He Livestreamed About the Cartels—Until He Was Shot Dead

By: Andrea Noel Republished from The Daily Beast

TIJUANA—After a long day of driving and livestream reporting from the narco hotbed of Guerrero state, Cecilio Pineda Birto took his dusty car to a local carwash in the sleepy little riverside town of Pungarabato on Thursday evening.

There, while Pineda was resting in a hammock and waiting for his newly washed car, two men opened fire on him then fled the scene on a motorcycle with the murder weapon in hand.

But the closest witnesses to the attack—the carwash attendants—were not questioned by authorities, as they immediately went into hiding, state attorney general Xavier Olea Peláez said.

First responders were unable to revive the journalist, who had reported for local and national media outlets like La Voz de Tierra Caliente and El Universal. He was soon after pronounced dead, just past 7:30 p.m.

Pineda covered the crime beat and had made a name for himself as a fearless journalist working to keep his community informed, often livestreaming on-the-scene reporting to his more than 31,000 Facebook followers, as he did on Thursday, just hours before his death.

That afternoon, while driving along a Guerrero highway, cellphone in hand, he complained in a livestream about the local and state government’s inaction, corruption, and collusion with dangerous and organized criminals—as he so often did.

His target in what would be his final video was Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, a criminal more commonly known as El Tequilero—the subject of an ongoing, statewide, months-long, failed manhunt. More specifically, he spoke out against the authorities and public officials who are believed to grant Almonte official protection and collude with his criminal underlings.

“Even the hitmen for El Tequilero … have revealed his location,” Pineda said, referring to the feared criminal organization known as Los Tequileros. “The government does not want to arrest them, even though they know exactly where they are.”

“They know where El Tequilero is. They know who El Tequilero is with right this moment. And the hitmen are informing on where the safe houses are. But, still, no, even with that information they are refusing to go after them,” he said while driving, sharing a combination of common knowledge and news he had gathered in the course of his reporting.

“I understand,” he said, expressing sympathy for some of the authorities who were refusing to act. “Only those of us who have survived attacks or kidnappings and have been threatened understand the situation.”

The former mayor of Pungarabato, where Pineda was murdered, was ambushed on a highway and executed last July after announcing that he had been threatened repeatedly by organized crime. His driver and one other civilian were killed in the ambush, and two federal police escorts also were injured.

Pineda often denounced threats of violence against him and his family. And, in fact, had himself narrowly escaped with his life a year and a half ago when armed men broke into his home, threatening his pregnant wife and young son while the reporter happened to be away.

In the nearby city of Taxco de Alarcón, the journalist Francisco Pacheco Beltrán was gunned down in front of his home on a Monday morning last April. He too had gone after authorities and criminals alike.

In Pineda’s final reports, he reminded the guerrerenses of the widespread collusion of state authorities with El Tequilero, which has created an atmosphere of crisis. Nearly 100 schools closed their doors last week across the state, joining dozens that have remained shuttered for weeks, in protest against the impunity the authorities have allowed El Tequilero and the violence affecting daily life in Guerrero.

“I’m just telling you what I know, and what I’ve heard, and the information that I’ve gathered,” Pineda said, while reminding his audience that local mayor-turned-state-congressman Saúl Beltrán Orozco of Mexico’s ruling PRI, or Institutional Revolution Party, has personal and provable ties to El Tequilero.

The prominent politician was among those in attendance at the party for El Tequilero’s son’s baptism, Pineda reminded his viewers, referring to a video filmed in 2014 during the celebration in San Miguel Totolapan.

In the video, Orozco, who at the time was the town mayor, can be seen seated at a table with El Tequilero chatting with one of the state’s most wanted men. 

A half-dozen men stood guard holding machine guns—cuernos de chiva, or “goat’s horns” as they are known colloquially because of the curved magazines of the AK-47s. The mayor-turned-congressman grabbed the microphone, as the video shows, to personally thank the wanted man, whom he called “my friend El Tequi.”

