Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Mexico Sinaloa cartel boss wife has twins in US, then returns to Mexico, kids are now US citizens. Sinaloa is favored cartel

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A 2010 NPR study found Mexico's President Calderon favors the Sinaloa cartel, which of course Calderon denies.

9/27/11, "Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman's wife has twins in US," BBC

"The wife of Mexico's most wanted drug baron, Joaquin Guzman, has given birth to twin girls at a hospital in the US.

Emma Coronel had her daughters at Antelope Valley Hospital in northern Los Angeles on 15 August, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman is the head of Mexico's most powerful drug-trafficking gang,

  • the Sinaloa cartel.

Ms Coronel, a former beauty queen who holds US citizenship, returned to Mexico after the twins were born.

By being born in California, the children will also have US citizenship.

Birth certificates listed 22-year-old Ms Coronel as the mother of the girls, but the spaces for the father's name were left blank, said the LA Times.

US law enforcement officials, who tracked her movements even before she travelled to the hospital in Lancaster in mid-July,

  • said she was not arrested because there were no charges against her."...
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5/19/10, "Mexico Seems To Favor Sinaloa Cartel In Drug War," NPR

"An NPR News investigation has found strong evidence of collusion between elements of the Mexican army and the Sinaloa cartel in the violent border city of Juarez.

Dozens of interviews with current and former law enforcement agents, organized crime experts, elected representatives, and victims of violence suggest that the Sinaloans depend on bribes to top government officials to help their leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, elude capture, expand his empire and keep his operatives out of jail.

"I work in the police and because of this I know the government is protecting Chapo Guzman. It's hitting all the cartels but Chapo," said Luis Arturo Perez Torres, 25, until recently a federal police officer stationed in a suburb of Mexico City.

Guzman is the world's most wanted drug lord. His home base is the Pacific coastal state of Sinaloa, known as Mexico's "Sicily." It's the premier narco-state, with a long coastline for smuggling cocaine from South America, and rugged mountains to hide cannabis crops.

Manuel Clouthier, a congressman from Sinaloa state and a member of Calderon's political party, is deeply frustrated by his country's drug war. He says drug-related murders average 200 a month in his state.

"The Calderon government has been fighting organized crime in many parts of the republic, but has not touched Sinaloa," said Clouthier. "I know this. I'm Sinaloan. My family lives in Sinaloa. It is like we're trimming the branches of a tree, when we should be tearing it out by the roots."

Asked if the government is going soft on the country's biggest drug cartel, Clouthier responds, choosing his words carefully. "I believe that much of the problem of not combating a certain cartel in a certain state has much to do with corruption and lack of will," he said.

On Tuesday, reporters asked a senior White House official, in light of Washington's large package of security aid to Mexico, if Calderon's government is protecting Chapo Guzman. The U.S. is giving $1.3 billion in military and judicial aid to Mexico for its drug war, as Mexican drug cartels are major suppliers to the illicit U.S. narcotics trade.

The Obama administration official said the president has a long-term commitment to Calderon's struggle against the cartels. He mentioned that Mexico has arrested and extradited important cartel figures in recent months.

In an effort to find out whether federal forces are favoring the Sinaloa cartel, NPR analyzed thousands of news releases on the federal attorney general's website announcing arrests for organized crime, weapons and drug offenses. The information surveyed spanned from the day Calderon assumed the presidency in December 2006 until last week.

NPR created a database and screened the information for every person the government arrested, prosecuted or sentenced who was associated with one of the seven major drug cartels.

The analysis showed that the Mexican government crackdown has not hit the Sinaloans as hard as it has other cartels.

Nationwide, 44 percent of all cartel defendants are with the Zetas and Gulf cartels. Only 12 percent of the defendants are with the Sinaloa cartel. The numbers contradict the Mexican government, which claims it has arrested twice the percentage of Sinaloa gang members....

"A cartel cannot flourish at their level without civil and military protection at the highest levels," said Jorge Carrasco, who covers organized crime for the respected Mexican newsmagazine Proceso. The magazine recently put Guzman on the cover with the headline, "The Untouchable."

The Sinaloans are widely regarded as the most sophisticated cartel in transportation, intelligence gathering and bribery.

A few examples:

— Last year, Proceso reported on how a Sinaloan faction controlled several airports around the country through a network of corrupt federal agents. The faction even had its own hangar at the international airport in Mexico City.

— Last week, the Mexican newspaper Reforma described how the Sinaloans had thoroughly infiltrated the federal police. The drug gang knew where the cops were being sent next and how many buses would carry them. The newspaper added that a navy investigation uncovered that the

  • Sinaloans controlled eight seaports for cocaine smuggling from South America.

A 2007 army intelligence report obtained by The Wall Street Journal and shared with NPR describes how Guzman would visit his marijuana ranch in Sinaloa "in caravans of six vehicles, with the protection of the Mexican army.""...

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(NEEDLESS TO SAY Calderon and his government deny they have 'a favorite.')

8/23/11, "Do U.S., Mexican officials favor one cartel over another?" McClatchy

"Public security analysts say a view has spread among some Mexicans that President Felipe Calderon is soft on the Sinaloa Cartel. And now a court filing by an accused kingpin in U.S. federal court has suggested that the Obama administration, too, is negotiating with the Sinaloa Cartel even as it ratchets up pressure on the rival Zetas.

Experts in Mexico City and Washington say the issue is as much about public opinion in the run-up to Mexico's 2012 presidential elections as it is about efforts to reduce the violence that's killed some 40,000 people in Mexico since 2006."...


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