FBI Investigates FARC-EP Operation In Mexico: Jalisco

"Char" for Borderland Beat 

Article by: Anabel Hernández 

Drug war author Anabel Hernandez

The FBI and ATF are investigating the Tlajomulco bombings. According to the progress of their investigations, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (FARC-EP) and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) were behind the explosions of seven explosive devices.

In an event never before seen in Mexico, seven explosive devices placed on a road in Tlajomulco, near Guadalajara, Jalisco, exploded on the night of July 11. The terrorist act caused the death of four public servants and two civilians, and caused serious injuries to 14 people, including three minors.

Since last week, a group from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) arrived at the scene to begin an investigation. According to public servants of the Mexican counterpart participating in the investigation, it has been discovered that, behind what the U.S. agencies call a "terrorist attack", there could be elements that belonged to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP), considered by the U.S. government as a terrorist group, in complicity with the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation.

According to the investigation files I have collected for this DW collaboration, one of the main suspects in the attack in Tlajomulco is Carlos Andrés Rivera Varela, alias "La Firma," born June 19, 1986, in Cali, Colombia. The files indicate that he is based in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, and works for the CJNG, specifically for Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, better known as "Pelon" and "03," stepson of Nemesio Oceguera Cervantes, leader of the criminal group.

"La Firma" would be the contact between FARC-EP and CJNG, and would have brought expert operators in the manufacture of explosive devices to Mexico.

Terrorists in Mexico?

The FARC was a group that was born in Colombia in 1966 as a counter-insurgent guerrilla group. They committed massacres and kidnappings. In the 1980s, the group turned to drug trafficking to finance its armed activities. For years they were suppliers of cocaine to the Sinaloa Cartel and in exchange received millions of dollars or weapons to continue exercising violence in that country.

One of the common practices of this group was the use of non-conventional weapons, such as bomb devices and anti-personnel mines. Since 1997 it was declared by the U.S. government as a terrorist group, with all that this implied.

In 2016, a pacification and demobilization process began in Colombia. It is assumed that, in 2017, a good part of the members left the guerrilla and created a political party called Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común. In November 2021, as part of that peace process, the U.S. government removed the FARC from the list of terrorist organizations, but has maintained on the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list a FARC dissidence called FARC-EP, led by Miguel Santanilla Botache alias "Gentil Duarte."

"The reason for the measure is for having refused to demobilize and being involved in terrorist activities responsible for the murders of FARC members and community leaders," states the U.S. government statement issued in November 2021.

The US Treasury Department's Office of Assets Control (OFAC) stated that "all assets and interests in assets of these groups and individuals should be blocked."

Regarding the explosions in Tlajomulco, it is reported that "La Firma", in agreement with the CJNG, would have brought people from Colombia, experts in the manufacture of explosives and belonging to FARC-EP, to Mexico.

CJNG Operates in Colombia

Regardless of the FBI and ATF investigations, the CJNG's ties to armed terrorist groups in Colombia are documented. The Mexican drug trafficking organization has been operating in that country since at least 2018, according to an investigation I have been conducting for months as part of my inquiries to understand the dynamics of organized crime in Mexico and its power.

Internal documents from the Colombian Attorney General's Office, to which I had access, indicate that they have detected the operation of the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation in Colombia. In 2021 they seized assets related to that organization located in Cauca, Nariño, Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Valle del Cauca, Cesar, Norte de Santander, Guaviare and the city of Bogotá.

Another classified Colombian government report to which I had access states:

"Grupos Armados Organizados Residuales (GAOR) are the armed groups that emerged from the FARC-EP, guerrillas demobilized in 2016, whose members did not embrace the peace accords and returned to arms, forming these groups. They are known as dissidences of the FARC-EP and, although they have the same insurgent origin, several are at odds with each other for territorial control of illegal activities, including some working with the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, criminal organizations from Mexico, which since 2018 seek to take over the production and distribution of cocaine in the country, from the cultivation of coca leaf."

