Mexican officials capture key lieutenant of Sinaloa drug cartel

MEXICO CITY -- A drug capo described by Mexican officials as "one of the most important lieutenants" for Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the fugitive leader of the Sinaloa cartel, has been captured, the Defense Ministry announced Sunday.

Jesus Alfredo Salazar Ramirez, known as "The Doll," was taken into custody Thursday by military officials and federal prosecutors in the state of Mexico, outside the capital, according to a news release [link in Spanish]. Salazar is the alleged leader of a cell within the Sinaloa cartel known as "The Salazars" and is wanted in both the U.S. and Mexico on drug trafficking charges.

Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel is probably the most powerful in Mexico. Many Mexicans suspect the federal government has favored the Sinaloa gang in its six-year crackdown on the myriad groups that control drug production and distribution in the country.

The government of outgoing President Felipe Calderon strenuously denies such rumors and argues that it has gone after all cartels with equal zeal. The arrest of Salazar may bolster that argument among some here, especially as it comes after the arrest last week of another top Sinaloa lieutenant, Jose Salgueiro Nevarez, alias "El Che."

Calderon leaves office in December with Mexicans deeply divided about his legacy and his career-defining decision to crack down on the drug cartels. The president boasts that his government has killed or captured two-thirds of the 37 most dangerous criminals in the country.

But more than 50,000 people have died since Calderon unleashed the Mexican military on the drug gangs, and it is unclear if the cartels' power has ebbed: The Times' Tracy Wilkinson reported Saturday that Coahuila, Mexico's third-largest state, has quietly been taken over by the Sinaloa cartel's bloodthirsty rivals, the Zetas.

Salazar, Mexican officials allege, controlled the growth, production and trafficking of drugs in the state of Sonora, which borders Arizona and New Mexico; and part of the state of Chihuahua, which borders New Mexico and Texas. Most of the drugs, officials said, was sent to the U.S.

Officials said Salazar is also suspected of directing numerous executions, including the slaying of Mexican peace activist Nepomuceno Moreno in November 2011. Moreno was a grieving father who had joined the high-profile peace movement headed by poet Javier Sicilia.

Moreno had accused police of abducting his son. He was gunned down by men who intercepted his car in the Sonoran capital, Hermosillo.

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-- Richard Fausset 

Photo: Mexican authorities Sunday provided a photo of alleged Sinaloa drug cartel figure Jesus Alfredo Salazar Ramirez, who was taken into custody last week. Credit: Sedena

Study: Pot legalization in U.S. states could hurt Mexican cartels

MEXICO CITY -- This may not weigh heavily on the minds of voters in Seattle, but if Washington and two other U.S. states decide to legalize marijuana in next week's election, the effect on drug traffickers in Mexico could be enormous.

Such is the suggestion of a new study by a Mexican think tank.

"It could be the biggest structural blow that [Mexican] drug trafficking has experienced in a generation," Alejandro Hope, security expert with the Mexican Competitiveness Institute, said in presenting the report.

Producing and distributing marijuana inside the U.S. would supply a less expensive and better quality drug to the millions of American who smoke it, Hope said. Demand for Mexican pot would decline, cutting into cartels' profits by 22% to 30%, the study calculates.

The consequences would be most dramatic, Hope added, for the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which is based in western Mexico and controls most of the marijuana production.

It is estimated that around one-third of Mexican drug gangs' income is from marijuana, surpassed only and narrowly by cocaine.

Myanmar, Laos see large increase in opium cultivation, U.N. says

NEW DELHI -- Despite stepped-up eradication efforts by the government, the amount of land used to grow opium in Myanmar increased 17% during 2011, the sixth straight annual increase, according to a United Nations report released Wednesday.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, is the second-largest opium grower in the world after Afghanistan. In contrast with Afghanistan's production, which tends to be on larger plots and on a more industrial scale, growers in Myanmar tend to work smaller fields in remote border highlands areas.

Land devoted to opium production in neighboring Laos, meanwhile, grew 66%, albeit from a far smaller base, while in Thailand it declined by 4%, according to the report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The area where the three countries meet, called the Golden Triangle, has been a notorious region for drug production and smuggling for decades.

