A new faction within the Gulf Cartel is sparking a wave of violence in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Law enforcement at the federal and state level in Mexico expect the number of clashes to escalate dramatically in the coming days.
Federal and state law enforcement officials revealed to Breitbart Texas that the current spike in violence and the expected escalation are attributable to a rift within the Matamoros faction of the Gulf Cartel known as “Los Escorpiones.” Despite their turf war with the neighboring Reynosa sect aka “Los Metros,” the Escorpiones managed to keep most of the violence to the west and south of Matamoros, allowing the city to enjoy some sense of tranquility. In contrast, Reynosa and Rio Bravo report numerous large-scale gun battles between criminal rivals and government forces.
The group is supposedly recruiting gunmen from the Escorpiones and others to overpower the larger Vaquero faction. The CDG Nueva Era offered a cash reward for Vaquero’s head via numerous banners posted throughout Matamoros.
In recent days, the warring factions from Matamoros have engaged in various shootouts in and around San Fernando, Rio Bravo, and others. Law enforcement sources consulted by Breitbart Texas indicate the violence will reach Matamoros in the coming days.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook . He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com .
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook . He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com .
Tony Aranda and “J.A. Espinoza” from Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project contributed to this report.
El Chapo Trial: Former Mexican President
Peña Nieto Took $100 Million Bribe, Witness
Says
The
bribe was delivered to Enrique Peña Nieto, the former president of Mexico,
through an intermediary, according to a witness at the trial of Joaquín Guzmán
Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo.
By
Alan Feuer
The
former president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, took a $100 million bribe from
Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the infamous crime lord known as El Chapo, according to a
witness at Mr. Guzman’s trial.
The
stunning testimony was delivered Tuesday in a New York courtroom by Alex
Cifuentes Villa, a Colombian drug lord who worked closely with Mr. Guzmán from
2007 to 2013, when the kingpin was hiding from the law at a series of remote
ranches in the Sierra Madre mountains.
“Mr.
Guzmán paid a bribe of $100 million to President Peña Nieto?” Jeffrey Lichtman,
one of Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers, asked Mr. Cifuentes during cross-examination.
“Yes,”
Mr. Cifuentes said.
Mr.
Guzmán may offer more details soon. Shortly after the jury was excused around
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Mr. Lichtman submitted his client’s name to the prosecution
as a potential witness for the defense, confirming that the drug trafficker
might testify in his own trial.
Mr.
Lichtman said that adding Mr. Guzman’s name to the witness list does not
guarantee that he will testify. It is simply “possible.”
“If
I didn’t put him on the list, it would possibly foreclose the possibility for
him to testify,” Mr. Lichtman said in an interview. “So, I was just being
inclusive.”
Mr.
Guzmán’s testimony would be a stunning development. While his lieutenants have
shared details about the Sinaloa cartel’s operations, the kingpin himself could
offer even more intimate information, such as how he possibly bribed a
president of Mexico.
According
to Mr. Cifuentes, Mr. Peña Nieto first reached out to Mr. Guzmán about the time
he was elected president in late 2012, asking the drug lord for $250 million in
exchange for calling off a nationwide manhunt for him.
But
Mr. Guzmán made a counteroffer, Mr. Cifuentes added, saying he would give Mr.
Peña Nieto only $100 million.
“The
message was that Mr. Guzmán didn’t have to stay in hiding?” Mr. Lichtman asked.
“Yes,”
Mr. Cifuentes said, “that very thing is what Joaquin said to me.”
Mr.
Lichtman, quoting Mr. Cifuentes’s notes from an interview he gave to American
authorities in 2016, asked whether Felipe Calderón, who preceded Mr. Peña Nieto
as Mexico’s president, took a bribe in 2008 from one of Mr. Guzmán’s rivals,
the Beltrán-Leyva brothers.
“I
don’t recall this incident very well,” Mr. Cifuentes answered. He added moments
later, “Right now, I do not remember that.”
Mr.
Peña Nieto and Mr. Calderón could not yet be reached for comment.
While
other witnesses at Mr. Guzmán’s trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn
have testified about huge payoffs from traffickers to the Mexican police and
public officials, the testimony about Mr. Peña Nieto was the most egregious
allegation yet. If true, it suggests that corruption by drug cartels had
reached into the highest level of Mexico’s political establishment.
After
testifying about the two presidents, Mr. Cifuentes rattled off other bribes
that Mr. Guzmán and his allies had paid to Mexican officials. On at least two
occasions, he said, the kingpin gave the Mexican military between $10 million
and $12 million to launch operations to “either kill or capture” associates of
the Beltrán-Leyva brothers during his war with them.
Mr.
Cifuentes also said the Mexican federal police not only turned a blind eye to
drug trafficking, but occasionally took part in it. Once, he told jurors,
traffickers gave the police photographs of several suitcases packed with
cocaine that were sent by the cartel on an airplane from Argentina to Mexico.
The police picked up the suitcases from the baggage claim, Mr. Cifuentes said,
and sold the drugs themselves.
