Suspects: "Los Chapitos" and "Los Damasos" in the Murder of Javier Valdez

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat

From: Zeta Investigations

To Kill a Journalist Will Not Kill the Truth

PHOTOS: CUARTOSCURO.COM 

Print edition Research Zeta 

Monday, 22 May, 2017

The sons of "El Chapo"Guzmán, known as "Los Chapitos" who are involved in an internal war against Dámaso López, "El Licenciando", (now detained and imprisoned in Mexico), bought a massive edition of Ríodoce , where an interview was published, signed by Javier Valdez, and who was murdered there-after. The interview was conducted with an emissary of Dámaso Lopez that contradicted the version that "Los Chapitos" granted to Ciro Gómez Leyva.

 Weeks later, before the apprehension of Dámaso Lopez, Valdez wrote a report where after making a review of the criminal life of the capo, refers to sources who trusted him that they did not see the son of Dámaso Lopez likely to be the successor of the criminal cell. The two reports are to be analyzed to identify those responsible. The motive of the crime of the murder of Javier Valdez  was his work as a journalist, of that there is no doubt.

Ríodoce

Culiacán, Sinaloa .- Javier Valdez was being watched. They spied on him. His murderers knew what route he took every day as he left the offices of the weekly publication Ríodoce, located in a gray three-story building with silver windows, on the corner of Francisco Villa and Teófilo Noris, Colonia Jorge Almada.

They knew that he was parking his red Toyota Corolla in the small parking lot on the side of the building, and that he left around noon on Mondays after the meeting to discuss administrative issues and plan the work week.

"They knew Javier was taking the same route, they were watching all of us," one of the members of the media's reporter team said. It was the same routine for the author of "Los Morros del Narco" and "Narcoperiodismo", as well as for the rest of the journalists at Ríodoce.

According to the reconstruction offered by Ríodoce team, Javier Valdez Cárdenas left minutes after 12:00 pm on Monday May 15 in the aforementioned vehicle, owned by the company. He headed southwards on Teófilo Noris until reaching Avenida Ramón F. Iturbe, turned east a block and took the Vicente Riva Palacio. As he passed a nursery school, hooded subjects intercepted him and yanked him out of his car and shoved him down in the street.

They shot him in the abdomen and face. According to the coroner, there were 12 shots fired at close range, an expert said they apparently managed to get his hands also because his fingers were bursting due to bullet lacerations. In addition, they  gave him the "Tiro de Gracia", a shot to his head.

The perpetrators of the murder, the assassins, escaped in the vehicle of Javier, leaving behind his body in the middle of the street, face down, still wearing his customary Panama hat, stained with blood.

"We heard the noise as loud blows in the newsroom, but we did not know it was the bullets that were killing Javier; it wasn't until a local employee came running in to tell us that it was him ", narrates another member of the Ríodoce  team.

"Javier, get up, come on ! what you are you doing there ?",  was the only thing that occurred to him to shout when seeing his body in a bloody lake on the burning asphalt;  "Burning rubber " was a reference that Javier Valdez liked to put in his texts, memories of running around town chasing stories.

Minutes later, at 12:35 pm, it was reported that on the Avenida Aquiles Serdán, between Cristóbal Colón Street and Francisco I. Madero Boulevard, between the fence of a home and a street lamp post, the Toyota Corolla was abandoned.

Riodoce confirmed that Javier's computer, as well as his cell phone, were not in his vehicle and were stolen by the criminals. According to the testimonies collected by police, two subjects who wore hoods got out of the Toyota but the policemen failed to establish where they fled.

Prosecutor Makes Statement

With the body of the veteran journalist lying in the street, who was also a correspondent for the newspaper La Jornada in Sinaloa - the state prosecutor, Juan José Ríos Estavillo, appeared at the scene to give a hurried declaration to the reporters.

He pointed out - and reiterated on Wednesday May 17 at a Press conference - that the main line of investigation to follow would be the journalistic work of Valdez Cardenas, and secondly, the abandoned vehicle, but clarified that it was the weakest link.

"Everything that has to do with the journalistic work of Javier Valdez will enter into the investigation, that includes the publications," he said.

Rios Estavillo commented that there are several urban surveillance cameras on the route that could be checked but acknowledged that only 9 percent of the cameras in town are in operation.

