Thread: Wow – El Chapo Trial Witness Testifies to $100 Million Bribe to Mexican President Pen

Wow – El Chapo Trial Witness Testifies to $100 Million Bribe to Mexican President Pena Nieto…

January 15, 2019 by sundance

Wow, this has some potential massive ramifications. The trial of notorious drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has been ongoing in federal court since November. During the trial today a witness and confidante of El Chapo outlined how he participated in a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Pena Nieto.


No wonder the terms of the U.S-Mexico trade agreement (USMCA) were so favorable.

(Reuters) – A witness at the U.S. trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman testified on Tuesday that he previously told U.S. authorities the accused Mexican drug lord once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.


Alex Cifuentes, who has said he was a close associate of Guzman for years, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by one of Guzman’s lawyers in Brooklyn federal court. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered, “That’s right.”

Pena Nieto was president of Mexico from December 2012 until November 2018. He previously served as governor of the state that includes Mexico City.


Guzman, 61, has been on trial in federal court in Brooklyn since November. He was extradited to the United States in 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of the cartel. (read more)

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...nt-pena-nieto/

No real surprise, if true

(Placed here as crossings for drug cartels are generally illegal)

'El Chapo' paid ex-Mexican president $100 million bribe: trial witness


January 15, 2019

Brendan Pierson


(Reuters) - Accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman once paid a $100 million bribe to former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, an ex-Guzman associate testified on Tuesday that he previously told U.S. authorities.


Alex Cifuentes (2nd L), a close associate of the accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, (R-front) is seen testifying in this courtroom sketch in Brooklyn federal court in New York, U.S., January 15, 2019. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg





Alex Cifuentes, who has described himself as Guzman’s onetime right-hand man, discussed the alleged bribe under cross-examination by Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Guzman’s lawyers, in Brooklyn federal court. Asked if he told authorities in 2016 that Guzman arranged the bribe, he answered, “That’s right.”



Reuters could not immediately reach Pena Nieto or his former spokesman for comment. He has previously denied taking bribes.



The allegations are among the most explosive to emerge from Guzman’s trial, which began in November and has so far featured testimony of lower-level corruption.


Guzman, 61, was extradited to the United States in 2017 to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs into the country as leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.


Cifuentes testified that he had told U.S. prosecutors that Pena Nieto initially reached out to Guzman, asking for $250 million. Cifuentes told the prosecutors that the bribe was paid in October 2012, when Pena Nieto was president-elect, he testified.


Cifuentes also said testified that Guzman once told him he had received a message from Pena Nieto saying he did not have to live in hiding anymore.


Lichtman had promised jurors in his opening statement last November they would hear how Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada bribed Pena Nieto and another former president as part of a scheme to frame Guzman. He said Zambada was the real boss of the cartel.
Pena Nieto at the time called the claim “completely false and defamatory.”


U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan, however, refused to allow Guzman’s lawyers to question Zambada’s brother about the alleged bribes last year.


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It was unclear how Cifuentes’ testimony, which appeared to implicate Guzman, could be used to defend him, though Lichtman homed in on inconsistencies in Cifuentes’ memory. Cifuentes admitted that at a meeting last year, he told prosecutors he was no longer sure of the exact amounts of the bribes, but did not elaborate.


Pena Nieto was president of Mexico from December 2012 until November 2018. He was once a rising star in Mexico’s long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. He was the former governor of the state of Mexico, the country’s most populous, and married a glamorous telenovela actress just a couple years before winning the presidency.


But the president ended his term a much diminished figure, pummeled by conflict-of-interest scandals, rampant crime and a lackluster economy.


While Pena Nieto himself was barred by law from running for second term in 2018, his centrist party suffered a historic defeat at the polls as leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador won in a landslide, relegating the PRI to the role of a marginal player in the new Congress.


Captured by Pena Nieto’s government in February 2014, Guzman broke out of prison for a second time some 17 months later, escaping through a mile-long tunnel dug right into in his cell.


The jailbreak humiliated the government and battered the president’s already damaged credibility, though Pena Nieto personally announced news of the kingpin’s third capture when he was again arrested in northwestern Mexico in January 2016.


Colombian-born Cifuentes is one of about a dozen witnesses who have so far testified against Guzman after striking deals with U.S. prosecutors, in a trial that has provided a window into the secretive world of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the world’s most powerful drug trafficking organization.



Cifuentes earlier on Tuesday had also testified that Guzman asked an associate to pay a $10 million bribe to a general. The witness said the bribe was never paid and Guzman subsequently ordered the associate killed, though the hit was never carried out.


Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York and David Graham in Mexico City; editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker



https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKCN1P92OS

Russian elite invested nearly $100 million in Trump buildings

Sinaloa Cartel Heir Testified Vicente Fox’s Chief Bodyguard Worked for Them


5 Jan 2019379

2:59

The son of one of the top leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel testified that former Mexican President Vicente Fox’s chief bodyguard worked for them. The bodyguard was one of several top military figures that received large cash bribes in exchange for favors and information.

The bombshell revelation comes during the testimony of Vicente Zambada Niebla as part of the ongoing drug trafficking trial against Sinaloa Cartel’s boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. As Breitbart News has reported, the ongoing trial has not only provided a glimpse into the inner workings of Mexico’s largest drug cartel, it has also outed several public officials at the highest levels as having worked for the cartel while claiming to be fighting it.

Vicente, the son of Sinaloa Cartel co-leader Ismael El Mayo Zambada, told jurors that his father paid off several Mexican Army generals in order to get them to provide information as well as to get them to fight rival cartels. The cartel heir’s testimony comes as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors in exchange for a lighter sentence.

One of the high ranking military officials outed by Zambada was the chief bodyguard for Mexican President Vicente Fox, Mexico’s Revista Proceso reported. The cartel heir described Colonel Marco Antonio de Leon Adams as a friend of his father. He said that they would call him Chicles or Gum in reference to a popular brand of chewing gum in Mexico.

One of the bombshell incidents took place in 1997 when Vicente Zambada said he walked into the offices of Mexico’s Estado Mayor Presidential (the military branch tasked with protecting the president) and met with the general in charge to complain about investigations into his family. According to testimony reported by Revista Proceso, the cartel heir met with General Roberto Miranda over a series of raids at the business of El Mayo’s wife who the family claimed was not tied to drug trafficking.

During his testimony, Zambada spoke about another corrupt military official who worked for them — retired Army General Humberto Eduardo Antimo Miranda. The general met with Zambada and his father in 2007 and provided information about other generals taking money from Los Zetas and the Beltran Leyva cartels to move against Sinaloa. The cartel heir said the general began working for them in exchange for a $50,000 monthly bribe.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/201...GTbYkjhdtUd9DI

El Chapo’s Mistress Flipped on Him in Court While His Wife Looked on

by Matt Naham | 4:14 pm, January 17th, 2019



Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera‘s mistress Lucero Guadalupe Sánchez López has reportedly flipped on her former flame, openly admitting that she moved drugs for her ex and the Sinaloa Cartel.

Sánchez, identified as a former legislator in Mexico, described in a Brooklyn courtroom on Thursday how she came to be in a relationship with El Chapo and how she came to be arrested for running drugs on his behalf.

Keegan Hamilton
✔@keegan_hamilton
Replying to @keegan_hamilton
Heading back up the courtroom, where HSI agent is under cross-examination.
Stay tuned for updates, still expecting an interesting cooperating witness to be called later this afternoon.

Keegan Hamilton
✔@keegan_hamilton

Latest witness is Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, a former state legislator from Sinaloa who became romantically involved with Chapo… and also trafficked marijuana for him. She was 21 when they first met. She's now 29 and facing 10 to life in US federal prison.
37
2:07 PM - Jan 17, 2019

According to the New York Daily News, the woman was arrested in San Diego back 2017. Police suspected she was a drug smuggler and money launderer. Sánchez pleaded guilty in Oct. 2018 and faces 10 years to life in prison at the age of 29.

She testified Thursday that she and El Chapo had a complicated relationship.

“Until today, I’m still confused, because I thought in our relationship we were romantically involved as partners,” she said. “I was trying always to keep him happy. I was confused over my feelings for him. Sometimes I loved him, and sometimes I didn’t.”

It was apparently “awkward.”

Alan Feuer@alanfeuer
Replying to @alanfeuer
The affair began in Feb 2011 when Lucero was 21 and Chapo in his early 50s. Both were from Sinaloa, Mexico. (Lucero later would go on to become a state lawmaker from the area.)

Alan Feuer@alanfeuer

The courtroom dynamic was...awkward.
Lucero tried hard not to look at Chapo. She has a facial tic that seemed exacerbated by her nerves. Chapo did not make eye contact w/her either. Chapo's wife, Emma Coronel, was in the room too, playing with her hair and staring forward.

2:08 PM - Jan 17, 2019

Sánchez would go on to describe times moving 400 kilos of marijuana for the cartel, the Daily News reported.

Alan Feuer@alanfeuer

Replying to @alanfeuer
"Well it very well packed, love?" Chapo writes Lucero in Jan 2012 about a pot shipment. "How many are in each package?"
Lucero answers: "10 kilos, love."

Alan Feuer@alanfeuer

Lucero tells him at one point that she's stamped the pot w/a Heart & 4 brand.
"The heart means that I love you," she writes, "and the 4 means I bless the day you came into this world."
(Chapo's birthday is 4/4.)
2:13 PM - Jan 17, 2019

El Chapo faces a life sentence for drug trafficking charges. He denies the allegations against him, and his defense team claims that he wasn’t really in charge of the operation. El Chapo is accused of smuggling cocaine, heroin, and more into the United States. Witnesses testifying against Guzman are also facing charges of their own, and the defense has maintained that they are trying to frame Guzman to better their own situations.

He faces a maximum of life in prison.

El Chapo is married to Emma Coronel Aispuro, and has been since 2007. She has been a topic of conversation throughout the trial. She was in the courtroom to hear it. Observers said she played with her hair and stared forward at nothing in particular.

Tara McKelvey
✔@Tara_Mckelvey

Telenovela trial: I was in the courtroom this afternoon when Lucero Guadalupe Sanchez Lopez, the mistress of El Chapo, offered details of his alleged drug trafficking in testimony. She also spoke of her love - and fear - of him while his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, looked on.
2:26 PM - Jan 17, 2019

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile...ife-looked-on/