Yet, despite this irrefutable evidence, Orozco still insists that he does not know the drug gang leader, and he continues to enjoy political protection while claiming he’s the one being persecuted.

***

CJNG the winner in the war between narcos

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from an El Debate article

Subject Matter: Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

There is a Federal intelligence report that analyzed the involvement of the most dangerous cartel of the last six years, as the most dangerous in 2016.

The document affirms that in the last year the criminal group led by Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho, and the Gonzalez Valencia family, who go by the nickname Los Cuinis, have consolidated a meteoric rise in the strategy of expansion, where they control almost totally six coastal states of the country, Colima, Jalisco, Michoacan, Guerrero and the two of Baja California, and are exercising power in zones that were historically in the hands of other groups.

The other zones are the states of Nuevo Leon, San Luis Potosi, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Morelos, Puebla, Quintana Roo and Mexico state. The organizations that, according to the document have been resisting the advance of the CJNG are; The Pacific Cartel, The Cartel del Golfo, Los Zetas, The Knights Templar and La Familia Michoacana.

Money laundering: From the Sinaloa Cartel to LA’s fashion district

Original article available at YouTube
Posted by El Wachito

In September 2014, more than 1,000 federal and local agents raided 75 different locations in Los Angeles’ fashion district. They seized around $90 million dollars, most of it in bulk cash, from the Sinaloa Cartel. Authorities claim it was the biggest money seizure in U.S. history. Correspondent Mike Kirsch examined the issue in this feature documentary for Americas Now.

San Diego: 30 kilos of cocaine seized in Chula Vista

30 kilos of cocaine seized in Chula Vista

The nondescript Mercury Sable sedan made it's way into Chula Vista, getting off the 5 north, coming from the San Ysidro border crossing, winding through the neighborhoods, stoplights,  off the South Bay community, shortly after the sun set, across the horizon.  

Maybe the driver had that feeling, that intuition, the reflexes and instincts that may come with driving nondescript cars with dozens of kilos of cocaine stuffed into hidden compartments.  Nondescript cars under the surveillance of investigators on a task force.  The surveillance team watched as the Mercury pulled into a storage facility in Chula Vista, just before 7:00 PM. 

It was there they made the arrest, dismantled the car, and found a somewhat odd mixture of bundled drug shipments.  The key was the 30 kilos of cocaine, worth 20,000 or so in Tijuana, but there was also just over a half pound of brown heroin, 25 pounds of highly compressed marijuana, and about 24 pounds of crystal meth.  

In all the shipment is worth close to 650,000.  News reports, based on law enforcement briefings, have put it at 1.1 million, which I think is a stretch.  The crystal isn't worth more then 35,000 or so, the marijuana is worth even less, at about 300 a pound X 24.  The heroin is barely 5,000 dollars. You'd have to estimate the cocaine at almost 30,000 to reach 1.1 million.  

Often drug shipments are bundled together, mostly seeing crystal with cocaine, and heroin and crystal together.  Rarely are all three in the same, smaller shipment, even less, 24 pounds of marijuana, and 0.68 pounds of heroin.  There are reasons for this.  This may have been a very specific shipment for an individual or likelier a distribution group, operating in the San Diego area, or anywhere up the corridor, to Los Angeles. 

The individual was not named, and was booked into the county jail, on narcotics charges.  This case is likely linked to an ongoing investigation, and the group tied to the narcotics will be revealed, when the indictment is unsealed.  If the owners were unknown, it would be less likely the driver would have been detained, before he reached his final destination.  Also, it's common for runners to be switched out, along with the car, as they move further north.  The fact it was a storage facility, may lend credence to the theory, that was the drugs final stop however. 

Most major seizures are not accidents, and many are linked to major investigations, that may go unknown to anyone but the authorities and those charged.  Just last week Ricardo Lujan, 42, a San Ysidro native pled guilty to transporting 90 kilos of cocaine, and 68 kilos of crystal, and intending to transfer the shipment to another person.  The load was seized in Oceanside, last November, in very similar circumstances to last nights seizure in Chula Vista.

http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2016/11/san-diego-90-kilos-of-cocaine-seized-in.html 

Sources:  UT San Diego 

Michoacán Journalist Assassinated; Had Previously Denounced Death Threats Against Him

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

On Thursday, journalist Cecilio Pineda Brito was assassinated in Ciudad Altamirano, located in the Tierra Caliente region.  The incident happened around 19:30 hours.