All
of this came on Mr. Cifuentes’s exhausting second day as a witness at Mr.
Guzmán’s trial. He has already confessed to a staggering array of crimes.
On
the stand, Mr. Cifuentes admitted to hatching a failed murder plot with the
Hell’s Angels in Canada. He acknowledged buying plastic explosives from the
widow of a Honduran drug trafficker. He said he paid a judge in Ecuador
$500,000 to throw out the case of an Ecuadorean military officer accused of
working with the cartel, adding that he later helped kidnap the officer when it
seemed that he was cheating Mr. Guzmán.
There
were lurid hints that top Mexican leaders might have been compromised by dirty
money from the start of the trial in November. In his opening statement, Mr.
Lichtman claimed his client had been framed for years by a conspiracy hatched
by his partner, Ismael Zambada García, in league with “crooked” American drug
agents and a “completely corrupt” Mexican government, including two of its
presidents.
At
the time, Mr. Peña Nieto and Mr. Calderón released statements calling the
accusations false. The judge in the case, Brian M.
Cogan,
later cautioned Mr. Lichtman against making promises to the jury that the
evidence in the case would not support.
Then,
as the first week of the trial came to an end, Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers informed
Judge Cogan at a sidebar conference that a coming witness, Jesus Zambada
García, Ismael Zambada’s brother, would testify, if asked, that Mexican
presidents had taken bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel.
But
Judge Cogan forbade the testimony, citing the embarrassment it would cause to
unnamed “individuals and entities” who were not directly involved in the case.
On
Tuesday, however, Judge Cogan allowed Mr. Cifuentes to testify about what he
knew concerning bribes to Mexican presidents with only a few interruptions.
At
one point, under questioning by Mr. Lichtman, Mr. Cifuentes acknowledged that
his personal assistant, Andrea Velez Fernandez, had worked for a political
consultant, J.J. Rendón, who was hired by Mr. Peña Nieto’s presidential
campaign. Mr. Cifuentes said Ms. Velez had once sent him photographs of
“suitcases filled with cash.”
When
Mr. Lichtman asked if the suitcases were “destined for Mr. Peña Nieto,”
prosecutors objected on the grounds of relevance.
“Agreed,”
Judge Cogan said.
After
that, there was no more discussion of the suitcases.
Emily
Palmer contributed reporting.
bUT DOES FOX
BELONG TO THE LA RAZA HEROIN CARTELS?
"Also, Rubin did not mention the moral
responsibility of the child’s father who brought her through the desert in an
apparent effort to use the catch-and-release Flores loophole
to get past border guards. The loophole was created by Judge Dolly Gee who has
ordered border officials to release migrants after 20 days if they bring a
child with them."
Mexican Presidents Deny
They Took Bribes from El
Chapo
3:02
Two former Mexican
presidents publicly denied taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. The
statements came after the legal defense for Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera
made contrary claims this week.
The
drug lord is facing several money laundering and drug trafficking charges at a
federal trial in New York. In his opening statement, defense attorney Jeffrey
Lichtman spoke of bribes “including the very top, the current president of
Mexico and the former.”
Soon
after the statements became public, Mexico’s government issued a statement
denying the allegations. Eduardo Sanchez, the spokesman for current Mexican
President Enrique Pena Nieto said the statements were false and “defamatory.”
El gobierno de @EPN persiguió, capturó y extraditó al criminal Joaquín Guzmán Loera. Las afirmaciones
atribuidas a su abogado son completamente falsas y difamatorias
Former
Mexican President Felipe Calderon took to social media to personally deny the
allegations, claiming that neither El Chapo or the Sinaloa Cartel paid him
bribes.
Son absolutamente falsas y temerarias las afirmaciones
que se dice realizó el abogado de Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán. Ni él, ni el
cártel de Sinaloa ni ningún otro realizó pagos a mi persona.
Under
Guzman’s leadership, the Sinaloa Cartel became the largest drug trafficking
organization in the world with influence in every major U.S. city.
The
allegations against Pena Nieto are not new. In 2016, Breitbart News reported on an
investigation by Mexican journalists which revealed how Juarez Cartel
operators funneled money into the 2012 presidential campaign. The investigation
was carried out by Mexican award-winning journalist Carmen Aristegui and her team. The
subsequent scandal became known as “Monexgate” for the cash cards that were
given out during Peña Nieto’s campaign. The allegations against Pena Nieto went
largely unreported by U.S. news outlets.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an
award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel
Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can
follow him on Twitter and on Facebook . He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com .
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of
Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso
Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook . He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com .
Should
We Invade Mexico?
The opinions expressed by
columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com.
One fact a lot of Americans forget is
that our country is located right up against a socialist failed state that is
promising to descend even further into chaos – not California, the other one. And
the Mexicans, having reached the bottom of the hole they have dug for
themselves, just chose to keep digging by electing a new leftist presidente who wants to surrender to the cartels and who thinks that Mexicans
have some sort of hitherto unknown “human right” to sneak into the United
States and demographically reconquer it. There’s a Spanish phrase that
describes his ideology, and one of the words is toro .
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