‘El Picudo’ Helped ‘Chapo’ Escape And They Sentenced Him For Bananas And Cucumbers With Coca

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Edgar Manuel López Osorio, El Picudo, allegedly helped Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, his secretary Carlos Manuel Hoo Ramírez, El Condor; and former deputy Lucero Sánchez, when they fled down the drain in Culiacán, but he was not sentenced for that.

The member of the Sinaloa Cartel was sentenced to 32 years in prison for the crimes of organized crime, possession of firearms for exclusive use, possession of rounds, collection of weapons, against health, operations with resources of illicit origin and bribery.

El Picudo was arrested on February 18, 2014 along with César de la Cruz, when elements of the Navy were battling Culiacán in search of El Chapo.

According to the FGR, López Osorio had as a project the shipment of drugs hidden in bananas and plastic cucumbers, and César helped "coordinate public security patrols."

When they were detained, the then Attorney General's Office announced that Picudo was the one who rescued Chapo, his secretary and the former deputy from the drain when they were pursued by sailors and took them to a point where they boarded another vehicle that transferred them to Mazatlán, where El Chapo was detained.

In the criminal proceeding, he was not accused of helping Chapo. Among the evidence, mention was made of the houses of the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel in the Libertad neighborhood because there they seized bananas and plastic cucumbers filled with cocaine, which according to the FGR, were a "project" of El  Picudo.

According to court documents, Edgar and César were captured when elements of the Navy received a report of a truck manned by armed people in the Campo Bello subdivision, located near the airport.

The agents located the truck and the driver accelerated, a chase began until the vehicle stopped and El Picudo and César descended. They tried to enter a house but were hit and detained.

Edgar took out a wad of 70,500 pesos from his shorts bag and another 63,000 pesos from the glove compartment of the truck, he offered them to the agents to be released.

He also told them that they could enter the home where there were more vehicles with drugs and that they could keep it, but to "let them go on their way."

The elements searched the vehicle in which the detainees were driving and secured a Barret rifle and nine packages of marijuana in the box.

In the garage of the house there was a Nissan Estaquitas with 38 packages of cocaine in a double bottom; a Eurovan Volkswagen with 103 plastic containers of methamphetamine; an armored Volkswagen Jetta with a sack of marijuana, 22 plastic bags with methamphetamine, one with cocaine and 170 packages of methamphetamine. In a Nissan Frontier pickup there were 16 long guns, and 73 magazines; and in a Mercedez Benz they found 36 containers of methamphetamine.

The drug had a total weight of 134 kilos of methamphetamine, 39 kilos of cocaine and 44 kilos of marijuana.

The FGR linked El Picudo to the seizure of bananas and plastic cucumbers stuffed with drugs in the house in the Libertad neighborhood, from which El Chapo escaped.

The FGR also mentions the arrest of Mario Hidalgo Arguello, El Nariz, extradited last year to the United States.

He points out that he was arrested on February 17, 2014 in a house on Enrique Colunga street in the Libertad neighborhood, where they secured a truck with 267 bananas and cucumbers with cocaine; and in the building a sack with 237 bananas and cucumbers.

Another person who was in the home fled through a passage that was in the bathroom and connected to the sewer.

Minutes later they secured the house located on Emiliano García street, in front of the UAS high school, also in the Libertad neighborhood.

When the sailors arrived at the house there was a person standing next to a vehicle with a firearm in his hand and when he realized the presence of the agents, he pointed at them, one of them shouted “Armada de México, stay where you are. ”, But the man continued pointing and went into the home.

Officers entered the home and found the raised bathtub with a ladder down that connected to the sewer.

Statements by the DEA agent, Víctor Vasquez, during El Chapo's trial in New York, indicate that the Nose took them to that house.

In the house there were 2,861 packages with methamphetamine, 165 bananas stuffed with cocaine and 115 cucumbers with marijuana; a pistol, two grenades, 12 rounds, a rocket launcher and two rockets.

After seven years of detention, both were sentenced by a district judge.

The judge determined that “they are members of the criminal organization called the Sinaloa Cartel, whose purpose was to commit crimes against health, taking into account the discovery of firearms in their possession, and in particular, of various narcotics that were in the vehicles they were driving at the time of their capture, as well as those that were located in the buildings related to the case. "

It was pointed out that “at the time of their arrest, they were found in possession of various narcotics, as well as weapons, which according to the mechanics of the events, are used by persons belonging to criminal groups to carry out the functions of each one of them.

