De War on Drugs in Mexico #3 - Weer kopstuk opgepakt

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America's self-defeating 'war on drugs'

Distressingly, the Obama White House seems determined to paint itself into a corner of prohibitionist law enforcement

The murky doings of the hacker group Anonymous took a remarkable turn in recent days. A Mexican drug cartel allegedly kidnapped an Anonymous member, and then, after the loosely organised hackers said they would reveal names of cartel personnel, released him with threats to kill the hacker's family if the names were revealed.

The affair, which played out in blogs and on Twitter, coincided with a week I spent in central Mexico, where I led several workshops for new-media creators. In conversations with a number of people during my visit, I got a clearer understanding of the fear that pervades Mexican society – an undercurrent that also combined despair and anger at the way the cartels have corrupted the country's institutions.

More than almost any other place, Mexico holds dangers for anyone who dares to oppose the cartels, or even tell the truth about what they are doing. Journalists who do so are targets. So are bloggers. The deaths mount, and even honorable truth-tellers are understandably intimidated.

Several people I met in Mexico said they wished for better information about what is actually happening; trust for the press, with its understandable reluctance to cover the story, is low. How, they asked, could Mexicans create a safe online service that would provide the information the media are too afraid to publish themselves, as well as a place for the people to talk among themselves about what they could do to curb the violence? It would be immensely difficult, I said, but well worth the effort.

Back home in California last weekend, I read some depressing – and absolutely related – news. The Obama administration has gone on the attack against legal marijuana sales, breaking yet another promise (are there any unbroken ones left?) – in this case, a commitment to let states set their own policies in this arena. California law grants broad permission for medical use; getting a prescription is trivially simple, by design, and stores selling the plant have sprouted around the state. But the Obama people have declared their intent to invoke federal law against anyone who profits from state-legal marijuana – including even newspapers that carry advertisements for the stores.

What's sad, but predictable in the current political environment, is the way the Obama White House has felt obliged to ignore its previously semi-enlightened position on drugs, of seeing abuse much more as a medical than law-enforcement issue. Now, Obama is just another in the long line of presidents prosecuting the cynical and counterproductive "war on drugs".

Who profits from this insane war? The Mexican cartels, among many others.

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of meeting Mexico's former president, Vicente Fox, at a conference in Canada. In a talk there, he repeated what he's said many times before: Mexico's disaster has American roots. Demand in the United States is fuelling the cartels' market, and prohibition has not – nor has ever – worked. It's time, he said, to legalise or at least decriminalise drugs. He pointed to the example of Portugal, which legalised drugs a decade ago and is, by all evidence, better-off for having done so.

The anti-drug warriors are aghast at such heresy. But however well-meaning some may be, their thinking is at best muddled and often hypocritical. In particular, they refuse to ask the question that matters most: would society be better- or worse-off with legalised drugs, compared with conditions today?

Yes, we would probably have some new addicts, although Portugal's usage rate is among Europe's lowest; and we would bear the costs of their addiction. But compare that to what we pay, in money and lives, as a result of drugs being illegal: thoroughly corrupt legal systems; massive violence as sellers compete with honest police and each other; the wholesale dismemberment of civil liberties; vast and expanding prison systems; and so much more.

Our addiction to criminalisation is also crazy in a fiscal sense. The government revenue potential from taxing legal drugs is staggering, and given governments' current poverty, it is astonishing that they ignore it.

Any remotely honest assessment would conclude that any new problems caused by legal drugs are dwarfed by the known catastrophe of prohibition. Even if the costs were closer to parity (again, never mind the revenue possibilities), what about the damage to our fundamental liberties caused by the prohibition regime? We learned these lessons decades ago from the catastrophic ban on alcohol – a drug that takes an enormous but manageable toll on society – but refuse to learn them now.

And where are US journalists? With few exceptions, they don't even ask these questions, much less seriously investigate the toll taken by prohibition. To their shame, they parrot government hyperbole and lies.

The Mexican cartels would not disappear quietly if America did the sane thing and legalised drugs. But a major source of their income and power would fade over time, as President Fox says.

