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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: 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,

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Mexico: State attorney general arrested, at the border, on drug charges

Like something out of Breaking Bad, only adding cocaine and heroin, the top law enforcement official in the state of Nayarit, busted on drug charges:

Mexican state attorney general arrested at U.S. border in San Diego on drug trafficking charges

Federal agents in San Diego have arrested the attorney general for the Mexican state of Nayarit on charges that he conspired to smuggle heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine into the U.S.

Edgar Veytia, 46, was detained Monday at the U.S. border in San Diego on an indictment handed down by a grand jury in New York, Ralph DeSio, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said Wednesday.

The indictment was filed March 2 in the Eastern District of New York — the same jurisdiction where federal prosecutors have charged Sinaloa cartel commander Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — and a U.S. magistrate judge in Brooklyn unsealed the charging papers on Tuesday.

Veytia allegedly was affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel, and went by several aliases, including Diablo (Devil).

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Mexico: El Chapo’s son(s) kidnapped at #LaLeche

Following up on yesterday’s post on the kidnapping of six people (initially reported as ten people) at La Leche restaurant in Puerto Vallarta,
Son of ‘El Chapo’ Is Among Men Abducted in Mexico, Prosecutor Says. Authorities believe competing cartel is behind the kidnappings in power grab for empire of jailed organized crime leader

Jalisco state prosecutor Eduardo Almaguer said forensic evidence, footage from security cameras as well as interviews with witnesses convinced authorities that Jesús Alfredo Guzmán, 29, was seized by armed gunmen early Monday as he dined in an upscale restaurant in the resort city.
. . .
Mr. Almaguer said investigators believe the abduction was the work of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, an up-and-coming gang increasingly challenging Mr. Guzman’s once dominant Sinaloa cartel.

Unofficial sources claim that another of El Chapo’s sons, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán, el Chapito, was kidnapped, too.

However, Héctor De Mauleón, writing for El Universal, denies the claim that El Chapito was there, even when El Chapito’s birthday is on August 15, coinciding with the date of the kidnapping during a birthday party at La Leche.

De Mauleón questions why the kidnapped men went out apparently unarmed and with no bodyguards.

Only one thing is clear: There’s a drug war on.

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The Memorial Day Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

Big news in Colombia: the ELN released Salud Hernández, Diego D’Pablos and Carlos Melo after holding them for a week. Details below.

ARGENTINA
Argentina’s Last Dictator Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison For Cross-Border Conspiracy

An Argentine court has sentenced Reynaldo Bignone, the country’s last dictator, to 20 years in prison for his part in Operation Condor.

It’s the “first time a court has ruled that Operation Condor was a criminal conspiracy to kidnap and forcibly disappear people across international borders,” The Associated Press reports.

Under this plan, the military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil agreed to share information with each other to help track down political opponents and leftists starting in 1975. 376 people were killed as a result of Operation Condor, the BBC reports. As The Guardian describes, “after their arrest, the victims were made to ‘disappear’, usually by being cremated, or thrown drugged but still alive from military planes into the Atlantic Ocean.”

Argentina Plans Amnesty Over Funds Stashed Abroad. President Mauricio Macri tries to encourage Argentines to repatriate billions of dollars hidden in overseas vaults and accounts. If he succeeds, it’ll be very good news.

BAHAMAS
STRIKING NEW SNAKE SPECIES FOUND IN THE BAHAMAS

BOLIVIA
The Worst Boyfriend in Bolivia

BRAZIL
Dilma Rousseff claims her downfall in Brazil is ‘clearly’ a ‘coup’ after leaked tape ensnares her critics

Petrobras scandal highlights need for deep reform in Brazil. Political changes required to try remove the carrots that incentivise corruption

Brazil police launch manhunt after sickening gang rape

CHILE
Chile President Bachelet testifies in tax probe into daughter-in-law

COLOMBIA
Colombian rebels free Spanish journalist, 2 others

CUBA
Reports That Castro is Legalizing ‘Private Business’ Are False

JAMAICA
Jamaica, Venezuela, OAS and Caricom

MEXICO
Attorneys for Mexico’s Chapo Seek to Block Extradition to U.S.

