Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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El Chapo vs Netflix

Netflix is playing a miniseries about the drug lord of the world’s biggest drug crime organization, and he will be suing because they

“defame” his character by adding salacious details to his life story.

I kid you not:
“El Chapo” Guzman Sues Netflix, Univision over Use of His Image.

I’m under the impression that he cannot sue for royalties, but would like to know if the actor gets to wear the Barabas shirt.

In other Chapo news,
Chapo’s alleged girlfriend, Mexican congresswoman Lucero Guadalupe López, was arrested on conspiracy charges at San Diego airport as she was entering the U.S. in search of asylum.

Mexico has its bloodiest month in 20 YEARS: May sees a record number of murders as violence intensifies between gangs vying to fill space left by El Chapo

  • Mexico’s May has seen the highest increase in homicides in over 20 years
  • The first five months of 2017 have seen an increase of about 30 per cent in homicides over the same period last year
  • The violence is in part due to the weakening of El Chapo’s cartel, Sinaloa since his extradition to the US last year, meanwhile the Jalisco cartel is on the rise
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Mexico: Government spying on journalists

Several prominent journalists and activists in Mexico have filed a complaint accusing the government of spying on them by hacking their phones.

The report says that the software, known as Pegasus, was sold to Mexican federal agencies by Israeli company NSO Group on the condition that it only be used to investigate criminals and terrorists.

The software can infiltrate smartphones and monitor calls, texts and other communications, the New York Times said. It can also activate a phone’s microphone or camera, effectively turning the device into a personal bug.

But instead of being used to track suspected criminals, the targets allegedly included investigative journalists, anti-corruption activists and even lawyers.

. . .

Nine people have now filed a criminal complaint

The BBC lists,

  • “Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez Centre: One of the most respected human rights groups in Mexico, it has looked into the disappearance and suspected massacre of 43 students in 2014 and other high profile cases, including a military raid that left 22 dead in 2014. Its executive director and two other senior executives allegedly received infected messages
  • “Aristegui Noticias: Award-winning journalist Carmen Aristegui, who also hosts a daily programme on CNN en Español, has reported on suspected cases of corruption and conflict of interest, including a scandal involving the wife of President Enrique Peña Nieto acquiring a $7m (£5.5m) house from a government contractor. Two members of her investigative team and her under-age son allegedly received some 50 messages
  • “Carlos Loret de Mola: A popular journalist at leading TV network Televisa, he allegedly received several messages containing the software
  • “Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO): It has led efforts for anti-corruption legislation. Two senior members were allegedly targeted.”

Interestingly, the NYT, which started the investigation, is partially owned by Carlos Slim.

Mexico is one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists and media workers, and press freedom faces persistent threats.

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Mexico: Ríodoce’s Javier Valdez killed in mob hit

Mexican journalist Javier Valdez, known for his award-winning coverage of the drug trade, has been shot dead.

Valdez was shot dead on the street near the premises of the Mexican news weekly he had founded, Ríodoce.

During his career spanning nearly three decades, Valdez wrote extensively on drug-trafficking and organised crime in Mexico, including the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel.

The cartel is believed to be responsible for an estimated 25% of all illegal drugs that enter the US via Mexico.

Valdez is the sixth Mexican journalist killed this year.

Ríodoce vows to continue.

“We were hit in the heart today: Ríodoce”

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Mexico denies it’s world’s second-deadliest country

Image: Business Insider

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) says that “conflicts in Mexico and Central America” are deadlier than the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Drudge tweeted about it,

Predictably, the Mexican government on Wednesday rejected the study as “unfounded and irresponsible,” and a senior government official who preferred to remain anonymous said that the study’s

conclusions handed “false arguments” to Mr. Trump to criticize Mexico at a time of tense relations between the two countries.

The irony-poor Interior Ministry also put out a statement claiming

that the homicide rate remains low compared to other countries in the region such as Venezuela and Brazil.

As if.

But facts are a hard thing (emphasis added),

security remains a serious problem in Mexico. An estimated 10,000 people have died each year on average in crimes related to drug gangs since the government began deploying the armed forces to cartel hot spots in late 2006, given the ineffectiveness of local police forces that are often incompetent or corrupt, according to security expert Alejandro Hope. Another 30,000 people are missing, most of them presumed to be victims of the cartels.

Mexico’s homicide rate increased in 2015 and 2016 after three years of declines. Around 21,000 people were murdered last year, a 22% increase from 2015, according to preliminary figures from the Interior Ministry. Experts expect homicides could rise to more than 22,000 in 2017, which would be the highest since 2011 if the trend from the first three months of the year continues.