It’s members; at the same time as the telephone equipment to which their communications were intercepted, from which there are indications of their belonging to the aforementioned organization, due to the type of conversations ”.

El Picudo was sentenced to 32 years two months in prison for the crimes of organized crime, possession of firearms for exclusive use, possession of rounds, collection of weapons, against health, operations with resources of illicit origin and bribery.

The other defendant was sentenced for the same crimes, except bribery, to 30 years two months in prison.

Those sentenced filed appeals and amparos that concluded last August.

Both are interns in the Federal Center for Social Readaptation Number One "Altiplano", based in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico.

How the Nose Led to Chapo's Hideout

In her book The Trial of the Century, Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul, a reporter who covered the entire trial of Joaquín Guzmán in a Brooklyn court for Riódce, narrates:

Victor J. Vasquez (an active DEA agent), was a native of Durango but had grown up in the United States. There he became a DEA agent and under that capacity he lived in Mexico City from 2008 to 2014. We called him Ken, because he was almost six feet tall, had a wide back and a fluffy pompadour, symmetrical angular features and the same arrogance that, if it existed, the Matell doll would surely have.

At the trial, he detailed in detail the operation to capture Guzmán Loera in February 2014. It began on February 16 in Culiacán, where he and the Mexican navy went to different properties where Guzmán Loera was allegedly hiding. 

According to the witness, he only had an advisory role due to his experience and his knowledge of the case. He insisted several times that he never entered the Miramar hotel in Mazatlán where the accused was captured, and that he was staying in the car when the Mexican navy initially entered the houses. He explained history and strategy to the Mexicans.

Several videos were projected on the screens in room 8D while the DEA agent narrated in great detail how they had flown in a Blackhawk helicopter, where they had found Nariz, one of the men who ran errands for Guzmán Loera, the difficulty they had to break down the doors of the houses of the accused. In the dim light of the makeshift movie theater in the court, El Chapo watched the images of the operation of his own capture with attention.

At one of the houses, Vasquez explained, they arrived minutes before El Chapo went into the tunnel under the bathtub in the master bedroom. To pursue it, you had to enter the tunnel without bulletproof vests or long weapons. The sailors who decided to enter would do so with pistols and as volunteers.

When the prosecutor Andrea Goldberg asked Vasquez how many had entered, “every single man volunteered,” the witness responded with aplomb, specifying that all the Mexican sailors entered that dark and small tunnel, as he described it, without knowing what awaited them.

After a detailed account, with photos and videos, of the elaborate operation, the defense cross-examination began. "Weren't there more Americans besides you?" The witness paused and turned to face the prosecutors before looking back from him in the direction of Balarezo that he asked again. “You were the only DEA agent? 

Was he just watching? Did he carry weapons? If he was shot, would he shoot back? " Balarezo inquired, but an objection from the prosecution prevented the witness from answering. (…) The defense attorney walked to the projector in the room and requested that one of the photos entered as evidence by the prosecution be shown. The image of Victor J. Vasquez dressed in the uniform of the Mexican navy was projected on the screens in the room.

"What do you have in your hand?" Balarezo asked the witness.

"An assault rifle," he replied.

"Did you wear military clothing when you were with the Mexican navy?" the lawyer insisted.

"Yes sir," the witness told him.

"To give advice?" he scoffed.

"To give guidance, historical information, offer my experience," Vasquez replied.

"Nothing more?"

"No," the witness insisted.

"Then why was he carrying an assault rifle?"

"Objection!"

Finally, Balarezo wanted to know if the DEA agent was certain that the man they heard screaming inside the tunnel was Guzmán Loera. Had he seen it? Did you have proof? They didn’t have any.

Such an elaborate testimony had been left flimsy at the end of the cross-examination, making it clear that there was no visual proof or certainty that Chapo had been there, despite the videos and Vasquez's boast.

(…)

From the statement of Lucero Sánchez, the Chapodiputada, the following:

The secretaries who handled the communications and encryption systems for the BlackBerrys were Cóndor and Picudo. 

Cleto helped in the production of synthetic cocaine and Nariz helped El Chapo by running errands. He explained the code they had to speak by message. Their system was called tango-alpha and it consisted of changing the digits from 1 to 9 so that they added up to 10, the only ones that remained the same, for obvious reasons, were 5 and 0. 

Then, the Lawyer explained in detail, if they exchanged the PIN BlackBerry 2A4642D2 and the last three characters were in tango-alpha, they looked like this: 2A4668D8

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