Thread: Proceso Exposé : "Los Zetas" infiltrate the Army, PGR, AFI, PF and Governorships

Proceso Exposé : "Los Zetas" infiltrate the Army, PGR, AFI, PF and Governorships

The Corruption in the States Attorney General (FGE), which accounts for the previous Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of Public Security Coahuila) was known for years by Felipe Calderon, whose government did not act until the second half of February.

borderlandbeat.com

ARTURO RODRÍGUEZ GARCÍA –Proceso

The presence of the narco in the security institutions and PGR, neither Calderon or Attorney General Marisela Morales can hide more than just infiltration. The aforementioned structures are at the disposal of the capos of the cartels. As shown in a judicial file in which is described with detail-names and amounts of bribes, how federal, local police commanders and the army not only protect narcos, but they work for them as escorts, lookouts, informants, payers and even sicarios.

The arrest of four members of the criminal organization "Los Zetas" has revealed that operations are not only performed, but overlapped by the Mexican Army, the Attorney General's Office (PGR), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (AFI) and the Federal Police (PF), as well as state and municipal police forces, both in Coahuila and Nuevo Leon.


Five years into Calderon's war on drugs, which accumulated more than 50 thousand dead and a similar number of missing, the federal security forces did not escape the corruption that the president repeatedly attributed to police and local institutions.


According to the preliminary investigation PGR/SIEDO/UEIDCS/041/2012, made just last February 8, soldiers of the Sixth Military Zone killed citizens who were denouncing criminals and their bodies disappeared, in addition they would hide from PGR, shipments of drugs.


The investigation adds that so did the PF agents, who also identified, confronted adversaries of "Los Zetas", they placed checkpoints where they guarded shipments. Also, they implemented the payroll of the Federal Support Forces (FFA) that sends the government temporarily to fight the narco.

Marisela Morales

Meanwhile, other members of the PGR and AFI, with bribes at all levels, were responsible for fining the members of "Los Zetas" with very weak penalties, freeing those who were detained, and reporting to the Zeta leaders all types of denunciations, including anonymous complaints.

In the case of the corporations of Nuevo Leon, "Los Zetas" presented the payment of the narconómina to either state or municipal police and also had a link with the state government to maintain their structure safely.
(below Cicero Salazar in office followed by his arrest)

In Coahuila, Lieutenant Colonel Manuel de Jesús Cicero Salazar, who served as head of the Operational State Police and protected "Los Zetas" was recommended by the Secretary of Defense, Guillermo Galván Galván.
The Corruption in the States Attorney General (FGE), which accounts for the previous Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of Public Security Coahuila) was known for years by Felipe Calderon, whose government did not act until the second half of February.

The morning of the 15th of that month, on the premises of the FGE feds arrested the commander ministerial Sergio Tobias Salas Tobogán, and the state police Julio César Ruiz Esquivel, "Chicho", who were also responsible for executions and disaappearing people.
Hours later, Claudia González López,the sub-delegate of the PGR fell in Saltillo, and was taken to Mexico City. All three, like Cicero, are accused of collaborating with "Los Zetas" and Thursday, 23 were issued formal arrests.
On Thursday 16, Attorney General Marisela Morales said: "We are confronting all the corruption with a frontal attack that can be found at all levels in our own dependence. We are the first to set an example and we have actions without precedent in this fight seeing we're combating against our own federal agents, prosecutors against, anyone at any level (if they are corrupt). "
Morales said that there are more involved, but clarified they did not belong to this corporation. However, the same record that allowed the entry of the elements mentioned above also involves other members of the PGR.
As for military corruption, during the commemoration of Army Day on Sunday February 19, Calderon praised the soldiers but admitted: "It is true that there have been rare cases of some bad elements that deviate from the values that ennoble the institute armed with his uniform and thus betray the trust placed in them."
These "exceptional cases" occurred in two of the greatest recorded entities with the most violence: Coahuila and Chihuahua, which make up the Military Region XI.
The cases documented so far are the disappearances and executions allegedly ordered by General Manuel de Jesus Moreno Aviña, head of the garrison in Ojinaga.

Manuela de Jesus Moreno Avina

And his involvement in executions of 39 Infantry Battalion, of Nuevo Casas Grandes, and now in the case of 69 Infantry Battalion, based in Saltillo.
Corrupting Power

The incriminating statements of the soldiers and officers arrested in March 2011 revealed how the corrupting power of "Los Zetas" escalated throughout the structure of the Sixth Military Zone, based in Saltillo, until the general Juan Manuel Vallejo Malibran, who served as chief of staff in the area and then was sent to Guanajuato.
So, on Wednesday February 8, PGR opened a preliminary investigation 041/2012, accumulating evidence and proof of inquiries 197/2011 and 101/2011, the latter made after the arrest on March 12, 2011, of Pedro Lara Toga, “El Guacho”, and Gerardo Hernández Sánchez,“El Gerry”, identified as leaders "Los Zetas".

The two them are now protected witnesses of PGR. Toga Lara was given the confidential code name “Escorpión” and a Hernández Sánchez got “Sagitario”. In the above investigation, there is mentioned of another protected witness known as "Sérpico" and the statements of the three that came off to PGR and was deemed "accurate and reliable", and has been useful for the capture of other members of "Los Zetas."

In his statement on May 4, 2011, “Sagitario" incriminated (everything and their narcosueldos), the lieutenants Javier Rodriguez Aburto, Sócrates Humberto López González, and Julián Castilla Flores, who "earned" 50,000 pesos, and Marcos Augusto Pérez Cisneros, who got only 30,000 because he was "very lazy".

"Los Zetas" paid 30,000 pesos to the lieutenants Alexis Rios Cruz, Francisco Javier Soto Nunez, Carlos Miguel Gallardo Ibarra, Edgar Sánchez Ruiz, Edgar Valencia Cardenas and Evencio Castillo Castro.
Sergeant Jose Luis Cerecedo Cruz, first officer Pedro Montes Vázquez and the soldier Omar Alejandro Martínez Rivera gave them 20 000. Pedro Montes Vázquez's function was to operate communications and to transmit the orders of "Los Zetas".
Another sergeant, Sergio Treviño Ríos, known by "Los Zetas" with code name "Tauro", was who allegedly involved all members of 69 Infantry Battalion with the criminal organization and was responsible for paying the "narconómina" (narco payroll).
The arrested soldiers accused each other, and several crimes surfaced, including the murder of a lieutenant by the last name was Hoyos.

To the list of those implicated, names were added: Lieutenants Julio César Montiel Rumbo and Jesús Alberto Cordoba Rios, subteniente Francisco Javier Beltran Luna, The sergeants, Guillermo Flores Arrazate and Cecilio Ambros Antele, first officer, Salomé Juárez Cuéllar, soldiers Eleaquín Rubio Bautista and another with the last named Vinalay named. The list goes on.

Garcia Luna with Calderon

In the case of Lieutenant Soto Núñez, when he was arrested they secured 300,000 pesos in cash and weapons. According to the statements of Sergeant Treviño Rios settled in the file, Soto belonged to Montiel Rumbo team, battalion commander.

"Together with other lieutenants and soldiers, of whom I do not know the name, (Montiel Rumbo) was responsible for kidnapping and disappearing people opposed to the organization of" Los Zetas", ignoring these activities and what he did to kidnapped people, and these in Saltillo, Monclova and Torreon," said Trevino.

He added: "I know "El Rumbo" and his people. About three months ago (January 2011), They kidnapped three people who were teachers, engineers, people with some kind of profession, in the city of Monclova, because they put the Zetas on the spot."

On Tuesday 21, the newspaper Reforma published other revelations of Treviño, settled in the military criminal case 279/2011, which affirms that General Vallejo Malibran is linked to "Los Zetas", he wouldn't inform the PGR about confiscated drugs, and he was carrying portable Kenwood radio given to him by the narco.
Regarding Lt. Hoyos, who was killed, Treviño said Hoyos guarded arms, money and cell phones, but he complained to General Vallejo to report fewer items and less amounts of money to the PGR, for which the general ordered to kill him.
"Narcosueldazos" - (Super Narcosalaries)
The statements of "Scorpio", "Sagitario" and "Serpico" coincided with those of Luis Jesús Sarabia Ramon, Pepito Sarabia, arrested on January 11th in the limits of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon.

Luis Jesús Sarabia Ramón "Pepito"

Before the prosecutor, Sarabia narrated his criminal career, which began in 2005 as manager of the "little shops", (narcomenudo) in Nuevo Laredo. Sarabia, is a compadre of Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, "L-40", who upon hiring him, assigned him the code "L-44".

Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, "L-40

In late 2007 he joined "The operation", as the escort of "L-40" and his brother Omar Trevino Morales (L-42) while hiding in the cities of Reynosa, Rio Bravo, Valle Hermoso and Matamoros, when the "Gulf Cartel", then still allied to "Los Zetas", were fighting for control of Nuevo Laredo against the now imprisoned Édgar Valdez Villareal "La Barbie" and Arturo Leyva, "El Barbas" was murdered in Cuernavaca.


In 2007 Sarabia was sent to Piedras Negras with "El L-42" to act as "tranca", communications manager of the organization in the city. In 2008, "El L-40" made him the chief of the plaza Monclova and in 2009, Heriberto Lazcano sent him to Saltillo as plaza boss, but by then , part of pools, and investing money which gave him a profit of about $ 100,000 dollars a month. According to the witness, the code in "L" followed by a number is assigned to those in charge of Nuevo Laredo.
In his statement, Sarabia confirmed corruption in the PGR and AFI. Also "Serpico" settled inside the AFI in Coahuila, a commander got a "narcosueldo" of 100,000 pesos a month, a second commander, 70 thousand pesos, and federal public ministries 30, 000 pesos. They were also giving away expensive vehicles.

To identify the members of AFI, "Los Zetas" used the key "three letters". Besides having police commanders, under their control, they also paid to sub-delegate of the PGR in Saltillo, Claudia Gonzalez Lopez.

Sarabia accounts the day that "El Gerry" (the witness "Sagitario"), arrived at the bar "Carlos' n Charlie's," the former used for meetings, with sub-delegate, who was given 100,000 pesos a month, and a federal prosecution agent Blanca Isabel Dueñas Beltrán (with payments of 25,000 pesos) and Gladis Feliciana Leyva Quintero (50,000). In total there were five prosecutors and the sub-delegated.

In February 2010, the sub-delegate and MP González Leyva López Quintero, met Sarabia and "El Gerry" at the Chevrolet agency in Saltillo to buy a car for an official of the PGR. She left there on board a blue pickup double cab. The vehicles that were given to the AFI, and sometimes the "narconómina" were delivered to the back of the building of sub-delegation of the PGR in Saltillo, in the colony Topochico.

And against the assertion of the Attorney General Marisela Morales that more staff is not involved in the PGR, witnesses and the accused revealed that they paid 50,000 pesos to AFI agent Jose Guadalupe Ballesteros Huescas, whom they knew since 2009.
Therefore it pointed to David Corral Huerta and Enrique Gonzalez Nava, the latter responsible for the state AFI, based in Torreon and who received 600,000 pesos a month to distribute among the officers assigned to Coahuila. According to Sarabia, and the heads of his criminal group, they roamed around the state without being bothered.

In addition, elements of the PGR and AFI liberated goods, vehicles and weapons secured in operations. They removed bad charges from detained Zetas, reported all formal or anonymous denunciations of its members, and shared information submitted or requested by the Office of Special Investigations into Organized Crime (SIENDO) of the PGR.

In January 2011 they withheld payment because the FFA stopped "El Risas" in Saltillo, whom since May 2010 was the 'cook" in charge of burning so the bodies were unidentifiable. "El L-40" ordered to release "El Risas", who along with Sarabia and other "Zetas" were his personal bodyguards in the years of war against Los Beltran Leyva for the plaza Nuevo Laredo.

It was not possible to release "El Risas" because the FFA had already given notice to the office in Mexico City. The sub-delegated Gonzalez Lopez had to personally explain what happened and release the withheld bribery.

Captain Valbuena
The four "Zeta" detainees signaled, Captain Jorge Luis Valbuena Flores, as one of their operators, and an officer of PF in Coahuila and Nuevo Leon before. According to "Serpico," the captain was in charge of the PF in Nuevo León when he met him and began to deliver payroll through the "Commander Lino" at the same level of control as "Serpico" and was later brought down by the army on 25 January 2011 in Monterrey.

Escorpión said he met Valbuena in 2008 and also in Nuevo Leon collected payroll for Coahuila, where he was sent in 2010 as a commander of the PF.
The same witness said that Valbuena introduced "Los Zetas" the commander Enrique Gonzalez Nava, AFI, , Azulejo, the commander of the FFA who arrived in Saltillo in January 2011, and the regional intelligence chief. At that meeting the Zetas commanders gave Azulejo 2 million pesos and agreed to the amount that they would give the officers while in the two states.

According to the statement made on the record, Valbuena facilitated the corruption of local prosecutors in Arteaga, Coahuila, to free the detained criminals, but also led direct action for "Los Zetas". Indicated that Valbuena led the search for "Pepito" Sarabia in Nuevo Leon, where he escaped, pretending to be dead after a shootout against the military in 2010.

The captain of the PF armed group was instructed to place the filters to monitor the PF, at the entrance to Saltillo coming from Monterrey , and in the toll booth of the Highway 57 Saltillo, Mexico and near the free road to Torreon in the area of General Cepeda, all in order to identify rival commandos or their cargoes, and ensure free transit..

Valbuena provided information on operations that were planned in Mexico City, the PF and other corporations ("was very well connected in the Federal District"). According to the witness, the officer gave indications on vehicles, flights, times,number of people, and the objective of federal operations in the area.

The captain also "solved the problems that the "Compania" came to have on the roads."

On that occasion, when I paid him in early January 2011, 70,000 pesos for him, and for the troops were given over 1 million pesos, as the whole corporation is committed to "Los Zetas," says "Escorpion".

Valbuena added that he delivered between 800,000 and 1 million pesos in envelopes labeled with the names of the beneficiaries. The witness "Sagitario" attributed the theft of five heavily armored, "blinded" vehicles on the free highway Saltillo-Torreon to the captain, in April 2009, after which he disappeared drivers and delivered vehicles to whom was identified as "Commander Chabelo".

The same source said that the captain of the PF was escorting shipments of drugs, weapons and armor to the cities of Miguel Aleman, Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo, as well as trailers with "Chinese loads" (name given for Fayuca) by the Zetas for foreign merchandise destined the Federal District.
According to the "Sagitario", the captain is also responsible for the transport of contraband through Corporate Senda and for passing it to San Luis Potosi by an independent supplier. Similarly, the federal command has been involved in milking the Pemex pipeline, as well as for providing protection for the extraction of gasoline in Hipolito, Coahuila. Valbuena owns gas stations in Monterrey and he handed the now protected witness a three axle truck with gas each month.
The Torres Charles

Humberto Torres Charles brother of former Coahuila State Attorney

Also learned through the witness information that in Nuevo Leon operated "The Kid". He distributed the payroll to judicial, state and municipal police, representatives from "Los Zetas" were present. One of the individuals who received the bribe was the "Bachelor Muñoz", linked with the state government.

In Coahuila, the pawn of "Los Zetas", was retired Lieutenant Colonel Manuel de Jesús Cicero Salazar, "Viejo Loco". It was part of the so called "Model Coahuila" and in mid-2008 he was appointed head of Public Security in Ramos Arizpe, Saltillo.
The "Model Coahuila" was a program coordinated by journalist Isabel Arvide, which called for the designation of 11 generals, five colonels, nine major and other officers who numbered nearly 200, all retired, who were given all headquarters municipal public safety.

Arvide described it in Torreon, February 17, 2010: "All the military leaders, in this model, are commissioned, after passing tests of trust by the Secretary of National Defense. Most have been generational peers of General Galvan served under him or have coincided with his command in various commissions."

The state police, prisons and the headquarters of the municipalities were filled with soldiers who operated freely and enjoyed armored vehicles, high-powered weapons, travel, insurance and bonuses never transparent. His "moral leader" was the then commander of Military Region General Mario González Marco Antonio Barrera, and now inspector general of the Department of Defense Comptroller (SEDENA).

Arvide ended their working relationship with the government of Coahuila in May 2010 after accusing the then state prosecutor, Jesús Torres Charles, of colluding with the underworld. Some of the soldiers that he took to Coahuila later reappeared in other entities such as Tamaulipas and Quintana Roo. This was the case of Cicero, who was appointed Secretary of Public Safety, but left office after a street scandal in Cancun.

Cicero became known in Coahuila in the wake of a shooting that was against the escort of "L-40". Local media nicknamed him "El Rambo" and he lived on the premises of the municipal police because he had death threats against him. However, the statements of the protected witnesses shows that "Pepito Sarabia" gave him 500 thousand pesos a month (200 thousand of these for another person whose name is not mentioned), plus they gave him a Cherokee truck.
(Below Emanuel Almaguer)

Another involved was Emanuel Almaguer, Municipal Police Commander of Saltillo, who paid the payroll and received support for expenses of the patrols. He was executed on 5 December with his son of 12 years.


