Gypsy Jan
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2012: The Most Outlandish Stories from the Drug War in Mexico
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."
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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DavidE
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Mood: 'At home we demand facts and get them. In Mexico one subsists on rumor and never demands anything.' Charles Flandrau,
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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.
A Lot To See And A Lot To Do
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DENNIS
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| 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.
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luv2fish
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Why is there soooo much anti American sentiment?
| 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.
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Maybe they didn't stop because they knew it was not a legitimate check point.
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bajaguy
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Add this to the WTF list
http://www.kkoh.com/rssItem.asp?feedid=118&itemid=299567...
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DavidE
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Mood: 'At home we demand facts and get them. In Mexico one subsists on rumor and never demands anything.' Charles Flandrau,
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Luv@fish
Describe a LEGAL puesto de control por favor.
A Lot To See And A Lot To Do
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luv2fish
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| 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.
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micah202
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| 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-
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DENNIS
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| 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.
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micah202
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| 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
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woody with a view
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| 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]
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sancho
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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]
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DENNIS
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| 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.
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DENNIS
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| 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.
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durrelllrobert
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Hey Terry this is what comes up on that
link:
403
FORBIDEN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------nginx/1.2.6
Bob Durrell
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