US court jails Mexican drug gangster blamed for 1,500 hits

US court jails Mexican drug gangster blamed for 1,500 hits | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Juárez cartel member Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez accused of litany of killings including a US consulate worker

A body on the street in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, during the cycle of killings involving the Juárez cartel of Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez’s. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty

A top Mexican drug gangster of the Juárez cartel who is blamed for more than 1,500 killings including that of a US consulate employee has been sentenced to life in prison by an American court.

Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez pleaded guilty in El Paso district court to 11 counts that included conspiracy, racketeering and murder. Judge Kathleen Cardone gave Acosta seven concurrent life terms, three additional consecutive life terms and 20 years in federal prison.

Acosta allegedly headed La Linea, the Juárez cartel’s enforcement arm. Mexican authorities say the former police officer admitted to ordering more than 1,500 killings after being captured in July with his bodyguard in the northern Mexico city of Chihuahua.

Mexico extradited Acosta to the US three weeks ago.

In a plea bargain Acosta admitted racketeering, conspiracy to distribute and possess drugs, and murder. The document specified that the three murder-related charges carried mandatory life sentences.

Ciudad Juárez at dusk looking west toward Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Deutsch: Ciudad Juárez bei Dämmerung. Blick nach Westen in Richtung der Misión de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Acosta, nicknamed Diego, was one of 10 people named in the indictment as participating in the killings of Leslie Ann Enriquez, an employee at the US consulate in Juárez; her husband, Arthur Redelfs; and Alberto Salcido Ceniceros, the husband of another consulate employee. On 13 March 2010 Enriquez and Redelfs left the same children’s party as Salcido. Both were driving white SUVs that were pursued separately by gunmen and riddled with bullets.

When Mexican police arrested Acosta last year, President Felipe Calderón said through his Twitter account that it was “the biggest blow” to organised crime in the violence-plagued border city of Ciudad Juárez.

A factual summary attached to the plea explained that around 2008 Acosta became La Linea’s leader and the cartel’s plaza boss in Chihuahua and Juárez. He co-ordinated “armed enforcement actions” with the Barrio Azteca gang against their common enemies. At the time, the cartel led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes was waging a bloody war with the Sinaloa cartel. The Mexican government has counted more than 9,500 murders tied to drug violence in Ciudad Juárez between 2008 and 2011.

Meanwhile, a Chicago federal judge has thrown out a sensational claim by a confessed Sinaloa cartel lieutenant imprisoned in Michigan that the US government granted him blanket immunity that gave him carte blanche to smuggle cocaine over the border. Lawyers for Vicente Zambada claimed US agents granted him and other cartel leaders the immunity in exchange for intelligence about rival cartels engaged in bloody turf wars in Mexico.

Judge Ruben Castillo wrote that he examined public and sealed documents from US agents denying this. “The court’s independent review of these documents established that none of these classified documents support defendant’s legal position,” Castillo wrote.

Zambada, son of the Sinaloa cartel boss Ismael Zambada, has been trying to use the claims as part of his defence against trafficking conspiracy charges punishable by life in prison. He is imprisoned awaiting an October trial in US federal court.

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More On War on Drugs: Mexican authorities disband Veracruz police force in bid to stem corruption

Mexican authorities disband Veracruz police force in bid to stem corruption | World news | The Guardian.

“Veracruz is the first state to completely disband a large police department and use marines as law enforcers. There are about 2,400 marines in the state of Veracruz.”

All 800 police officers and 300 administrative employees laid off, and navy deployed to patrol Gulf coast city

Veracruz police walk past Mexican navy marines after the entire police force was disbanded. Photograph: Felix Marquez/AP

The entire police force in the Mexican port of Veracruz was dissolved on Wednesday in an effort to root out corruption, and armed marines were sent in to patrol.

A state spokeswoman, Gina Dominguez, said 800 police officers and 300 administrative staff had been laid off. They can re-apply for jobs, but must meet stricter standards with officers “who are better trained and more committed and who can deliver under our current security circumstances,” she said.

Armed marines barricaded police headquarters and navy helicopters flew over the city where 35 bodies were dumped in September in one of the worst gang attacks of Mexico‘s drug war.

The change was agreed on Monday by the governor of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, and the federal interior secretary Alejandro Poiré.

Mexico’s army has taken over police operations several times before, , notably in the border city of Ciudad Juarez and the border state of Tamaulipas. But Veracruz is the first state to completely disband a large police department and use marines as law enforcers. There are about 2,400 marines in the state of Veracruz.

Dominguez said the navy operations will last only until the state can train more of its own police. Duarte already had disbanded a police force in the state’s capital of Xalapa, but in that case state agents immediately replaced city police.

Image via Wikipedia

President Felipe Calderon has pushed an ambitious process for vetting all of Mexico’s 460,000 police officers. His administration allocated $331m for 200 cities to train and re-equip municipal police forces.

Governors have complained they lack the resources to ensure their police forces are clean.