"The opium numbers continue to head in the wrong direction," Gary Lewis, the U.N. office's regional representative, said in a statement from Bangkok, Thailand. "Unless the farmers have a feasible and legitimate alternative to give them food security and reduce their debt, they will continue to plant poppy."

14 kidnapped Central American migrants found in Mexico

 

MEXICO CITY -- As a group of mothers from Honduras, Guatemala and other countries travels across Mexico in search of missing relatives, the Mexican navy on Monday announced that it had freed 14 Central Americans kidnapped by suspected drug traffickers.

Thousands of migrants from Central America go missing every year as they attempt to reach the United States through Mexico. They are often kidnapped by Mexican gangsters, held for ransom, forced to work for cartels or on marijuana farms, or killed. Many turn up in hidden mass graves.

Naval marines acting on what they described as an anonymous tip over the weekend discovered 14 migrants being held against their will in a shack in the town of Altamira, in the violent border state of Tamaulipas (link in Spanish). The state has been the scene of several massacres of Central American and Mexican migrants.

The rescued men and women looked for the most part young and skinny, judging by a video released by the navy. They told authorities they had been kidnapped in different places in Tamaulipas and were from Central America, the navy said. The navy did not offer a breakdown of nationalities and said their "migratory status" would be corroborated. They stand a good chance of being deported.

Two men who apparently were holding the migrants were arrested, the navy said.

Monday's announcement from the navy gives hope to groups searching for the missing that more  victims may still be alive.

A caravan of mothers  this month embarked on a 19-day, 14-state journey through Mexico. All 40 or so mothers are looking for children, spouses or other relatives who vanished on their way north. Through the efforts of the organizers -- they've staged a caravan every of the last several years -- and other migrant-rights activists, a few missing relatives have been found and reunited with mothers.

Human rights groups say government neglect and refusal to recognize the problem of the missing result in  families left with the task of searching on their own, sometimes going state to state to offer DNA evidence when bodies turn up.

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-- Tracy Wilkinson

Photo: Central American migrants ride on top of a train in Veracruz state, one of the precarious ways in which they try to reach the U.S., in June 2011. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency

 

 

 

 

 

 

U.N. rights chief decries U.S. Border Patrol's 'excessive force'

MEXICO CITY -- The United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized U.S. Border Patrol officers Thursday for resorting to “excessive use of force,” according to news reports, a week after a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot by officers after allegedly throwing rocks at them near the Mexican border town of Nogales.

“There have been very many young people, teenagers, who have been killed at the border,” the commissioner, Navi Pillay, said at a news conference in Geneva, according to wire services. “The reports reaching me are that there has been excessive use of force by the U.S. border patrols while they are enforcing the immigration laws.”

U.S. officials allege that the shooting victim, Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, was smuggling drugs before the Oct. 10 incident, which has been strongly condemned by the Mexican government.

The FBI is investigating the matter, and the Department of Homeland Security is reviewing its guidelines for the use of force by border agencies.

At least 16 civilians have been killed by border agents since 2010, many of them during rock-throwing incidents involving suspected drug smugglers.

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Photo:  A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle keeps watch along the border fence in Nogales, Ariz, on Aug. 9, 2012.  Credit: Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press

Two-thirds of most-wanted Mexican drug lords are in custody, dead

MEXICO CITY -- The government of President Felipe Calderon has made the elimination of top capo suspects from a most-wanted list of 37 men the barometer for success in its fight against organized crime.

With the slaying of Zeta cartel leader Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano earlier this month, that number has now been reduced by 25, or about two-thirds of the total, as identified on a list published by the attorney general's office in March 2009 (link in Spanish).

But have the captures or killings of cartel leaders helped stem the violence in Mexico or reduce the flow of drugs to the United States? Not significantly, L.A. Times correspondents in Mexico have concluded in a variety of articles since December 2006, when the government's military-led assault on the cartels began. The death or capture of a cartel leader, analysts repeatedly argue, usually sparks infighting for succession among lieutenants and thus more bloodshed. 