Witnesses and Sarabia agreed on Humberto Torres Charles (brother of former state attorney general), nicknamed "Glenda", was a deputy in the nineties, under the command of Humberto Medina attorney Ainsley, father of Governor Nuevo Leon, Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz.

Emanuel Almaguer and his young son gunned down in Saltillo

Humberto Torres was legal director of the State Health Department. Today he is a fugitive. Respondents contend that they gave him very high bribes (the first for $100 000) and gave him a BMW and a Mustang.
On Monday 20 journalist Isabel Arvide told the newspaper Vanguardia of Saltillo that the corruption of former prosecutor Jesus Torres Charles was addressed by Felipe Calderon personally to Humberto Moreira , who ignored him and kept Torres at the office since 2010.

Former Coahuila Governor and PRI President Humberto Moreira

Despite this history and the confessions and accusations made by the detainees, who are almost a year in the power of the PGR, this office has not made any investigation against the former prosecutor Charles Torres. And it has not solved any cases of forced disappearance of any persons, although the president Felipe Calderon pledged since mid-2011 to accelerate research and respond to families seeking justice.


Blood Stories
The warring narcotrafficking cartels are always in the middle of more violent confrontations between bullets, blood and death. Comandante Pepito, a recent zeta apprehended.

In his declaration before the PGR, gave details, among others, the death of a boss at the horse races, and the assassination of Jaime Zapata, an ICE agent from the United States last February.

Agent Jaime Zapata and scene of his murder

The declaration of Luis Jesús Sarabia Ramón, Pepito Sarabia or Comadante Pepito, explained some of the facts of violence of the last year in the northern region of the country, because of being close to Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, L-40, his compadre, also because of his ascension in the criminal organization, Los Zetas, in which he became an associate.
Detained this past 11th of January, in a bloodless operation according to the investigation, Sarabia was indicted by Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, L-40, his compadre, in which is stated that up until March 2011 he was region manager of Los Zetas, with influence in San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Jalisco y Coahuila.
All through out his declaration, Sarabia tells about the operations in which he directly participated in or knew about since he was part of the so called "Compañía", such operation became news of international repercussions.
One of the cases is the attack of two Immigration Custom Enforcement, ICE (ICE) for the English Initials agents on Feb 15 2011.

That day the agent Jaime Zapata and Víctor Ávila were shot. On the federal highway 57 in San Luis Potosi Jaime Zapata died.

On the 23rd February of that year 2011, the investigation of the members of the zetas led to the detention of Julián Zapata Espinoza, El Piolín,, who according to the secretary of national defense (Sedena) he was the commander of Zetas in the Zone.



Ricardo Treviño, spokesman Sedena assured on Feb 23 the attack was due to confusion because the type of vehicle that the ICE agent's were driving, the sicarios assumed were members of the rival cartel.


Feb 28, 2011 the government presented Sergio Mora Cortés, El Toto, detained by the marines. It was attributed to El Piolín. At an unusually face pace, the zetas were falling.


During the year nobody mentioned that the ICE agents were armed until last Wednesday, the 15th of Feb. when the Washington Post made known other details of the attack, for example, the truck was bullet proof and it would have been able to withstand the shot of AK 47's and the detonation of grenades, but the vehicle had a technical fault when placing it in "park" the locks of the door automatically opened.

The ICE agent couldn't respond to the attack, they were overpowered by weapons.

(Heriberto Lazcano Leader of Los Zetas)

With Sarabia's declaration, his information complements what already had been stated by the investigation of PGR/SIEDO/UEIDCS/051/2011, which was started with the detention of El Toto y El Piolín, since it explains the tension after what happened following the murder of Zapata murder.


Sarabia suspected now of different federal crimes explained that El Toto was the accountant of the palza and had been in charge that week when the ice agents were attacked.

The investigation 051/2011 establishes that Sarabia asked El Toto to explain what happened and ordered to reunite with El Piolín.


With his squad, he was to either kill or deliver El Toto to the authorities. darle piso (kill someone) montarllo (hand over to authorities.)
the latter is what happened. The navy and Sedena were able to get detainees rapidly and not because of the intelligence agencies investigation as presumed by fillip Calderon to whom even Barack Obama congratulated him because of the detentions.


Sarabia was in Monclova when he was call upon by el Laszco for him to be in charge of organizing a portent against the construction of a federal jail that was going on in Monclova as stated in the investiga 041/2012


The matter became a crisis. The night of February 15, 2011 hours after agent's Zapata's murder, L-40, and el Lazca called Sarabia asking for an explication since he was the principal commander of that region. The first one to arrive was L-40
From Sarabia's declaration: "my compadre 40 asks me what happened in San Luis Potosi , "that who had ****ed the ice agents?", referring to them as the blondes of ice, because I was the one in charge but I told him I didn't know about that mes-didn't really know the details since El Toto was in charge.
El Violin and another secario only referred to as El Tarta has been identified by mexican authorities as the executioners of the attack.

"Toto told me he had sent Piolín and El Tarta to steal trucks on the highway San Luis to Mexico, and it seems that it didn't work out because of the people from the other side (Blondes). After that my compadre 40 called Lazca so they could check what they were going to do with me.
Once Lazcano arrives, we explain to him how things are and Lazcano explains that he has sent for me in Monclova because of the mantas for which my compadre 40 is pleased with what was said about them and they allow me to keep on working with the mantas"

Days later in the beginning of March, L-40 changes the assignment and then Sarabia opts to get out of the Zetas. L-40 left me a message with El Abuelo (chief of the plaza in Monclova) to go to the the war (they call it that way "confronting" the gulf cartel" in the Tamaulipas border), and don't return to San Luis Potosi and to put myself under the orders of El Gallo y La Papa (both executed and burned on the Laredo-Monterrey highway) but I didn't obey and at the end of March 2011 I stopped being part of the Zetas organization.

Races in Fresnillo

Some months before his detention Sarabia started to have problems inside the criminal operation according to his declaration.

On Dec 15, 2010, there were races and parties among Los Zetas. They got together at a race track near to then Fresnillo Jail. The brothers Miguel Ángel y Omar Treviño, L-40 y L-42 respectively, Iván Velásquez Caballero, El Talibán Comandante 50; El Diamante, operator of Zacatecas; and another guy known as El Gordo who is in charge of the organizations' horses and La Ardilla, Zacatecas plaza boss.

El Talibán asks Sarabia if he had done done something to his compadre L-40 because he was so very angry that he wanted to have Sarabia turned in. "The only thing I told him was he was mad because he had seen me with a woman from Veracruz who was a table dancer but it seemed L-40 had liked her." explained Sarabia

There weren't any complaints because suddenly they received reports about the presence of the Military in the area and the party was over.

The army finished the races for the day, and the Zetas managed to escape but confronted the military all along the state highway Jerez-Fresnillo. Only a pistolero died. L-40, L-42, El Lazca and La Ardilla flew to Monclova in private airplanes and Sarabia fled by land and hid in Saltillo

The official information said only a group of armed men had confronted a military convoy which repelled them, leaving a dead sicario.

Villarín y Cañada Park

The taste for horse races of Heriberto Lazcano y Miguel Ángel Treviño has been extensively referred to mainly because on different occasions they have been attacked or surrounded by the army while being spectators in this activity.

One of the first mentions of this hobby occurred in El Villarin, Veracruz when a disagreement between the gamblers ended in a shooting. That time Heriberto Lazcano it was speculated could have been the one was killed, but in reality it was Efraín Teodoro Torres, Comandante 14 o Z-14.

Villarín is a ranch with a narrow barely paved road. Upon driving through you can frequently see pigs and chickens before entering the small and poor house. However in that place is a contractable horse track with the capacity for 10,000 people and among its amenity are professional gambling professionals
The pot was 9,000,0000 pesos but at the end of the race the gamblers were not happy with the result . That is what started the shooting where Z-14 died.

Two years later, 2009 in Futurity, Cañada Park, in Ramos Arizpe, Coahuila they shot Javier Urióstegui Román, El Gato Urióstegui, a professional gambler from Morelos

Two days later, on a farm of alleged Allende, Nuevo León, during the wake, a squad group of comandos shot the mourners, where his brother Jose Carmelo died along with other relatives and friends of the gambler from Teloloapan, Guerrero, were injured.
While fleeing from Canada Park a convoy led by the Manuel de Jesús Cícero Salazar, then director of the public security. He confronted with the delinquents in his vehicle which was equipped with a video camera and it recorded the confrontation. During the shooting you can hear the desperate petitions for help through the radio to other corporations. The help never arrived.

