Beltran Leyva Cartel - Fausta's Blog

April 6, 2017 By Fausta

Mexico: El Chapo’s former partner sentenced to life in the US

El Mochomo was sentenced to life in prison and US$529million asset forfeiture yesterday in Washington.

The Beltrán Leyvas were the “armed wing” of the Sinaloa cartel, says the WaPo:

Alfredo “El Mochomo” Beltrán-Leyva and his brothers once ran an organization that served as the armed wing of Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s most powerful drug syndicate, court files show. But El Mochomo’s capture by Mexican special forces in 2008 — which Mexican federal officials said his siblings blamed on Guzmán — launched a string of shadowy betrayals between the groups and detonated a bloody drug war with effects that haunt Mexico nearly a decade later.

Now, U.S. prosecutors have closed in on both kingpins. The prosecution of Beltrán-Leyva, who pleaded guilty last year, offers a tantalizing glimpse of the U.S. government’s long pursuit of Guzmán, including a shared cast of cooperating witnesses and a trail of escalating financial penalties including plea deals to hand over billions in illegal gains.

The half-billion dollar forfeiture order by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon of the District comes after judges in Washington have entered judgments of at least $10 billion since 2013 against Gulf cartel members, the largest criminal financial penalties in a U.S. drug prosecution.

Mochomo means Desert Ant, according to the WaPo. On the eve of the trial in February last year, El Mochomo plead guilty without a deal. He controlled over 100 hit men in his heyday.

Meanwhile, U.S. authorities,

U.S. authorities are asking for a $14 billion order against El Chapo, who was extradited to the United States in January and awaits federal trial in Brooklyn.

It remains to be seen a. whether El Mochomo will rat on El Chapo, and b. whether the U.S. can collect on the asset forfeitures in both cases, beyond what they may already have.

InSight Crime has been reporting extensively on the Bertrán Leyva Organization for years,

October 8, 2014 By Fausta

Mexico: 43 students missing since September 26

#HastaEncontrarlos

Vigilantes in Mexico students search
Hundreds of members of self-defence groups join the search in the Mexican town of Iguala for 43 missing students who disappeared almost two weeks ago. None of the missing are known to have crime connections:

The students, from a teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, travelled to the nearby town of Iguala to protest against what they perceived as discriminatory hiring practices for teachers.

After a day of protests and fundraising, they wanted to make their way back to their college.

Accounts of what happened next differ.

Members of the student union say they hitched a lift aboard three local buses, but the police says the students seized the buses.

In the hours which followed, six people were killed when armed men opened fire on the three buses and that of a third division football team which they presumably mistook for one carrying students.

Three students, a footballer, the driver of one of the buses and a woman in a taxi were shot dead. Many more were injured.

Municipal police gave chase to the students, and are believed to have fired at them.

Twenty-two officers have been detained in connection with the shooting.

But there are also reports of other armed men opening fire on the students. Eight people not belonging to the municipal police have also been arrested.

Disappearance
Following the incident on the night of 26 September, 57 students were reported missing.

On 30 September it was announced that 13 of them had returned to their homes.

One name was found to have appeared in the list of the missing twice, leaving 43 students unaccounted for.

On 4 October, prosecutors announced they had found six shallow graves containing the remains of at least 28 people.

Authorities are investigating the possible involvement of a local drug gang called Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors, a pun, since the state’s name is Guerrero), led by a thug nicknamed El Chucky, and are affiliated with the Beltran Leyva cartel. Additionally, Iguala’s mayor, Jose Luis Abarca Velazquez, his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa, and the police chief have not been seen since the events on 26 September. However, so far the biggest suspect is Mexico’s Police

The state prosecutor investigating why the police opened fire on students from their vehicles has found mass graves in Iguala — the small industrial city where the confrontations occurred — containing 28 badly burned and dismembered bodies.

The prosecutors had already arrested 22 police officers after the clashes, saying the officers secretly worked for, or were members of, a local gang. Now they are investigating whether the police apprehended the students after the confrontation and deliberately turned them over to the local gang. Two witnesses in custody told prosecutors that the gang then killed the protesters on the orders of a leader known as El Chucky.

According to witnesses,

More police officers arrived, accompanied by gunmen in plainclothes. Prosecutors have now identified these shooters as members of a cell of assassins called “Guerreros Unidos” or “Warriors United,” who work for the Beltran Leyva cartel. The cartel’s head Hector Beltran Leyva was arrested last week following the incident.

Federal agents are now in charge instead of local police.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has vowed to identify and punish those responsible for the recent disappearance of 43 students after clashes with police.

On one front, the September 26 murders of six people in Iguala, Guerrero, has plunged the conflict-ridden state south of Mexico City into renewed political turmoil.

Paco Almaraz features the governor of the state of Guerrero in the burn-out unit (in Spanish),

September 13, 2010 By Fausta

Mexico arrests El Grande VIDEO

Mexico arrests suspected drug kingpin

The Mexican authorities say they have arrested one of the country’s most wanted drugs traffickers.

Sergio Villarreal – known as “El Grande” – was detained by navy marines in the city of Puebla, east of Mexico City.

He is alleged to be a top lieutenant in the powerful Beltran Leyva cartel.

His arrest comes two weeks after the capture of another drug kingpin, Edgar Valdez, known as “Barbie”, who led a rival faction of the same cartel.

The navy said Mr Villarreal was arrested “without a shot being fired” following an intelligence operation.

Makes you wonder if La Barbie had been talking, doesn’t it?

Most-Wanted Mexico Drugs Suspect Cornered

A raid involving 30 soldiers, five armoured vehicles and a helicopter has led to the capture of a suspected member of a drugs cartel in Mexico.

Sergio Villarreal Barragan: Capture of “El Grande” helps Mexico’s president

The 2nd capture of a high level suspected drug lord in two weeks – this time Sergio Villarreal Barragan, alias “El Grande” – again boosts Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

This is the fourth high-level arrest in less than a year, and comes amid public fatigue over the strategy to root out drug trafficking. Since President Calderon sent thousands of troops and federal police in December 2006 across the country to fight organized crime, more than 28,000 have died in drug-related violence.

“This is a new and resounding blow by the federal government against crime, given the high rank and dangerousness of this person inside one of the country’s most extensive criminal organizations which has been deeply weakened,” national security spokesman Alejandro Poire said Sunday night.
The cartel and the fighting

Authorities blame the Beltran Leyva cartel for responsible for escalating violence in central Mexico, bringing to this once peaceful part of the country the mass graves and torture once largely limited to the US-Mexico border. The cartel has allegedly been weakened by infighting since the founder Arturo Beltran Leyva was killed on Dec. 16 during a military operation. Hector Beltran Leyva, still at large, and Sergio Villarreal Barragan were believed to be fighting a faction led by Edgar Valdez.

Analysts do not expect the cartel’s internecine feuds to wane, as territories remain in dispute. “This is not the case of criminals ascending to be Roman emperors in which they only fight between the principal figures, but brutal gangsters that, with their paranoia, would execute even the pet if they believed it to be a potential internal enemy,” says Erubiel Tirado, a security expert at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City. ”There is an undetermined number of potential bosses disputing the leadership of each group.”

Villarreal Barragan was one of Mexico´s most wanted criminals. And Mr. Poire said he now faces at least seven investigations involving drug trafficking and organized crime.

I’ll talk about this in today’s podcast at 11AM Eastern. You can listen to the podcast live, or listen to the archived podcast at this link or through iTunes.

22996