It has been reported that the Cecilio was in a car wash when they opened fire on him.  It should be noted that  Cecilio Poneda worked in the newspaper Despertar del Sur, in the weekly La Voz de Tierra Caliente, as well as collaborating in La Jornada Guerrero and El Universal; he lived in Riva Palacio, Michoacán.

He wrote for the police section.  According to a report, gunmen aboard a motorcycle arrived and fired towards Cecilio who was lying in a hammock in the car wash.

Pineda was seriously injured, however, he died while he was being treated by paramedics who arrived aboard an ambulance.  Previously, through his Facebook account, the journalist had reported that he received death threats from organized crime.

This is not the first time that the reporter for La Voz de Tierra Caliente had suffered from an armed attack.

In September 2015, according to information from the newspaper El Sur de Guerrero, Pineda survived a gunshot attack.

In November of last year, Animal Político released a report from the organization Artículo 19 that indicates that 2016 had been the year with the most murders of journalists in the six years of the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto.

Javier Duarte nominated for Guinness record

Posted by DD from material at Mexico News Daily  and Vercruzanos Info and a file on Duarte I have compiled over a couple of years.

By DD for Borderland Beat

I am number one

Breaking Guinness records is a popular sport among many Mexicans but the latest bid is a little different: former Veracruz governor Javier Duarte has been nominated as the most corrupt person in the world along with the former President of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko.

Ernesto Villanueva, a researcher at the National Anti-corruption Organization, proposed the nomination, comparing Duarte’s corruption to that of the former leaders of Zaire and Senegal.

“I say this seriously, it’s no joke. Fugitive  Javier Duarte has been proposed . . . as the most corrupt person in the world,” he told a press conference.

Villanueva believes Duarte’s win is all but certain to win the disgraceful first place  due to his having left the state of Veracruz on the brink of bankruptcy and seemingly literally sneaked out of the state and gone into hiding. 

Duarte is currently being sought by the Mexican authorities for illegal enrichment and organized crime. The state’s debt increased by almost 1.5 billion pesos during his term as governor between 2010 and 2016.  Efforts to find Duarte have been concentrated on Mexico but authorities are not discounting the possibility he could be elsewhere in the Americas or in Europe or Africa.

The search in Mexico has been focusing not only on Duarte’s alleged network of phantom companies and prestanombres, or front men, but also on well known business people with whom he could have had dealings,

Besides the dubious companies that existed only on paper, the Veracruz politician’s “money trails” have led the authorities to plantations, transportation companies and real estate in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Tabasco.

The Mexican people will laugh about his nomination as the most corrupt person in the world, but  the most damning evidence  which maybe made him the most hated man in Mexico was the finding that distilled water had been substituted for the chemicals needed for chemotherapy treatment of children with cancer at a children's cancer treatment center.
 

Some Doctors at the clinic said that there were at least 8 documented cases where the children might have survived if that had been treated.  They also said that there was no way to know how many children died at home after receiving "treatment" with distilled water.

San Diego: 55 indicted in heroin/meth trafficking crackdown

55 indicted in heroin/meth trafficking case 

Oceanside and Vista have been some of the communities most impacted by the drastic increase of cheap, pure, methamphetamine.  'Operation No Worries', a sprawling look at the drug and gang distribution networks of North County was unsealed today, a total of 10 indictments and 55 defendants.  No Worries is one of close to 10 major trafficking cases originating in the North County area since 2013.  The amount of product seized, and those indicted has grown every year.