According to the declarations of Sarabia it was El Gato Urióstegui who killed Z-14 or at least that is what he thought."I met this person Cicero August 30 2009 since there was a shooting between Cicero's Bodyguard/chauffeur against members of the company, among the presence my squad and I were there."

It was on the Los Pinos, Highway since that day there was a horse race to which El Comandante 40 attended because he knew in that place there was going to be a gambler who a year before (in reality 2 years before) had killed commandant 14 in the horse races that were held in Villarín, Veracruz.


Sarabia was stationed in the surroundings of a convent located around the highway to Los González in Saltillo when he received the order to come closer to Cañada Park but in transit he realized there were patrol cars waiting for the convoy of L-40 that they had already executed El Gato Urióstegui and was returning. Sarabia was in charge of the custody of the convoy of L40, confronting the police, he ended up wounded.

Two Faced Officials

When they heard on the news that the former prosecutor Jesus Torres Charles and sub-delegate Claudia Gonzalez of the PGR in the state, were linked to Los Zetas, the first by kinship, the second for providing protection, 'when hundreds of families across the country their blood froze.


They understood that at the same time contributing new data to the officials to look for their missing relatives were essentially giving information to the criminals themselves. They understood also why, despite their efforts, the government has not found any of the persons reported missing in the state in these times of war against drugs.




"I feel frustrated with impunity, by omission, for the mess and the collusion of all local judicial authorities of the state of Coahuila, not just those already apprehended, but that they innumerable obstacles to families who did investigations, we investigate with superhuman efforts for being be ordinary citizens. And surely all that we presented to the prosecutor threw it away, "says outraged Mrs. Maria Guadalupe Fernandez Martinez.

In Saltillo photos of some of the 1600 " Disappeared"

She is the mother of the engineer Jorge Robledo Antonio Fernandez, originated from DF disappeared in Monclova January 25, 2009. He was 32 and working at ICA Fluor Daniels in the Phoenix Project of Altos Hornos de Mexico. Since then the couple Robledo-Fernandez turned in search of their son and traveled every week to Coahuila to submit evidence to the prosecutor.


They gave him a video of suspected bar, windows sealed, which shares parking with the auto parts store where her son disappeared. Calls for a year, were made from the two cell phones of her son and even the location of the two ATMs in the bank withdrawals which were made with his cards. But he did nothing, not even include the data in the preliminary 002/2009.


They always ask us what new things we had researched and often we told them:" You have to investigate, that's your job, not ours " she said to proceso," this woman who part of the organization United for Our Forces Missing in Coahuila (Fuundec), which has documented 230 cases in the state, 2007 to January 2011.


Preliminary calculations of the state government show that in the state over 1,600 have gone missing during the presidency of Felipe Calderón.


"We made superhuman efforts to get information: we did an analysis of outgoing calls from the cell of my son and we would take them every 10 days to show they were active, they were reloaded, and they had numbers used regularly as friends on several phones; we had bank card statements and we told them the week that showed steadily to withdraw money.


We were hopeful that they would put an undercover agent to wait, because Monclova is a small town. But Saturday came and the miserable bastards, who had taken out of 3 000 pesos each withdrawl until the cleaned the last 100 pesos., "he says.





The disgust, disappointment, anger, and the sensation of being scammed is shared by families that like hers , is dedicated to gather clues that will help the authorities to locate their loved ones. Not knowing they had enemies at home.



The director of Human Rights Center Fray Juan de Larios, of the Diocese of Saltillo, Blanca Martinez, also adviser Fuundec now today (Fuundem because it encompasses all of Mexico 'missing) reports that, in the recent news, families are bewildered and outraged.
"we understand now why all these years not one missing person was found despite the fact that people have posted information that has been for nothing."

Growing disenchantment

The Fuundem scheduled several regional assemblies urgently in order to take a position on that case. However, it is clear that will they may be asked to investigate the former Governor Humberto Moreira who kept Jesus Torres Charles in office despite his negligence.

Jesus Torres Charles

Brothers Humberto and Ruen Moreira, former and current Coahuila Governors

"The first loss was five years ago and to date there is nothing. There is a clear responsibility, at least by default and most likely not to look for deliberation, and that means institutional responsibilities and status.

No doubt there is direct responsibility of senior officials, such as the sub-delegated. So we will ask for an investigation into the former prosecutor, all officials involved in the alleged investigations of the missing and obviously, the former governor Moreira," said Blanca Martinez.


Throughout 2011, the families set tables with state and federal officials who participated with the sub-delegate Claudia Gonzalez. "(She heard) all cases, giving her opinion, agreeing with families to find their missing, saying, with an unethical management to-emotional mothers angle that she understood them as a woman."

(Below:Bert Resigns Amid resigns as PRI president over the Coahuila debt scandal
many say to save the election for PRI December 2011)

Following the announcement 2 weeks ago week of the linking two of the two former officials with "Los Zetas", mistrust between families takes hold.

"Since the first time we sat down with Humberto Moreira, in September 2010, one of the demands of the families was the resignation of Charles Torres for his acts of omission providing justice. The then governor ignored it and when he left the governorship to leave the job of president of the PRI, he still told us: "Relax, here is the prosecutor, he'll keep looking," said Moreira. Despite the poor performance as state attorney Charles Torres.


Humberto Moreira's successor, his brother Reuben, who appointed him head of the Office of Legal Affairs, where he watched the new laws being approved. During this time defining the crime of enforced disappearance that does not meet the guidelines of the Organization of the United Nations.


"The definition is tricky, to go off on tangents. we're going backwards, is very ambiguous, the punishment to those directly responsible of the crime as well as the responsibility of the state in order to provide justice", he says.


Disenchantment is not new. As time goes on, families on pilgrimage from one government institution to another to request the search for their loved ones, they have come to realize the complicity between authorities and criminals. However, up until now made explicit.


"For a long time, we spent and we trusted the word of those people whom tell the news, they are part of the criminals.. To us God lit up the April 27, 2009 when we realized that the prosecutor wasn't doing anything.

We found that the new data that we had, phone sheets, photographs, had not been included in the preliminary investigation, but we had put everything in his hands. In addition he paralyzed us, telling us that we should not be searching for him because our son was in danger," adds the mother of Jorge Antonio.


The engineer's family decided to go to the PGR, until now the institution had not advanced in the case of his son. Robledo-Fernandez family and other members of Fuundec had talks with Deputy Interior Secretary, Felipe Zamora, who planned the creation of a state attorney dedicated to finding missing persons.

But it all stopped when he died in the crash with Secretary Francisco Blake Mora."We want to investigate these people who are now identified, and now it may be the thread of the skein so painful for us," says Mrs. Maria Guadalupe.

Related information:

View the "Coahuila Gate" Video (see paper trail of businesses and real estate owned by the Moreira family in the US...)

Humberto Moreira with Wife Vanessa Guerrero, far left and far right Minu and Jaime Guerrero, Vanessa's parents. Jaime is rumored to be an important ally to the Los Zetas. In 2011 after a shootout between Zetas and Marina at a Saltillo safehouse word was that Jaime was at the house and was killed, a rumor that took weeks to discount. The Guerreros are from Piedras Negras and was the site of the lavish wedding of Vanessa and Humbeto.

source: Borderland Beat: Proceso Exposé : "Los Zetas" infiltrate the Army, PGR, AFI, PF and Governorships

Obamanistas in bed with Mexican Drug Cartels

Clinton was the biggest arms dealer on the planet through the foreign military sales office. The Mexican army received a lot of guns and I am sure that a great many of them have been used in the numbers of US guns in Mexico for gun control scam from Obama and Hillary.

http://www.alipac.us/f19/mexican-sol...4/#post1390172

Originally Posted by Newmexican

Clinton was the biggest arms dealer on the planet through the foreign military sales office. The Mexican army received a lot of guns and I am sure that a great many of them have been used in the numbers of US guns in Mexico for gun control scam from Obama and Hillary.

--------------------------------------------

Its ALL IN THE FAMALEEE ..

