The Narco Magistrate with Ties to CJNG

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Zeta

Former Circuit Magistrate Isidro Avelar Gutiérrez and "El Menchito", son of CJNG's "El Mencho".

Prisoner and linked to the money laundering process, former circuit magistrate Isidro Avelar Gutiérrez faces justice for his alleged links with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Los Cuinis. In the 1990s, he was "told" to benefit Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Jesús Héctor "El Güero" Palma and other members of the Sinaloa Cartel under cover. He ordered the return to drug trafficker Juan José Quintero Payán “Don Juanjo”, $779,000 dollars that had been confiscated in 1992. Rubén Oseguera “El Menchito”, another of the beneficiaries with his resolutions, is on the verge of extradition to the US.

Badly ends the judicial career of federal magistrate Isidro Avelar Gutiérrez, because  despite the principle of presumption of innocence, the governments of Mexico and the United States are convinced that with their resolutions that he, Isidro Avaelar, allegedly benefited members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), among which appears Rubén Oseguera González “El Menchito”, son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes “El Mencho”, leader of the criminal organization.

A District Control Judge Specialized in the Criminal Accusatory System in the State of Mexico issued a ruling on the process against the former official for his probable responsibility in the commission of the crime of operations with resources of illicit origin and ratified the precautionary measure of preventative imprisonment, so the accused will continue his stay in the maximum security prison Altiplano, in Almoloya de Juárez.

The former "justice provider" was not charged with the crime of bribery or organized crime because it was not possible to prove the acts in which he allegedly received money from the criminal group headed "El Mencho"; however, he is credited for possible money laundering, since the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) reported that Isidro Avelar received bank deposits in his accounts for 78.5 million pesos, of which 50 million could not be credited and boast of illicit origin.

The suspended circuit magistrate was arrested by federal agents on November 22 at the "Miguel Hidalgo" International Airport in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in compliance with an arrest warrant while in transit. He was immediately transferred to the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime Investigation (SEIDO) and subsequently referred to the Federal Center for Social Readaptation (Cefereso) Number 1.

The control hearing lasted approximately six hours, as it began on the Friday of his capture at ten o'clock at night and ended around four in the morning on Saturday, November 23. The detention was described as legal and the hearing came to an end with the imposition of the precautionary measure issued by the judge, ordering that Avelar Gutiérrez should be imprisoned as long as his legal situation was resolved in the next 144 hours, at the request of the person involved .

The allegations of alleged corruption of the former judge and magistrate, born on June 13, 1962 in the municipality of San Cristóbal de la Barranca, Jalisco, bordering Zapopan, date from the 1990s, when several of his resolutions were considered as controversial, benefiting at that time members of the Sinaloa Cartel, such as Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Jesús Héctor "El Güero" Palma, among others.

While Isidro Avelar initially faces Mexican justice for which he worked for almost three decades, the man he would have helped under the shadow of the suspicion of bribery, Rubén Oseguera González “El Menchito”, is about to be extradited to the American Union to process him in the Federal Court of the District of Columbia, in Washington DC, under criminal association charges to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and 500 grams or more of methamphetamine, as well as use and possession of a firearm to promote crimes against health.

The Accusations:

The problems for Isidro Avelar Gutiérrez began as a result of the resolution dated January 18, 2017, in which being a magistrate of the Sixth Unitary Circuit Court of the Third Region Auxiliary Center, with residence in Guadalajara, Jalisco, granted an indirect protection (amparo) to Rubén Oseguera, designated as number two of the CJNG, to detach him from the crime of organized crime for which he had a formal prison order in criminal case 177/2015 of the Sixth District Court of Federal Criminal Proceedings in the State of Jalisco.

With the protection granted to  "El Menchito" the four tests that linked him as a member of the criminal organization of greater territorial expansion in the country during the last years were demolished. Namely, these tests are: that he is the son of "Mencho", leader of the cartel; that he owned an AR-15 rifle with the acronym CJNG emblazoned on it ; two witnesses identify him through photography as one of the bosses of the criminal clan; and finally a link chart prepared by both the Intelligence Department of the Federal Police, and another organization chart designed by the National Center for Planning and Information (Cenapi) of the former Attorney General's Office (PGR, now the Prosecutor's Office).