If I can, I will help the people I met in Mexico create a safe online venue for the reality of what is happening there. But I would rather see my own country end its corrupt and self-destructive policy of prohibition.

Mexican journalists avoid the truth because their lives are at risk. America's journalists have no such excuse.

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Human rights watch

Killing, Torture, Disappearences in Mexico's War on Drugs.

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Op vrijdag 11 november 2011 00:27 schreef El_Matador het volgende:
Kopstuk van Mexicaans kartel opgepakt
Laatste update: 11 november 2011 00:06
MEXICO-STAD - Mexico heeft een kopstuk van een van de belangrijkste criminele organisaties in het land opgepakt.

Ovidio Limón Sánchez van het Sinaloa-kartel werd woensdag gearresteerd in de noordwestelijke stad Culiacán.

Dat heeft het Mexicaanse ministerie van Defensie donderdag bekendgemaakt.De Verenigde Staten willen Sánchez vervolgen wegens drugshandel.

Vijf miljoen
De Amerikaanse autoriteiten hadden 5 miljoen dollar uitgeloofd voor de gouden tip die tot zijn arrestatie zou leiden.

Het Sinaloa-kartel vecht tegen andere bendes om controle over de beste smokkelroutes richting de VS. Mexico opende in 2006 de strijd tegen het geweld, maar dat is sindsdien juist toegenomen. In de drugsoorlog zijn de laatste 5 jaar ruim 41.000 doden gevallen.

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Op vrijdag 11 november 2011 00:39 schreef Viajero het volgende:

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Orale. De eindoverwinning moet nu echt dichtbij zijn.

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Mexicaanse minister komt om bij helikoptercrash

Een helikopter met aan boord de Mexicaanse minister van Binnenlandse Zaken Francisco Blake Mora is vandaag neergestort. Volgens persbureau Reuters is de minister omgekomen.

Het ongeluk gebeurde bij de stad Cuernavaca, iets ten zuiden van de hoofdstad Mexico-stad. Blake had er een overleg met vertegenwoordigers van justitie.

Volgens CNN zijn waarnemend minister Felipe Zamaro en persofficier Jose Alfredo Garcia ook omgekomen. In het toestel zaten zeven passagiers en twee bemanningsleden, allen kwamen om. De oorzaak van de crash is nog onduidelijk.

Mexico voert al jaren een bloedige oorlog tegen criminele organisaties. Het geweld heeft in de afgelopen 5 jaar tijd meer dan 41.000 levens geëist.

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Brazilian 'drug lord' sees reign as 'king of the hill' end in car boot

Rio's most wanted man, who allegedly presided over £35m cocaine racket, caught in boot of Toyota Corolla while fleeing

Like many residents of Rio's largest favela, he was the son of economic migrants from Brazil's impoverished north-east who came to the city in search of a better life.

He rose to become the "dono do morro" or "king of the hill"; and if police are to be believed, a powerful and feared drug lord with a penchant for Armani suits, heavy artillery and ultra-violence.

But this week the four-year reign of Antônio Francisco Bonfim Lopes — Rio's most wanted man and the "boss" of the city's Rocinha shantytown — came to a bizarre end after the 35-year-old was arrested while attempting to flee the slum in the boot of a Toyota Corolla.

Inside the car was Lopes's four-strong entourage who told police they were diplomats from the Democratic Republic of Congo and attempted, unsuccessfully, to invoke diplomatic immunity before offering a hefty bribe.

"Why is the car boot shaking?" a suspicious arresting officer reportedly inquired, before Lopes was found curled up inside.

Better known by his nom de guerre 'Nem', Lopes was born to migrants from the north-eastern state of Paraiba. According to reports in the crime tabloid O Povo, he once worked as a cleaner in an Ipanema beauty parlour, eventually being promoted to office boy.

That changed in 2004. Fed up with the daily grind, Lopes allegedly accepted an invitation to become a security guard for Rocinha's then boss, Erismar Rodrigues Moreira. Moreira, or Bem-Ti-Vi, was known for the gold-plated arsenal of machine guns and rifles he used to control Rocinha, a sprawling hillside slum in southern Rio, flanked by some of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in town.