The most-wanted man in Mexico, meanwhile, Sinaloa cartel alliance chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, remains conspicuously at large. But weeks away from the end of Calderon's term, Mexico's security forces have plenty of "gets" to point to in the country's efforts against criminal gangs.

Here's a partial list of the major cartel chiefs who have been taken down so far.

Mexican officials hoping to use Lazcano's dead parents for ID

MEXICO CITY — Just in time for the Day of the Dead, the weird, ghoulish story of Mexican drug lord Heriberto Lazcano just got weirder and more ghoulish.

After killing a man they claim was Lazcano in a firefight this month — but then promptly losing possession of his body — Mexican officials are trying to get permission to exhume Lazcano’s late parents in order to prove, by use of DNA tests, that the man who was felled in a hail of bullets outside of a Coahuila baseball stadium really was him.

The Mexican Navy insists it is “100% certain” that it was Lazcano, leader of the notorious Zetas cartel, who was slain in the shootout in the border state of Coahuila. But government officials have had a hard time convincing the public that they got their man, because the body was stolen shortly after the shooting by armed commandos, who snatched the corpse from a funeral parlor in the middle of the night.

Naval officials say that a fingerprint match confirms the body’s identity (the prints were taken before the body was stolen, they say). But the doubters run from everyday Mexicans, many of whom have a taste for conspiracy, to ex-President Vicente Fox, who said recently that the story seemed like a tough one to swallow. [link in Spanish]

The missing body has become an embarrassment for the administration of outgoing President Felipe Calderon, which should have been able to count Lazcano’s slaying as an unalloyed victory in its war on the narco gangs. Instead, Mexican papers have been full of withering jokes at its expense — one cartoon recently made reference to the popular zombie TV series “The Walking Dead” — and bizarre info-graphics comparing photos of the face of the living “El Lazca” with the bloated, dead face that is supposed to be his as well.

Enter into the mess an assistant federal prosecutor, Cuitlahuac Salinas, who said in a news conference Wednesday that while experts were “certain” they had identified the body, they were trying to get the proper permits to dig up Lazcano’s parents in the state of Hidalgo, in order to “obtain their genetic profile.”

It is not clear what genetic material officials have of Lazcano’s to use for comparison purposes. Before joining the Zetas, the drug lord was a member of the Mexican army. He also spent some time in a Mexican jail.

Salinas said his office was also trying to find Lazcano’s living sisters, as well. But in this case, at least so far, the living have proved as elusive as the dead.

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Photo: The Mexican Navy released this photo Oct. 9 saying it was Heriberto Lazcano, founder of Zetas drug cartel. Credit: Mexican Navy / EPA 

 

Iran wages its own war against drugs

HIRMAND, Iran -- The featured speaker -- an 11-year-old girl -- waited hours for the helicopter to land near the watch tower and high concrete walls in this remote region not far from the Afghanistan border. Close by, a military band  played marching music on large drums and trumpets, sounding  a discordant note in an arid desert where drug smugglers make their fortunes ferrying drugs into Iran.

The spectacle was orchestrated by the Iran government on Wednesday to showcase the success of its anti-narcotics forces in thwarting drug-smuggling into the country. 

Flanked by her mother and other relatives under a burning sun, young Zahra stood before reporters to  praise "the role of my martyred dad and his comrades in fighting narcotic traffickers."

Her father, a border agent killed three years ago, was one of more than 3,700 agents who have died in ambushes or in clashes with outlaws over the last three decades along Iran’s border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. Just two nights before the event staged for the media, three more border agents were killed.

“Iran is fighting with the illicit drug traffickers on behalf of all humanity, ” said Gen. Ali Moaiyedi, chief commander of the anti-narcotic police.

Mexico's Senate approves bill to fight money-laundering epidemic

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico’s Senate on Thursday unanimously approved an anti-money laundering bill in  hope of stemming a multibillion-dollar tide of illicit cash that flows from the nation’s powerful drug cartels and has seeped into nearly every corner of the Mexican economy.