Avelar considered that the documentation of record contained flaws and that the federal judge who prosecuted him did not correctly assess the evidence. He concluded that being the son of the cartel leader does not make the son criminal; Possession of a weapon with the phrase CJNG is also not conclusive proof; the witnesses described physical characteristics of the person involved despite seeing the photograph; and finally questioned the absence of a source of intelligence information from the Federal Police and Cenapi to prepare their reports.

It was also known that Avelar Gutiérrez had released other members of the criminal group, such as Juan Francisco Aguilar Santana "Juan Pistolas", one of the closest people to Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes and who would have performed simultaneous searches in various buildings, reason enough for the judge who will question the Federal Public Ministry on how he was to be in two or more places at the same time.

They leave a head minus skin and an eyeball at the Municipal Transportation Directorate:

At approximately three o'clock in the morning on Wednesday, November 27, a man wearing black clothing threw a dark plastic bag inside the Los Santos neighborhood in Tijuana, inside a dark plastic bag was a head and a plastic box with various masks with the figures of animals and flowers.

A witness who was just outside the unit located in Paseo de los Héroes extension and Ermita Avenue, reported the fact to the police authorities, who confirmed they were human remains.

According to information revealed to ZETA , the head belonged to a man, had no skin attached to the face and was missing an eye. On the neck of the victim, from which the age could not be determined, a tattoo with the numbers 666 can be seen.

While in the transparent plastic box there were figurines of hearts in pink and various masks of animal images: colorful butterflies, bees, zebra, elephant, duck, giraffe, lion, dog, frog, rabbit and a flower.

Hours after the macabre find, the head of the Directorate of Municipal Public Transport of Tijuana, Javier Salas Espinoza, presented his resignation to the position of Director "to suit his personal interests."

On April 3, 2019, the Federal Judicial Council removed Isidro Avalar from a Court in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, because he was denounced for acts of corruption. Subsequently, on May 17, the United States Department of the Treasury included the then magistrate in his blacklist of drug trafficking leaders for his alleged relationship with the CJNG. In this country it was ordered frozen any and all assets he or his relatives had.

The signaling of the Americans put the Mexican authorities to work that already had a history of the doubtful conduct of the jurisconsult in some of their sentences and the FIU made an effort to find the origin of 50 million pesos that Avelar could not prove with his income as a judicial officer or any other personal or family business. To date it is not known where the money comes from, but the main suspicion of the authority is that it is the product of acts of corruption.

The Council of the Federal Judiciary temporarily suspended, without pay and for six months, Isidro Avelar, with the aim of conducting an investigation into his behaviors, after a series of operations within the National Financial System that warn that the magistrate may be obtaining part of his  assets through operations with resources of illicit origin. The FIU and the Federal Public Ministry ordered the freezing of their bank accounts and those of their direct relatives.

Avelar Gutierrez resorted to amparo lawsuits in an attempt to curb what was coming. In criminal matters, he filed a couple of guarantee lawsuits, but these were resolved before the arrest warrant existed, so they caused dismissal. In administrative matters, both the accused and two of his daughters, requested the protection of federal justice so that their bank accounts could be made available to them, but to date, the amparo lawsuits have not been resolved.

Backround:

The bad reputation of "Chilo" - as his family and friends know him - came from the beginning of his career in the judicial function in 1990, when he was a low-profile judicial officer in the Fourth District Court in Criminal Matters of Guadalajara. In 1992 he went to the First District Court in the same matter in Puente Grande as secretary of the amparos table, his immediate boss being María del Pilar Parra Parra.

The long-awaited award of being a federal judge came in 1993, when he was appointed Mixed District Judge in the State of Campeche, to return a year later to the Puente Grande prison complex as a Fourth District Judge in Criminal Matters. Then he became known for some controversial resolutions such as the release of some of those prosecuted for federal crimes in the case of the murder of Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo and six others.

In the decade of the 90s, Isidro Avelar allowed the former commander of the Federal Judicial Police, Hugo Tinoco, to regain his freedom who was thought to protect  "El Chapo" Guzman and participate in the delivery of alleged rivals to the Sinaloa Cartel. He also granted two guards to Guzmán Loera himself to separate him from the crime of Cardinal Posadas in the common law and of a process for the crime of bribery.

