Yaqui for Borderland Beat:
"The Millionaires of the War on Drugs"
In the War on Drugs, the winners were the businessmen under the protection of García Luna: Peniley Ramírez:
A good part of the federal budget went to a network of more than 83 companies scattered around the world and in more than 30 properties that made it possible to trace some 8,000 million pesos with which yachts, watches, luxury cars, mansions were acquired in Miami and business in Panama, exposes the journalist Peniley Ramírez, author of the book “Los millionaires de la Guerra. The unpublished file of García Luna and his partners ”.
In the so-called war against drug trafficking, with which President Felipe Calderón set out to create security conditions in the country, with disastrous results, there were winners: businessmen whose accounts went to a large part of public resources, says the journalist Peniley Ramirez .
In an interview, the author of the book " The Millionaires of War. The unpublished file of García Luna and his Partners ”, edited by Grijalbo (2020), states that, following the money route, it documented that some 8,000 million pesos reached a network of more than 83 companies, scattered around the world, of entrepreneurs who acquired yachts, watches, luxury cars, more than 30 properties in Miami and businesses in Panama.
- What explains that President Felipe Calderón made Genaro García Luna Secretary of Security?
—Sources close to Calderón that I interviewed say that he didn't have many opponents. I know it was recommended by some very high-level businessmen and activists as well. These recommendations caused Calderón to put aside the warnings about García Luna and it is something that the book reveals, that there were not only informally warnings, but also confidential reports, both from the PGR ( Attorney General's Office , now FGR ) and the Army, there was a circle of corruption around him.
- What explains that President Felipe Calderón made Genaro García Luna Secretary of Security?
—Sources close to Calderón that I interviewed say that he didn't have many opponents. I know it was recommended by some very high-level businessmen and activists as well. These recommendations caused Calderón to put aside the warnings about García Luna and it is something that the book reveals, that there were not only informally warnings, but also confidential reports, both from the PGR ( Attorney General's Office , now FGR ) and the Army, there was a circle of corruption around him.
What explains why President Calderón started the war against drug trafficking?
—What has been done the most, from the academy and from the press, is to find the answer to that question in the political legitimation that he would be looking for after the highly questioned form in which he came to power. What my book raises is that there was also a business strategy behind the war on drug trafficking.
It was not simply the fact of legitimizing politically but of making money and doing business, establishing international networks of property purchase money and all that is what the book reveals. What happened is that the money that was supposed to be to pacify the country ended up in the hands of a few politicians and businessmen who gave themselves the lives of billionaires at the cost of pacifying Mexico.
"So there were winners of this war?"
-Exactly. What the book does is search and find where the money went.
Where it was? It was in a network of more than 83 companies scattered around the world and in a network of more than 30 multi-million dollar properties with which I was able to trace some 8,000 million pesos that ended up in yachts, watches, luxury cars, mansions, penthouses in Miami, business in Panama.
The book traces both the route from where they got the money, where it ends and where it should have ended. The budget of the Ministry of Public Security went from 9.274 million pesos in 2006 to 40.536 million pesos in 2012, according to a note from El Economista . There is a whole range of spending there.
What the book does is say all this money, which was in the hands of these people, should have ended up in these projects, but it actually ended up in these other issues.
There are 8,000 million pesos that are duly documented in the book.
It is important to show, that it is a case, with which for the first time we show where the money began and where it ended. That is under investigation now. We will see arrest warrants, as I understand it, in the next few weeks.
García Luna is subject to a judicial process in the United States and in that judicial process they are looking for more or less $10 Million dollars, which it is presumed that he received from drug traffickers to let them pass the merchandise and to give them information about other traffickers. That would be 10 million, but, in public money, the book tracks $ 400 billion. What I do, with documents, is explain that this is only one part of a range of businesses in which this war ploy was used.
That is to say, there is a small part that are these, of whom I speak more, that they are the industralists who were dedicated to sell programs of interception of telephone calls, of monitoring of social networks, of cybernetic surveillance, of telephone espionage.
