MEXICO CITY – Mexico's capture of two rival drug gang leaders in two weeks may mark a new trend in the country's drug war, an official said Monday:
drug lords surrendering without a fight when surrounded.
Drug lords — once notorious for dying in a blaze of bullets — have started surrendering, said Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Jose Luis Vergara. The capture
of the rivals also may help allay suspicions that the government hits one gang while leaving its rivals alone.
"The criminals are no longer putting up resistance" when surrounded, Vergara said, referring to Sunday's arrest of Sergio Villarreal Barragan, a
leader of the Beltran-Leyva drug cartel.
Villarreal was taken by about 30 Mexican marines without a shot fired in a raid at a house in the central state of Puebla on Sunday. That came a
little over two weeks after the Aug. 30 arrest of his rival, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a U.S.-born trafficker known as "La Barbie," who also gave up
when stopped by police.
"I think it is a sensible attitude on their part not to resist," Vergara said, referring to two previous capos — Arturo Beltran Leyva and Ignacio
"Nacho" Coronel — who died while trying to fight off marines and soldiers.
"I think the case of 'Nacho' Coronel was a watershed. I think that the drug gangs now know very well the federal government has the superior force
needed to arrest them, and that is why they are not putting up resistance," Vergara said at a news conference in which Villarreal Barragan was
presented before the cameras.
The unsmiling Villarreal Barragan towered over marines flanking him, living up to his nickname "El Grande," or "the Big One." Vergara said he was also
known "King Kong" and "The Child Eater," for reasons that are not clear.
He appears on an Attorney General's Office list of Mexico's most-wanted drug traffickers, with a reward of just over $2 million, and he faces at least
seven formal investigations into alleged drug trafficking and organized crime. He is considered the second-in-command to Hector Beltran Leyva, who
leads the cartel following the death of his brother Arturo.
Villarreal Barragan and Valdez Villarreal — who are not related — were bitter enemies, whose dispute led to bloodshed across the southern state of
Morelos and Guerrero as they fought for territory.
In April, a policeman and five other people — including a mother and her 8-year-old child — were killed in the crossfire of a shootout between the two
gangs on the main boulevard of the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. And last week, authorities discovered 13 bodies in a clandestine grave in Morelos
state, believed to be victims of the feud.
While the federal anti-drug offensive launched in late 2006 has hit all of the major cartels, suspicions have long lingered that the government may be
hitting some gangs harder than others, either because a single dominant cartel might cause less violence than two warring ones, or that some officials
protected specific gangs.
But seldom have leaders of two rival drug gangs been arrested with days of one another.
"The timing is very close," said former top chief anti-drug prosecutor Samuel Gonzalez. But Gonzalez stressed that, while the two were rivals, "they
come from the same lineage" in the Beltran Leyva cartel.
Valdez Villarreal split from the cartel following its leader's death, and officials said he had supplied important information after his arrest, but
Vergara said that Villarreal Barragan's arrest was due to a 10-month investigation — with no relation to the detention of his rival.
Both factions are now "very weakened," Vergara said.
But other cartels — like the Zetas gang or the La Familia cartel — could be poised to move in on the territory the two arrested capos were fighting
over. Vergara said the territory stretches from Mexico City to the Pacific coast, along with some northern enclaves.
Nor are the cartels likely to give up while they still have weaponry and room to move. On Sunday, federal police reported they had found 90 hand
grenades, 29 rifles and about 58,000 rounds of ammunition at a a suspected drug cartel safe house in the northern Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas.
Now the cynical Nomads out there can explain why this is a bad thing.wessongroup - 9-14-2010 at 05:28 AM
I'm glad to see the change in thinking on the part of those being arrested... now if they can move the thinking on down the chain of command ... it
would really get a lot better for all...
Dying for ones country is understandable, dying for just money is not... way too much is made out of money ....
Nice story to start the morning out... thanks...ELINVESTIG8R - 9-14-2010 at 05:47 AM
That is great news. Now Mexico can glean more information about the this specific cartel. I don't think these Capos will need any torturing to say
what is going on in their internal workings. If a little torture is needed so what! Look at the tortures and mayhem they have perpetrated. Nothing
Mexico can do to the capos compare to what they have done.bajario - 9-14-2010 at 06:00 AM
Maybe they think they might be let out at night to roam around and continue there business. Or that an assisted escape is easily obtained.
If they deport them to the US to face charges then they might be more inclined to go out blazing.Osprey - 9-14-2010 at 06:04 AM
El, why don't you go down there and help them with the torture. You're probably good at that, being in the private investigator biz. Just make em
watch all your special effects for a few hours. Add big sound, a winner.ELINVESTIG8R - 9-14-2010 at 07:20 AM
Osprey, I'd rather torture you with my gifs here on Baja Nomad!
PS: I'm not a Private Investigator
sanquintinsince73 - 9-14-2010 at 11:39 AM
Probably the only thing I like about Mexico cops is that they have a knack for making perps talk. Maybe they were trained by Rumsfeld and Cheney? Just
saying.
