BajaNomad

2012: The Most Outlandish Stories from the Drug War in Mexico

Gypsy Jan - 12-12-2012 at 11:46 AM

From The New Yorker

Posted by Patrick Radden Keefe

"Last year, the Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo released a crackling art-house thriller,"Miss Bala," about an aspiring beauty queen who becomes embroiled in the violent drug cartels of Tijuana. The premise of a willowy innocent caught in the crossfire had all the hallmarks of a telenovela, and some critics groused that the film was implausible. But in the real-life maelstrom of Mexico's drug war, a certain gaudy surrealism is not unusual. In fact, Naranjo had based the film on an actual incident, in 2008, in which a pageant winner from Sinaloa was arrested in the company of a gaggle of cartel strongmen. (She said that she had been kidnapped by her boyfriend, a member of the Juárez cartel.)

But if art imitated life in "Miss Bala," life gained the upper hand again last month, when another beauty queen from Sinaloa, twenty-two-year-old Maria Susana Flores Gamez, was caught by a bullet during a shootout between cartel hit men and Mexican troops. This time, the story had an extraordinary twist: an AK-47 was recovered near Flores's body, and she had gunpowder residue on her fingers. According to a federal prosecutor handling the case, she fired at the soldiers before she died. This Miss Sinaloa didn't just fall in with the assassins, the allegation goes-she was one of them.

Welcome to the inherent looniness of the drug war. It has actually been a good year for Mexico, in at least one respect: the murder rate dropped precipitously along some stretches of the border. (Though whether this can be attributed to the kill-or-capture campaign of outgoing President Felipe Calderón is not at all clear. The largest cartel, the Sinaloa, vanquished a number of challengers during this period, and black-market monopolies are often more peaceful than the alternative.) But it was a colorful year as well, due to the systematic, try-anything-once eclecticism of the smugglers, and the antic game of Tom-and-Jerry escalation that they tend to play with law enforcement on both sides of the border.

1. On the Fence

"Show me a fifty-foot fence and I'll show you a fifty-one-foot ladder," a drug warrior once told me, and the cartels have long excelled at so-rudimentary-they're-obvious methods of pushing product across the border. In this instance, a group of smugglers near Yuma, Arizona, tried to drive a Jeep right over the fence. "Ramps!" you can almost hear them saying beforehand. "We could use ramps!" If you could inscribe the Quixotic essence of the drug war in a single image, the photograph above might very well be it.

2. The Best Parking Spot in Nogales

Not all smuggling methods are so rudimentary. On East International Street in downtown Nogales, Arizona, authorities recently discovered what may have been the most valuable parking spot in the country. Most of the time, it looked like a regular spot some fifty feet from the border. But occasionally, a van would pull into the spot and a camouflaged plug would open in the concrete underneath, revealing a hole that was ten inches in diameter. That apparently innocuous parking space was the terminus of a narrow tunnel that began in an abandoned hotel in Mexico and ran underneath the border. While the van appeared to idle in the spot, smugglers would feed parcels of marijuana up from the hole in the ground through a similar hole in the bottom of the van; using this method, they could smuggle a million dollars' worth of weed into the country in forty minutes. Then the plug would be replaced with a hydraulic jack, the van would roll away, and the space would become available. (This is a bit of a cheat, in that the story originally broke in 2011, but it got its fullest exploration in a terrific feature in Businessweek this year.)

3. The Narco Backers of the "Passion of the Christ" Prequel

It's always a little surprising to reflect on the religiosity of contemporary narcos, in light of the more or less non-stop mortal sins that the profession entails. But I was especially surprised to learn that when Hollywood producers began the process of developing a prequel to Mel Gibson's hugely successful 2004 film, "The Passion of the Christ," one of the chief investors was an alleged narcotraficante named Jorge Vásquez Sánchez. After Sánchez was arrested in Chicago, in 2010, and pleaded guilty to extortion and other crimes, it emerged that, through some spectacularly ill-advised loans, the producers had come to owe him a ten-per-cent stake of any future profits from the film. The project, "Mary, Mother of Christ," was well on its way to production, and had attracted the megapastor Joel Osteen as a producer, before the identity of the unsavory backer was revealed this year. A spokesman from Osteen's church said that the pastor had no inkling of Sánchez's involvement. Somehow, I believe him. (The film, which stars Ben Kingsley, is due out next year. Because Sánchez forfeited his stake in the production to the federal government, we are all, in a sense, now investors in the film.)

