Leader of Los Cuinis threatens to "hang from a bridge" the Uruguay Minister of Interior

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Zetatijuana article

Subject Matter: Los Cuinis, if you don't know who they are, see link to Lucio R article
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Abigael, brother of Gerardo

Reporter: None declared
Gerardo Gonzalez Valencia, the leader of the Mexican cartel "Los Cuinis", condemned to prison in Uruguay, threatened to "hang from the highest bridge", the Minister of the Interior, Eduardo Bonomi, according to information from the weekly "Busqueda".

The narco traffickers threats were given this past 26th of May, when the Mexican criminal was declaring the origins of some contraband discovered in his cell the night before.

Gonzalez Valencia said that the pepper and marinade were already there, in the place and he had found them hidden. When the Police interrogated him they asked if he had anything else to add, to which he responded "yes".

"They tortured me. They had me naked in sub zero temperatures. If the Minister of the Interior, Bonomi, continues to order his guards to torture me, I will search for the highest bridge in Uruguay where I'm going to hang him", he said and after signed his declaration.



According to the weekly, the Minister of the Interior presented a criminal complaint before a Judge specializing in organized crime for this threat. Because of this, Bonomi has a permanent security detail since the last few days.

Gonzalez Valencia, who since 2011 lived in a mansion at Punta del Este, was condemned to prison in April for money laundering, and they seized $10,000,000. Later in the case of the Panama Papers, information divulged about offshore societies that he maintained with his wife, Wendy Amaral Arevalo.

Punta del Este, Uruguay

Both intended to build a low production Tequila production business. The investigation opened against Los Cuinis in Uruguay, signalled that Amaral was one of five women close to the group that laundered money, she was also the head of four businesses established in Panama that operate in Uruguay.

The plan to launder money would be through the Panamanian company Del Todo Enterprise, who were registered to make and sell Tequila, although its never produced any.

The condemned was the chief financier of Los Cuinis, a criminal organization that he became the leader of after the detention in Mexico of his brother, Abigael Gonzalez in February of 2015.

He was detained this last April, together with ten other people in Punta del Este, a peninsular city situated in the extreme south of Uruguay, the Maldonaldo department.

It is one of the most important resorts, one of the most expensive and exclusive in all of Latin America. There, according to media sources, the alleged narco trafficker maintained the "life of a king", buying mansions and chalets all over Uruguay. (Otis: funny that while he is being castigated for buying property, all of the worlds banks seek to change paper money, which are promissory notes not worth their face value, into a tangible asset that is actual worth something like its face value).

United States has petitioned for the extradition of the narco trafficker. However, El Pais, indicates that the Uruguay Government uses analysis based on the Inter-american Convention of Human Rights (CIDH) for the enforcement of prison sentences abroad, signed by the countries that are integrated into the Organization of American States.

In this way they seek to make sure that Gonzalez Valencia will finish the sentence handed down in Uruguay in the USA, which will accelerate his transfer. But it will require the consent of the Mexican, indicated the Attorney General, Jorge Diaz. (Otis: ahh the sub zero naked torture fits in now, if he has to volunteer to go).

The reasons for the Minister of the Interior to promote the extradition of the leader of Los Cuinis, is that danger that his cartel represent in their relation with known criminals of Uruguay.

According to Busqueda, the ex director of Police, Julio Guarteche, said in 2013 that the narco trafficking organizations born in Uruguay must have three motives: the rise of criminals of Uruguay in international drug trafficking organizations, the contacts and experience of Uruguay criminals in foreign prisons and the presence of foreign narco traffickers in local prisons.

"When our compatriots in prisons wanted to threaten foreign narcos to mark their turf, they responded with the questions, "how many Police have you killed? how many Judges?", said Guarteche.

In actuality, said the Uruguayan newspaper, the Police authorities consider the recent violence in the Marconi Barrio and the appearance of three dismembered bodies are a demonstration that Guarteche was correct.

The United States Government considers Los Cuinis are the richest Mexican drug trafficking organization in the world, according to information from the DEA.

Los Cuinis, based in the State of Jalisco, are worth more money than any other narco trafficking cartel in Mexico, well they export cocaine and marijuana to Europe, where they are paid in Euros,  a currency more sought after than the American Dollar.

The Valencia family had avocado plantations in the 1970's which they dedicated to the growing of marijuana. Some years later, at the end of the 1990's, the Los Cuinis organization rose up, later as a division of the Milenio Cartel, after the detention of its leader. In this manner, they started to centralize their activities in the illegal business of cocaine and crystal meth.

"Los Cuinis are the absolute masters of the European and Asiatic markets for these drugs, informed a United States investigator for the weekly Proceso.

The head of the cartel, Abigael Gonzalez Valencia was condemned to prison for narco trafficking in Jalisco, on the 28th of February.

According to the DEA, the head, Abigael Gonzalez Valencia, "El Cuini", took frequent trips to Spain and was the owner of various businesses in Las Ramblas at Barcelona, published the digital Spanish newspaper El Confidential.

Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana