Thread: Mexican Cartel Hides Millions in Horse Races, U.S. Alleges

Mexican Cartel Hides Millions in Horse Races, U.S. Alleges

By GINGER THOMPSON

Published: June 12, 2012 9 Comments


Newcomers rarely make it into the winner’s circle at the All American Futurity, considered the Kentucky Derby of quarter horse racing.


Yet in September 2010, a beaming band of men waving Mexican flags and miniature piñatas swept into Ruidoso, N.M., to claim the million-dollar prize with a long-shot colt named Mr. Piloto.
Leading the revelry at the track was Mr. Piloto’s owner, José Treviño Morales, 45, a self-described brick mason who had grown up poor in Mexico. Across the border, Ramiro Villarreal, an affable associate who had helped acquire the winning colt, celebrated at a bar with friends.
As for the man who made the whole day possible, Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, he was living on the run, one of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world.
Mr. Treviño, a younger brother of José Treviño, is second in command of Mexico’s Zetas drug trafficking organization, say law enforcement authorities on both sides of the border. Thin with a furrowed brow, he has become the organization’s lead enforcer — infamous for dismembering his victims while they are still alive.
The race was one of many victories for the Treviño brothers, who managed to establish a prominent horse breeding operation, Tremor Enterprises, in the United States that allowed them to launder millions of dollars in drug money, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.
Using Miguel Ángel Treviño’s cash, José Treviño’s legal residency and Mr. Villarreal’s eye for a good horse, Tremor bought a sprawling ranch in Oklahoma and an estimated 300 stallions and mares. The Treviño brothers might have kept their operation quiet, given the criminal connection, but their passion for horses and winning apparently proved too tempting. In the short span of three years, Tremor won three of the industry’s biggest races, with prizes totaling some $2.5 million.
The business was “so far out there it’s hard to believe,” said Morris Panner, a former prosecutor who handled drug cases, and officials said it amounted to a foothold in the United States for one of Mexico’s most dangerous criminal networks. “Maybe they were using some kind of perverse logic that told them they could hide in plain sight, precisely because people wouldn’t believe it or question it,” Mr. Panner said.
The Justice Department moved against Tremor on Tuesday morning, dispatching several helicopters and hundreds of law enforcement agents to the company’s stables in Ruidoso and its ranch in Oklahoma. Jose Treviño and several associates were taken into custody and were expected to be charged later in the day, authorities said.
An affidavit prepared before the raids said the Zetas funneled about $1 million a month into buying quarter horses in the United States. The authorities were tipped off to Tremor’s activities in January 2010, when the Zetas paid more than $1 million in a single day for two broodmares, the affidavit said.
The New York Times became aware of Tremor’s activities in December 2011 while reporting on the Zetas. The Times learned of the government’s investigation last month and agreed to hold this story until Tuesday morning’s arrests.
The brothers’ activities on either side of the border made for a stark contrast. One week in May began with the authorities pointing fingers at Miguel Ángel Treviño for dumping the bodies of 49 people — without heads, hands or feet — in garbage bags along a busy highway in northern Mexico. The week concluded with José Treviño fielding four Tremor horses in a prestigious race at Los Alamitos Race Course, near Los Angeles.
By then, Mr. Villarreal’s story had come to a fatal, fiery end. Not long after the 2010 victory at Ruidoso, he was detained by the Drug Enforcement Administration and reluctantly agreed to work as an informant. Five months later, his charred remains were found in a burnt-out car on the highway outside Nuevo Laredo.
The buzz around Tremor’s winnings and acquisitions began three years ago, when José Treviño bought an estimated $3 million in quarter horses, including one named Number One Cartel.

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Mike McIntire contributed reporting. Jack Begg, Alain Delaquérière and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/us...k.html?_r=2&hp

I would like to see more "follow the money trail" stories from a political sense. Who profited from these deals and makes large political contributions to who?

Big money buys much political influence in America and until that is stopped we, the voters, will never be in control of America!!

As for the man who made the whole day possible, Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, he was living on the run, one of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world.
Mr. Treviño, a younger brother of José Treviño, is second in command of Mexico’s Zetas drug trafficking organization, say law enforcement authorities on both sides of the border. Thin with a furrowed brow, he has become the organization’s lead enforcer — infamous for dismembering his victims while they are still alive.

The cartel bosses like to live in the states.

From a Mexican kingpin to an FBI informant

Over the next several days at his ranch in Colorado and an FBI safe house in Albuquerque, the Mexican cartel chieftain —who had reputedly fed one of his victims to lions in Mexico — was transformed into one of the FBI's top informants on theSouthwest border.

Around a dining room table in August 2010, an FBI camera whirring above, the 34-year-old Miramontes-Varela confessed his
leadershipin the Juarez cartel, according to 75 pages of confidential
FBI interview reports obtained by The Times/Tribune Washington Bureau.

http://www.alipac.us/f12/mexican-kin...ormant-256089/

Closing statements set in drug, horse racing trial

Published 3:52 am, Wednesday, May 8, 2013

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Prosecutors in Texas are set to close their case against leaders of a violent cartel accused of buying racehorses to hide illegal drug profits.

The case centers on Jose Trevino Morales, a brother of two top leaders of Los Zetas. The organization based in the Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon has expanded beyond the drug trade to become Mexico's biggest criminal group.
Prosecutors say Morales went through $16 million in horse-related expenses in 30 months. He's charged with money laundering in a trial with four other defendants.

A co-founder of the Zetas testified for the prosecution. Trevino Morales' defense lawyer declined to call any witnesses.
Morales' wife and daughter pleaded guilty to lesser charges, and his brothers remain at large.
Federal officials seized and auctioned the horses.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/tex...#ixzz2TlGxe8yE

See Also.
http://www.alipac.us/f12/horses-link...uction-266604/

http://www.alipac.us/f12/tx-mother-d...-money-275111/