A Drug Lord's Double Life

Reported by: Will Ripley
Last Update: 7:42 pm

MEXICO - The arrest of alleged drug kingpin Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal raised questions from the beginning. How was one of Mexico's most wanted drug lords captured without a single shot fired?

Fred Burton, STRATFOR vice president, thinks he knows why. "Since he didn't die in some sort of shootout at the time of his capture, it shows you that clearly he wants to live," Burton said.

Burton, a member of Gov. Rick Perry's Texas Border Security Council, believes Valdez's capture August 30 was planned well in advance. "I would say that it was probably choreographed for public consumption," Burton said.

Valdez was taken peacefully at his luxurious ranch in Central Mexico. His boss, cartel founder Arturo Beltran Leyva, was killed about a year ago in a firefight with the Mexican Navy. Burton thinks "La Barbie" wanted to avoid a similar fate and agreed to work as a government informant, providing information about other drug lords.

"In all probability he had been cooperating with the Mexican government and or DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) for quite some time," Burton said.

The Laredo, Texas native got his nickname "Barbie" from a high school football coach who was commenting on his fair skin, light hair and colored eyes. Burton said he's not your typical Mexican cartel kingpin. "He's an American, speaks English. You have a kid that has become a very wise businessman that's grown up through the ranks and certainly knows where a lot of the bodies are buried," Burton said.

Burton said the fact that "La Barbie" is talking makes him a target and he could be in danger inside a Mexican prison. "He has a much better chance of staying alive in U.S. custody than he does in Mexican custody where he could be easily killed," Burton said.

Mexican authorities said Saturday they have filed formal charges against Valdez and are weighing a request to extradite him to the United States. He is considered one of Mexico's top drug traffickers in recent years and faces charges including drug trafficking, kidnapping and arms possession, according to a statement issued by the Mexican Attorney General's Office. He also now faces a formal extradition process based on a U.S. warrant for drug-trafficking charges in Louisiana, the statement said.

Valdez, who had been held pending charges since his Aug. 30 arrest, is described by authorities as a former ally of Mexico's most-wanted kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, and he allegedly had been fighting for control of the Beltran Leyva gang after Mexican marines killed its leader in late 2009.
The warring factions have been blamed for brutality and bloodshed south of Mexico City, from Cuernavaca to the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, which includes the resort city of Acapulco.

It's not clear in which country Valdez will be tried first.

Mexico has increasingly extradited high-profile drug suspects to the United States under President Felipe Calderon as a way to prevent them from running cartels from corrupt Mexican prisons.

His U.S.-based attorney, Kent Schaffer, said both he and the U.S. Justice Department want Valdez to be prosecuted in the United States, where he is wanted on cocaine-smuggling charges in three states.

Valdez was transferred to a federal prison in Toluca near Mexico City to await the outcome of his case. Schaffer said Mexican authorities had agreed to transfer Valdez to a prison in the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, in anticipation of his extradition then went back on their word.

Schaffer said Friday he fears for Valdez's safety in the Toluca prison. The Mexican Attorney General's Office declined to comment on his statement.

"La Barbie" is one of six drug lords the Mexican government said it has captured or killed in 2010. Gulf Cartel boss Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen aka "Tony Tormenta" was killed in a firefight in Matamoros in early November. He took over partial control of the Gulf Cartel when his brother, cartel founder Osiel Cardenas Guillen, was extradited to the United States in 2007.

Intelligence analyst Sylvia Longmire said kingpins like Cardenas Guillen fear extradition to the United States because they won't get special treatment like do they do in Mexican prisons.

"They get gourmet food. They get their wives and their girlfriends and prostitutes brought in. They get privileges that nobody else gets, and basically they can run the cartel's business from within prison," Longmire said.

Cardenas Guillen ran the Gulf Cartel for several years while serving time in Mexico, Longmire said. He's currently serving a 25-year prison sentence at a medium security facility in Atlanta, Ga. The drug lord's location had been kept secret until recently for security reasons.

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