The following day, the Attorney General's Office carried out the reconstruction of the events. It was also known that very early Monday morning Valdez Cárdenas had passed by the Cafe Miró to have coffee and a glass of water, as usual. The local employees and clients, after the murder, left table number 9 alone with a simple homage with a pair of flowers and a newspaper.

Unofficial sources of security said that they will also investigate the line of future reports prepared by the journalist, due to the theft of the personal computer that he was carrying in the vehicle.

That morning, on Valdez's Facebook account, a cafe employee had uploaded a photo of the writer with a mask of the character of Darth Vader. "Thank you for following us ..." he wrote.

The hypotheses:

According to Ríodoce's position after the murder of its co-founder, entitled "Today they hit us in the heart", the attack on Javier Valdez Cárdenas came from nothing more than organized crime.

"We have no doubt: the origin of the crime of Javier Valdez is in his journalistic work related to the issues of drug trafficking. We do not know from which part, from which family, from which organization came the order. But it came from them".

Javier had constructed much of his journalistic narrative with themes of organized crime, with texts in which he narrated stories not only of victims; but also of the intertwined relationship between the capos and their henchmen, their complicities, the stories of their rise and fall.

Every week, since the war broke out inside the Sinaloa Cartel, with the rupture between the sons of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Dámaso López Núñez, El Licenciado", Ríodoce chronicled the intricacies of the disputes. It was one of the first to publicize the assault by a Beltrán Leyva group to the community of La Tuna in June 2016, as well as the desecration of the house of Dona Consuelo Loera López, mother of the extradited capo. The incident gained international attention with Joaquín Guzmán in the process of extradition to the United States.

Ríodoce also announced the release of "Los Chapitos" or "Los Menores" after their kidnapping at the La Leche restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, in August 2016, an event that shook the Sinaloa Cartel because of the repercussions it would have for an uptick in violence.

The rupture between Los Guzmans and Los Damasos was publicly declared through a letter on February 8, 2017, sent to the television program of Ciro Gómez Leyva, when the criminal groups went to the media.

In the letter allegedly signed by Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, sons of " El Chapo" Guzmán, they accused Damaso Lopez Núñez of requesting  a meeting with Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García in an unnamed place in Sinaloa to mount a mortal mission. But - according to the letter - his gunmen failed and only left them injured.

Days later, Ríodoce was contacted by an envoy of Dámaso López Núñez to deny the version and make known his own. On February 19, the weekly published the headline: DÁMASO RESPONDS: "I did not shoot any of the Guzmans; I'm a friend of 'Mayo'. "

Cover of Riodoce

In the note, signed by Javier Valdez Cárdenas, it was reported that Damaso Lopez Nunez stated through his envoy that it was false to quote that a meeting had occurred as well any attempt against their lives.  He also explained that a meeting between Guzman's sons and "El Mayo" had taken place on February 4 in the community of Paredones, in the rural north of the municipality of Culiacán, without any incidents.

"He pointed out that "Los Chapitos" have not respected the agreements and have provoked them violently for about a year, are preparing people and equipment for war, as part of a coup against Damaso Lopez Núñez,  "taking advantage of my good faith with treachery and advantage, and they have run with the version of the story that the DEA supports me, but it is not true. I have pride and I respect the codes ".

"Did Damaso break with El Mayo ?" Asked the veteran journalist of the envoy, directly from the interview:

- Of course not. Mr. Zambada is a fine person, whom is respected and always will be.

- Is Damaso out of the Sinaloa Cartel?

- He and the group he runs are friends of Mr. Zambada and the logic and facts speak

for themselves.

- A Friend of  El Mayo and an enemy of Los Chapitos?

- Ivan, Alfredo and his uncle are sick of power, but it is through the abuse of which they are forced to be friends. We support them more out of fear than because they are right. He (Damaso) is a friend of El Mayo but also a friend of Mr. Joaquín Guzmán.  Mr. Guzman left him where he is now and will always value what little he can do to serve him and his children. It can not be said that Dámaso is enemy of Ivan or Alfredo, although he knows that they could rethink the matter at any moment as they mature. They do not like Dámaso, but Dámaso has said that he can not be enemy of the children of a person "whom I love and I appreciate".