San Diego community El Cajon was once considered the meth capital of the country, this was a long time ago, in the early 90's.  It was a different time, innocent would be an ironic word choice, but it was a kind of innocence.  Hells Angels and various independent distributors, manufacturers, and dealers sold meth, but not like this meth.  'Bathtub crank', from the term 'bathtub gin', of Prohibition era was the main kind produced.  In small labs, trailers, hotel rooms, small cook ups, with home made meth were how the product was created.  Some larger groups had bigger labs and more supplies.  

That's all long over. After the decline of the Arellano-Felix brothers, Benja and Ramon, the groups under Javier Francisco Arellano Felix, and his lieutenant, Manuel Arturo Villareal Heredia, diversified into Mexican made meth.  They made in roads in the market.  By 2008 La Familia Michoacana, was making some of the purest meth available, and trafficking through the Tijuana border.  By 2011 the Sinaloa Cartel was making it in superlabs, producing ton quantities weekly, and with their new access to the San Diego corridor, they had transformed the city.  

San Diego is not the meth's destination point.  70% of the meth in the country comes through San Diego. But, there is a large market.  Meth and heroin related deaths have surged by 80% in the last 5 years. Just under half of all male and females arrested have meth in their syste

m.  Prices have plunged. Purity is in the low to high 90's.  Pounds are about 2500 dollars, almost 4 times cheaper then in 2010.

The gangs that snake through North County became the prime distribution points for Sinaloa affiliated trafficking networks, based in Tijuana.  Two operations in 2013, Operation Crystal Haven, and Operation Corridor revealed the extent of Sinaloa's influence, working with street gangs, who in turn answered to the Mexican Mafia, La Eme, inside and outside of prison. 

In 2015, Operation Narco Polo revealed major meth distribution rings, including the Deep Valley Crips, this is a continuation of that trend.  Many of those charged here are gang members or gang affiliates, including the lead defendant, Yadira 'Pini' Villalvazo.  The Vista Home Boys, Varrios Fallbrook Locos, Varrio Carlsbad Locos, Encintas Tortilla Flats, Varrio San Marcos, Escondido Viejo Diablos all have members named in the indictment.  

"Pini" was a Vista Home Boy's associate, and attended Vista High School, she was deported following a federal drug conviction in 2002, and now runs a Sinaloa affiliated trafficking network that supplied pound quantities of heroin to the Vista Home Boys, and other gangs.  The money was trafficked back to Tijuana, and further south to Sinaloa.  "Pini" remains a fugitive in Tijuana.  Her brother Joel Villalvazo was named in the indictment.  He is in custody.  

Today more then 150 members of the Regional Gang Task Force served search and arrest warrants.  8 defendants remain fugitives.  The Regional Gang Task Force includes members of the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, San Diego Sheriff's, Oceanside Police Department, Bureau Of Prisons, ATF, San Diego District Attorney's Office, U.S Marshals, among others. 

The DOJ also assisted with their Office of Enforcement Operations Electronic Surveillance Unit.  The case included wiretap intercepts and extensive surveillance, over the course of a year long investigation.  The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, OCDETF, was involved also.  

It's estimated these networks supplied 25% of the heroin and meth in North County.  One of the distribution cells under Jorge Enrique Jara Cervantes, mailed meth to Tennessee and Alabama.  'Pini's cell sent pounds of heroin to Kingsman, Arizona.  

The defendants are charged with assorted drug and money laundering conspiracy charges, and firearms violations.  Dozens of which were seized during the course of the investigation.  

List of Defendants and Charges: 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/fifty-five-defendants-charged-massive-crackdown-north-county-heroin-methamphetamine-and

Sources: US Attorney's Office, Southern District of California.  

Bloody war for power in Sinaloa

After a series of internal fights, experts believe that the "New Generation Jalisco Cartel" will displace them all; After the extradition of "El Chapo", there is a power vacuum, only "El Mayo" remains, they say.

Made in Sinaloa. It is the seal of the main Mexican drug traffickers founders of the organization that bears the same name and has survived more than two decades of fighting and betrayals.

Although it was created by relatives and real good friendships, which emerged for more than 27 years ago, today the Sinaloa Cartel is fragmented and in dispute. If the internal problem is not resolved, the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) could be the organization that will take control, warn the experts on the issue.