4. The Knights Templar Play Dressup

Actually, maybe it shouldn't be surprising that the cartels would have their eyes on Hollywood: a morbid theatricality is a persistent feature of narco culture. Earlier this year, during a routine patrol of a town in Michoacán, the Mexican Army discovered a training ground that belonged to the Knights Templar, a slightly zany offshoot of the already zany cartel known as La Familia Michoacana (about which William Finnegan wrote in 2010). When they searched the site, the soldiers discovered a hundred and twenty hard plastic helmets-a special order, it appeared, as each featured a plunging nose guard like those worn by the twelfth-century Christian order from which the cartel takes its name. The headgear apparently featured in the cartel's initiation rites.

5. But the Kid Is Not My Son

In June, authorities made an exciting announcement: the Mexican Navy had captured the son of the fugitive drug baron Joaquín (Chapo) Guzmán, the head of the Sinaloa cartel. At a press conference, officials presented a dark-eyed, baby-faced young man in a Polo shirt and a bulletproof vest and said that he was Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar. Chapo is a maddeningly elusive figure, so capturing one of his immediate relatives would represent a significant coup. But almost immediately, a lawyer for the Guzmán family announced that, in fact, this was not Chapo's son. Then a woman named Elodia León, who had no apparent relation to Chapo, came forward to say that the young man in custody was her son, that his name was Felix Beltran, and that he was a twenty-three-year-old car dealer. It was a tremendous embarrassment for the Calderón administration, and a reminder of the obstacles that authorities on both sides of the border face: in the fog of the drug war, sometimes you don't even realize you've captured the wrong guy until his mother comes forward to tell you.

6. Lazcano Delicti

Of course, sometimes that fog works in the other way, too. In October, the Mexican Navy killed several suspected members of the Zetas outside a baseball game in Coahuila. When they examined the bodies of the dead, they discovered that one of the men they had killed was no mere Zeta gunman, but Heriberto Lazcano, the founder and head of the cartel, whose gentle demeanor had earned him the affectionate sobriquet "The Executioner." After making this discovery, they rushed to the funeral parlor where the corpses had been sent, only to discover that during the night, a band of masked Zetas had stormed the place and made off with the body. So Mexican officials were forced to take credit for the kill, but without producing the body, a scenario that would spawn Hoffa-like conspiracy theories even in the best of times, never mind in the final months of a Calderón administration that was desperate to show results in its offensive on the cartels. (As it happens, Lazcano had already constructed a tasteful mausoleum for himself, though, as of this writing, his body has not turned up there.)

7. Laundering Drug Proceeds at the Race Track...

The Zetas had a tough year across the board, experiencing another blow in June, when federal prosecutors cracked down on an elaborate scheme the cartel had allegedly devised to launder their profits by racing quarter-horses in the United States. According to authorities, over several years, the cartel spent a million dollars a month on expensive horses and raced them in competitive events. As the New York Times related in a fascinating exposé, the older brother of Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, the No. 2 man in the Zetas, managed a sprawling ranch in Oklahoma, and an estimated three hundred horses. If he feared detection, he did not act like it. One of the horses that he raced was named "Number One Cartel."

8. ...and at the Casino

Laundering money is a major challenge for cartels-it can be as difficult as smuggling drugs. But the horse-racing caper is not the only instance in which cartel members sought to mingle business and recreation. In a year full of noteworthy stories about the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, it almost went unnoticed that the Sinaloa cartel may have used his casinos to launder their profits. One Chinese-Mexican businessman named Zhenli Ye Gon, who ran a pharmaceutical company that allegedly supplied methamphetamine precursors to the cartel, was what might tactfully be described as an avid gambler; he boasted about betting a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a hand at baccarat. You know how as long as you're gambling, a casino will comp your drinks, maybe even buy you a steak dinner or treat you to a hotel room? Well, one casino gave Ye Gon a Rolls Royce. According to court documents, he spent over seventy million dollars at the Venetian in 2006 alone. Investigators say that he was using Mexican currency-exchange houses to transfer funds to the casino, a red flag that should have triggered serious scrutiny. (The casino has denied any wrongdoing, and is coöperating with investigators.) The cartels have proven so adept at laundering money that it should come as little surprise that they would do so in the heady, cash-rich milieu of Las Vegas. But the sheer volume of money coming in has obliged them to adopt more conventional methods as well: it emerged this year that they have also relied on major banks, like HSBC. (HSBC just settled an expansive money-laundering case by agreeing to pay a fine of nearly two billion dollars.)