Sinaloa Cartel’s Takeover of US Heroin Market Questionable

Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel has taken control of the US heroin market by elbowing out traffickers of the Asian product, according to a DEA official, but the dynamics of the drug trade on both sides of the border are somewhat more complex.

Mexico Has a New US Ambassador after 10-Month Blockade – Roberta Jacobson.

NICARAGUA
ICYMI: There is Nothing New Under the Nicaraguan Sun

PANAMA
Panama Papers May Inspire More Big Leaks, if Not Reform

PARAGUAY
Refuge in Paraguay gives street kids their lives back

PERU
Poll gives Peru’s Fujimori 5.8 point lead a week before election

PUERTO RICO

Puerto Rico’s born-again farmers dig for victory in island’s debt battle. They have a long way to go: agriculture accounts for less than 1% of the island’s GDP.

VENEZUELA
Oposición se reúne en secreto con régimen de Maduro para bloquear a la OEA

Chávez’s little blue book. Outsiders should push Nicolás Maduro to hold a recall referendum this year

In graphics: A political and economic guide to Venezuela

Venezuela Goes from Bad to Catastrophe. Until the country has a government that can build a sustainable economic system, its misery will only deepen



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Mexico: El Chapo’s notes from underground, VIDEO

Penn first met in person with El Chapo’s son under Chavista Cartel de los Soles protection in Venezuela’s Margarita Island.

El Chapo snuck out of the house during the Mexican Marines’ raid through a tunnel, bring us today’s Capt. Louis Renault moment:
‘El Chapo’ Nearly Foiled Capture With Another Tunnel. Mexican Marines took nearly 90 minutes to find the drug lord’s tunnel

Video published Monday by Mexican broadcaster Televisa revealed details of the secret tunnel used by Mr. Guzmán to slip away from marines as they stormed a house he was using in the coastal city of Los Mochis. He was arrested hours later trying to leave the city in a stolen car.

The tunnel was hidden behind a closet mirror, featured a secret switch hidden in the ceiling, and had electricity and wooden planks covering the walls, the images showed. Marines took nearly 90 minutes to find the tunnel and open the access, giving him a big head start.

Mr. Guzmán, the world’s most notorious drug lord and leader of the Sinaloa cartel, has a long history with tunnels. He is widely credited with pioneering the use of tunnels to ferry drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border, and used tunnels in recent years to elude capture as Mexico’s most-wanted criminal. He then famously used a mile-long tunnel to escape from prison last July.

Were he living, Dosto may have something to say on Chapo’s underground tendencies.

By now, shouldn’t Chapo (Shorty) be named El Topo (Mole)?

But I digress.

Here’s Televisa‘s coverage (in Spanish). Here’s the video from the Marines’ unit commander’s go-pro camera.

Anonymous Mexico released an embeddable version,

While the house was raided,

[El Chapo] fled through a secret door concealed by a mirror. He hid in a tunnel, until rainwater forced him out. An armed Guzman then stole a car, before finally being arrested.

As for Sean Penn’s October movie deal with El Chapo under the guise of an interview,

Penn agreed that El Chapo

would have the final edit of the resulting story.Penn also agreed not to alert authorities to the killer’s whereabouts

And it all comes down to this: Sean Penn Perpetuates Narco-Worship in a Blood-Stained Country

The main reason for the bloodshed in Mexico since the early part of 2000‘s comes from Guzman’s efforts to take control of the entire Northern Mexican border with the United States. While the expansion has been partly successful, the land-grab has resulted in thousands of deaths as rival cartels and former allies have at different times taken arms to protect their turf.

El Chapo’s attempt to take Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, led that massive drug trafficking corridor to become the Murder Capital of the world. The violence came when El Chapo’s forces clashed with the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Organization, also known as the Juarez Cartel.

Even before Juarez, El Chapo and his then allied the Beltran Leyva cartel had unsuccessfully tried to take over the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. That effort was met with a violent response from the Gulf Cartel and their enforcers Los Zetas. Gruesome executions and fierce clashes between convoys of gunmen became a regular sight.