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

this was going on around the same time frame. Remember Ole Johnny Sutton and Dubyah Bush prosecuting border agents and not only releasing a drug smuggler but giving him a financial settlement in the millions of dollars

I'm beginning to wonder if he was part of that drug smuggling deal with the white house on immunity / pumping in drugs under this deal

http://www.alipac.us/f9/coddling-ill...agents-242592/

----------------------------------------------

Truth is stranger than fiction ..

http://www.alipac.us/f12/mex-drug-lo...rnment-225261/

http://www.alipac.us/f12/u-s-mayor-p...hlight=elandar

http://www.alipac.us/f12/george-w-bu...hlight=elandar

El Andar: Los Amigos de Bush

LOS AMIGOS DE BUSH The disturbing ties of some of George W. Bush’s Latino advisors
More on Bush-Amigos links in PBS Frontline interview with Gary Jacobs		“Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres. Tell me who you side with and I will tell you who you are.” — “George W. Bush for President” web site
Cast of Characters: Los amigos de los amigos George W. Bush Jr. Friend and ally of Ernesto Ancira Jr. Roy Barrera Sr. Ernesto Ancira Jr. Friend of George and Laura Bush, co-chair Adelante con Bush, Bushes (Jr. and Sr.) campaigned for him in 1992 State Senate run. On board of The Dominion. Friend and/or associate of Guillermo Ávila Gus García Roy Barrera, Jr. Cousin of Alonso Ancira Roy Barrera Jr. Head of San Antonio Republican party, Adelante con Bush (Sr.), Bush Team 100, campaigning for W, said to be cabinet contender. The Barreras’ cartel-related clients: Guillermo Avila, CONVICTED money launderer for Juárez cartel. Juan Chapa, CONVICTED cocaine trafficker, Juárez and Gulf cartels. Mario Alberto Salinas Treviño, FBI links to 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena, CONVICTED cocaine runner, Caro-Quintero cartel. Enrique Fuentes León, lawyer for Gulf Cartel, linked to Ruiz Massieu and Colosio assassinations, CONVICTED of bribery, now imprisoned in Mexico in connection with murder of Nellie Campobello. Has OUTSTANDING WARRANT in U.S. on attempted bribery charges. Guillermo Ávila CONVICTED money launderer for Juárez cartel, linked to Rafael Muñoz Talavera (photo, below). Was on the board of Dominion, friend of Ernesto Ancira and Gus García. Enrique Fuentes León Lawyer for Gulf cartel CONVICTED of bribery, partner in Planeta Mexico with Rogelio Gasca Jr. Bought large tract of Dominion property, sold part of it to Image Homes Ltd, which sold it to Crescent Real Estate, a company George W. Bush invested in. (more under Roy Barrera, Jr.) Linked to assassination of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu (below). Manuel Muñoz Rocha FUGITIVE wanted in connection with assassination of PRI politician José Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Was paid $500,000 by check issued from Bank Audi, Geneva. Last seen in San Antonio with Enrique Fuentes León. Manuel Pacheco Admitted money launderer CONVICTED, partner in Planeta Mexico with Enrique Fuentes León. Gary Jacobs President of Laredo National Bank, owned and run by Carlos Hank Rhon and Carlos Hank Gonz‡lez. Donated $61,000 to George W. Bush. In another case, was fined last spring by FEC for violating campaign finance laws. Carlos Hank González Known as the PRI king-maker, the “Dinosaur” of the party, his family has been investigated for cartel links, murder and money laundering, NOT CHARGED. Gus García INVESTIGATED for cocaine trafficking and money laundering, NOT CHARGED. Business partner of Anuar Name, their San Antonio building bought for $5 million cash, re-financed by Bank Audi. Anuar Name Reported in news media and by investigators as friend and/or partner of: Emilio Checa Curi, fugitive investigated for Sinaloa/Guadalajara cartel ties Mario Villanueva, fugitive wanted for Juárez cartel ties Adnan Kasshoghi, International arms dealer involved in Iran-Contra scandal Joseph Audi, of Lebanese Audi family, CEO and partner in Bank Audi, New York Raúl Salinas, CONVICTED of authoring murder of Ruiz Massieu. See Raúl Salinas box. Carlos Hank González, Billionaire politician-businessman. See Carlos Hank González box. Former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari Widely accused in Mexican press of corruption and Gulf cartel links, NOT CHARGED. Now self-exiled in Ireland and/or Cuba. MEXICAN MOVERS AND SHAKERS IN “THE DOMINION” Moises Saba Property financed by Laredo National Bank, which is owned by Carlos Hank Rhon. Moises is son of PRI finacier Isaac Saba, PRI financier and one of the richest men in Latin America. Investor in TV Azteca, second-largest TV network in Mexico. Isaac Saba recently took over a large share of the Anciras’ business in Mexico. Alonso Ancira CEO of AHMSA, Mexico’s largest steel company. Accused of business fraud (Fertimex, Carbon II), NOT CHARGED. Property in Dominion transferred in December 1998 to Cayman Island corporation. Guillermo Ancira CEO of AHMSA mining subsidiary. Paid cash for Dominion home. Carlos Ancira Son of Guillermo. Paid cash for another home with Guillermo Ancira, title transferred to Cayman Islands corporation in 1999. García Lourdes Brothers One brother is head of Mexican Hotel-Motel Association, paid cash. Rodrigo Treviño CFO of Cemex, third largest cement company in the world. Hector Burgos Accused of stock market fraud, NOT CHARGED, partner Eduardo Legorreta convicted. Legorreta was implicated in money-laundering with Enrique Fuentes León in Texas, NOT CHARGED. Rodolfo Zedillo Paid cash for first home, just built second in Dominion. Brother of Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo. INVESTIGATED for accepting $8 million from a Juárez cartel-funded company, NOT CHARGED. THE ENERGY BARONS Robert Mosbacher Sr. Investor, friend of Bushes, has an investment firm in Mexico City and is pushing for Pemex privatization. Rogelio Montemayor Investor, friend of Anciras, while governor of Coahuila was accused of illegally investing in Ancira fertilizer company, NOT CHARGED. Now head of Pemex, pushing for privatization. Rogelio Gasca Neri Resigned after being accused of fraud while head of Mexican Federal Electricity Commission, still under investigation. Now is Mexican consul in Austin. His son Rogelio sold Planeta Mexico to Fuentes León. Other son, Enrique, has worked with Alonso Ancira. Family bought property in Sonterra development from Fuentes León. Sources Forbes; Andres Oppenhiemer, “Bordering on Chaos,: Mexico’s Roller-Coaster Journey Toward Prosperity,” 1998, Little, Brown and Company; Proceso magazine; El Financiero; The Washington Post; San Antonio Express News; Bexar County Deeds and Records Office and individual interviews.		by Julie Reynolds Research assistance by Victor Almazán and Ana Leonor Rojo Those who say that George W. Bush has scant knowledge of foreign affairs don’t understand his family’s relationship with Mexico. If one event could be said to make that relationship visible, it had to be the state dinner given eleven years ago by President Bush for Mexico’s president, Carlos Salinas. It was an elegant yet boisterous gala, where the biggest movers and shakers in Texas and Mexico congregated and celebrated. This group was to become W’s Mexican legacy, a gift of ties and connections passed on from the father to his son. What was not visible was that the group included two men with numerous links to drug cartel figures. These men helped George W. Bush win the Latino vote in Texas. Which raises a few questions: How did these guys get into the Bush circle? What else do they do for him? And, to rephrase a famous query, what did the presidential candidate know and when did he know it? A glance around the fourteen tables at the 1989 dinner showed that pains were taken to arrange them so that no one appeared more important than the others. There was a smattering of celebrities — Anthony Quinn, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Barbara Walters and Larry King. Bush’s son Jeb and his Mexican wife Columba joined the soirée, too. The Mexican president had spent a long day with President Bush signing trade pacts, the precursors of NAFTA. Salinas brought his so-called Dream Team: his commerce secretary, finance minister, and his personal Machiavelli, Jose Córdoba. It would later be astounding to see, as the decade unfolded, how many of that administration’s proud men and women fell shamefully from grace — some exiled, some imprisoned and some assassinated. No one knew it then, but many at that banquet would survive to one day help young W beat a path back to the White House. There were loyal “Bushfellas” who were old friends of the family: Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher Sr., General Colin Powell, and George Bush Senior’s ever-present friend, Secretary of State James Baker. Gary Jacobs, whose Texas bank was about to be bought by the son of Mexico’s billionaire-politico Carlos Hank González, was also a guest. Tony Garza, then a young judge, is now a Bush cabinet contender. Today, all are advisors or contributors to W’s campaign. Hidden among the glitterati were two relative unknowns. They were, however, familiar to the group at hand. They were the loyal “Amigos de Bush” from San Antonio: criminal defense lawyer Roy Barrera Jr. and car dealer Ernesto Ancira Jr. In contrast to the Salinas group, the ties of Barrera and Ancira to drug cartels would remain unnoticed for another decade. Their ties to George W. would grow stronger. In the Name of the Father George Bush Sr. began his family’s relationship with Mexico in the 1960s, when his Zapata Offshore Oil Company was partner in a border-region oil company called Perforaciones Marinas del Golfo (Permargo), with Jorge Díaz Serrano. In 1988, the financial newspaper Barron’s reported that the two Jorges — Bush and Díaz Serrano — used prestanombres (“name-lenders”) to hide Bush’s investment in Permargo from the Mexican government, skirting Mexican foreign-ownership laws. Barron’s also accused the Securities and Exchange Commission of destroying related documents after Bush became vice president in 1981. Bush Sr. met Carlos Salinas’s father, Raúl Salinas Lozano, back when the latter was Mexico’s commerce secretary. The families’ friendship has continued through the years. Raúl Salinas, the president’s brother, has told investigators that Jeb and Columba Bush joined him three times for vacations at his hacienda Las Mendocinas. It was the same estate where he reportedly hosted an infamous 1990 party for the cream of Mexico’s drug cartels, which Jeb and Columba did not attend. Twelve years ago presidents-elect Carlos Salinas de Gortari and George Bush Sr. met in Texas in a meeting that was called “The Spirit of Houston.” “That meeting shaped the relationship between both countries for years to come,” Antonio Ocarranza, former Zedillo aide and president of the consulting firm Public Strategies Inc.