9. A Letter from La Barbie

One of the major arrests in recent years was Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a former high-school football player from Laredo, Texas, who moved to Mexico and became a ruthless enforcer for the Beltrán-Leyva cartel. (He was the subject of a profile in Rolling Stone.) La Barbie has been locked up in Mexico since his arrest, in 2010, and last month he sent an unusual letter to the El Paso Times, in which he alleged that senior Mexican officials made direct overtures to the cartels in the hopes of making deals-taking high-level meetings with the Zetas, La Familia, and others. Of course, claims of corruption are rife in Mexico, and no one would dispute that kickbacks to law enforcement pose a major problem. But it is unusual to have such testimony from a high-ranking cartel member himself. Less clear is how credible La Barbie's charges are: he has been seeking extradition to the U.S., and the letter might represent a last-ditch gambit to get himself over the Rio Grande. Mexico's Public Security Secretariat issued an official response to the letter, dismissing it as La Barbie's effort to "discredit" those who might bring him to justice. Interestingly, the statement did not deny any of his specific allegations.

10. Washington and Colorado Legalize Marijuana

But the most outlandish drug story of 2012 from the Mexican point of view, surely, would be the successful initiatives this November to legalize marijuana in Colorado and Washington state. Some sixty thousand people have died in Mexico in violence related to the drug war over the past six years, at least in part because of the Calderón administration's aggressive posture toward the cartels-a posture that was both encouraged and facilitated by the United States. Yet the U.S. may now be embarking on a state-by-state shift to legalize one of the cartels' most popular offerings. (By some estimates, Mexican cartels derive up to forty per cent of their revenue from marijuana.)

The question facing Mexico's new President, Enrique Peña Nieto, who took office earlier this month, is whether it makes sense for Mexicans to continue fighting and dying in an effort to crack down on the manufacture and movement of a drug that may end up ultimately becoming legal in the U.S. anyway. Peña Nieto has said nothing definitive about his plans, but there are indications from his advisers that a reassessment is in order. "Obviously, we can't handle a product that is illegal in Mexico, trying to stop its transfer to the United States, when in the United States ... it now has a different status," one of his senior advisers said. But one thing is clear, he added: this new legislation "changes the rules of the game."

DavidE - 12-12-2012 at 01:17 PM

Ooooh I like the one that goes like this...

Once upon a time there were a pair of CIA operatives. They and a capitan de las marinas visited a base near Cuernavaca. On the way out they say they were ambushed by a group of federal police dressed in plain clothes. They did not like the looks of the cops so they floorboarded their armored embassy Nissan and blew through the puesto de control.

The crooked murderous cops opened fire. The spooks kept driving. The cops gave chase.

The tires on the Nissan flattened and the armored car ground to a halt. The drug gang bribed federal cops gave chase. They caught the vehicle on the open road and surrounded it. The CIA agents said the cops had heavy machine guns and even RPG rockets capable of penetrating four inches of armored steel plate.

The vicious killers surrounded the car for 15 minutes before the marine detachment arrived. They were alone. Fifteen armed to the teeth murderers versus two CIA agents and one marine lieutenant. Fifteen minutes.

Oops the drug bribed cops forgot to do something.

Like, shoot the occupants of the Nissan. Their armament could have reduced the car to a smoking cinder. But they forgot. Or a dozen machine guns and a pair of RPG rockets miraculously failed to work. Misfires! All!

One, one hundred eighty seven thousand dollar federal automobile was trashed. The CIA agents are heroes. The marine captain vanished into the system. More than two dozen federal cops are imprisoned in Mexico and one General officer has been arrested.

All of this because a pair of unpunished knotheads decided they were too big of shots to have to stop at a puesto de control. The agents aren't evil. They are ignorant.

But the Central Intelligence Agency, the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agency, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, all operate the same way.

With this kind of lunacy being subsidized with taxpayer money, we citizens stand no chance whatsoever.

So the next time you pull into a Puesto de Control and no one is smiling, maybe they have a good reason not to. Keep it in mind.