- This can be solved?

- Everything is solved with a good talk. We have only defended ourselves, but we have never provoked them. They have for one year been provoking "El Licenciado",

and provoking us.

The Narcos Reaction:

The reaction by the brothers "Los Chapitos" Guzman came to fruition when the newspaper was distributed at dawn, coordinating an operation of several vehicles and young people with little more than wads of bills who were able to buy more than five thousand copies of Ríodoce before being snapped up by local customers.

Regarding the kidnapping of the weekly edition, when consulted by colleagues, both director Ismael Bojórquez Perez and Valdez himself attributed the incident to "normal things that happen."

In that same edition, Riodoce published an extensive report on the secret companies of former PRI deputy Óscar Lara Aréchiga, accused in Andorra of laundering resources in the order of 16 million US dollars.

Two days later, another fortnightly newspaper, La Pared , which had the same theme on the cover, and received pressure to deliver the entire edition of 3,000 copies to avoid its circulation. The distributors of the magazine, when leaving the printer were approached by young people wearing caps with the inscription # 701, which informed them that they were going to acquire the whole edition, as had happened with Ríodoce.

After the event, the editors of La Pared opted to let the publication be circulated, but received pressure to publish a latest edition in favor of "Los Chapitos."

The " kidknapping " of the  publications was not publicly reported until March 30, after the murder of journalist Miroslava Breach of Chihuahua.

In his column, "Observatorio", of the newspaper El Noroeste, the journalist Alejandro Sicairos Rivas warned that this was not an event that should be left aside, "I spoke with Javier and I drew attention to what they had published of Dámaso, but he said  that they published it because it was a subject of journalistic interest ".

According to unofficial sources, this could be the first hypothesis surrounding the homicide of the author of "Los Morros del Narco", Javier Valdez Cardenas.

The Latest Narco Release:

Submerged in April in the war between factions of Sinaloa and with La Pared out of circulation, Ríodoce kept counting the events that flooded the state, until on May 2, when everything turned around: the Attorney General's Office ) And the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) announced the arrest of Dámaso López Núñez, "El Licenciado", in a luxurious department of Nueva Anzures colony in the country's capital.

With his arrest, said the Specialized Office of Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO), the alliance between the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel (CJNG) and the Damaso group was stopped.

It was followed by arrests of the "Licenciado" structure, as his financial operator in Mexico City, a gunmen leader detained in Costa Rica, Sinaloa; as well as a partner of Dámaso López Serrano, "El Mini Lic", named Luis Enrique Verdugo Barraza, son of the deceased Lamberto Verdugo Quintero, "El Güero Verdugo", the lieutenant of "El Mini Lic", who was godson of "Mayo" Zambada.

A few days later SEDENA announced the arrest of a group of escorts/ personal body guards of "El Mini Lic" in the State of Mexico, but who were released because the investigation report was not properly integrated.

On May 7, the Sinaloa weekly, Ríodoce , published on the cover a photograph of Damaso Lopez Nunez escorted by soldiers, leaving the luxury apartment building in Mexico City where he was arrested, with the title "A Fiesta for Los Menores".

A Party for Los Chapitos

The main report of Ríodoce issue number 745 was titled: "Prison for Damaso, the man who wanted to supply El Chapo". Signed by Javier Valdez also, it was the criminal profile of Lopez Núñez, from his beginnings in the Attorney General's Office as a public prosecutor, until coordinator of the State Judicial Police, his jump to the federal prison of Puente Grande, where he became friends with "El Chapo" Guzmán.

His friendship led to helping with " El Chapo's" infamous escape from that prison.

Valdez also told of the latest events of the war with the sons of Guzman Loera and the lines that led to Damasos' arrest in Mexico City.

In the end, returning to sources in the San Lorenzo Valley, Javier described how the people of Eldorado, especially Portaceli, a ranch where Damaso was originally from, remembered the fiestas, especially the last one that "El Licenciado" sponsored in December 2016.

There he elaborated a profile on his son and possible heir, Dámaso López Serrano, "El Mini Lic", "He likes to show off his muscles and his gold. He knows and likes luxury vehicles to ride around in, and he likes to party. His father and his family were born in Portaceli, one of the largest communities in the region, they have business in all the local agriculture and practically all party halls. The son, he has nothing to do with being a budding boss, the successor of El Chapo or his father.  Absolutely nothing.

