El Chapo Trial: "He is a really good businessman" cooperative witness says of Chapo

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat-Mica and Chivis' trial Coverage

Jorge Cifuentes, a cooperative witness in the trial of El Chapo, testified that in 2007, Chapo  met with executives of Pemex to request that oil tankers be use to facilitate cocaine from  Ecuador.

He further explained that Vicente Zambada the son of El Mayo Zambada, leader of  the Sinaloa Cartel,  was the contact  with Pemex and that the meetings took place at the end of 2007 in the highlands near Culiacán.

The plan, Cifuentes said, was for the company's ships to go to Ecuador to collect oil and cocaine and take it to the Lázaro Cárdenas port in the Mexican Pacific.

Without specifying why, he said the plan was not carried out, the witness said.   Cifuentes only appointed one Pemex official present at the meetings: Alfonso Acosta.

The Colombian also explained that Chapo gave him money generated by the sale of drugs in the United States.

With the money, a Colombian named Gilberto García, aka "El Político", bought cocaine in the Colombia, in  an area controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The drug then was transported to Ecuador by the Colombian Army in military trucks to warehouses in Quito and Guayaquil.

Subsequently, the cocaine was transported to Mexico in shark boats, and  bribes paid to members of the Ecuadorian Navy to inform the cartel  the location of the US Navy in the area.

Arrested in Venezuela in 2012, Cifuentes was extradited to the United States in December 2013, when he pleaded guilty to crimes off  drug trafficking and money laundering.

Chapo the Negotiator

Today the jury was able to hear a recording of Chapo in negotiation.  A telephone recording was heard between Chapo  a member of the Colombian FARC guerrilla, who wanted to buy cocaine.

"Let him look at the merchandise first and then I’ll pay him for  the two tons", says Chapo, making it clear he wants someone from  Sinaloa Cartel to try the cocaine before making the payment.

The recording of the conversation that occurred in May 2010 was explained by former Colombian drug trafficker  Cifuentes.

Cifuentes explained that Chapo had not been satisfied with the quality of the cocaine purchased a couple of years earlier from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and wanted to make sure this time it was quality before paying.

During the conversation, Guzmán proposes to pay the guerrillas two tons of cocaine with cash.

Cifuentes said that a captain named Telmo Castro charged $ 600,000 for carrying out those transports.

The guy who couldn't  be murdered  [Mica]

Jorge confessed to a bizarre botched murder plot he was involved in when he was in prison at age 18.

It revolved around a cyanide-laced arepa.

Jorge volunteered to kill a fellow inmate the Colombian cartels wanted dead. Given an a gun, blade, grenade and some cyanide, allowing him to choose of which weapon he wanted to use.

"I choose the simplest one" (poison).

The day comes, as the prison cooks were warming up breakfast  The man on the grill stepped away and he saw the opportunity. He sprinkled the cyanide one of the arepas [ground maize dough, a staple eaten daily in Colombia and Venezuela] just before his victim took it.

The guy ended up taking two and only ate the one without the cyanide.

Attempt two he chose the grenade.  One night, he threw the grenade in his victim's cell.

However, the prison had cement-framed beds. The grenade rolled under the bed and the guy survived receiving only a little shrapnel in his leg.

Jorge grew up in a family of criminals. Phone calls introduced in court today of Jorge discussing the travails of his drug-dealing life with his mom.

In one, he complained to mom about how the Ecuadorian authorities seized 8 tons of his and Chapo's coke in 2009. "It was a total loss," his mom said, commiserating with him.

Recorded Calls

Jurors at the Chapo trial heard a secretly recorded phone call of the kingpin today, and it was pretty damning stuff.

On the call Chapo can be heard cutting a 6-ton coke deal w/a member of the FARC Colombian guerrillas.

He wants to pay cash for 2 tons  and  take 4 on credit.

You can hear Chapo haggling over price and demanding that a "technician" inspect the coke before he sends an advance of $50,000.

The FARC guy agrees to move the coke from the Colombian border to Guayaquil, Ecuador for $100 a kilo.

It's not yet clear who taped the call or how.

Jorge called the engineer (Christian from Columbia) "an irresponsible person." He testified that forgetting to renew the software license meant "the system is down now, so none of us can have secure communication anywhere."

Another taped phone call where Chapo complained to his nephew Tomás about the encrypted network not working.

He was trying to get Jorge's brother Alex to fix the problem. Jorge said in the system each cartel member had their own personal extension number.