In another report it is reported that on May 4, 2022 in Tumaco, Colombia the incursion of the CJNG was detected: "It was determined through a video published by this new criminal organization, who determine that they would be making presence in rural area of the municipality of Tumaco, they claim that they would confront other structures, likewise a large amount of firearms, vests, among others, are observed".

If we combine this information with the FBI and ATF investigations, the facts in Tlajomulco are more complex than they seem.

Operators

Images by HEARST

According to the investigations into the explosion of the seven bombs in Jalisco, Francisco Javier Gudiño Haro, alias "La Gallina", who is alleged to be part of the CJNG, and who is located in the area of Zapopan, Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, is also involved.

Julio César Montero Pinzón, who serves as "private secretary" of Juan Carlos González Valencia, is also being investigated for these acts.

On February 17, 2022, the US embassy in Mexico issued a statement informing that the Treasury Department issued sanctions against the Colombian Carlos Andrés Rivera Varela, alias "La Firma" and "La Gallina", because they lead a CJNG group established in Puerto Vallarta "that has helped orchestrate assassinations of rivals and politicians using great armed power".

The Ministry of National Defense, in an intelligence report on the municipality of Tlajomulco, Jalisco, dated October 2021, states that it is a locality "with important corridors for the trafficking of drugs and weapons from neighboring states. So far, the Jalisco Cartel - New Generation has maintained its hegemony in the area and is the only cartel that manages the drug market in the neighborhoods of Tlajomulco.

CJNG and Sinaloa Cartel's Power Multiplies

The strengthening of organized crime in Mexico during the lax government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has had an impact on Central and South America. The result is mathematical: the more tolerance, the less strategic combat against drug cartels, the greater their capacity to expand.

According to the information I have gathered over several months in Colombia, the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel, both the factions of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and "Los Chapitos", led by Ivan and Alfredo Guzman Salazar, and Ovidio and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, sons of drug trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera, have expanded their operations.

These Mexican organizations not only buy the cocaine produced in Colombia, but also have a territorial presence in some key regions of production and trafficking of the drug to Mexico and Europe.

There are Colombian government documents indicating that the CJNG pays for drugs in dollars, or even with weapons, which helps local armed groups to have more power and extend their territory.

It is not absurd to think that, just as Mexican criminal groups have moved into Colombia and operate territorially, Colombian FARC-EP-type groups have also moved into Mexico and operate there.

Presidential Negligence

Despite the increasingly serious problems of violence and ungovernability in Mexico, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ignores, minimizes, and even claims they do not exist.

Instead of doing the job he was hired for, being president of all Mexicans and procuring justice and peace, AMLO occupies his time, public resources and efforts in illegally influencing the presidential elections of 2024, attacking with a misogynist and classist discourse the engineer Xóchitl Gálvez, of indigenous origin, successful businesswoman, who appears as one of the strongest candidates of the opposition to obtain the candidacy for the presidency of the Republic.

Even in moments like those experienced in Tlajomulco, AMLO puts the group interests of his party, Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement), before the interests of the victims. It is not the first time, but it is increasingly unacceptable and scandalous, and the social cost is greater. 

In the face of the explosions, on July 12, López Obrador refused to classify the attack with seven bombs as a terrorist act in order "not to give entrance, not to open the door for our ultra-conservative neighbors who want to have excuses, pretexts, to violate our sovereignty".

López Obrador, frantic and blind, walks over a dynamited country. He does not realize that he is not walking alone, but with more than one hundred and twenty million people who, by his complicit omission, live in a climate of violence, death and disappearances.

Whoever wins the elections in 2024, what country will he receive if the president of Mexico prefers to defend the pyrrhic interests of his political group rather than those of a nation?

If the investigations confirm that the terrorist act that occurred in Jalisco on July 11 was indeed perpetrated by members of the FARC-EP in conjunction with the CJNG, an escalation of violence can be expected, with more serious and bloody episodes, putting the civilian population at greater risk.

Source: DW Made for Minds