2021 Drug Trafficking in Review

"Parro" for Borderland Beat:

Emma Coronel, detained in the United States, towns in Michoacán besieged by crime, politicians from Morelos posing with a criminal leader and the murder of an actress who loved a Beltrán Leyva were some scandals linked to drug trafficking this year.

The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) exonerated General Salvador Cienfuegos, Secretary of Defense in the Government of Enrique Peña, of ties with the drug traffickers and archived his case.

In a statement, he reported that the military command never had chat conversations or ties with members of the H-2 Cartel, commanded by Juan Francisco Patron Sánchez, “El H-2,” as the DEA claimed and what led to his arrest in Los Angeles, California on October 15, 2020.

The United States Department of Justice arrested Emma Coronel Aispuro, wife of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, accused of conspiring with her husband for international drug trafficking.

Nine months later, a federal judge sentenced her to three years in prison for aiding the Sinaloa Cartel.

Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, former Governor of Tamaulipas, pleaded guilty to money laundering before the Federal Court of the Southern District in Houston, in an agreement in which the charges for drug trafficking were dropped.

In a private hearing, the PRI member accepted that he received 3.5 million dollars in bribes, which he used to buy properties in the United States.

Residents of the Municipality of Aguililla, Michoacán, live isolated and without basic services after the irruption of organized crime. The Apatzingán-Aguililla highway, in the Tierra Caliente region, was blocked by the United Cartels.

The violence provoked the visit of the Apostolic Nuncio Franco Coppol.

In Michoacán, after drug blockades, fires, attacks and clashes registered in different parts of the State, the candidates for Governor of the PRI-PAN-PRD, Carlos Herrera, and the Solidarity Encounter Party (PES), Hipólito Mora, announced the suspension of some of his proselytizing acts.

The same decision was made by the applicants of the PVEM to the Mayor of Puerto Morelos and to the federal deputation for District 4, Blanca Merari Tziu and Laura Fernández Piña, after the first was attacked in her house with the balance of two wounded bodyguards.

Before being executed and burned, the commander of the State Investigation Agency in Chihuahua, Andrés Lara, led a seizure that included luxury cars, including a Lamborghini, a Porsche and a Shelby, from a ranch in Ojinaga.

The property allegedly belonged to the criminal leader identified as "El Menchaca", so one of the lines of investigation is that it was a revenge.

Federal forces captured Luis Cárdenas Palomino, Genaro García Luna's former right-hand man in Naucalpan, State of Mexico, for the alleged torture of four alleged members of the Los Zodiaco kidnap gang, including two relatives of Israel Vallarta Cisneros, former romantic partner of Florence Cassez.

In addition, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) investigated deposits for 37 million pesos, allegedly received illegally by the former command of the disappeared Federal Police, which could come from bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltrán Leyva, with which it is related.

The Opposition grouped in the alliance Going for Mexico submitted a complaint to the Organization of American States (OAS) about the interference of organized crime in the past electoral process, allegedly undercover by the federal government.

With an argument of risk due to the fight against drug trafficking, the Congress of Tamaulipas, with a PAN majority, approved granting security, such as bodyguards and official armored vehicles, to Governor Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca for the next six years after he leaves office in the 2022 and, if required, indefinitely.

Iván Reyes Arzate, who led the Special Investigations Unit of the Federal Police between 2008 and 2016, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking in a court in New York, United States.

The command was a liaison for years between the DEA and the Mexican police. However, the United States accuses him of delivering information to drug cartels such as the Beltrán Leyva.

Rosalinda González Valencia, wife of Nemesio Oseguera, “El Mencho”, leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel (CJNG), was arrested in Zapopan, Jalisco, based on a re-apprehension order issued because she stopped going to sign the Measurement Unit Precautionary periodically, an obligation he had in the process that instructed him for the crime of money laundering.

Esther Yadira Huitrón Vázquez, designated as a leader of Guerreros Unidos and detained in Yautepec, Morelos, boasted her friendship with politicians from the Citizen Movement, PRI and Progressive Social Networks (RSP).

Since 2012, the then PGR, headed by Maricela Morales, detained the woman, whom she identified as a lawyer for the Sinaloa Cartel.

Almost a decade later, she became the head of Guerreros Unidos in Morelos.

The United States Government offered a five million dollar reward for the capture of the four children of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Considering them to be high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel, the country's State Department issued a statement informing of this reward for those who collaborate with information that leads to the arrest or conviction of Ovidio Guzmán López, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Joaquín Guzmán López.

Actress Tania Mendoza, who starred in the movie "La mera mera Reina del Sur" in 2005, was executed in Cuernavaca, Morelos. In her networks, she dedicated words of affection to Arturo Beltrán Leyva, “El Barbas”, killed almost 12 years ago in the capital of Morelos.

Source:https://www.reforma.com/aplicacioneslibre/preacceso/articulo/default.aspx?__rval=1&urlredirect=/los-escandalos-del-ano-ligados-al-narcotrafico/ar2322910?v=2