Tag Archives: Sinaloa

‘El Chapo’ trial reveals drug lord’s love life, business dealings

Accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and his wife Emma Coronel Aispuro looks on in this courtroom sketch, during closing arguments at his trial in Brooklyn federal court in New York City, U.S., January 31, 2019. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

By Brendan Pierson and Daina Beth Solomon

(Reuters) – On a typical day, Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman would wake at noon and make calls while strolling under the trees in the mountains of his native Sinaloa state, where he was in hiding, a witness recently testified at the kingpin’s trial.

The infamous gangster’s personal life and business dealings have gone on public display since mid-November at a courthouse in New York, where Guzman faces 10 criminal counts and a possible life sentence.

The jury will begin deliberations on Monday, after attorneys for the prosecution and defense gave closing statements this week.

U.S. prosecutors, who say Guzman amassed a $14 billion fortune through bribery, murder and drug smuggling, supported their case by calling to the stand Guzman’s former associates, including one who says she was his lover and another whose brother was among his top allies, as well as law enforcement officers.

“Do not let him escape responsibility,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg told jurors on Wednesday, standing at a table displaying AK-47 rifles and bricks of cocaine as evidence.

Defense lawyers claim the 61-year-old Guzman, whose nickname means “Shorty,” was set up as a scapegoat. They attacked the credibility of witnesses, many of whom have extensive criminal histories.

Here are some of the most colorful tales from recent weeks in the courtroom:

HIS OWN WORDS

** Guzman’s voice was “sing-songy” with a “nasally undertone,” said FBI agent Steven Marston. In one recorded call, Guzman tells an associate, “Don’t be so harsh… take it easy with the police.” The partner responds: “You taught us to be a wolf.”

** Text messages between Guzman and his wife, Emma Coronel, often turned to family matters. “Our Kiki is fearless,” Guzman wrote in one, referring to one of their daughters. “I’m going to give her an AK-47 so she can hang with me.”

** After Coronel said she saw a suspicious car, Guzman wrote to her, “You go ahead and lead a normal life. That’s it.” Later he reminds her: “Make sure you delete everything after we’re done chatting.”

** In one of the trial’s final days, Guzman told the judge he would not testify in his own defense. The same day, he grinned broadly at audience member Alejandro Edda, the Mexican actor who plays Guzman in the Netflix television drama “Narcos.”

LOVERS AND BUSINESS

** Multiple “wives” visited Guzman when he was hiding in Sinaloa, said Alex Cifuentes, a former close partner.

** Lucero Sanchez Lopez, a former Mexican lawmaker, told jurors she once had a romantic relationship with Guzman, who sent her to buy and ship marijuana. “I didn’t want for him to mistrust me because I thought he could also hurt me,” she said. “I was confused about my own feelings over him. Sometimes I loved him and sometimes I didn’t.”

** Agustina Cabanillas, a partner of Guzman who called him “love,” set up drug deals by passing information between Guzman and others. In one message, Cabinillas called Guzman a “jerk” who was trying to spy on her. “Guess what? I’m smarter than him,” she wrote.

HIGH LEVELS OF CORRUPTION

** Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel paid bribes, some in the millions of dollars, to Mexican officials at every level, said Jesus Zambada, the brother of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who worked alongside El Chapo and is still at large.

** Beneficiaries included a high-ranking police official who fed Guzman information on police activities “every day,” said Miguel Angel Martinez, a former cartel manager.

** Guzman once paid $100 million to former President Enrique Pena Nieto, Cifuentes said. Pena Nieto has denied taking any bribes.

** When imprisoned in Mexico in 2016, Guzman bribed a national prison official $2 million to be transferred to a different facility, but the move was unsuccessful.

MURDER

** After a rival cartel member declined to shake Guzman’s hand, he ordered the man killed, fueling a war between the cartels, Zambada said.

** When assassins reporting to Guzman killed a police official who worked for a rival, Zambada said, they lured him out of his house by pretending they had hit his son with a car.

** Guzman ordered Cifuentes to kill the cartel’s communications expert after learning he was cooperating with the FBI. But Cifuentes said he was unable to carry out the hit because he did not know the man’s last name.

** When Damazo Lopez Nunez, a top lieutenant to Guzman, told his boss that a Mexican mayor wanted them to “remove” a troublesome police officer, Guzman told him they should do her the favor because the mayor was a favorite for an upcoming state election, Lopez testified. He said Guzman told him to make the killing look like revenge from a gang member.

** Lopez also said Guzman’s sons killed a prominent reporter in Sinaloa because he published an article about cartel infighting against their wishes.

** One of Guzman’s former bodyguards, Isaias Valdez Rios, said he watched his boss personally kill three rival cartel members. Guzman shot one of them and ordered his underlings to bury the man while he was gasping for air. On another occasion, Guzman tortured two men for hours before shooting them each in the head and ordering their bodies tossed into a flaming pit.

