Thread: Mexican Officials Call off Hartley Search

Mexican Officials Call off Hartley Search

Last Update: 1:35 pm

ZAPATA - The Zapata County sheriff says at least one Mexican law enforcement agency called off the search for David Hartley. Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez says he hasn't been able to reach the other Mexican investigators on the search. He says the prospect of not finding Hartley's body may be a reason why they aren't searching anymore.

http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/Me ... PZb0w.cspx

What? Hey...I think we need to send our guys down there to look for that body. I believe Mexican officials know where the body is and they just dont want to let go of it because somehow it will provide evidence against them. And forget about getting the jet ski back....no way they are giving that back.

Originally Posted by redpony353

What? Hey...I think we need to send our guys down there to look for that body. I believe Mexican officials know where the body is and they just dont want to let go of it because somehow it will provide evidence against them. And forget about getting the jet ski back....no way they are giving that back.

yeah , we'd have more luck finding the body than the jet ski ..

Originally Posted by marquis

Originally Posted by redpony353

What? Hey...I think we need to send our guys down there to look for that body. I believe Mexican officials know where the body is and they just dont want to let go of it because somehow it will provide evidence against them. And forget about getting the jet ski back....no way they are giving that back.

yeah , we'd have more luck finding the body than the jet ski ..

You can look all you want, but your not going to find either of them.
If the cartels dont want you finding it, your not going to find it

It seems that the head in the suitcase put them in their place. It would seem that the cartels already run Mexico. Build a wall.

The body and jet ski won't ever be found. The body was most likely burned and buried. People need to remember, we're not dealing with regular criminals here, these are animals with no moral compass whatsoever. The sooner everyone accepts that fact the sooner we will learn to deal with them.

I can pretty much guarantee that they are not going to dump or bury that jet ski. I'm sure that within hours it was repainted and made to not look like it had and I'd bet money that it is now part of the cartel fleet of vehicles.Heck, it'll probably be used to murder another American!

I'm still locking horns with others on the internet who keep insisting that Mrs. Hartley is lying. There's a whole lot of totally BS conspiracy stories going around. As far as Mexico suspending their search for Hartley....check out the following:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38432505/ns ... -americas/
In Mexico, justice means catch and release
Innocents are tortured and sometimes drug cartels decide who is arrested

By ALEXANDRA OLSON, JULIE WATSON
The Associated Press

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — It's practically a daily ritual: Accused drug traffickers and assassins, shackled and bruised from beatings, are paraded before the news media to show that Mexico is winning its drug war. Once the television lights dim, however, about three-quarters of them are let go.

Even as President Felipe Calderon's government touts its arrest record, cases built by prosecutors and police under huge pressure to make swift captures unravel from lack of evidence. Innocent people are tortured into confessing. The guilty are set free, only to be hauled in again for other crimes. Sometimes, the drug cartels decide who gets arrested.

Records obtained by The Associated Press showed that the government arrested 226,667 drug suspects between December 2006 and September 2009, the most recent numbers available. Less than a quarter of that number were charged. Only 15 percent saw a verdict, and the Mexican attorney general's office won't say how many of those were guilty.

The judicial void is a key reason why Mexican cartels continue to deliver tons of marijuana, methamphetamines, heroin and cocaine onto U.S. streets.

"It in effect gives them impunity," U.S. Ambassador Carlos Pascual told the AP, "and allows them to be able to function in ways that can extend themselves into the United States."

Secretive justice system
Mexico's justice system is carried out largely in secret and has long been viciously corrupt. Add a drug war that Calderon intensified, and the system has been overrun. Nearly 25,000 people have died in the war to date, and the vast majority of their cases remain unsolved.

The AP obtained court documents and prison records restricted from the public and conducted dozens of interviews with suspects' relatives, lawyers, human rights groups and government officials to find out what happened after suspects were publicly paraded in key cartel murder cases.

In Ciudad Juarez, where a war between two cartels over trafficking routes killed a record 2,600 people in 2009, prosecutors filed 93 homicide cases that year and got 19 convictions, the AP found. Only five were for first-degree murder, court records show, and none came under federal statutes with higher penalties designed to prosecute the drug war.

"They never charge anyone with homicide because they don't have the evidence, they don't have proof," said Jorge Gonzalez, president of the public defenders association. "They just show them to the media to give the impression that they're solving cases."

Soldiers in Juarez routinely announce to the public that suspects have confessed to a shocking number of murders.

Hector Armando Alcibar Wong, known as "El Koreano," killed 15, they said. But a year after his August 2009 arrest, authorities don't even know where he is. Chihuahua state officials say they handed him over to federal authorities; the attorney general's office says it never had him.

Soldiers told the media in 2008 that Juan Pablo Castillo Lopez was tied to 23 killings. He was never charged with homicide and was freed from state prison less than a year later. The army quickly arrested him again, saying he killed two more people within three days. Nine months after that, he still doesn't face a homicide charge.

Oswaldo Munoz Gonzalez, known as "El Gonzo," admitted to killing 40 people, according to the joint police-army operation in Ciudad Juarez. His family says he was tortured into that confession. Eight months later, he hasn't been charged with a single homicide either.

Munoz was first detained in 2008 and accused of aggravated robbery but he was released after prosecutors failed to present enough evidence.

Two months after he was released, authorities say they nabbed Munoz during a traffic stop, and found drugs and guns in his truck.

His sister, Petra Munoz Gonzalez, says they're lying — he was dragged from his home while his wife and two young daughters watched. She says her brother, a taxi driver and occasional bus driver with a third-grade education, does not drink or use drugs.

