[HN Gopher] Mexico's former public security head convicted by U....
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Mexico's former public security head convicted by U.S. of taking
cartel bribes
Author : xrd
Score : 92 points
Date : 2023-02-22 20:39 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| l3mure wrote:
| > A former smuggler said Garcia Luna shared a document containing
| U.S. law enforcement information about a 2007 seized cocaine
| shipment, the AP reported.
|
| NPR really burying the lede here.
|
| [1]
|
| > But the story that most got me was when El Grande, or Sergio
| Villarreal Barragan, described how the traffickers got their
| seized cocaine back. He was talking about Mexico's biggest ever
| cocaine haul, when the marines took down 23 tons off a ship from
| Colombia in the port of Manzanillo in 2007. I covered it at the
| time and it was a big deal, proof that President Felipe Calderon,
| the boss of Garcia Luna, was taking on the cartels. The New York
| Times sent a correspondent to watch it burn, and he described the
| "pomp and ceremony" as the white cocaine morphed into a black
| cloud.
|
| > But it was all a lie, according to El Grande. "We exchange fake
| drugs for the good drugs," he told the court. "At a ranch where
| we trained our hit men, we created a small factory so that we
| could develop the bricks...We made a mixture of sugar and flour
| so that we could compress them. They were actually mixed with
| acetone and ether. And we had them dry out. Once they were dried,
| we would cover them with varnish so that they would look shiny.
| And we would package them as any other cocaine brick. And that's
| how we did it...We transferred them to the Manzanillo port, and I
| delivered them."
|
| > You caught speculations that cartels were pulling such stunts.
| But to hear it told in a U.S. federal court really drives it
| home. The destruction of drugs was a simulation. You could not
| trust what you saw with your own eyes. The Mexican government, or
| elements of it, had created a whole simulation it was fighting a
| war on cartels when really it was working with them.
|
| [1] https://ioangrillo.substack.com/p/so-is-mexico-a-narco-state
|
| (h/t https://twitter.com/ElParece/status/1628414077461573634)
| serf wrote:
| >We made a mixture of sugar and flour so that we could compress
| them. They were actually mixed with acetone and ether. And we
| had them dry out. Once they were dried, we would cover them
| with varnish so that they would look shiny.
|
| that sounds like one terrible fire to be anywhere near.
| viscanti wrote:
| > that sounds like one terrible fire to be anywhere near.
|
| You think you're free basing smoke from a mountain of burning
| cocaine bricks and you end up inhaling something dangerous
| instead. Sounds like a big problem.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Flower (and I guess sugar) can be explosive like a
| rudimentary fuel bomb. It has to be aerated first. If it's
| tightly packed it'll just smolder. If it's aerated enough a
| shockwave will go through and oxidize it all at once. It'll
| be one hell of an explosion. With cocaine you could
| probably be safe by standing up wind of the burn.
| randombits0 wrote:
| So how can the US prosecute crimes committed in other countries?
| loeg wrote:
| If you ever interact with the US banking system, or have any
| impact on US persons or businesses, the US views itself as
| having jurisdiction.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| You'll shit bricks when you read about the undercover Chinese
| police stations then...
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/04/world/china-overseas-
| poli...
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| There's a huge difference between the US having an
| international network of law enforcement co-operation (even
| if we do have boots on the ground doing investigative work)
| and the Chinese Police Stations going out and strongarming
| people individually.
|
| Countries are supposed to have a monopoly on the use of
| force within their borders. Lending it out is good
| international relations. Not that it's never acceptable to
| violate that - The Takedown of Bin Laden was a law
| enforcement action taken overseas by the US military in a
| country that was not informed until after it was on it's
| way out.
| loeg wrote:
| I don't see how this crude remark is responsive to my
| comment.
| danny_taco wrote:
| The concept is called extraterritorial jurisdiction, and it is
| used to do these types of prosecutions.
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| ecommerceguy wrote:
| Makes me wonder if any factions of the US government is working
| in cahoots with cartels.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| They definitely are. Drugs are not teleported to American
| consumers when they reach the border, there has to be an
| equally corrupt distribution structure in the American side,
| and that only works involving corrupt officers. A lot of money
| attracts a lot of scum, as we say in Mexico, "con dinero baila
| el perro".
|
| There have been instances of law enforcement trafficking arms
| to the cartels, because "we're going to track the arms and
| arrest them":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_gunwalking_scandal
| foogazi wrote:
| When was the last time the Border Patrol / DEA / Coast Guard
| got into a shoot out with drug gangs ?
| [deleted]
| testTED wrote:
| Previous Mexican Presidents have been outed as CIA assets.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's certainly more of a situation where they play both
| sides. Do things for the cartels and the CIA, less of a
| playing your enemies against each other and more of doing the
| minimum to survive.
| testTED wrote:
| Nobody seemed to be playing the blame game, that just
| devolves into emotional appeals.
|
| Most important to highlight the systemic structure of these
| problems.
| jonathanlb wrote:
| I was curious which Presidents were CIA assets, and it's
| three (that we know of):
|
| - Adolfo Lopez Mateos (1958-1964)
|
| - Gustavo Diaz Ordaz (1964-1970)
|
| - Luis Echeverria (1970-1976)
|
| > The declassified U.S. documents reveal CIA recruitment of
| agents within the upper echelons of the Mexican government
| between 1956 and 1969. The informants used in this secret
| program included President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz and future
| President Luis Echeverria. The documents detail the
| relationships cultivated between senior CIA officers, such as
| chief of station Winston Scott, and Mexican government
| officials through a secret spy network code-named "LITEMPO."