SAFE HOUSES AND ESCAPES

** For a period of Guzman’s time as a fugitive in Sinaloa, in northern Mexico, his posse lived in “humble pine huts” with tinted windows, satellite televisions and washer-dryers, Cifuentes said. About 50 guards formed three rings around the homes to keep watch.

** Guzman escaped into a tunnel hidden beneath a bathtub when U.S. agents raided one of his homes in 2014, said Sanchez, his lover. She followed Guzman, who was completely naked, into the passage, feeling water trickle down her legs. “It was very dark and I was very scared,” she said.

** Guzman’s wife helped her husband tunnel out of a Mexican prison in 2015 by passing messages to his associates, Lopez testified. She unsuccessfully tried to help him duplicate the escape when he was captured the next year.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Additional reporting and writing by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Editing by Tom Brown and Dan Grebler)

‘Not enough room’: migrant flows strain Mexican border shelters

Migrants, part of a caravan traveling from Central America en route to the United States, wait to hitchhike after resting in a makeshift camp in Juan Rodriguez Clara, Mexico, November 13, 2018. Picture taken November 13, 2018. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

By Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) – The arrival in the Mexican border city of Tijuana of the first few hundred travelers from migrant caravans is stretching to the limit shelters already overflowing with other people, and sparking signs of friction among the population.

Lugging heavy bundles and small children, an unprecedented caravan of thousands of mostly Honduran migrants set off for the United States in mid-October, many of them fleeing violence and poverty at home. Two other copycat groups of mainly El Salvadorans followed behind.

U.S. President Donald Trump has declared the caravans an unwelcome “invasion,” and threatened to close down the Mexico-U.S. border to keep them out, ordering some 7,000 troops to reinforce the frontier, including in Tijuana with barbed wire.

It has not stopped people trying to reach the border, including those from the caravans, others traveling from Central America independently, and Mexicans fleeing violence in cartel-plagued states.

Jose Maria Garcia, director of the Juventud 2000 migrant shelter, said he had been warning authorities since the Honduran caravan set out that migrant refuges were already operating at capacity in the border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali.

“People are still arriving, but we’re not prepared to receive them,” Garcia told Reuters. He said he believes the incoming caravans would be the largest number of migrants to arrive in the city in such a short time in recent memory.

The buildup in Tijuana will be a test of tougher asylum rules introduced by Trump, which some experts believe will push more people to try to cross illegally. Few of the 20 migrants interviewed by Reuters were aware of the new rules.

Tijuana has a history of absorbing visitors, including Chinese immigrants in the 19th century, a large American population and Haitians who settled in the city south of San Diego in 2016 after failing to cross the U.S. border.

As many as 1,000 people who broke away from the first caravan have reached Tijuana in the last few days, with a similar number expected later this week. Thousands more could soon follow as the main body of the caravans arrive.

Almost 3,000 people – many of them Mexicans – are now waiting in migrant shelters to request asylum alongside hundreds of Central Americans, said Cesar Palencia, head of the Tijuana city government’s migrant outreach team.

U.S. border officials process about 75 to 100 asylum claims a day, so it could be a month before new arrivals are seen, said Pedro Rios, of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that works with migrants.

Of the 14 migrant shelters on the 2,000-mile (3,200 km)Mexico-U.S. border, 10 are totally overcrowded, Palencia said. Dozens of arrivals from the caravan camped on the beach on Tuesday night.

“People have received us kindly, but they say there’s not enough room for everyone, so we decided to spend the night on the beach,” said a Honduran woman in Tijuana as she washed her face in a public bathroom, asking to remain anonymous.

“It was a terrible night for me and my children.”

The bulk of the group that formed after the Honduran caravan began entering Mexico over three weeks ago is now moving up the Pacific northwest coast through the state of Sinaloa, made up of between 4,000 and 5,000 people, authorities say.

FRICTIONS

The Mexican government has urged the migrants to register for asylum in Mexico, or risk deportation. The incoming government of President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed to provide jobs and visas to the Central Americans.

That message has not been popular with all Mexicans, many of whom fear for their own futures.

“We also need help,” said Olga Cruz from the western state of Michoacan, who had come to Tijuana to seek asylum in the United States with her three children.

“Not a day goes by (in Michoacan) without somebody being killed, and I don’t want my children growing up like this,” she said. “But if the government only focuses on helping (Central Americans) they leave nothing for us,” she added.

On Monday, a group of about 80 mainly LGBT people who split from the migrant caravan moved into a building in a wealthy area of Tijuana. Residents shouted at them to leave and demanded that local authorities take steps to eject them.

(Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Dave Graham and Bill Berkrot)