without taking institutional actions aimed at tackling the financial structures and money laundering will lead to “a war without end”.

In the forum “From Prohibition to Regulation: New Approaches to Drug Policy” Insulza said that according to a report by experts from the OAS, the drug trade generates 154 billion dollars a year, of which 77 billion is laundered in the global financial system.

Also in the Senate but in another forum, Undersecretary of Prevention and Citizen Participation of the Ministry of the Interior, Roberto Campa said that despite the intense debate in the U.S. on the decriminalization of drugs like marijuana, the violence that the drug trade generates will not change radically in the region in the coming years.

Mexico's Drug War Strategy Remains Unchanged With New Government

Huffington Post
By Katherine Corcoran

Mexico City - With the capture of two top drug lords in little more than a month, the new government of President Enrique Pena Nieto is following an old strategy it openly criticized for causing more violence and crime.

Mario Armando Ramirez Trevino, a top leader of Mexico's Gulf Cartel, was detained Saturday in a military operation near the Texas border, just weeks after the arrest of the leader of the brutal Zetas cartel near another border city, Nuevo Laredo.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong took his post in December saying the strategy of former President Felipe Calderon to take out cartel leaders only made drug gangs more dangerous and violent. The new administration would focus less on leaders and more on reducing violence, he said.

Yet the new strategy appears almost identical to the old. The captures of Ramirez and top Zeta Miguel Angel Trevino Morales could cause a new spike in violence with battles over leadership of Mexico's two major cartels.  Read more. 

Mexico cartel leader's capture will have little effect on drug flow

LA Times 
By Tracy Wilkinson
July 16, 2013

The capture of the top leader of Mexico's most bloodthirsty and bloodcurdling drug cartel will have surprisingly little  effect on trafficking of cocaine and other illicit substances to the U.S., and on the violence that has claimed tens of thousands of lives here in recent years.

If anything, the violence, at least in the short term, may surge as rivals and potential successors of Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, alias Z-40, head of the Zetas paramilitary gang, battle to take his place or his turf.

But for President Enrique Peña Nieto, the capture is a small coup. The 7-month-old government, marking its first major strike against organized crime, probably hopes the early-Monday arrest near the border town of Nuevo Laredo will score points in the theater of public opinion and especially among skeptics who doubt the new leader's vague and sporadic security policy.  Read more. 

Mexico arrests 12 in prostitution ring in connection with women’s border slayings

Washington Post

Associated Press, Published: June 12

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Mexican prosecutors have arrested 12 people in connection with the slayings of 11 young women whose skeletal remains were found near the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez early last year.

The suspects include alleged drug dealers, pimps and small store owners. They allegedly belonged to a gang that forced young women into prostitution and drug dealing and then killed them when they were “no longer of use,” the prosecutors’ office for the northern state of Chihuahua said in a statement late Tuesday. The 10 men and two women face charges of human trafficking and homicide. Six were already in local jails for other offenses, and six other were detained early Tuesday.  Read more. 

In the hot land, Mexicans just say no to drug cartels

Los Angeles Times
By Tracy Wilkinson
June 11, 2013

COALCOMAN, Mexico — Rafael Garcia slaps the oversize wooden desk where he sits, one of the last mayors still in office in this region of Mexican farm country known as Tierra Caliente — hot land.

Mayors from a couple of the nearest towns fled with their drug-cartel pals, people here say, when locals took up arms against them.

But at Garcia's City Hall, the facade is festooned with hand-lettered signs supporting local gunmen who challenged the cartel, loosely referred to as community "self-defense" guards, comunitarios. Several cities in Tierra Caliente are now patrolled by such groups, whose members, often masked, man checkpoints and pull over passing vehicles for inspection. They have reached a kind of tense coexistence with the army, which moved in a couple of weeks ago in an attempt to bring order.  Read more. 

Guns, Drugs and Money Laundering: What Does Obama Want from Mexico? (El Universal, Mexico)

"While here we bury the dead of this war, there they are providing the places and conditions for marijuana consumption. Nor is there any evidence that political forces in the United States are willing to halt the free sale of weapons, nor is there any indication that a serious crusade against money laundering is in the offing. Is President Obama willing to engage in discussions vital to eliminating the root causes of drug trafficking, or will he simply tell us that in our bilateral relations, we are subordinate to them?"

Editorial
El Universal
Translated By Miguel Gutierrez
 May 2, 2013

Today the president of the United States, Barack Obama, arrives in the country for a working visit. He will hold high-level talks with President Enrique Peña Nieto on the bilateral agenda, which, as the Mexican government has insisted on in recent weeks, will not be limited to security issues.


In Mexico, but also in some influential sectors of our neighboring country, agenda items considered subordinate to security must regain their importance: investment, trade, migration, geopolitical collaboration, and diplomacy. All the forgotten issues that remain relevant on both sides of the border.  Read more.