Elba Esther Gordillo – The Expert Take

By Duncan Wood, 2/27/2012

La jugada del experto-The Expert Take in Spanish

Yesterday’s PGR arrest of Elba Esther Gordillo on charges of embezzlement marks a bold step forward by the Pena Nieto administration to establish its authority and legitimacy in the eyes of the Mexican public, and to send a message to Mexico’s most powerful unions. The arrest comes after the successful passage of an education reform bill through Congress, earning the government plaudits from international observers, who saw it as a much-needed attack on the power of the teachers union, the SNTE, but receiving a skeptical response from many national critics who believed that the government would not follow through with implementation of the new laws. This new development destroys those doubts about the seriousness of the Pena Nieto government to take on the union, and to mobilize the sovereign power of the state against vested interests.

Three Assistant Attorneys are announced [in Spanish]

El Universal, 12/06/2012

President Enrique Peña Nieto appointed three new assistant attorneys that will join the PGR run by Jesús Murillo Karam and emphasizes the inclusion of people close to the president and a  PAN politician.

The three appointees are Alfredo Castillo Cervantes, Ricardo Francisco García Cervantes, and Mariana Benítez.

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5 Things You Didn’t Know About Operation Fast and Furious

ABC News, 9/30/12

The U.S. government’s botched Fast and Furious gun-trafficking operation left a trail of bullets and bodies in Mexico. In a special investigation by Univision News, which aired Sunday night, several new revelations came to light…

Andrew Selee, vice president for programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. says the Mexican government was aware of the gun-walking, in spite of releasing a statement saying they were not.

William Newell, the special agent in charge of ATF’s Phoenix field division and one of the supervisors of Fast and Furious, told Univision, via his attorney, that the Procuraduria General De La Republica (PGR) in Mexico was certainly aware of the operation.

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Fight to the Death Among the Zetas [in Spanish]

El Pais, 9/16/12

The PGR has formally announced that the Zetas have in fact split and are warring among themselves.  They have been announcing the split (each side accusing the other of being disloyal) in narcomantas and narcocorridos so the break has been expected for some time.  Various analysts who study Mexico have predicted that the break will bring more violence.

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Tomás Yarrington will be arrested [in Spanish]

Animal Politico, 8/29/12

A federal judge ordered the arrest of the ex-governor of Tamaulipas, Tomás Yarrington, on charges of laundering money for the Gulf Cartel.  Apparently the accusations against him have been verified by three different protected witnesses.  The “Yarrington case” started in May when a federal Attorney Generals Office in the U.S. accused Yarrington of becoming governor by using illicit drug proceeds, which he also invested in Texas, which led to them seizing his properties.

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PGR: Micro-trafficking is a source of violence [in Spanish]

El Universal, 7/24/12

According to Attorney General Marisela Morales, micro-trafficking is a major source of violence in Mexico as groups fight over local drug trafficking corners.  She said this while inaugurating the new Strategic Operation Center [COE por sus siglas en Español]  in Puebla.   The Center will fight local trafficking and drug addiction, and its creation was accomplished through coordination between the federal and local government.

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Mexico Not Doing Enough to Seize Drug Assets: Govt Study

InSight Crime, 6/25/12

According to a study by Mexico’s lower house of Congress, the authorities are failing to seize assets linked to organized crime, despite a recent law intended to streamline the process.

The study found that between 2010 and 2011, only three cases involving the seizure of assets resulted in a ruling favorable to the government. Last year the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) initiated 10 cases involving the seizure of property or other goods linked to organized crime, but so far 2012 hasn’t seen any new cases.

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USA seeks Yarrington, asks help from Mexican government [In Spanish]

La Jornada, 5/24/2012

The U.S. government asked the Office of the Attorney-General of Mexico (PGR) for help with finding and  giving Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, former governor of Tamaulipas, a legal citation with the purpose of testifying against Texan authorities that wish to confiscate several properties that the PRI politician supposedly acquired with illicit funds. This information was revealed to La Jornada on Wednesday by Mexican government sources.

The citation seeks to obligate Yarrington to respond to questioning from U.S. prosecutors in regards to economic resources that he used to purchase a condominium in the Isla del Padre and a property of 20 hectares in the state of Texas in the San Antonio zone.

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Use of force will be regulated for Mexican Army, Office of the Attorney General and Secretariat of Public Security [In Spanish]

Reforma, 4/23/2012

The Mexican Army (SEDENA), the Office of the Attorney General (PGR) and the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP) established this Monday the guidelines that their members will have to follow whenever they make use of force, detain criminals, respond to an attack or defend the national population.

Through a series of agreements that were published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación (DOF), each of these offices defined that the use of force will have to be the last recourse and that it will be applied in observance of five fundamental principles: strict necessity, opportunity, proportionality, rationality, and legality.

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“El Chapo” was almost captured, PGR reports [In Spanish]

El Universal, 3/13/2012

Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán

Three weeks ago in February, exactly on the day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with various heads of government in Los Cabos, internationally-famous drug lord, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was close to being captured by the Mexican Federal Police at a mansion located in that municipality on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula.

José Cuitláhuac Salinas, head of the Office of Specialized Investigations on Organized Crime (SIEDO) that is part of the Office of the Mexican Attorney-General (PGR), made this declaration to the AP news agency last Sunday. “We know he was there,” Salinas told the AP reporters.

The mansion was raided by Mexican authorities, yet Salinas did not mention if the DEA had been involved. Salinas revealed, however, that guns were found inside the mansion and that two men and two women present in the house at that moment are were detained. He did not disclose the names of these people, but said that at least one of the men had been a pilot for “El Chapo”.

As it has been the case with previous raids against “El Chapo”, this new one again raises the question of whether or not the drug lord received an escape alert in advance.

Since his prison break in 2001, “El Chapo” has not only become a main fugitive sought after, but is also considered by the U.S. Treasury Department as the most powerful drug dealer in the world and by Forbes magazine as one of the multimillionaires worldwide.

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