Where Are the 60 Million Pesos for Turning in El Chapo?

 

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Debate

According to data obtained through transparency no one has collected this money

The $60 million pesos that the Attorney General's Office (PGR) has offered for the whereabouts of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin ¨El Chapo¨ Guzman, who has been imprisoned in the United States since January 19, is the highest the federal government has allocated for one person; however, it has not been collected.

 

In agreement A / 052/15 of the Rewards Program, the attorney general's office notes that the amount offered for the capo recapture was not collected.

Data from that plan provided to El Universal indicate that the present administration has been ineffective in finding the whereabouts of members of organized crime, victims of homicides, missing persons and the kidnapped. None of the 390 economic rewards announced since 2013, which total $976 million pesos, has been collected, according to information obtained via transparency.

According to the PGR, this strategy to locate victims, members of organized crime and missing persons "was suspended indefinitely." The agreements that were published up to March are an extension of the contract that was held until December 2017, he said.

The agency announced that it is in a phase of relaunching, with the objective of more efficiently providing resources. The document is expected to be published in the course of this month to publish the tender that will allow the plan to be reactivated.

"We are working on the documentation that allows us to have everything ready to publish the bid again at the beginning of next year and be able to work from January to December 2018," he said.

This contrasts with the previous period, 2006-2012, in which the department spent $ 50 million 832 thousand pesos in exchange for information that helped to detain eight criminals, among them Sergio Villareal Barragan,¨El Grande¨, former leader of the Los Beltrán Leyva Cartel; the leaders of La Línea, Luis Humberto and Ubaldo Rubio González, "El Monroroque", and two of those implicated in the kidnapping case of Silvia Vargas.

The latest amounts, announced by the PGR now headed by Raúl Cervantes Andrade were to locate the perpetrators of the murders of journalists Javier Arturo Valdez Cardenas, Maximino Rodriguez Palacios, Miroslava Breach Velducea and the attackers of Sonia Córdoba Oceguera.

The listings detail more than 80% of the rewards offered for information leading to the whereabouts of families and people kidnapped or deprived of freedom.

Among them are the 43 students of Ayotzinapa, for whom $64.5 million pesos are offered for information leading to their whereabouts, as well as $1.5 million for data that allow the capture of their attackers, notes the agreement A / 087/14, published October 21st, 2014.

It also offered rewards for the whereabouts of former PRI governors Javier Duarte de Ochoa of Veracruz and Tomas Yarrington of Tamaulipas who were detained by authorities in Guatemala and Italy respectively.  

For the data that helped locate the Durango capo, Sergio Villarreal Barragan, "El Grande", arrested in 2010 in Puebla by members of the Navy, the PGR paid $30 million pesos.

The program also led to the location and arrest of César Vicente Fabregat Ocampo in 2010, identified international money laundering organization leader. The authorities offered a bonus of $10 million pesos, which was collected in March of 2011.

In 2010, the department disbursed $4 million pesos for information leading to Mario Alberto Zúñiga Serrano, lawyer of Casitas del Sur.

Likewise, the Rewards Committee paid $3 million pesos for the information that led to the capture of Luis Humberto and Ubaldo Rubio González, El Monroroque, former members of La Línea.

Under the same plan, $1 million 500 thousand pesos were given leading to the arrest of Jesus Armando Acosta Murillo, ¨El Mata¨ in June 2011.

In turn, it paid $666 thousand pesos to two people who facilitated the arrest of Angel Cisneros Marín, "El Flaco", and Candido Ortiz, who took the life of young woman Silvia Vargas Escalera. The PGR is responsible for offering and delivering rewards, in a single payment or installments, to persons who provide useful information related to the investigations and inquiries that it carries out, as well as those that collaborate in the location and arrest of alleged offenders.