The "Güero Palma", compadre of "El Chapo", granted an amparo against a formal prison guard that weighed against him in a state criminal court for a triple homicide that occurred on a hill in the town of Nextipac, in Zapopan, which in fact occurred in December 1992. In addition, he legally protected him from the killing of Cardinal Posadas and the events of the shooting at the Tapatío airport, ie Guadalajara, on May 24, 1993. Antonio Mendoza Cruz, driver of “El Chapo”, was protected from charges in the cleric's murder.

Another who received the grace of Isidro Avelar was Edgar Mariscal Rábago "El Negro", hitman of the Arellano Félix Cartel and who was said to be the material author of the murder of Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo. The arrest warrant was based on intel about "El Negro"; however, the half-affiliation did not coincide and the judge determined that it was not the same person and decreed an order of freedom due to lack of evidence to prosecute. He was only there for federal crimes, and in the common law he is still imprisoned for the murder.

And how to forget the resolution of a cash back incident that the drug trafficker Juan José Quintero Payán processed, to whom the PGR assured him in mid-1992 the amount of $779,000 dollars in cash that he allegedly transferred to Guanajuato to pay for a shipment of cocaine from South America. After being free, Rafael Caro Quintero's uncle claimed his money and Isidro ordered his return, although they no longer found him at the PGR.

In another strange case, being a magistrate, Avelar Gutierrez granted the protection to two of five subjects who on May 19, 2009 were arrested by the Army at the ranch "El Tepozán", municipality of San Julián, Jalisco. The complainants had shot at the soldiers and when they were arrested they found within the ranch the firearms and 34 metal drums with a capacity of 200 liters each with essential precursor chemicals for the elaboration of narcotics (toluene, acetone, isopropyl alcohol, methylamine, sulfuric acid and phenylacetic acid), 82 cuvettes with lead acetate, 40 sacks with sodium hydroxide, five gas cylinders, a reactor, two metal pipes, two mixing vats and an electric motor.

"El  Menchito":

The lawyers for Rubén Oseguera González, “El Menchito”, are desperate. Their client is about to be extradited to the United States. Two weeks is, at most, the time it would take to deliver the Mexican government to its American counterpart. The defense no longer expects a miracle, unless the delivery does not materialize and then the one designated as number two of the CJNG would have to be released, a situation more than impossible.

Despite the above, the litigants headed by Victor Francisco Beltran Garcia, also blacklisted by the US Treasury Department, complained that in September he was denied an amparo to the son of "Mencho" by pressures and intervention of counsel of the Federal Judiciary, Alejandro González Bernabé, and of an alleged agent of the Administration for Drug Control (DEA). The counselor would have given the order to deny protection.

Among the claims of the lawyers, there is the refusal of the Collegiate Court with residence in Oaxaca to vent all the evidence offered in Rubén's discharge. Of 30 only 14 tests were released, among them the one that sought to demonstrate that “El Menchito” is not the son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, but that his father is called Rubén Oseguera Cervantes and does not have that nickname. To do this, he delivered his birth certificate.

Anthropometric and forensic photography expert reports were carried out, as Oseguera junior tried to prove that he is not the same person who appears in the photograph provided by a US prosecutor to the file, but the official experts ruled that there are dimensional, chromatic and morphological correspondence of the facial characteristics among the people that appear in the comparative photographs, and that it is the subject claimed that at that time was interned in Cefereso Number 13 in Oaxaca.

It was also argued that the alleged criminal activity of the defendant in the US is fallacious, since it is indicated as the beginning year 2004, when Oseguera González was 13 years old, being that on the other hand, the age of majority is at 21 years, thus he would have been a juvenile at the time. That evidence was also not approved by the court.

Currently "El Menchito" is being held at Cefereso Number 11 in Hermosillo, Sonora, where he was transferred in September, when he was denied amparo, from Cefereso Number 15 of Chiapas. He was in the federal prison of Villa Comaltitlán after the rumor that in July he would escape from the maximum security prison Altiplano, which he came from Cefereso Number 2 of Jalisco. He has been in all those prisons just in 2019.

The lawyer Víctor Francisco Beltrán confirmed that on October 28, the defense presented a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to review all irregularities in the extradition process, since supposedly there were apocryphal signatures of William Duncan, an American diplomat, in addition to false testimonies of protected witnesses.

Beltrán García acknowledges that they have already exhausted all possible judicial resources and instances to avoid extradition to the neighboring northern country, and now, the only opportunity to prevent Rubén Oseguera from being delivered to North America is for the Mexican Foreign Ministry to consider his request to review the anomalies in the procedure.