When Moreira died in a hail of police bullets in 2005 Lopes allegedly saw his opportunity to move up the food chain. He hatched a plan to eliminate Moreira's immediate successor, a gangster known as Soul, and in 2007 took full control of the slum.

As the alleged boss of Rocinha, Lopes presided over one of the most lucrative cocaine rackets in town. According to police the region was controlled by an army of around 200 rifle-toting soldiers who were responsible for selling some 200kg of Bolivian cocaine a month, bringing in an annual fortune of around R$100m (£35m).

Lopes's transformation from cleaner to drug lord brought him riches unimaginable to most of Rocinha's residents, many of them porters, cleaners or construction workers who scrape a living working for the city's middle and upper classes.

He ran his business from a luxurious three-storey mansion in Laboriaux, a neighbourhood at the crest of Rocinha, and earned a reputation for his ecstasy-fuelled raves at which a number of Brazilian celebrities put in appearances.

In 2010 a group of local reporters gained access to Lopes's home during a police raid. Inside they found garish sofas, miniature palm trees, state-of-the-art televisions, Armani suits, and a swimming pool with a view over Rio's dramatic beachside scenery. The bar was stocked with 4.5lt bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey and champagne.

But Lopes's growing media profile came at a price. His capture became a question of honour for authorities and a R$5,000 bounty was put on his head. Virtually confined to his hilltop fiefdom, Lopes knew it was only a matter of time before he was arrested or killed. Keen to stay under the radar, Lopes took action. He began working out and using steroids to alter his appearance; he reputedly underwent plastic surgery and dyed his hair. Enemies or informants, police claim, were eliminated, their bullet-riddled corpses burned in improvised crematoriums hidden in the rainforest around the slum.

In 2010 Lopes even attempted to fake his own death, paying a local doctor R$150 to sign a bogus death certificate claiming the trafficker had died of kidney failure.

On Wednesday night Lopes's final bid to elude authorities failed in spectacular fashion. With police preparing a massive operation to permanently occupy Rocinha, he was hauled out of the boot of a Toyota while trying to flee.

Gabriela Moreira, a reporter from Rio's O Dia newspaper, was one of the few journalists to gain access to Lopes, squashed up against him in a lift as he was dragged into the federal police HQ for questioning.

"It didn't scare me at all," Moreira recalled of her brief encounter with the elusive Nem. "All I could think was: here is the biggest criminal in Rio who is capable of killing and whatever else and he just doesn't seem like it. Where is that myth that has been constructed? I just thought, man, he seems like a normal guy."

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Drug kingpin wanted Mexico City attack to retaliate against U.S. crackdown, feds say

At his mountaintop lair in Mexico, Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman, the head of the world’s biggest narcotics cartel, told a Chicago drug trafficker he wanted dozens of military-grade assault weapons to stage an attack in Mexico City in retaliation against U.S. authorities who were messing with their drug business, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

“This government is letting [American law enforcement] do whatever they want,” said one of Guzman’s lieutenants, Ismael Zambada-Garcia, according to a cooperator in the case, Margarito Flores. “It will be good to send [them] a message.”

“They are fucking us everywhere,” Guzman allegedly said of the government during a meeting on the mountaintop compound. “Let it be a government building, it doesn’t matter whose. An embassy or a consulate, a media outlet or television station [attack a Mexican or U.S. government or media building in Mexico City].”

Guzman remains at large, but is a critical piece of the massive case that’s headed to trial early next year in Chicago — one of the highest-profile drug prosecutions in the nation.

Guzman’s remarks were quoted in the so-called “Santiago Proffer” filed by federal prosecutors Thursday in the wide-reaching case targeting the Sinaloa Cartel. The 63-page filing gives the most detail yet about the case that charges a conspiracy involving the shipment of massive amounts of cocaine and heroin from Mexico into the United States. The newly filed papers show that twin brothers from Chicago — Margarito and Pedro Flores — will be among 10 cooperating witnesses who will testify at trial and that the government has a recorded conversation of Vicente Zambada-Niebla, allegedly asking for follow-up on plans for an explosive retaliation.

