Chapo Trial: "El Mayo almost killed me"..says Tirso

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat

Tirso Martinez Sanchez, aka “El Futbolista” was questioned under cross about his futbol teams.

Tirso admitted to using millions of drug money to invest in Mexican soccer teams.

He named the cities where he owned teams, La Piedad, Celaya, Merida, Queretaro and Irapuato.  He told the court he later sold the La Piedad team for 10M making a profit of 4 million.

Between the years of 2000-2003 he netted 40 to 50 million dollars in the drug trafficking business.  He says he made so much money he didn’t mind losing a couple of million on cockfights and gambling.

El Mayo almost killed me

In 2001, Tirso testified that there was a meeting in Mexico City, organized by El Rey Zambada, brother of El Mayo and a cooperative witness who already testified.   The meeting had not yet begun when Mayo pulled out his pistol and pointed it to the face of Tirso.  Mayo was angered and was suspicious that it was Tirso who substituted quality cocaine for low quality to the tune of around 331 kilos.

Tirso attributes his life being spared to Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, “El Viceroy”, because Mayo said “I won’t kill you because my godson asked me not to do anything to you.”

Viceroy’s brother was the late Amado Carillo Funetes.

Rolling Stone Video

Although Sean Penn is not expected to testify, jurors were shown, at least in part, the El Chapo video interview. It was presented along with a FBI witness.

From Mica:

-The consensus this morning is slow and anything but exciting.
-Defense is cross-examining Tirso about why he didn't identify Chapo during his initial interviews with US law enforcement.
-The defense plan suggests he only put Chapo as a leader of the cartel when it was clear prosecutors wanted to use him as a witness in the trial.
-Tirso admitted that nearly all of his knowledge about Chapo came from Alfredo Vasquez (a lieutenant of Chapo.
- -Tirso had only been shown the younger photo of Vasquez. Purpura asked him to ID the older photo. He hesitated and said, "I feel like I've seen that person before."
-Purpura responded: "Let me introduce you to Alfredo Vasquez."
-The US Marshals who watch Chapo in the courtroom were nodding off.

Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa and Emma’s father

Cifuentes

Next witness is Jorge Cifuentes, leader of the Colombian Cifuentes Villa drug organization. and the nexus to Emma Coronel’s father.

It was the Sinaloa Cartel connection to Cifuentes Villa, that authorities were able to connect Chapo's father in law, Inés Coronel Barreras, father of Emma, as the connection or liaison between the Colombians and Chapo.  And according to the Florida indictment was one of Chapo's money launderers, funneling money into the United States.

“Was it the DEA who located Coronel Barreras in Agua Prieta?” An intelligence agent of the United States, who requested anonymity, was asked.

“What I can say is that the government of the United States had time to investigate and follow the tracks of Coronel Barreras in Sinaloa, Durango, Sonora and South America”.

Pressuring him to explain further in the case of the father-in-law of the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, the agent specializing in Mexican drug trafficking explains that it all started at the beginning of 2012 with a DEA investigation focused on the Colombian Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa.

Coronel

According to DEA website, Cifuentes Villa is leader of an organization dedicated to traffic cocaine.

“Cifuentes’s organization amassed a great fortune in money and illicit properties, as one of the main providers of cocaine to the Sinaloa Cartel”, reads on a page of the DEA.

The American agent reveals that in several intelligence reports written by DEA about the Cifuentes Villa Organization, the name Coronel Barreras came up.

"He is identified as the contact person of El Chapo and the person in charge of the transportation of cocaine shipments that originated from several points of South America to Central America and México", he clarifies.  [indictment can be read below]

He just began his testimony.  He estimates shipping 220 tons of cocaine in the '90s to LA, Houston, and New York…. More tomorrow

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El Chapo Florida Indictment... by on Scribd