Antonio Mazzitelli, regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), says that El Chapo Guzmán's organization has become the most powerful in the world.

"With the recapture and extradition of El Chapo to the US, only one leadership remains there, the one of Ismael El Mayo Zambada, which means there is a power vacuum."

Doctor Mireles

 Doctor Mireles has not died.  I took the post down for now.  

That said .... my dear friend is very ill, and the authorities are not getting him treatment for his heart. His heart has stopped several times in the past few months.  An he has developed a severe heart arrhythmia The heart condition is from his severe diabetes and lack of medical attention.  Authorities withheld medication and food from him for periods of time causing damage.  He also suffered two falls and sustained a severe spinal injury, re-injuring his spinal injury from the airplane crash.

these are his words recently:

"In every minute I have up to four times dysrhythmia, that is, my heart  stops beating, for some time I have denounced that the authorities have  harassed me in many ways and now the coronary blockage  is from the lack of adequate professional attention that I need due to the cardiac problem that I suffer."

If there is substantiated reports we will post, otherwise lets pray he lives until Pena is out of office when he will have a good chance of being released in a new administration.  Maybe if enough public pressure is applied, authorities will at least get him the medical attention he desperately needs.

Chivis

OPINION: Mireles Is Dead! (To The Media)

Father Gregorio López Gerónimo | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

My primary intention when I first translated the article wasn’t to create misinformation or write a “fake news” piece or “clickbait” as other websites have done and as I have been accused of.  I know I should’ve added a disclaimer the first time I published this piece but I forgot to and I posted it in a hurry and for that, I apologize.  I was hoping that readers would read the article and make sense of the metaphors Father Goyo was alluding to. - V

 

Today, February 24, 2017, four years after the surgeon, in the repletion of violence and impunity, he left his practice and joined the men and women who decided to leave their anonymity and cowardice to be the voice of those “without voice”; after his heroic deed, José Manuel Mireles Valverde is dead and nothing could be expected from the criminal government of Enrique Peña Nieto, who has murdered him as he did with the 43 young men of Ayotzinapa, and as with other innocents in Tatlaya, Tanuhato y Apatzingán.

Only a state crime of such magnitude is possible, when the government is usurped by those who do not possess the slightest intuition of law, justice, dignity, or human rights.  Foolishness is abused when someone is condemned to life imprisonment when that person is recognized for his innocence and courage, leaving in exchange seven free and covered up former governors in payment for political favors and who have plunged 39 million inhabitants, from the states that they have stolen from, into misery.

An outrage is also committed when the privileges of house arrest is granted to Elba Esther Gordillo, who today has 20 million children falling behind in education; as well as when in Michoacán, it releases another scum of the same party of the institutionalized corruption for seven thousand pesos.

For the current administration, it is not a crime to steal education and the future of a generation, to wring out jobs and the livelihood of a people, nor to collaborate with criminal organizations in the disappearance of more than three thousand Michoacanos.  However, it takes a weapon, to defend itself in a failed state, where there was no law, no justice, and no rule of law; only corruption, impunity, kidnappings, uprisings, and deaths.

Four years after the historic February 24, 2013, Mireles has died for defending life.  His agony began on June 27, 2014, when Alfredo Castillo took him to jail so that he wouldn’t interfere with the Port of Lázaro Cárdenas, where the juicy businesses of the dominant cartel are.  From that moment, Mireles began to be veiled by the Mexican people; unaware that that’s how it was done while he reviewed the media obituary in the police sections of the newspapers.

Gente de la Tia Juana report: Readjustment in Nayarit

Original article available at Gente de la Tia Juana
Translated by El Wachito
Follow Borderland beat on Instagram 

After the execution of the Mazatlecos bosses of the plaza, H2 and his nephew H9, their closest sicarios have now organized themselves under the command of "El Mencho".

The new boss of the plaza is Martin de la Zapata, along with Luis Francisco Osuna Ontiveros, alias "La Thalia", both were raised in Mazatlan.