Munoz's family didn't know where he was until they saw him paraded on television days later, with guns and drugs in front of him.

"He told me, 'I never killed anyone,'" Petra Munoz said. "He said he confessed because he had been tortured. He told me they put a bag over his head so he couldn't breathe and gave him electric shocks down there (on his genitals) and beat him until he fell over in pain. Who would endure that?"

"I just ask that the truth be told," she added. "Why haven't they presented proof, or witnesses, or anything that incriminates him? It's been almost a year."

May be another link but I thought this was very interesting.

Was Falcon Lake Killing a Case of Mistaken Identity?

Updated: 51 minutes ago
David Lohr
Contributor

AOL News (Oct. 14) -- An American whose wife says he was shot by Mexican pirates on a border lake may have been killed in a case of mistaken identity, an independent intelligence report says.

"From what we understand, the victim was believed to be a spy for a rival cartel called the Gulf and that's why he was shot by Zeta cartel enforcers," Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence for Stratfor, said in a video posted on the company's website.

A think tank report claims David Hartley, shown with wife Tiffany, was mistaken for a spy for a rival cartel when he was allegedly killed by Mexican pirates on the waters of Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border.The report by Texas-based Stratfor, a global intelligence think thank, was first covered by the San Antonio Express-News this morning and has since been picked up by multiple media outlets around the world.

Tiffany Hartley, 29, told police that she and her husband, David Hartley, 30, were riding a pair of Jet Skis on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on Sept. 30 when Mexican pirates shot at them. According to Tiffany, one of the bullets struck her husband in the back of the head, and he fell into the water. Tiffany Hartley says she tried to pull her husband from the water, but more gunfire forced her to retreat.

Despite multiple searches, which are continuing this week, neither David Hartley's body nor his Jet Ski has been recovered.

David Hartley worked for an oil and gas company, and he and his wife had recently relocated to McAllen, Texas, from Mexico, where they had lived for approximately two years. According to the Stratfor report, the couple's vehicle still had a license plate from Mexico's Tamaulipas state.

"Given the couple's license plate and method and direction of travel, it is possible that Zeta scouts identified them as a Gulf cartel surveillance team," the Stratfor report said.

Hartley's body has not been found because the Zetas "identified [him] as an American" and his remains were destroyed to prevent a "backlash from the U.S. government against the group," the report said.

The report also alleged that the men who killed Hartley were low-level enforcers, and they are now on a hit list.

"The cartel boss ... is highly upset over the fact that these individuals shot and killed Mr. Hartley, and it's our understanding that the cartel boss is hunting for the killers of Mr. Hartley so he can take care of them himself," Burton said.

The Stratfor report further alleged that the Zeta drug cartel's second in command, Miguel "Z-40" Trevino-Morales, is leading the charge "to identify and eliminate those who engaged the Hartleys."

According to the Express-News, Trevino-Morales is named in federal court documents as the No. 2 and is wanted by Laredo, Texas, police in connection with five slayings that he allegedly ordered in the U.S. in 2005 and 2006. Morales is also wanted in the U.S. on drug trafficking charges, the newspaper said.

The U.S. State Department is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to Trevino-Morales' arrest or conviction. The Mexican government is also offering a reward of 30 million pesos, about $2.4 million, the Express-News reported.

Neither the Stratfor report nor Burton's video cites any sources for the information, but Zapata County, Texas, Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told MSNBC.com today that the theories are plausible.

"It wouldn't be unheard of for cartels to do this, and it's the way cartels work," said Gonzalez, the investigator who is heading up the case on the U.S. side.

"Anyone going into the area is going to get stopped and checked by the cartels," Gonzalez added. "They have machine guns. They will pull you aside, grab you, put you on their boat face down, and with their knees into your back and a machine gun to your head, they will ask you who you are."

El Universal newspaper reported Sunday that Mexican police had identified two brothers as suspects in Hartley's alleged slaying. But, on Monday, Ruben Dario Rios Lopez, spokesman for the state attorney general in Tamaulipas, denied authorities had identified any suspects in the case, The Monitor newspaper in McAllen, Texas, reported.

Rolando Armando Flores Villegas, the police commander heading the Mexican investigation in the Hartley case, was killed and his severed head was delivered Tuesday to police.

Speaking with CNN today, Gonzalez said he believed Flores' killing was intended as "a message to Mexico to back off, for the search to stop." While that may be the case, both Gonzalez and officials in Mexico say the search for Hartley's body and other evidence in the case will continue.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has also spoken out about the case, telling ABC's "Good Morning America" today that the United States is "doing everything that we know how to do" to find Hartley's body.

"I hope that we can [find him]," Clinton said. "I mean, the beheaded body of the brave Mexican investigator that just showed up shows what we're dealing with."
http://www.aolnews.com/crime/article/fa ... 3%7C177748

Mexican Divers Stop Searching For David Hartley
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-215234.html

Report: Mexico suspends search for US tourist


The Associated Press
Thursday, October 14, 2010; 11:07 PM

McALLEN, Texas -- A Mexican official says the search for an American tourist believed to have been shot while crossing a border lake has been temporarily called off.

Tamaulipas state attorney general's office spokesman Ruben Dario Rios Lopez told the McAllen newspaper The Monitor that the search for David Michael Hartley was suspended Thursday so that authorities can look into new strategies to find him.

He says authorities hope to be able to resume the search for Hartley "in a few days."

Hartley's wife, Tiffany, says they were on their way back to the U.S. from photographing a historic Mexican church when pirates in boats opened fire on them, shooting her husband. She says she tried to help her husband but had to flee because they kept shooting.


www.washingtonpost.com