(PSI) office in Mexico City told the Dallas Morning News. PSI is owned by several generous George W. Bush supporters, including Bush pioneer Roger Wallace. Today, as governor of Texas, George W. Bush has assumed the role his father once had as president. He meets regularly with Mexican officials, from President Zedillo to Secretary of Energy Luis Téllez, to discuss joint energy pacts and trade issues. “I’ve had foreign policy as the governor of Texas, and that is with Mexico,” George W. Bush said during the New Hampshire primary. While he is in public shaking hands, Bush’s friend Ernesto Ancira works backstage in the international energy sector. Which comes naturally: Ancira’s family and their partners practically own the energy business in Mexico. The Bushes, of course, know everyone in the oil business in the US. It’s a nice match, the Bushes and the Anciras. Let me make one thing clear: there is no evidence that Ernesto himself runs afoul of the law. Ancira is, rather, a point man in what Mexican journalist Juan Ruiz Healy calls “El Grupo Texano de George W. Bush.” He happens to have quite a few friends who are connected with drug cartels. In addition, there are some disturbing links between Ernesto’s group of friends in San Antonio and the assassination of Mexican politician José Francisco Ruíz Massieu. Since Ernesto has been a friend and a helper to the man who may be president, I believe they are connections worth exploring. “ERNESTO IS VERY FRIENDLY, very fun-loving,” a real estate agent told me as we cruised Ernie Ancira’s turf, “The Dominion,” a securely-gated San Antonio development where a number of Mexico’s elite have invested in million-dollar homes. Ernie, she said, loves to barbecue. Has money. Likes to socialize. Ernie — auto dealer Ernesto Ancira, Jr. — is one of San Antonio’s most popular and respected business leaders. Every year, he’s in the lists of top Latino entrepreneurs. Last April, his Ancira Enterprises Inc. made the number two slot — with $575 million in revenue — in Hispanic magazine’s list of the fastest-growing Latino companies. “My mother was paranoid about her kids’ success,” he once said. “It’s like there was a tremendous hurry to accomplish.” Truly a binational man, Ernesto Ancira Jr., was born in San Antonio in 1944, but spent his formative years close to his industrialist cousins in Mexico, who are in-laws of the Salinas family. In the 1960s he rose to become the top assistant to his mentor, Claudio X. González, one of the country’s most powerful businessmen. González later became President Salinas’s foreign investment advisor. Ancira’s family in Mexico has long been part of the power elite. The Ancira name is prominent in the city of Monterrey; that northern commercial center’s most elegant old hotel bears the name of Hotel Ancira. But in the 1970s, the Ancira family ran into problems back in Texas. Ernie’s father was implicated in a money laundering scandal at his company, San Antonio Foreign Exchange. The elder Ancira moved back to Mexico, but there he was named by US authorities as a participant in an $8 million tax fraud scheme. Ernie Junior, however, chose to return to Texas and prosper. In San Antonio, he hooked up with an ex-FBI agent and former city manager, Ralph Winton, and in 1972 they started a used car business together. Within a scant six years, Ancira bought out his partner, and Ancira Winton Chevrolet was earning $150 million and growing. Ernesto became a civic leader and a Republican heavyweight. He chaired the Alamo Bowl and still heads the Southwestern Bell PGA Golf Tournament. He was LULAC’s 1987 Empresario of the Year, and he received a MALDEF Corporate Responsibility Award the same year. And he met the Bushes. He co-chaired “Adelante con Bush” when George Senior ran for president, and along the way, he befriended George W. He is one of the folks George W. Bush’s people call his “100 closest friends,” a group that kicked off W’s presidential campaign last year with $1000 donations. Ancira learned to schmooze with politicians big and small, sometimes annoying local Republicans when he supported an occasional Democrat. He paid for a 1994 trip for Congressman Henry Bonilla to meet Mexican officials in Ciudad Victoria. Twice he bestowed travel gifts on Bush’s Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, Sr. He reportedly piloted his Cessna to host airborne meetings so that Mosbacher and his Mexican counterpart, Jaime Serra, could privately discuss NAFTA. Young Ernie was a millionaire, a friend of the Bushes, and he was literally flying high. His family — movers and shakers all — would have expected no less. Early Cartel Connections As he developed business and political contacts, Ernesto Ancira also cultivated friendships with men connected to Mexican drug cartels. One of the first was financier Guillermo Ávila. As early as 1987, Ávila was part of an Ernesto Ancira troika, a flashy threesome-about-town starring Ancira, Ávila and developer Gustavo García. The three were often seen together in San Antonio in the late 1980s, until Ávila and his partners were busted for drug money laundering. Ernesto wrote to the US Attorney in the case and said that Ávila was a “responsible individual” who had a “positive impact on our community.” Their kids even went to the same private school. But Ávila and his partners had transferred $500,000 of supposed drug money — provided by a law enforcement sting — in and out of accounts in the US, Mexico, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands. In addition, Ávila owned an El Paso house that was raided in connection with the seizure of 21 tons of cocaine from his brother-in-law’s Sylmar, California warehouse, an all-time international record. The Juarez cartel’s Carlos Tapia Anchondo was living in Ávila’s home, and the drugs belonged to one of the cartel’s top men, Rafael Muñoz Talavera. When he entered the courtroom, Ávila winked at friends and family. But when the prosecutors played tapes of the defendants accepting “dirty” money, the party was over. Ávila was found guilty of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments on behalf of drug traffickers. Incredibly, he served a little over a year in prison. Afterward, he was banished from the US and moved to San Luis Potosí. The boss, Rafael Muñoz Talavera, was gunned down on a Juarez street in 1998. Ávila got off easy. He could credit his astute attorney, Roy Barrera Sr., whose son and partner Roy Jr. was a guest of the Bushes at the White House dinner. “Little Roy” is now a top-notch trial lawyer and a close Bush advisor. Though Roy Senior is a Democrat, Little Roy is a staunch Republican who has been in the trenches with W and Ernesto Ancira ever since they all campaigned for President Bush in the late 1980s, under the banner of “Adelante con Bush.” It was during those campaign years that George Junior bonded with many of his Latino allies in the state and made the friends he would later lean on when his political ambitions got into gear. By and large, the Latino alliances Bush touts so loudly these days are not social workers or school teachers, and they are certainly not working-class. Like most in W’s circle, they are Texas heavy-hitters who got rich from their astute blending of business and politics. Barrera Jr. quickly got close to the Bush family, and has stayed close. Both Bushes campaigned for him when he ran for state attorney general in 1986. In ‘88, he was part of a group of eight Bush allies called the “Victory Squad.” During the president’s 1992 campaign, Little Roy and Barbara Bush even teamed up and drove a mobile home from Austin to San Antonio to stump for the candidate. That same year, Barrera became head of the Bexar County (San Antonio) Republican party and has chaired it ever since. Once one of the youngest judges in Texas, Roy now fancies himself as Bush’s right arm. He recently passed business cards around at a national conference of credit unions, saying that he represented the governor’s office. Last winter, Barrera braved the ice with W to knock on New Hampshire doors before the primary, and this summer he was one of the few Latino delegates at the Republican National Convention. Ernie Ancira was among the friends and fans at Roy Jr.’s fortieth birthday bash at San Antonio’s Macaroni Grill, reported in detail by the San Antonio Express News. The group took turns roasting each other: handsome, charismatic Ernie almost stole the show from Roy. He was jokingly named “the new wet dream of the Republican party, Otto von Ancira,” by Republican Judge Tom Rickhoff. Roy and Ernie, both good-looking, became hot young GOP legends. They were touted as part of the “Republican Comeback,” said to embody the New Republican: young, wealthy and Hispanic. But old ghosts have repeatedly blocked the course of Little Roy’s political life. During Barrera’s ill-fated 1986 attorney general’s race, Vice President Bush hailed him as an “outstanding young Texan,” and said Barrera would “stand up to the drug