Even though Zambada-Niebla’s defense has warned it may not be prepared to begin trial in February, U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo has asked parties to aim for that date.

The top DEA official in Chicago has referred to Guzman “as the most dangerous criminal in the world and probably the most wealthy criminal in the world.” Authorities say his cartel has flooded Chicago with marijuana and other drugs — leading the Sun-Times last week to refer to him as “Chicago’s New Scarface.” Guzman remains on the Forbes list as one of the top billionaires in the world. The Sinaloa Cartel is among the warring Mexican drug organizations engaged in gruesome, bloody slayings that together are suspected of tens of thousands of murders in the country.

In Chicago’s drug conspiracy case, allegations here have centered on man who is in custody at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center — Zambada-Niebla — whom the government describes as a high-ranking leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

According to the proffer, Zambada-Niebla ordered Margarito Flores to make it a priority to secure weapons and retaliate against the government.

“Twin, you know guys coming back from the war. Find somebody who can give you big powerful weapons, American shit. . . . We don’t need that small shit, I want to blow up some buildings. We got a lot of grenades, we got a lot of .50 calibers, we’re tired of AKs,” Zambada-Niebla allegedly said. “You’re good with me. You want to be really good with me, get me my shit, my guns. Fuck the money, fuck the drugs, I want to blow shit up. I want some bazookas, some grenade launchers.”

At the time, Flores had already been cooperating. He reported the conversation to a DEA agent. Authorities then recorded a call between Margarito Flores and Zambada-Niebla on Nov. 29, 2008, where they discuss the plot further, according to court papers. The government, however, then does not allege any further action with regard to a plot to blow up a building.

Zambada-Niebla’s attorney said Thursday any comment on the new filings would come in a defense court filing. Zambada-Niebla has leveled a series of charges against the United States, including that he had been cooperating with U.S. agents when they turned around and charged him.

The Flores brothers, who are in custody, had done business with two warring drug cartels, authorities have said. Each cartel threatened the Flores brothers with violence if they did business with the other, according to the charges. The brothers approached authorities in 2008 and offered their cooperation.

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Op zaterdag 12 november 2011 19:03 schreef Elvislives het volgende:
Bedoel je het Sinaloa cartel? Of heb ik iets gemist met Santiago...

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Op zaterdag 12 november 2011 19:07 schreef Mr.Silencer het volgende:

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Idd, Sinaloa cartel. Ik haalde per ongeluk wat dingen door elkaar.

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Op zaterdag 12 november 2011 20:00 schreef Elvislives het volgende:

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No problem! In Mexico is het een publiek geheim dat El Chapo en Calderon maatjes zijn en dat hij daardoor al die tijd buiten schot is gebleven. Ik maak me erg zorgen wat er gebeurt als Mexico City aangevallen gaat worden, tot nu toe is het er erg rustig geweest kwa narcogeweld.

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Op zaterdag 12 november 2011 22:38 schreef JoaquinGuzman het volgende:

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¿Cómo te atreves a decir eso! Tú eres el siguiente, gringo.

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Op zaterdag 12 november 2011 23:23 schreef Elvislives het volgende:

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Flikker ff op met je domme doodsverwensing man

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Op zaterdag 12 november 2011 23:23 schreef Elvislives het volgende:

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Flikker ff op met je domme doodsverwensing man

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Op zondag 13 november 2011 00:42 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Anders hap je ff serieus.

En anders geef je ff bronnen voor je boude bewering dat de president "dikke maatjes" is met een der grootste drugsbaronnen.

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Op zondag 13 november 2011 00:42 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Anders hap je ff serieus.

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Op zondag 13 november 2011 01:37 schreef Elvislives het volgende:

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Ja :-P maar aan zijn Spaans te zien weet ie zelf ook niet wat ie zegt.