DENNIS - 12-12-2012 at 02:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Gypsy Jan
Some sixty thousand people have died in Mexico in violence related to the drug war over the past six years



Most of which were scum in the toilet bowl of the country. Why is the eradication of these vermin always brought up as though it was a rip in the social fabric of Mexico when it was a pattern of cleansing that the US should implement.
Our country is in dire need of similar sacrifices.

Why is there soooo much anti American sentiment?

luv2fish - 12-12-2012 at 03:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DavidE
All of this because a pair of unpunished knotheads decided they were too big of shots to have to stop at a puesto de control. The agents aren't evil. They are ignorant.

Maybe they didn't stop because they knew it was not a legitimate check point.

Add this to the WTF list

bajaguy - 12-12-2012 at 04:11 PM

http://www.kkoh.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=118&itemid=299567...

DavidE - 12-13-2012 at 01:53 PM

Luv@fish

Describe a LEGAL puesto de control por favor.

luv2fish - 12-13-2012 at 02:32 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DavidE
Luv@fish

Describe a LEGAL puesto de control por favor.


Yes David, I guess you're right, they're all illegal. And very intimidating.

micah202 - 1-5-2013 at 06:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DENNIS
Quote:
Originally posted by Gypsy Jan
Some sixty thousand people have died in Mexico in violence related to the drug war over the past six years



Most of which were scum in the toilet bowl of the country. Why is the eradication of these vermin always brought up as though it was a rip in the social fabric of Mexico when it was a pattern of cleansing that the US should implement.
Our country is in dire need of similar sacrifices.




....wayyy too many are innocents that get sucked in to that -monster-

DENNIS - 1-5-2013 at 06:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by micah202
....wayyy too many are innocents that get sucked in to that -monster-


How many?
Collateral damage was a small percentage of the 70,000 killed.

micah202 - 1-5-2013 at 08:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DENNIS
Quote:
Originally posted by micah202
....wayyy too many are innocents that get sucked in to that -monster-


How many?
Collateral damage was a small percentage of the 70,000 killed.


...I'm thinking of how many of those killed would have happily been doing something else if it weren't for the drug trade

woody with a view - 1-5-2013 at 08:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DENNIS
Quote:
Originally posted by Gypsy Jan
Some sixty thousand people have died in Mexico in violence related to the drug war over the past six years



Most of which were scum in the toilet bowl of the country. Why is the eradication of these vermin always brought up as though it was a rip in the social fabric of Mexico when it was a pattern of cleansing that the US should implement.
Our country is in dire need of similar sacrifices.


Big D, they always try to bring the worst cases out into the sunlight and make the rest of us feel dirty, ashamed and complicit for being upstanding and walking upright. it is a tactic to make you feel inferior to the lowest common scumbag.

[Edited on 1-6-2013 by woody with a view]

sancho - 1-6-2013 at 01:55 PM

There was an article in the LA Times a couple days ago
headed ' Mex To Exam Their Drug War On Marijuana',
with the recent laws voted on and passed in
Colorado, Washington, legalizing weed, for Mex to continue
to pursue a war on weed smuggling seems to raise some doubts,
not to mention US Homeland Security along the border
attempting to stop something that is legal a few hundred
miles no. in the US, can't speak of the other smuggled
drugs from Mex

[Edited on 1-6-2013 by sancho]

DENNIS - 1-6-2013 at 02:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by micah202
...I'm thinking of how many of those killed would have happily been doing something else if it weren't for the drug trade



That's the larger problem. There's not much else to do and get paid for.

DENNIS - 1-6-2013 at 02:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by sancho
There was an article in the LA Times a couple days ago
headed ' Mex To Exam Their Drug War On Marijuana',
with the recent laws voted on and passed in
Colorado, Oregon, legalizing weed, for Mex to continue
to pursue a war on weed smuggling seems to raise some doubts,
not to mention US Homeland Security along the border
attempting to stop something that is legal a few hundred
miles no. in the US, can't speak of the other smuggled
drugs from Mex


It's still a federal issue. States can't trump that with an election.
Mexico will take this opportunity to put an end to the internal strife and work her way into the profits of supplying product to their largest market , and it may replace tourism as one of the most robust sources of revenue.

durrelllrobert - 1-6-2013 at 09:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bajaguy
http://www.kkoh.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=118&itemid=299567...
Hey Terry this is what comes up on that link:
403
FORBIDEN
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