The week in Latin America: A smuggler named John

The Times this week published a four-part series by reporter Richard Marosi on the U.S. face of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, considered one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world. Here are highlights from the series, and other stories that made top headlines in Latin America this week:

Welcome to Calexico

In the first part of the series, Marosi introduces readers to a Drug Enforcement Administration operation tracking Sinaloa cartel distributors in Southern California. The article highlights the exhaustive surveillance strategies that U.S. anti-drug authorities employ to track smugglers, which includes permitting loads of drugs to pass from Mexico in order to gather further intelligence on suspects.

The tactics of psychics

"Mexican psychics have been known to rub white pigeons up and down a person to absorb negative forces before releasing the birds, and any evil, into the sky," reads part two of the series. "They suggest herbal baths and sometimes add hallucinogenic morning glory seeds to teas they serve their clients." Fascinating and creepy stuff.

Meet John, a cartel drug pilot

John Charles Ward made a living out of piloting drugs from Mexico into the United States, as part three of the series describes. Ward, now serving a sentence in a federal prison in California, managed to escape the law for decades. He tells Marosi of his high-flying times: "It wasn't just a smuggling job. It was my career."

The cartel flow continues

The final part of Marosi's series recounts a confrontation between a U.S. cocaine distributor and his boss in Sinaloa, a top cartel lieutenant. While the DEA operation targeting them eventually netted major arrests and seizures of cash and drugs, Marosi writes: "More than four years later, the cartel continues pumping drugs through the Calexico border crossing."

 

In other news:

'El Ponchis' is sentenced in Mexico

It was another week of horrific incidents in Mexico's drug war. A newspaper reporter was found decapitated in Veracruz. Shootouts in the municipal prison in Ciudad Juarez left 17 dead and fueled a spat between the local police chief and federal forces. And Edgar Jimenez, also known as "El Ponchis," was sentenced in Morelos, a reminder that Mexico's 4-1/2-year conflict is breeding ever-younger victims and perpetrators. 

Humala assumes presidency in Peru

Ollanta Humala, a leftist former military officer, was sworn in as president of an increasingly prosperous Peru on Thursday. Among his first appointments was naming Susana Baca, the celebrated Afro-Peruvian singer who was recently profiled by The Times, as his government's culture minister.

Guatemala election heats up

From Guatemala City, special correspondent Alex Renderos looks at the state of the campaign to replace President Alvaro Colom in elections in September. More than 30 people have been killed in campaign-related violence, a troubling figure, Renderos reports. One of the candidates is Colom's ex-wife; Sandra Torres, the former first lady, had to divorce her husband in order to be eligible to run.

— Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Convicted cartel smuggling pilot John Charles Ward, in federal prison in California in 2009. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Official: Tijuana massacre may be related to pot bust

The execution-style killing of 13 people at a drug rehabilitation center in Tijuana on Sunday night might be related to a record-breaking bust last week of 134 tons of marijuana in the same city, Baja California state Atty. Gen. Rommel Moreno said, according to reports (link in Spanish).

"That is also one of the elements we are following," Moreno said.

The attorney general provided no other details on a possible link as the investigation into the massacre continued in the northern border city across from San Diego. (Here's coverage in The Times on the burning of the seized marijuana on Wednesday.)

In recent weeks, Tijuana has been heralded as a success story in Mexico's drug war for its drop in violence over previous years, resulting in a slow return to more tourist-friendly days. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore spoke at a conference and festival in Tijuana earlier this month, but in the days after the event opened, "as if on cue," reported Richard Marosi in The Times, three headless bodies were hung from overpasses, among other killings.

The marijuana seized last week was bound for the United States, authorities said. Voters in California will decide next month whether to legalize the production and possession of small amounts of marijuana under Proposition 19, a proposal strongly opposed by Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Soldiers stand before the burning of 134 tons of marijuana last week in Tijuana. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

Study: Legalizing marijuana in California would not make a big dent in Mexican cartels' profits

A ballot initiative in California that would permit possession, production and taxation of small amounts of marijuana for personal use would do little to curtail the profits of violent drug-trafficking cartels in Mexico, according to a new study released by non-partisan Rand Corp.

Proposition 19, which goes before California voters on Nov. 2, has been criticized by Mexican President Felipe Calderon. "Drugs kill in production. Drugs kill in distribution, as is the case in the violence in Mexico, and drugs kill in consumption," Calderon told The Times' Richard Marosi last week in an interview in Tijuana.

The Rand study, released Tuesday, estimates that Mexican cartels earn $1 billion to $2 billion yearly from moving pot into the United States -- a much lower figure than cited in previous estimates by the U.S. government and other groups -- and says legalizing marijuana in California probably would cut their overall drug-export revenues by just 2% to 4%.

"The only scenario where legalization in California could substantially reduce the revenue of the drug trafficking organizations is if high-potency, California-produced marijuana is smuggled to other U.S. states at prices that are lower than those of current Mexican supplies," said the Rand  news release.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Prop. 19 supporter Richard Lee, founder of California's first marijuana trade school. Credit: Peter DaSilva, for The Los Angeles Times

U.S. authorities honor Tijuana's top cop for driving down border crime

U.S. border authorities paid a highly-publicized visit to Tijuana on Monday to shower accolades on the city’s top cop, Julian Leyzaola. It was billed as a ceremony of recognition for Leyzaola’s work with U.S. agencies. He’s helped drive crime rates down 52% along the San Diego-Tijuana border, the U.S. Border Patrol said. And the FBI said Leyzaola’s cops have captured record numbers of U.S. fugitives.