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Op zondag 13 november 2011 01:03 schreef Viajero het volgende:

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Ik weet niet of het waar is. De president zelf steekt veel energie in het ontkennen hiervan:

http://www.presidencia.go(...)iminal-del-pacifico/

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“Anonymous” and a Poet Strike Back in Mexico

The president of Mexico’s Felipe Calderon’s sister Luisa Maria Calderon is seeking the gubernatorial seat in the state of Michoacan, Mexico. “Anonymous” has claimed responsibility for hacking her campaign’s political party website, according to an AP report today.

On The New Alliance Party's website is a video of a person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask urging Mexicans to hack into official websites and email accounts to look for evidence of corruption and make it public.

“Anonymous” is an international hacker movement to expose collaborators of Mexico's notorious Zetas drugs cartel has came to an abrupt end a week ago. They backed away from publishing the names after an alleged counter-threat of mass retaliatory killings.

Showing that restraint is many time the better part of valor, an Anonymous participant relinquished. "This moves the operation from being a risk to knowing that I would be murdering people," Anonymous participant Barrett Brown told the Guardian in an article on November 4th.

Twitter users claiming to belong to "Anonymous" posted messages of the hack Sunday coinciding with the Michoacan state elections. They also say hacked the Michoacan Electoral Institute's website, which has been down for hours.

Presidential sister Luisa Maria Calderon is seeking the governor's seat in Michoacan's vote.

President Calderon has been criticized for not taking the steps needed to stop the violence in his country. Last September he was accused by victims' groups for minimizing the impact of violence on innocents. One of those groups is headed by the poet Javier Sicilia, who lost his son to an attack by drug gangs.

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Mexican drug traffickers undermine elections

Dozens of candidates in the state of Michoacan drop out of their races because of threats from drug cartels.

Reporting from Mexico City—
The manner in which drug traffickers have undermined Mexico's democracy was illustrated Sunday in Michoacan, home state of President Felipe Calderon and site of violent local elections.

Dozens of candidates dropped out of their races because of threats from drug-trafficking cartels. A mayor was assassinated a week before the vote as he campaigned on behalf of Calderon's sister, who is running for governor.

Luisa Maria Calderon led most polls going into Sunday's vote, and her win could serve as a morale boost for her brother's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, ahead of next year's presidential election.

But Michoacan, the state where President Calderon launched his military-led offensive against heavily armed drug cartels in December 2006, is a glaring example of the way traffickers have infiltrated the political system.

The state has long been trapped under the thumb of cartels that are the hemisphere's biggest producers and exporters of methamphetamine, organizations that also have penetrated local police forces and city halls. They frequently dictate who runs for office and who votes in elections.

German Tena, regional president of PAN, said armed men showed up at several voting booths Sunday, giving orders to people on how to cast their ballots.

A quarter of the state's voting booths had not been opened by midday, although the reasons were unclear and varied from locale to locale. Most were opened within six hours after voting started. In the Cheran municipality, elections were called off altogether, though the reason seemed to have more to do with local indigenous traditions than danger from organized crime.

"We are asking all the people of Michoacan to go out and vote in peace," Gov. Leonel Godoy said.

Godoy represents the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, which has long dominated Michoacan politics. But he has been criticized as having failed to quell the violence that is sweeping the state. The PRD's candidate in the gubernatorial race is Silvano Aureoles Conejo; running for the other party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, is Fausto Vallejo, the mayor of the state capital, Morelia.

In La Piedad, the Michoacan city where the mayor was killed this month, the local newspaper published an ad warning people against campaigning on behalf of the PAN. The newspaper added a notice that it was publishing the warning under duress.

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Op maandag 14 november 2011 00:56 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Grappige manier van verslaggeving. Maar erg veel wijzer word je er niet van. Ontkenning is geen bewijs natuurlijk, maar misschien dat het iets zegt. Ik geloof het niet zo, eerlijk gezegd.

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Op dinsdag 15 november 2011 12:14 schreef Elvislives het volgende:

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El Chapo had een tijd terug ook een interview met El Universal. Naar aanleiding daarvan werd er ook flinke kritiek geuit op de overheid dat dus de journalisten wél weten waar hij zich bevindt, maar dat het leger 'zogenaamd' geen idee heeft. Heb er natuurlijk weer es geen bronnen bij