pushers in our schools and in our state.” But the fact is, Roy has earned a slice of his income from the drug pushers’ bosses, and he’s done a decent job of keeping them out of prison, too. The Barreras, father and son, have a unique distinction: they are among Texas’s best narco-lawyers. And we’re not talking school-yard pushers. Along with Corpus Christi attorney Tony Canales, the two Barreras represent the cream of criminals from Mexican cartels when they have the bad fortune to get dragged before US courts. Among the choice clients the Barreras have defended are the Juárez cartel’s US “coordinator” Juan Chapa Garza (now serving thirty years for drug trafficking and money laundering), and Mario Alberto Salinas Treviño, a cocaine runner and alleged murderer, whom the FBI also links to the 1985 murder of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique Camarena. But there is one Barrera client who stands out as the most fantastic and treacherous of all: the “consigliero” of the Gulf cartel, Enrique Fuentes León. “There are going to be more deaths, eh?” Fuentes León, the cartel’s lawyer arrived in San Antonio in 1991, a time when, financially and politically, the Anciras were on top of the world. They were building their empire in Mexico under Salinas and in Texas under the Bushes. Enrique Fuentes León joined the Ancira and Gus García troika, replacing the now-exiled Ávila. It was during this time that Ernesto and his cousins began to invest in luxury real estate, and the others — the Mexican industrial elite — joined him. Ernesto got in on the new gated golf course development north of San Antonio, The Dominion, where Guillermo Ávila once sat on the board, and Ernie still sits. Behind the imposing stone arch, the Ancira family’s neighbors are a who’s who of Mexico’s corporate and government power structure. The Zambrano-Treviños of the giant cement firm CEMEX bought property there, as did the head of Mexico’s Hotel-Motel Association and half a dozen other big shots. Many of them paid cash. Even the new President of Mexico’s brother, Rodolfo Zedillo, bought his Dominion house for cash in October 1994, right around the time he started an $8 million business deal funded by the Juárez cartel. But by far the biggest piece of acreage in Dominion was bought by Enrique Fuentes León, a fugitive sought in Mexico for bribing judges on behalf of a rich Acapulco playboy who raped, tortured and killed a six-year old girl. Fuentes León fled to Chile, then Argentina. Then he arrived in Texas with a visa that said he was an investor. Invest he did. Fuentes León bought some one hundred-plus acres in Dominion in the early 90s, and he soon acquired over $6 million in San Antonio real estate. The DEA reportedly grew interested in him when he represented Gulf “capo” Juan García Ábrego in a Matamoros trial. Though he was still wanted in Mexico, Fuentes León somehow traveled in and out of the country often, using brand-new Mexican passports. A law enforcement investigator in charge of Fuentes León’s arrest told me that Ancira sometimes flew Fuentes León in his private plane, but Ancira says he never met him. The investing continued. In 1993, Fuentes León, and a group of investors attempted to purchase the San Antonio Light newspaper, but the Hearst Corporation — or perhaps the Justice Department, which usually looks into major newspaper sales — never accepted the offers. Fuentes León did buy the popular disco Planeta Mexico owned by Ancira’s friend in the energy sector, Rogelio Gasca Jr. A new partner, Manuel Pacheco, came in on the deal but was later arrested and given a fifteen-year sentence for money-laundering. With his visa about to expire, Fuentes León made fruitless pleas to America’s high and mighty — including George W. Bush, who called his father, the president, on Fuentes León’s behalf (see El Andar Winter ‘99). Fuentes León was finally arrested, and attempted bribery and drug money-laundering charges were ready to be filed against him, too. The Barreras took the case. At the hearing, a remarkable tape was played, recorded while Fuentes León arranged to bribe an undercover INS agent. The tape was made in the summer of 1994, a few months after the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio. Fuentes León bragged that his son Enrique, also a lawyer, was “one of Zedillo’s people.” In a moment of bravado, Fuentes León told the INS agent, “I know how they killed Colosio.” And he said something even more chilling: “In the end, in August... there are going to be deaths and all that shit, eh? ... There are going to be more deaths.” And so it was: José Francisco Ruíz Massieu, the Guerrero governor who had wanted Fuentes León to face charges in Mexico, was assassinated soon after. El Financiero columnist Jorge Fernández reported that Ruíz Massieu was scheduled to be killed in August, but because of a problem with one of the would-be hit men, the event actually took place in September. Raúl Salinas, the president’s brother, was eventually convicted for authoring the murder. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents insisted that another man wanted for orchestrating the assassination’s logistics was with Fuentes León moments before his arrest in San Antonio. The man, Manuel Muñoz Rocha, simply walked away, because at the time the agents didn’t know he was a fugitive with a $1 million price on his head. The INS official in charge of the arrest, Gary Renick, says that all three agents who were present separately identified Muñoz Rocha from photos. Now retired, Renick still says he is convinced that Muñoz Rocha was present at Fuentes León’s arrest. An employee of Fuentes León then testified she overheard her boss talking with a man she was sure was Ernesto Ancira’s friend Gustavo García, just a few days after the murder occurred. The employee said that she believes she heard the men talk about the murder and she is sure that they said they needed to send more money to “Muñoz.” The DEA has reportedly found that a top drug enforcement officer on the Gulf cartel payroll met with Fuentes León and Muñoz Rocha in a “city in the United States” a few weeks before the killing. And an FBI report noted that one witness told agents that Fuentes León “has a lot of information about Ruiz Massieu.” Manuel Muñoz Rocha disappeared at the very moment of Fuentes León’s arrest, and was never officially seen again. But one curious footnote to his San Antonio stay lingers: Muñoz Rocha’s visa, which he used to enter and leave the US a few weeks before and after Ruiz Massieu’s assassination, listed a conspicuous address: “The Dominion, San Antonio.” Gus García: The Third Man With the third member of Ancira’s San Antonio troika, developer Gustavo García, the Grupo Texano became a multinational operation. García has been under investigation by the DEA for cocaine trafficking in Florida and Venezuela, and by local police for money laundering in San Antonio. He has not been charged. He’s head of the Brita water purification franchise in Mexico, and he owns around a hundred million dollars’ worth of San Antonio real estate along with his partner, Lebanese-Mexican businessman Anuar Name (pronounced nah-may). The only visible sign of Name’s presence in San Antonio is the gleaming office tower he and Gus García own together. The Mercantile building is an impressive, mirrored ribbon of a building, and García wanted to buy it for several years but couldn’t come up with the money. Then, after a lengthy trip to Mexico, he returned victorious, representing Anuar Name, a multi-million-dollar financier of the Salinas campaign. Name, too, had blemishes on his reputation, but they weren’t well-known. Newspapers reported that Name co-owned a Tijuana disco together with a member of the Caro-Quintero drug cartel of Sonora. Name is also an associate of Egyptian arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, a friend of Raúl Salinas, and a partner of PRI king-maker Carlos Hank González, whose family has been investigated in the US, Costa Rica and Mexico for links to drug cartels, murder and money laundering (See El Andar Summer/Fall ‘99). García bought the Mercantile building for Anuar Name in February 1992 for $5 million — in cash. “I have some major tenants looking at it,” García told reporters. Soon after, Name’s friends the Hank family moved in, leasing the entire ground floor for Carlos Hank Jr.’s Laredo National Bank. There, too, Ernesto Ancira installed campaign headquarters for his 1992 run for Texas State Senator. Anuar Name’s circle also includes Joseph Audi, of the Lebanese Bank Audi, a “private, personal bank” with branches in Beirut, Geneva, Paris, Luxembourg and New York that has been involved in a multi-million dollar arms running and money-laundering scandal. The bank was not charged, but a $6 million account was frozen and one of its depositors was charged with arms running and money laundering. In late 1993 and early 1994, Name and García re-financed their building several times over (for $1 to $5 million each time), a large part of which came from none other than Name’s friendly neighborhood banker, Bank Audi. But Bank Audi has a more auspicious claim to fame: its Geneva branch was the issuing bank of a $599,985 payment that made its way through several banks until it landed in an account belonging to Manuel Muñoz Rocha and a hit man convicted in the assault that killed Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Investigators have never determined who owned that original account in Bank Audi. The Amigos de Bush Ernie and Roy Barrera campaigned for President Bush in 1992, and they celebrated what looked like an easy re-election with George W at a “Super Tuesday” rally for the Texas primary. Ancira also thought he was a shoo-in in his run for the state senate, especially when both Bushes came out to campaign for him. George W. optimistically greeted Ernie as “Mr. Senator” well before the election took place. But Ernesto and President Bush lost on the same depressing day in November, 1992 — Ancira lost the state senate and Bush, the presidency of the United States. 