There are other moments in the book in which I explain other businesses, such as customs surveillance, the business of private security, the issuance of identity cards.
Other businesses, not only in Mexico. I also address the cases of Panama and Colombia and then I explain how there are international businesses that make this not only a local and regional case, but also which are the large conglomerates, mainly from Israel and the United States, that receive benefits of this type. of strategies.
- How many businessmen would the Ministry of Public Security have done business with at that time?
(In the book) a lot of emphasis is placed on the case of the Weinberg family because they are one of the ones with the most clues in the investigations.
It is very important to note that this is not a book about Calderón's administration. There are two chapters in the book that are from Calderón's administration, but the book has eight chapters. So most of this book is not from Calderón's administration.
What the book intends is not to say that Calderón's administration was terrible and everything else is better, but to explain. Even the last chapter is about the current administration, that of Andrés Manuel López Obrador; what this book does is find these continuous lines of fraud to the treasury and the use of a speech and a security strategy for the service of a few. There is another moment in which I talk about which are the large conglomerates that legally also obtained large profits and I put the case of the company Kio de María Asunción Aramburuzabala and explain how these purchase and benefit systems are being established, let's say.
Of course, there is a preponderant case, that of the Weinberg family in the book because, first, they are the people who have been co-accused with García Luna of money laundering in Mexico, according to the court documents to which I had access and because, although Their names do not appear, in the case in the United States, there are many references to them (…), basically they are called prestanombres - name lenders- of García Luna, in the lawsuits although they do not mention them by their names, but yes, and it is important to say, that they They have not been formally charged so far, but there is reference to them all the time, through companies and through purchases, specifically of a house in Miami of $3 million dollars, where García Luna moved after his administration.
Is there a way that both President Vicente Fox and President Felipe Calderón did not realize this?
—The investigations that I was able to access show that the first investigation files on García Luna began in the Fox administration in 2012. There were two military files and a PGR file that were prepared in the Fox administration and that already warned of solution with García Luna's own criminals as some of his direct reports.
- Who is paying attention to in the García Luna trial?
I find it very interesting how, in the trial, documentation has begun to be introduced of which we do not have much clue, but which I was able to obtain through other means, not through the defense and prosecutors. When taking statements from drug traffickers or people who have worked directly in drug trafficking who point them out there, the prosecution also took another path of investigation, which was the one taken by the book, that is, the investigation of the route of money and, Through that, they set up an entire office in New York, which was for several months making a patrimonial inquiry into the character's history.
There is a chapter in which we say: Day one, this shipment is sent with 23 tons of cocaine; On the 13th, García Luna buys a house; day 20, this other shipment is sent; On the 25th, García Luna buys another house. So there is an inexplicable evolution of assets with the salary of a public official, whose dates coincide in almost all cases, with the dates on which the drug was sent, so today they are accusing him of complicity.
That is to say, it does have some logic to think of an inexplicable or illicit growth of the character's fortune, on the same dates that the drug shipments that he allegedly charged for turning a blind eye were being sent.
—García Luna operated alone or in a network
"I think we'll see more of the network at the trial." There are several active officials who were close to García Luna on specific issues and they are mentioned there as well.
Sources: El Ecominista By: diego.badillo@eleconomista.mx Forbes
But Chapo was a great warrior or strategist people said.
ReplyDeleteHe single handedly took out the Arrellano Feliz, Tijuana, Juarez and many more cartels.
B.S. Chapo and Sinaloa cartel are fuckin chumps.
The only reason he made it big is because it benefited this fucker Garcia Luna.
7:06 correction, el chapo did not make anything big but his own fall guy's ass, all the biggest of the big wigs got taken by marinas or army of garcia's federales and EPN's partners who made off with all the money, alvaro uribe velez even bemedaled and condecorated FECAL and garcia luna for being his partners in the war for the drug business when he was colombia's "narcopresidente", in cahoots with some "americans"
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