Martin was a gunman of "El Chapo" Guzman when he was detained in April 5th of 2011, in Lomas of Mazatlan, Sinaloa, on board two armored SUV's and an arsenal of weapons. Back then, his direct boss was "El Micky", "M17" or "666", brothers of "El Thalia".

Mexico: Murders up by a third following Guzman's extradition

Posted by DD from materials BBC and Mexico News Daily

By DD for Borderland Beat

The Mexican authorities had predicted a surge in violence following Guzman's extradition and promised to deploy extra troops.   This time the Mexican government was correct in their predictions.

Official figures from Mexico show that the number of homicides in the entire country was higher by a third in January compared to the same month of 2016.  

And their crystal ball probably told them it would be a worse increase in the areas where the Sinaloa Cartel were active or had a presence.  They were right on the money there also. 

In the states of Baja California, Chihuahua and Guzman's native Sinaloa, homicides were up by 50% in January.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly are due to meet Mexico's Foreign Secretary, Luis Videgaray, in Mexico City on Thursday. Feb. 23.  

The talks are expected to focus on migration and the wall the US intends to build along its southern border.

But they are also due to discuss security and ways of curbing the power of Mexico's drug trafficking gangs.  They will have a lot to talk about - the successes and failures Mexico has had.

Tijuana: In midst of relentless violence, human head found on Avenida Internacional

Human head found on Avenida Internacional

As violence grips the city, another severed head was found on Avenida Internacional this afternoon, shutting down traffic and generating a large mobilization of police.  A suitcase, found in front of the PRI offices, contained a severed human head.  There is no reports on the victim, or the rest of his limbs, or torso.  On Saturday, another body was found stuffed in a suitcase, on Pacifica Boulevard.

In a grim bit of irony, the photo displaying the scene, shows a traffic sign for Revolucion looming above a decapitated head, cut with a machete, or strong knife, pressed into the neck until it cuts through the bones and veins, blood spurting from the wounds.  Revolucion, where Tijuana has seen a resurgence in recent years, as locals and US citizens cross to party and socialize in bars and clubs, which are higher end, and lower in price then the ones across the border. 

Revolucion also includes Zona Norte where bands of retails cells, including families, have waged a bloody war for control, since the execution of Luis Manuel Toscano, El Mono, a Colima native, who maintained power for years, despite numerous arrests.  Elements of Los Aquiles, and Los Toscanos, and the CTNG vie for control of the lucrative area.  Public executions, bodies and mantas dropped off have become a normal part of life in the area.  

Near pure, very cheap crystal, and highly cut cocaine are sold in wraps in La Zona, which fuel the 24 hour party scene of the nightclubs and Zona De Tolerencia, including clubs like Hong Kong.  The retail business used to be the gringos, and still maintains a market share, but the crystal meth has become a local business, infecting the neighborhoods, with venereal disease like spreading.  

Violence has flowed through the city, blood and rain soaked streets, on the heels of a storm, over the last week.  There were 4 attacks just tonight.  A man shot in Zona Rio days ago.  Another killed in a bar, La Cueva De Peludo.  A man found entambado, stuffed in a grey trash can, on Calle Coahuila.  A severed human leg tossed onto the street in Zona Centro, Cinco De Mayo.  A man's body dropped off, in Colonia Matamoros, a rope around his neck, his body barely recognizable, burnt black all over, charred skin flicking off the corpse.

Sources: AFN Tijuana 

Michoacán: Shootout Leaves 8 Dead

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

Eight people were found dead after two groups of organized crime clashed with each other.

The shootout took place on Tuesday in the municipality of Múgica with the dead bodies of six people identified as Miguel C., Crisóforo M., Narciso P., Carlos I., Saúl I. and Moisés G., who were inhabitants of Múgica and La Piedad.

Later, on Wednesday, February 22, 2017, two other shot up bodies were found while another man was arrested in a hospital in Apatzingán where he was being treated for a gunshot wound in his leg.  The man identified as Uriel G., also had other bruises.  It is thought that he also participated in the shooting.