Then there is the issue of corruption, where Mexico ranks as one of the more corrupt (123 out of 176 countries) nations in the world .

Meanwhile, over in Tamaulipas, cartel factions fight it out while the governors are on the lam.

InSight Crime has news on organized crime in Mexico.

UPDATE
Linked to by Silvio Canto. Thank you!

We talked about this in today’s podcast,

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Mexico: Cartel war at the U.S. border

While Mexico slams Texas’s new “sanctuary city” law, rival factions of the Gulf Cartel are fighting over control of the border state of Tamaulipas.

Cartel Chronicles reports:

The fighting took place early Tuesday morning setting off the eighth day of gun battles in this city. Law enforcement officials confirmed to Breitbart Texas that the fighting took place along the Esfuerzo Nacional neighborhood on the city’s western side. The fighting began when three gunmen began to fire at a police convoy fatally injuring one of the officers and striking two others. Police officers fought off the attack and then chased the gunmen who tried to flee the are during a short chase. The fighting led to the shutdown of the highway that connects this border city with the industrial hub of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, one of the busiest avenues in the city.

During the exchange of gunfire, a taco vendor was struck by a stray bullet and died at the scene. Tamaulipas government officials confirmed the five casualties, as well as the seizure of three rifles and two vehicles used in the firefight. As Breitbart Texas has been reporting, rival factions of the Gulf Cartel have been fighting for control of this border city setting off a series of daily gun battles where convoys of gunmen have been roaming the streets seeking out their rivals.

Last year InSight crime reported that Elites, Organized Crime Share Long History in Tamaulipas, Mexico, one of the country’s “most criminally infested states.”

As you may recall, former state governor Tomás Yarrington was being deported from Italy; he is wanted in Mexico and the U.S. on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. Another governor facing drug charges in the U.S., Eugenio Hernández Flores, remains on the lam.

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Mexico: Shootouts over oil

Four soldiers and six civilians dead:
Mexican Soldiers, Alleged Fuel Thieves Killed in Shootouts.Nearly a a dozen more injured in two clashes late Wednesday night in Palmarito. (emphasis added)

The first clash occurred shortly after sunset Wednesday when soldiers responding to a report of a pipeline tap were ambushed by gunmen who used women and children as human shields, the defense ministry said in a statement. Two soldiers were killed but the troops withdrew without returning fire to avoid harming the civilians, the ministry said.

Hundreds of soldiers and federal police returned to Palmarito a few hours later, engaging gunmen in a clash that left two more soldiers and six suspected gunmen dead, officials said. Security forces recovered armored vehicles, several rifles and other weapons.

Palmarito lies within the so-called Red Triangle, which officials have cited as one of the primary areas for theft from fuel pipelines that link refineries to central Mexico.

Last March InSight Crime reported on Corruption, Oil Theft an Explosive Cocktail for Mexico State of Puebla,

oil theft may generate much more revenue than any other local illegal activity for criminal organizations. The most recent estimates are that oil theft in Mexico generated an astounding $1.5 billion in profits in 2016.

Mexico’s oil industry generated US$18.7 billion in 2016.

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Mexico’s Attorney General: US Authorities Still Haven’t Found “A Single Dollar” of Drug Lord El Chapo

Who do you believe?

On the one hand, US Authorities Still Haven’t Found “A Single Dollar” of Drug Lord El Chapo Guzmán, says Mexico’s Attorney General Raúl Cervantes Andrade,

The ex-leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, did not use the financial system, so thus far, no financial resources have been recovered, Mexican Attorney General Raúl Cervantes Andrade said Wednesday.

“To date US authorities have not found anything pertaining to the assets of el Chapo. We have realized that he did not use the financial system because we have not found any assets; they have not been able to find a single dollar,” the official said.

On the other hand, Jorge Ramos Hernández, a PAN congressman claims the assets total US$16 billion and belong to Mexico.

Clearly the guy from the PRI is not talking with the guy from the PAN.

Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz proposes the El Chapo Act, enabling 14 billion dollars worth of assets from El Chapo and other drug lords to fund the border wall.

In fact, in 2014 the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

issued a chart identifying 288 companies involved in Guzmán’s money laundering operations that had been blacklisted by OFAC between 2007 and 2014. The Guzman-linked companies, mostly located in Mexico, covered a broad range of areas including real estate, gas stations, construction and trucking companies, and furniture stores.

As I mentioned last month, one of El Chapo’s associates agreed not to contest the forfeiture of nearly $1.4 billion in assets and cash by U.S. authorities, and in 2012 the U.S. Treasury Department put financial sanctions on El Chapo’s wife and son.

Who do you believe?

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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