But the timing of the event was curious. Leyzaola’s future remains in doubt, as reported last month in an article in the Los Angeles Times.  Tijuana’s mayor-elect Carlos Bustamante, scheduled to take office in December, has yet to say whether he will extend Leyzaola’s tenure.

To many observers, all the speeches and plaques of recognition awarded to Leyzaola by the representatives of U.S. agencies seemed designed to pressure Bustamante to keep him as secretary of public security.  Bustamante didn’t’ attend the event, but he most surely heard about it. Tijuana’s cultural center was packed with hundreds of Leyzaola supporters, including  influential business and civic leaders, and a media swarm provided mostly fawning coverage of the popular lawman’s emotional speech.

The Tijuana reporters, taking advantage of the rare opportunity to interview a U.S. federal agent, cornered the FBI’s international liaison officer, Mike Eckel. He said the security situation improved dramatically when Leyzaola took over as chief nearly three years ago. “In the past, we didn’t have as much trust as we do now…. The changes that have occurred here are impressive and enormous.”

-- Richard Marosi

Photo: Tijuana's secretary of public safety, Julian Leyzaola, in November 2009. Credit: Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times

Los Tucanes de Tijuana: Banned in their namesake border city

It's like the Beatles being banned from returning to Liverpool, the Red Hot Chili Peppers being yanked from stages in Los Angeles, or Jay-Z's music stopped in a source of his inspiration, New York. Since last November, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, one of the most recognizable bands in the Mexican norteño regional genre, are banned from playing in their hometown and namesake, the border city of Tijuana.

The ban is a result of a 2008 concert in which the band's lead singer sent his regards from the stage to the city's most notorious and wanted men, "El Teo and his compadre, El Muletas." The city's get-tough police chief, Julian Leyzaola, was outraged.

Leyzaola pulled the plug on shows by Los Tucanes as they prepared to perform at the city's storied Agua Caliente racetrack in November. Leyzaola said the band's polka-driven narcocorrido songs glorify drug lords and their exploits and are therefore inappropriate to play in a city that has suffered soaring drug-related violence in recent years. The band, with millions of record sales and a fan base as broad as the international border, hasn't been allowed to play in Tijuana since.

In an interview with Richard Marosi of The Times as they prepared for a show in San Diego (as close to Tijuana as they can currently get), Los Tucanes said they don't intend to glorify narco bosses but instead merely write songs about the realities around them.

"I'm not justifying them, or approving of what they do," singer Mario Quintero told Marosi. "The señor [Leyzaola] shouldn't fault us for the corridos as if we're responsible for the killing of his police."

Authorities in Mexico widely disapprove of norteño bands that sing about the drug trade, banning their songs from radio airwaves and even threatening jail time for narcocorrido producers (link in Spanish). The effort is especially vigilant in Tijuana, as Marosi reported in a story in 2008.

Baja state official allegedly worked on both sides of the law

A high-ranking law enforcement official in Baja California state was among 43 people charged last week in a sting against Tijuana drug traffickers operating in the San Diego area. Jesus Quinones Marques, arrested during a traffic stop in San Diego last Thursday, had been director of the international liaison office for the Baja California attorney general's office. The charges mean Quinones was allegedly working for the traffickers while he was supposed to be providing information to U.S. investigators.

Richard Marosi has more in The Times here and here. "Quinones seemed like a cooperative and professional liaison officer, according to U.S. liaison officers, but some said they are never surprised when their counterparts turn out to be corrupt," Marosi writes.

"Liaison officers usually limit conversations related to sensitive investigations."

-- Daniel Hernandez in San Diego

Photo: Laura Duffy, U.S. attorney for San Diego, holding the unsealed indictment against Tijuana drug traffickers working in San Diego. Credit: Associated Press via San Diego Union-Tribune

A reawakening in Tijuana?

Is Tijuana making a comeback -- once again? Staff writer Richard Marosi, who covers the border city for The Times, makes the case that "TJ," as locals often call it, is reawakening after the arrest in January of a notorious drug lord:

Four months after the capture of the notorious crime boss Teodoro Garcia Simental, this border city is showing glimpses of its old, vibrant self. Like survivors of a Category 5 hurricane of crime, residents are emerging from their homes, wary but hopeful.

While clashes in other key drug-trafficking centers such as Juarez are reaching new heights of brutality, the uniquely savage violence that has plagued Tijuana during the government's three-year war on organized crime has declined dramatically since the January arrest.

Sixth Street, or La Sexta, in Tijuana's traditionally tourist-friendly downtown district is a good place to gauge the pick-up. A new arrival is La Mezcalera, a stylish bar specializing in mezcal, tequila's smokier cousin. Twenty- and thirty-something locals with whom La Plaza keeps in contact say La Mezcalera is the place to be for TJ's creative set. Down the block is the popular dancehall La Estrella, and across the street, the cantina Dandy del Sur.

The blog Turista Libre chronicles trips to Tijuana by San Diego adventure-seekers, and has this post on a recent excursion south to see a set by the internationally known Tijuana musicians Nortec Collective.

Yet as the scene in Tijuana picks up again, many longtime locals remain cautious. They know the threat of violence only too well.

To check out posts in La Plaza about Tijuana, check out our archive here.

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo credit: Turista Libre

Richard Marosi in San Diego

Richard Marosi is a La Plaza blogger based in San Diego.

Reach Richard via email.