"When they talk about him, it's because of the partying or the parody. Before he came with his people here, for the family and friends, but now that he has became ugly no longer comes. He comes alone to party and spends his father's money, but it is said that he does not do the work of the narcos. None of that", said one of the inhabitants of the San Lorenzo Valley, who for security reasons asked for anonymity.

Many know that he is no longer here, that at the orders of the "El Licenciado" , his father, long before he was detained, "El Mini Lic" was taken out of the region, or perhaps the state or even the country.

"We do not see him as someone who can occupy the position of a boss, like his father. He is on vacation", another said.

In the newspaper La Jornada , the day after the detention of the capo, Javier Valdez Cárdenas resumed the interview with the envoy of Damaso and made a criminal profile of the capo.

In the last edition of Ríodoce , on Sunday May 14, Valdez Cardenas no longer touched on the subject of the narcos, but focused on a story published in his own column "Malayerba", where he described the life of a young addict in a rehabilitation center, who was submerged in the narco network. It was titled "The Licenciado", and some after his death tried to see that it was related to Lopez Núñez, although the story was without names, as was the format of the Malayerbas.

And the protest rose up:

Somehow, Javier Valdez - as he always said - carried the threat consciously, by narrating to the world the atrocities the narcos left in their wake. "To report in Culiacan is to work with your ass in your hand," he used to say in interviews.

According to Carlos Lauría, president of the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization that gave him the Award of Courage in 2011, Javier had indicated that it would be good to leave Culiacán for a while, for "things to cool down ". He felt the hostile and tense climate as the war was unleashed by  "Los Dámasos" and "Los Chapitos". He expressed the same concern in La Jornada.

The day following Javier's murder the expressions materialized in a wave of public demonstrations by his colleagues and social activists in the Republic of Mexico. The reaction was not only national , but international as the news spread throughout the journalistic guild.

In Culiacan, more than 200 people, including about half its reporters, started with a sit-in on the Cathedral steps in downtown, but there so much indignation and mobilization of the State Government and the Attorney General's Office, that  an improvised march took its direction to the Government Palace.

With shouts and banners demanding  justice, protesters took to the main street of the city and just where Javier was felled by the 12 bullets, a tribute was paid by the reading of their texts.

The contingent continued to the Govorner's Palace. No one expected to have a group of more than 200 people storming the three-storey building where Governor Quirino Ordaz Coppel works.

The decision was clear: not to move until Gov Ordaz Coppel face appeared and it was expressed by the shouting crowd. Almost by force, journalists and activists stormed the stairs until they reached the doors of the Governor's office, which did not open. The private secretary was left to inform them that he would receive the contingent in the Palacio auditorium.

There, journalists like Alejandro Sicairos, also cofounder of Ríodoce; Marco Vizcarra, Bernardino Chávez, Gabriela Soto, among others, demanded concrete actions as representatives of the Press Guild.

"We do not want any more excuses, governor, since you came into office you have only given us excuses, and we have never seen anyone rule on the third floor (office); we have seen nothing more than a puppet," said Vizcarra.

Besieged by questions that he could not answer, while others asked for his resignation, to which Quirino only agreed to take the actions that the journalists proposed:

1) A special prosecution of the case.

2) A monitoring table composed of journalists.

3) Security for Ríodoce Personnel.

However, despite the commitment, Juan José Ríos Estavillo, a Sinaloa prosecutor, said that 15 to 20 investigators were assigned to the case, working with the PGR that would also collaborate and immediately provide protection to the family of Javier Valdez Cardenas and the members of the weekly.

The precautionary measures would, he said, also include physical security at Riodoce offices as well as for its reporters and staff. However, neither the prosecutor nor the governor committed to get or give results in a short time period, nor did they agree to resign if the case was not clarified.

Spanish Journalists Rise in Solidarity for Mexico

Madrid, Spain

Questioned by ZETA , they agreed that the last murders of journalists in Mexico made them wake up.

"What I feel is not having been there before. I think we are reacting late, because Mexico has become a failed state especially for all things that have to do with freedom of expression, "said Joaquín Estefanía, a journalist, columnist and former director of the newspaper El País .