Veracruz is a common route for drugs and migrants coming from the south. It was first dominated by the Gulf Cartel, and then its former armed wing, the Zetas, took over after the two split. The state saw a rise in crime this spring after a government offensive in neighboring Tamaulipas scared drug criminals away to Veracruz.

But the dumping of the 35 bodies shocked Mexico as it turned the port into a battleground between the Zetas and a gang aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

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Drug War casualties: 26 bodies found in abandoned vehicles in Mexico

26 bodies found in abandoned vehicles in Mexico | World news | The Guardian.

The Guardian, Friday 25 November 2011

A soldier and police officer stand guard as a van that was discovered with bodies inside is taken away in Guadalajara, Mexico. Photograph: Victor Fernandez/AP

Twenty-six bodies were discovered bound and gagged on Thursday in vehicles abandoned in the heart of Guadalajara, Mexico‘s second-largest city and the site of the recent Pan American Games, officials said.

Best known as the home of mariachi music and tequila, this picturesque city has also been the historic base for methamphetamine trafficking by the powerful Sinaloa cartel. The cartel’s tight grip on the city was shattered by the death of its regional commander, Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, in a shootout with federal police in July 2010.

Guadalajara’s murder rate then soared as factions of the cartel known as the New Generation and the Resistance battled to control Coronel’s territory and assets. Street battles have left hundreds dead in the city and surrounding areas.

Security officials have said they feared that the chaos could provide an opening for the Zetas drug cartel, which has been using paramilitary-style tactics and headline-grabbing atrocities in a national push to seize territory from older organized crime groups.

But killing slowed to a trickle during the Pan American Games in late October, which brought a massive influx of police and soldiers.

Now, the violence appears to have surged back, in the form of the mass killing and public dumping of bodies that has marred other cities such as Veracruz.

The state prosecutor’s office said the dead men in Guadalajara were found in two vans and a pickup truck near the Millennium Arches, one of the most recognisable landmarks in the city in western Mexico.

The arches stand less than a mile from the Expo Guadalajara events centre, the site of the Pan Am Games and the Guadalajara international book fair, which opens on Saturday and describes itself as the world’s most important Spanish-language book fair. The fair’s website said it was expecting more than 600,000 visitors from around the world. On Wednesday, 17 bodies were found burned in two pickup trucks in a strikingly similar attack in Sinaloa, the home state of the eponymous cartel. Twelve of the bodies were in the back of one truck, some of them handcuffed and wearing bulletproof vests.

Luis Carlos Najera, public security secretary for the state of Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located, said on Thursday morning that a message had been found in one of the vehicles containing the most recent bodies, but did not offer more details. Mexican drug cartels frequently leave threatening messages with the bodies of their victims as a way of sowing fear and taking credit for their actions.

Responding to a reporter’s question, Najera told the Televisa television network that he believed the recent calm in Guadalajara was the result of an increase in security and not because drug cartels had struck a truce with each other during the games.

He declined to comment on the possible motives for the slayings, saying only that investigators had “various hypotheses.”

The Zetas have taken over neighboring Zacatecas state in their push west, and are said to be eyeing Guadalajara both for the meth trade and for the potential of extortion.

Analysts have said there is some indication that factions such as the Resistance will join the Zetas, which would produce a coalition threatening Sinaloa’s methamphetamine operations.

Anonymous hackers threaten Mexican drug cartel

Anonymous Veracruz copia – YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZL0E1J7wOg&feature=player_embedded

Anonymous video threatens to expose allies of Zetas drug cartel Link to this video

An internet video has threatened to expose allies of Mexico‘s Zetas drug cartel in the local police and news media unless the gang frees a kidnapped member of the international hacker movement known as Anonymous.

The YouTube message, which claims to be from Anonymous “Veracruz, Mexico, and the world”, says it is “tired of the criminal group the Zetas, which is dedicated to kidnapping, stealing and extortion”, and threatens to fight back with information instead of weapons. It said it knows of police officers, journalists, taxi drivers and others working with the Zetas.

The video refers to an unidentified person kidnapped in the coastal city of Veracruz, and says: “You have made a great mistake by taking one of us. Free him.”

The hacker group, which has claimed responsibility for attacks on corporate and government websites worldwide, plans to act on Friday if the kidnapped activist is not freed or is harmed, according to the message.

“We cannot defend ourselves with weapons, but we can with their cars, houses, bars,” the message adds, apparently alluding to properties owned by cartel supporters. “It’s not difficult. We know who they are and where they are. Information is free,” it says. “We do not forgive. We do not forget.”

An official with the Veracruz state attorney general’s office, who could not be named, said the office could not confirm the video’s authenticity or the case of the kidnapping.

Veracruz, an oil state on the Gulf of Mexico with a major port of the same name, has seen a surge in drug violence in recent months in what authorities say is a battle between the Zetas drug cartel, which has controlled the territory for at least a year, and its rivals. Dozens of bodies have been discovered in recent weeks, including a 35-year-old dumped on a highway in rush-hour traffic in Boca del Rio city last month.