Some maintain that, If Stupidity Were a Crime, Sean Penn Would Be the Fugitive. But see for yourself: you can read the interview (all nine thousand words) here. (Related: The Trouble With Sean Penn’s Chapo Interview)

But back to the underground,

I don’t agree with the stupidity part; Penn reportedly first met in person with El Chapo’s son under Chavista protection in Venezuela’s Ranchos de Chana resort at Margarita Island, according to Spanish journalist Emili Blasco (in Spanish), The meeting allegedly was sponsored by former chief of intelligence general Hugo Carvajal (a.k.a. El Pollo), who was indicted in the U.S. District Court accusing Carvajal of coordinating the transport of 5,600 kilos (6.17 tons) of cocaine from Venezuela to Mexico. Carvajal is a member of Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles, which sells drugs to the Sinaloa Cartel.

As I mentioned in July 2014,

Spanish journalist Emili Blasco reports that Carvajal allegedly “was in charge of procuring the drugs from the FARC and controlled the distribution process in the U.S. and Europe, along with laundering the drug money through PDVSA,” the government-owned oil company. Carvajal also is under investigation for his role on the attacks to the Colombian consulate and the Jewish center in Caracas.

Blasco reported in yesterday’s ABC that Venezuela security sources conveyed the information regarding the presence of El Chapo’s children to U.S. authorities, and that the Mexican government also would have been told.

Blasco mentions that DEA sources claim that El Chapo had visited Venezuela in August/September last year.

Right now El Chapo is back at the prison where he escaped from last year; According to Mexican officials, El Chapo’s extradition process could take at least a year.

Linked to by Ed Morrissey. Thank you!

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Mexico: Jalisco’s new generation of crime

The WSJ reports on the latest cartel, Jalisco Nueva Generación:
Rise of Drug Cartel Brings Wave of Mexican ViolenceArmy hunts for three missing soldiers in Jalisco since helicopter was shot down on Friday

“A new and military powerful cartel is appearing, and opening up a new front in the war against drugs in Guadalajara and Jalisco,” said Raul Benitez, a security analyst at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The flare-up of violence in Guadalajara, a city of 1.5 million people in a metropolitan area of 4.5 million, and the resort town of Puerto Vallarta is the latest setback for the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto. The government has been determined to show that Mexico is a modern, emerging economy, but its inability to control areas where criminal gangs continue to exert control have frustrated these efforts.

“Guadalajara is not a little town in the middle of nowhere, and this shows the cartel has the logistics and power to paralyze a city,” said Jorge Chabat, a security analyst at the CIDE think tank in Mexico City.
. . .
The areas the Jalisco cartel controls sit astride important transport and production centers for cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana.

The Jalisco Nueva Generación, who are allies of the Sinaloa cartel, started in 2010 for the purpose of neutralizing the Zetas, according to this report from El Comercio.

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Mexico: El Universal claims DEA-Sinaloa deal in Fast & Furious

Business Insider posts: CONFIRMED: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico’s Most Notorious Drug Cartel

An investigation by El Universal has found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs in exchange for information on rival cartels.

Sinaloa, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.

There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered to be “the world’s most powerful drug trafficker,” coordinates with American authorities.

But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official.

The written statements were made to the U.S. District Court in Chicago in relation to the arrest of Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the son of Sinaloa leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and allegedly the Sinaloa cartel’s “logistics coordinator.”

On Fast & Furious,

Zambada-Niebla also alleged that Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the cartel in exchange for information used to take down its rivals. (If true, that re-raises the issue regarding what Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the gun-running arrangements.)

Is any of this true?

Ace asks,

True? Bullshit? I don’t know. As far as partisan/presidential blame, the narrative goes like this: The agreement (about permitting Sinaloa drugs to get through to the US in exchange for tips on rivals) is struck by Clinton. It “peaks” under Bush, in 2006, through Obama, in 2010, but at that point we seem to still be talking about laying off Sinaolo [sic] drug deliveries. I’m not sure if there is anyone blamed for the “arming the narcogangsters” by this narrative except for Holder and Obama.

It strikes me as hard to believe… and yet the government does things which are hard to believe.


Former ATF Special Agent John Dobson made similar claims in his book The Unarmed Truth: My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious. Agent Dobson is the agent who originally blew the whistle on Fast and Furious.

Last November Holder appealed a judge’s ruling allowing the House of Representatives to continue with a contempt case stemming from his refusal to turn over documents related to the Justice Department’s response to the Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking controversy.

Rep. Darrell E. Issa, chair of House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is vowing to keep up the heat in the investigation into Operation Fast and Furious

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