1994 was a turbulent year for the Grupo Texano. Things happened quickly, and so dramatically that the scene was brutal, intoxicating. NAFTA, the jewel in the crown of all involved, from Salinas to the Bushes to Mosbacher to the Anciras, became reality on January first. The same day, Zapatista rebels declared war on the Mexican government, followed by bloody massacres and international outcry. By fall Mexico had suffered the assassinations of Colosio and Ruiz Massieu. Ernesto Zedillo — a Yale man just like the Bushes — was elected President. Then the peso collapsed. Lucky for them, most of Mexico’s wealthy class had already put their money into dollar-based investments — such as San Antonio real estate. So things were looking up, especially after George W. was elected. The Bush for Governor campaign was easy. The Amigos de Bush — W’s Latino support group — rallied heavily for their man. Bush’s people were elated that he had garnered 29 percent of the Latino vote, approaching the record 38 percent Roy Barrera had earned in his bid for state attorney general. Back in that 1986 race, both Bushes had stumped for Barrera, holding “Voy Con Roy” barbecue fundraisers and rallies. In ‘94, Roy was more than happy to return the favor and celebrate George W’s victory, and especially his coup with the Hispanic vote. After all, Roy and the “Amigos” helped him win it. Ancira, another “Amigo de Bush,” was feeling good, too. He was rewarded with two Bush appointments: first to the Texas State Workers Comp Board, then to a coveted advisory board position at the University of Texas School of Business. George W.’s influential friend James Leininger gave Ernie a board position in his new conservative think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Almost immediately, Governor Bush had to tackle a problem presented by Ernesto’s young cousins from Mexico. The Anciras had teamed up with an old school chum, pharmaceutical heir Xavier Autrey, during President Salinas’s privatization free-for-all of the late 1980s. The “A” kids maneuvered six million dollars of other peoples’ money into billions, buying up mining and energy companies, as well as Mexico’s largest steel company, Altos Hornos de Mexico (AHMSA). Soon their companies were accused of being fronts for the drug trade, and were described as such by analyst R.C. Whalen at a 1993 US congressional hearing. Together with a secretive binational strip-mining operation called Dos Republicas, the Anciras tried to get a Tex-Mex energy deal going by re-vamping a decrepit coal-burning power plant on the border, named Carbon II. They convinced the World Bank, Citibank and Southern California Edison to invest over $250 million in the project. It was a disaster. The Anciras’ reputation sank as fast as a rust-eaten bucket, and partners and investors began to look for ways out. The Ancira family was accused by shareholders of wasting extraordinary amounts of money on corporate jets, limousines and other luxuries. Not to mention their extensive purchases of San Antonio real estate. Just last year, while the company amassed nearly $2 billion in debt and had to suspend payments, the Anciras began quietly moving property titles to Cayman Island holding companies, with the help of their front man Marcelo Sánchez. Carbon II should have been the kind of project Governor Bush would have embraced: a model energy venture between Mexico and the US. But as environmentalists’ complaints about air pollution grew louder, Bush’s comments grew guarded. By the time of the project’s final demise in 1995 — due to mismanagement as well as the fact that its approval by Salinas had been blatantly illegal — Bush was given credit for heeding environmental concerns. By the time his 1998 re-election rolled around, W was already said to be working on his run for the White House, and in Texas he once again relied on the Latino vote. He was also working to strengthen energy ties with Mexico. That fall, he held a press conference with Mexico’s Secretary of Energy Luis Téllez. Together they promised a new era in which Texas and Mexico would essentially erase the border and create a “common market” for gas and electricity production and consumption, as well as an integrated electrical network. One month later, with help from the Amigos de Bush, George W. surpassed Roy Barrera’s record and pulled in a hefty 39 to 49 percent of the Latino vote. He won in a landslide. He was already counting on the Republican presidential nomination. Still Running with Wolves It’s been a wild ride since the 1989 White House dinner. Bush Sr. lost the presidency, and he and his wife Barbara are now campaigning for their son. Carlos Salinas is self-exiled in Ireland and Cuba. His brother Raúl is in prison. This year, Roy Barrera Jr. is on the campaign trail with W. He has “rumbled,” say the papers, about running for governor. But the shadow of past relationships continues to haunt him. Last year, Barrera Jr. landed in the hot seat. He represented millionaire Allan Blackthorne after the contract-style murder of Blackthorne’s ex-wife, Sheila Bellush. The case made national headlines because Bellush was stabbed to death in front of her toddler quadruplets, and they crawled in her blood until they were found. The hit man, José Del Toro, fled to Mexico and was represented by none other than Barrera’s old Gulf cartel client, the prestigious office of Enrique Fuentes León. Barrera was dropped as Blackthorne’s lawyer, and the US Justice Department began investigating who paid Del Toro’s presumably high-priced legal bills. Del Toro said, in a taped interview, that he was told by his U.S. lawyer that Barrera had hired Fuentes León. Roy’s father admits that the Barreras and the Fuentes León family have remained close through the years. The Justice Department’s findings have not been revealed. Roy Barrera, however, is rumored in the press to be hoping for a ride with W. to Washington, his eye on a cabinet position. Bush aides say it’s premature to talk about it, but Texas is all a-buzz with murmurs. ERNESTO ANCIRA’S car dealership is expected to top $600 million in sales this year. Ancira was one of the first to donate to Bush’s presidential exploratory committee, but lately has remained behind the scenes. Surprisingly, the Republic National Committee and Bush campaign people in charge of Hispanic outreach say they’ve never heard of Ancira. “He must be very grass roots,” a spokesperson told me. Well, not exactly. Ernie can’t stop getting involved with guys who get in trouble. He’s now one of the “heavy hitters” paying $1,000 each to host a September fundraiser for State Senator Frank Madla, who is under investigation by a federal grand jury. Apparently Madla accepted inappropriate favors from Eddie “The Bingo King” García, murdered in 1998 in what prosecutors called a contract hit. The Ancira name surfaced again in August when former Mexico City mayor Oscar Espinosa became a fugitive, under an arrest warrant for embezzling $45 million of the people’s money. Mexican newspapers reported he was last seen under the protection of armed guards, provided by the Anciras in their company town in Coahuila. Gus García’s patron Anuar Name has been named by Mexican law enforcement as the business partner of a ex-governor running from charges of taking Juárez cartel payoffs. RIGHT AFTER MEXICO’S July elections, some members of the winning PAN party have clamored for the country to re-open investigations into the assassination of Ruiz Massieu and Muñoz Rocha’s activities in San Antonio. Private investigator J. Alberto Villasana told the PAN president in a July 15 letter, “I believe that since Fox and the PAN have won, we should be aware of a very delicate matter: we will soon be facing binational criminal groups to which the previous administrations have been accomplices.” In Mexico today, there is a changing of the guard. But president-elect Vicente Fox has made it clear that the trend toward massive privatization of industries will continue at full speed — even Robert Mosbacher has hinted he’d like the national oil company Pemex to hurry up and privatize, and he might like a job there, too. If he is elected, Bush has promised there will be a “special relationship” with Mexico. In his family, the special relationship has long been there. So — goes the logic — if Ernie has a few unpleasant friends and partners, what of it? Ditto for Bush’s self-proclaimed “representative,” Roy Barrera. As long as he hasn’t touched the dirty goods himself, Bush has been able to benefit from these men’s vote-winning and trade-promoting influence. Does this make Bush guilty by association? If he didn’t know about their cartel connections, probably not. (I called his campaign office and asked if the Governor knew about these relationships, and did not receive a response by press time.) But the question has to be asked: if some of us far outside of the Bush camp know about those connections, how come Bush didn’t? George W. Bush has made his lust for the Latino vote clear. “If you say a million, I want you to spend two million. If you say you need four million, I want you to spend eight,” W told Lionel Sosa, head of the Bush Latino media campaigns. What is not clear is who Bush will be willing to consort with to earn that vote. And, if he wins the presidency, what is the true nature of the special relationship he will forge between our two nations, the US and Mexico, in the coming years? Julia Reynolds is the editorial director of El Andar. © 2000 El Andar Media Inc.

High-Ranking Mexican Drug Cartel Member Makes Explosive Allegation: Fast and Furious

Mexico Says the DEA DID Strike a Deal With the Sinaloa Drug Cartel

In exchange for information on rival cartels, the DEA allowed Sinaloa to smuggle billions of dollars worth of drugs into the country each year.