Two other internet postings since July have announced the arrival of the Mata Zetas group, or Zeta Killers, who authorities say are probably linked to the powerful Sinaloa cartel. Others have raised questions about whether the group’s members are vigilantes or other rogue organisations taking justice into their own hands against the Zetas.

The message, presented by someone wearing a theatre mask that is a trademark of Anonymous, was reportedly uploaded to websites early this month, but was first reported on Friday on the website of the Stratfor global intelligence thinktank.

Stratfor, in its analysis of the video, said anyone exposed by Anonymous as a Zetas collaborator – accurately or not – would be targeted by rival gangs, and the Zetas could respond by attacking internet activists, even if they were not affiliated with Anonymous.

Three people have been killed recently in the northern states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas by suspected Zetas who apparently believed the victims used the internet to spread information about the gang.

Top Mexican Drug Lord: I Trafficked Cocaine For The U.S. Government

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
April 27, 2011

The “logistical coordinator” for a top Mexican drug-trafficking gang that was responsible for purchasing the CIA torture jet that crashed with four tons on cocaine on board back in 2007 has told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago that he has been working as a U.S. government asset for years.

Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla is the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, one of the top kingpins of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization. Niebla was arrested in Mexico in March 2009 and extradited to the United States to stand trial last February.

“The indictment pending against Zambada Niebla claims he served as the “logistical coordinator” for the “cartel,” helping to oversee an operation that imported into the U.S. “multi-ton quantities of cocaine … using various means, including but not limited to, Boeing 747 cargo aircraft, private aircraft … buses, rail cars, tractor trailers, and automobiles,” writes Narcosphere’s Bill Conroy.

In a two page court pleading filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, Niebla claims that he was working on behalf and with the authority of, “The U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”); and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”); and the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”),” since January 1, 2004.

Niebla is also connected to the Gulfstream II jet that wrecked with four tons of cocaine on board on September 24, 2007. European investigators linked the plane’s tail number, N987SA, to past CIA “rendition” operations. The bill of sale for the Gulfstream jet, sold weeks before it crashed, listed the name of Greg Smith, a pilot who had previously worked for the FBI, DEA and CIA.

The plane was purchased by Niebla’s Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization through a syndicate of Colombian drug-traffickers that included a CIA asset named Nelson Urrego, according to another undercover CIA operative, Baruch Vega, who was involved in the deal.

“The Gulfstream II jet, according to Mexican authorities, was among a number of aircraft acquired by the Sinaloa drug organization via an elaborate money laundering scheme involving a chain of Mexican casa de cambios (currency exchange houses) overseen by alleged Sinaloa organization operative Pedro Alfonso Alatorre Damy, according to Mexican government and U.S. media reports,” writes Conroy.

Sinaloa bought the jet by wiring money through the U.S. banking giant Wachovia, now a subsidiary of Wells Fargo. “In total, nearly $13 million dollars went through correspondent bank accounts at Wachovia for the purchase of aircraft to be used in the illegal narcotics trade. From these aircraft, more than 20,000 kilograms of cocaine were seized,” states Wachovia’s deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Wachovia was forced to pay a penalty of around $160 million dollars for allowing the money to be laundered through its correspondent bank accounts.

“So, the criminal cases pending against alleged Colombian narco-trafficker Urrego, accused money-launderer Damy and Sinaloa organization logistics chief Zambada Niebla all appear to connect through the Gulfstream II cocaine jet at some level,” summarizes Conroy.

Another private aircraft that was full of cocaine crashed in New Mexico on Sunday morning, but the plane has yet to be identified.

In addition to smuggling narcotics into the United States, Niebla is also accused of obtaining weapons from the U.S. with the intent to use them to cause violence in Mexico City, leading to the murders of several innocent people. Despite the fact that the Obama administration has cited the flow of guns from the U.S. into Mexico as an excuse with which to attack the second amendment rights of Americans, it was recently revealed that the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives deliberately allowed guns to be smuggled from the U.S. into the hands of Mexican drug lords under “Operation Fast and Furious”. President Obama later denied that he had any knowledge of the program.

Niebla’s assertion that he smuggled drugs from Mexico into the United States while working for the U.S. government adds further weight to the already voluminous body of evidence that confirms the CIA and U.S. banking giants are the top players in a global drug trade worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year, information made public by the likes of Gary Webb, who it was claimed committed suicide in 2004 despite the fact that he was found with two gunshot wounds to the head and after Webb himself had complained of death threats and “government people” stalking his home.

For more background information on the story, be sure to read Bill Conroy’s excellent article over at Narco News entitled Mexican Narco-Trafficker’s Revelation Exposes Drug War’s Duplicity.

» Top Mexican Drug Lord: I Trafficked Cocaine For The U.S. Government Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!.

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