| Operating out of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, Scott used
| the LITEMPO project to provide "an unofficial channel for the
| exchange of selected sensitive political information which
| each government wanted the other to receive but not through
| public protocol exchanges."
|
| https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB204/
| javier123454321 wrote:
| Just logically, if you think of the scale that the Cartels are
| working in, there is a missing link in the narrative here.
| Mexican cartels are completely intertwined with the Mexican
| government. This is well known in Mexico, as is well known that
| the US is the greatest consumer of these substances.
|
| Organizations at this scale have infrastructure that rivals a
| multi-national corporations. But in our collective imaginary,
| we never talk about who receives it in the US. The story goes
| cartels -> ??? -> small to medium street dealers. At the scale
| of this problem, we are simply dealing with a level of
| sophistication that requires connections in VERY high places of
| the US government.
| unix_fan wrote:
| That's not really a mystery. The Latin kings, MS 13, and
| other large, Hispanic gangs are the key to bringing drugs
| into the US.
| foogazi wrote:
| All the mexican cartels have known leadership with names
| and faces - who are the leaders of the gangs you mention ?
|
| The US has cameras everywhere - what do they look like ?
| Where do they live ?
| DFHippie wrote:
| The US doesn't have cameras everywhere. I think you're
| thinking of the UK.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| > The story goes cartels -> ??? -> small to medium street
| dealers
|
| The "???" is not a mystery. It's well known that they work
| with the many large gang groups in the USA.
| l3mure wrote:
| https://narco.news/articles/the-shadow-war
|
| https://narco.news/articles/funny-games
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I'd say it's a firm "probably": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A
| llegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi....
| Panoramix wrote:
| Look no further at all the drug-lord's bank accounts and how
| they are not frozen.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| I don't think those accounts are in anyone's name.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| you wonder if anyone working in the US government is human?
| danny_taco wrote:
| I've worked for the US government and I can tell you we all
| are humans.
| danielfoster wrote:
| It's astonishing that a conviction was reached on witness
| testimony alone. There was no physical evidence or video-- just
| testimony from other drug smugglers who obviously wanted good
| deals themselves.
|
| I don't doubt the stories of the witnesses. It is just surprising
| to see a conviction on this alone.
| foogazi wrote:
| Leading up to the verdict this was surprising to me too
|
| Far fetched testimony from those that have nothing to lose -
| that even contradicted their previous testimony
| vuln wrote:
| >It is just surprising to see a conviction on this alone.
|
| Maybe someone got a promotion out of it? Maybe? Haha. I'm sure
| someone was promoted.
| pstuart wrote:
| How can we expect anyone in power in these cartel countries to be
| free of corruption. They all have a choice of payment, in silver
| or lead --
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=plata%20o%20...
|
| The only sane answer is to legalize, _regulate_ , and tax _all_
| drugs. This needs to be followed by treating drug abuse
| /addiction as a health issue (not criminal).
| DFHippie wrote:
| Perhaps, but that isn't a complete solution. I watched smuggled
| cigarettes being transferred from one semi to another when I
| was hitching around Spain back in the 90s (the Spanish guy
| driving the car told me this is what I was seeing). There was
| profit in crime still because there was profit in dodging the
| tax.
| xrd wrote:
| It's interesting, that's what happened in Portland, right?
|
| It is really curious to think about the cartels as large
| startups. If you take that leap, it would be logical that they
| would be violently opposed to decriminalization. Like competing
| gangs would be killing people, and the cartels would be doing
| anything they can to convince the local government to redact
| that decision.
|
| I'm not saying I've got any evidence that cartels are
| committing crimes in places where drugs are legalized to change
| laws, but it is interesting that Portland crime has increased a
| lot. Many people will say that's because of liberal
| politicians. But there is other information that says that more
| policing almost never reduces crime directly. And the corollary
| is that reducing police, either by defunding or attrition,
| wouldn't cause increases in crime, right?
|
| If anyone has perspectives on what Portland did wrong, I'm
| interested in hearing it. It is really bizarre to me as a
| native Portlander that crime seems so excessive. I never felt
| unsafe in the prior forty years and things seem very different
| now. The only two big differences were the endless protests
| against police brutality and the legalization of drugs. Why did
| this crime surge increase so much in Portland?
| miguelazo wrote:
| Just another reminder of the disaster that previous presidents
| left for AMLO. Mexico's security situation has steadily
| deteriorated since Vicente Fox tried to impress his buddy GWB by
| pursuing the idiotic "kingpin strategy" of the gringos.
| melling wrote:
| This really isn't a HN story.
|
| However, the American consumer funding both sides on the war on
| drugs for half a century seems a bit insane.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
| ProAm wrote:
| Wait until you see all our other wars. America is a war faring
| country. The economy is dependent on them being at war. It's
| political fodder. Economic necessity. If there is always a war
| on drugs at the border, we'll always fund the departments to go
| fight it.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| And not only that, the American pressure for other states to do
| the same makes the problem bigger instead of smaller. It should
| be evident that it doesn't work, because the same system
| creates opportunities: when they take a drug dealer, another
| one pops out in their place, when they make it harder to
| traffic heroin, opiates or other drugs take its place.
|
| I certainly don't want hard drugs to run unchecked in Mexico,
| where I live, but fostering a black market is not the solution
| either.
| lefstathiou wrote:
| So what do you believe is the solution that prevents hard
| drugs from running "unchecked" while not fostering a black
| market? "Education" about how bad drugs are for you?
| miguelazo wrote:
| Start with not forcing producer countries into disastrous
| trade agreements that upend their labor markets (especially
| in agriculture) and food sovereignty.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| How are they forced? Would they be better off if they
| didn't sell to the US?
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(page generated 2023-02-22 23:01 UTC)