The bill, which was approved this year  by the lower chamber, has been under consideration for more than two years in the Mexican Congress and could help the struggling nation in its fight against the narco gangs. Although  the outgoing administration of Felipe Calderon has managed to kill or capture more than two-thirds of the country’s most-wanted drug capos, it has struggled to hit them in their bank accounts.

Calderon, who leaves office in December, has long supported a stronger anti-laundering statute, and on Thursday -- a day when Amnesty International was criticizing him for failing to have taken more effective action to stem human-rights abuses committed in his six-year fight against the narcos -- the president sent a tweet congratulating the legislators.

“This will allow us to cut the economic resources of organized crime,” he wrote. “This is big news.”

The bill, which now heads to the president's desk for his signature, establishes a new specialized prosecution unit to go after money launderers and lays out a number of new reporting requirements for major transactions. Casinos will have to report big-money bets, and charity groups will have to inform the government of particularly generous donations. The sale of expensive boats, cars,  airplanes and jewelry also must be reported.

Among other things, the bill will prohibit the use of cash in many real-estate transactions, require banks to flag big credit card bills and force Mexican notaries, who handle most real-estate deals here, to report suspicious activity.

U.S. officials estimate that Mexican drug cartels send $19 billion to $29 billion in ill-gotten cash from the United States to their home country every year, and some Mexican officials have put the annual  of laundered money at $50 billion, representing a staggering 3% of the legitimate  Mexican economy.

As with many reform efforts in Mexico, passing a law will \help only so much. To make a real dent in the drug trade, it also must be enforced. Observers have suggested that the government has neglected to crack down hard on money laundering for fear that it would damage the rest of the economy.

Mexico approved an asset-forfeiture law in 2008 similar to ones in Italy and Colombia that made a big difference in their fights against organized crime, allowing the governments to seize and sell ill-gotten properties. But Mexican prosecutors have used the 2008 law sparingly.

-- Richard Fausset and Cecilia Sanchez

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Photo: Soldiers carry a table loaded with seized U.S. dollars at a media presentation in Mexico  City last year. The cache of $15.3 million found in a car in downtown Tijuana is believed by authorities to belong to members of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Credit: Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press

 

As police move in on Rio's favelas, a drug lord seeks amnesty

RIO DE JANEIRO -– As authorities move to bring some of Rio de Janeiro’s worst slums under their control, the leader of a powerful drug-trafficking gang there has said he wants to turn over his weapons and the territory he commands to the Brazilian government in exchange for amnesty.
           
Marcelo Piloto, head of the Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, gang in the Mandela favela in northern Rio, said that he and many other drug traffickers would be eager to take advantage of a voluntary demobilization program similar to that available to leftist guerrillas in Colombia.
 
“I’d do whatever it takes to get some kind of amnesty,” the heavily armed leader said in an interview on his home turf recently. “Any way I can pay my debt to society.”
 
The offer took on more urgency this week, when authorities in Rio announced they would invade and retake the favela that Piloto controls Sunday. In the past, they’ve entered with tanks and helicopters to reclaim a small number of the more than 1,000 favelas in the city that until recently had been out of the reach of the state.

Drug gangs still dominate many of the city’s slums, but over the last few years security forces have begun a process of “pacification.” Police continue to expand their control, and many believe they could eventually take back the whole city.

“Many, many drug traffickers are saying they want amnesty,” said Jose  Junior, head of AfroReggae, a favela-based cultural organization that has worked with traffickers to turn themselves over. “But amnesty doesn’t exist in Brazil. What exists at the moment is that there are benefits for those who turn themselves rather than being caught.”

According to a website belonging to Rio police, Piloto is wanted and a reward of thousands of dollars is offered for his capture. His current whereabouts are unknown.

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--Vincent Bevins

Photo: A Brazilian police sharpshooter secures a position atop a school building in front of a favela  as Rio de Janeiro's government moved to "pacify" the slum on Sept. 20. Credit: Antonio Scorza / AFP/Getty Images