Jorge had agreed to put up some of his properties as collateral for 4 tons worth, Chapo would pay cash for the rest.

The taped call showed how Chapo would negotiate. The FARC leader agreed to let him pay cash for just 2 tons of cocaine. Originally, it was supposed to be 2.5 tons.

Jorge says of Chapo, "He's a really good businessman,"

Chapo told the FARC leader that he was partners with "the guy from the M," an apparent reference to Mayo.

Chapo also offered to send his nephew as a guarantee of payment. He was using his relative as human collateral.

The deal with Dolly and her mysterious release

Dolly right and daughter Ana Maria

Another colorful character in the Cifuentes clan is sister Dolly.  The “money” and "asset shrouding" person.

Dolly Cifuentes  was the mistress of former President Alvaro Uribe’s brother, which has raised questions about the extent of the ties between the two families.  Jaime Alberto Uribe Vélez, the younger brother of the former president of Colombia,  with whom she had two children, a girl in 1980 named Ana María Uribe Cifuentes and a boy who was born in 1990 and was called Daniel Alberto.

In August of 2011 Dolly Cifuentes, was detained by the Colombian National Police in one of the most luxurious areas near Bogota, for a request for extradition that existed by the United States.

A month later her daughter Ana María Uribe Cifuentes was captured, both under the charges of drug trafficking and money laundering and the request for extradition. In June 2012, 116 properties belonging Chapo associates were seized, including those belonging to the Cifuentes family.

In total, 31 companies, 71 buildings and 14 vehicles that appeared in the name of Dolly Cifuentes were confiscated. On August 7, Dolly de Jesús Cifuentes Villa was extradited to the United States, where she faced two criminal proceedings, one in Florida and the other in New York. Among them were those of the Cifuentes family. [read indictment below]

Dolly entered a very secretive plea deal that remains sealed.  Her surprising release occurred in 2015, she presumably returned to Colombia.

Milton’s brother Hildebrando, and Dolly Cifuentes’ daughter Ana Maria (Alvaro Uribe’s niece) were  named by the US Treasury Department as involved in the Cifuentes Villa drug trafficking operation. Many other members of the family have either been arrested or killed.

Cross examination by Lichtman

Lichtman "You've been committing crimes since you were a child, isn't that right sir?"

Jorge "Si señor."

Lichtman "And you've been lying since you were a child?"

Jorge "Si señor."

Judge Cogan judge has limited the scope of cross-examination of Jorge

Jorge acknowledged bribing the Ecuadorian army and  navy, a Mexican prosecutor and Colombian tax officials.

His older brother, Pacho (who worked as a pilot for Pablo Escobar), routinely bribed Colombian police and military officers, he said.

Before Chapo attorney  Lichtman asked about the bribes, prosecutors objected.

After a sidebar, no officers were named (Jorge had already admitted that generals and colonels in the Colombian military took "boxes of cash.")

Jorge acknowledged his deception started as far back as teenage years when he lied about his age on his first driver's license.

He had a portfolio of fake ID's, including the one he used when he was once stopped in Paris on his way to Montreal to consummate a 15-ton hashish deal.

Typical family he insists yet the murder of his nephew was ordered

Jorge said he grew up with "typical family problems." Just the usual. "Gossip there, gossip here," he said.

Then Lichtman noted that Jorge's brother ordered the murder of his nephew for trying to kidnap their mother. ---"Typical family problems," Lichtman said sarcastically.

Jorge suggested that they had "conflicts like any other family."

Litchman ; "Like the time your brother, Alex, ordered the murder of your nephew, Jaime?"

Jorge admitted it was because Jaime had once ordered the kidnapping of his own grandmother.

Jorge was very good during cross-examination. He anticipated the traps that Lichtman was attempting to set with his line of questioning. He was  patient and funny. Asked whether he ever used "straw purchasers" to buy properties, he raised his hand and smirked as he said, "Guilty."

Recorded calls below:

The only reason prosecutors were able to obtain the call between Chapo and the FARC was due to problems with their encrypted network.   Jorge's engineer forgot to renew the license for their security software. 

To read transcript use this hyper link

Dolly request 2 level reduction of sentence this is letter from government supporting that reduction 

   El Chapo Trial Dolly Cifuentes Request Two Level Reduction by Chivis Martinez on Scribd

Indictment for Dolly and Jorge

Cifuentes Indictment El Cha... by on Scribd