The Moreira Brothers (leaders of PRI) and Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón

Besides being an advisor of the Organization of American States (OAS), and directly involved in the peace process in Colombia, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón has been very active in other matters related to Latin American politics.

Recently in Mexico, Judge Garzón was invited to an international Conference on Money Laundering. During the event, the famous Spanish judge said “the fight against money laundering should be rigorous and global, otherwise it will fail”.
Global War on Money Laundering .- During the closing ceremony of the Forum “Democratic legality, Ethics, Human Rights and Security”  held at the Mexican Congress ,  Judge Garzón also said that “money laundering is an international phenomenon so it must be combatted on a multilateral basis as it would otherwise be a failure.”
Legislators, officials and Mexican specialists agreed with Garzon on the importance of globally combatting organized crime and money laundering, and also agreed on fighting it both locally and internationally.

Garzon recommended Mexico modernize their traditional organized crime research and invest in new technology to combat money laundering.

“A money laundering law must be rigorous and it is urgent to establish launderer´s behaviors and mechanisms, such as those imposed in other countries,” he said.

Against decriminalization of drug trafficking.- In a press conference after the event,  Judge Garzon spoke against drug decriminalization.  He said that in Mexico decriminalization is not  going to end organized crime, because besides drugs, cartels and criminal gangs are also engaged in kidnapping, extortion, trafficking and vehicle theft.

First, Garzón said, is necessary to create “a joint policy of prevention to reduce the risk of consumption.”

Judge Garzón also advisor of the opposition Mexican Political Party PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) .-

Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon is active in Mexico.

Humberto Moreira, national president of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) held the first of several meetings that will take place with judge Baltasar Garzon as advisor of the PRI, in order to polish the PRI’s political platform on the issue of human rights, public safety and combatting organized crime.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the PRI, as well as the former governor of Hidalgo, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, secretary of political operations of the PRI, are having this round of consultations with Judge Garzón as well as other international experts to ensure a viable anti-crime proposal.

During the meeting, Garzón declared himself in favor of strengthening institutional frameworks against drug trafficking before talking about new laws. Garzón has a more practical and hands on point of view.
Moreira Valdes (PRI) said in an interview that the party’s central concern is how to ensure respect for human rights in the fight against organized crime.

He also revealed that this is the third meeting he has with Baltasar Garzon, in an attempt to define the direction of the security strategy that the country should take.

Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon also called for strict control of rating agencies Moody´s. Standard  Poor´s and Fitch.-

Last Tuesday, Judge Garzón  called on all countries to establish control and oversight over the rating agencies to avoid possible “organized criminal activity” affecting the investment markets and countries.
“There is no control on them on such activities that have become landmarks,” said the judge at the close of the forum “democratic legality, ethics, human rights and security” that took place in chamber of Deputies in Mexico City.
International agencies such as Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, are allegedly responsible for aggravating the global financial crisis by lending support to controversial downgrades against many countries.
“I’m disturbed by the justice system´s inaction from the various judicial actors” on the role and control of the rating agencies in today’s volatile markets that “are about to bring many countries to ruin,” he said.
Garzon said he was not sure that these agencies perform criminal acts but said the rating agencies “should have a strict regulation” to be sure that “there is no organized criminal activity around the constant speculation on markets and investments.”
Addressing more than a hundred legislators, academics, officials and experts from Mexico and other countries, Garzon said that economic and financial crime is “produced by large corporations through mechanisms of corruption” and market operations.
The judge said that the actions of the rating agencies “can lead countries to ruin or a rising cost of public debt or external debt, to unsuspected limits.”

Joaquín -Chapo- (Shorty) Guzmán, druglord of Sinaloa Cartel

Mexico’s network of drug cartels is nebulous and complex, with organizations merging, splintering and shifting alliances in their quest to control drug-trafficking routes. Below is a rough overview of some of the major groups involved in the country’s drug trade, although there are numerous other affiliate groups and smaller players. READ MORE HERE

Mexico police present Jesus E. Aguilar alias El Mamito. Allegedly connected to killing of U.S. ICE agent, he was member of Mexico Army and Zetas cofounder. Photo Credit AP Alexandre Meneghini

Mexico: The alleged Zetas drug cartel leader suspected of killing a U.S. customs agent has been captured. His name is Jesús Enrique Rejón Aguilar, alias “el Manito”. He is believed to be the third in command of the criminal organization founded by former elite soldiers.

Over the course of a decade, it went from being the military arm of the Gulf Cartel to its own drug-trafficking organization. Now, the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas are the two most powerful cartels in Mexico. The Zetas control the east of the country, and the Sinaloa gang controls the west and center.  The west and center of the U.S. Mexico border is controled by the Sinaloa group, and the east border by the zetas and also by a weakened Gulf cartel.

Rejón was one of Mexico’s most-wanted men and the U.S. State Dept had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. There is a possibility that the U.S. wants to extradite Rejón, but it will take time.

Mexican federal police said he was captured “without gunfire” outside Mexico City in the town of Atizapan on Sunday, on his way from Guatemala, which is now the center of all Zetas strategy in the south.  Rejon Aguilar was detained as he was traveling to visit his mother in his home state of Campeche, according to Mexican authorities.

Rejón is allegedly culpable of the killing of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE  agent Jaime Zapata, who was shot to death in February while driving on a highway in San Luis Potosi state.

The first statements of Rejón alias el Manito to the mexican police revealed the current strategy of Zetas in order to smuggle u.S. weapons into Mexico.

The captured Mexican crime boss said his gang purchased weapons in the United States and smuggled them across the Rio Grande river due to increased security at international crossings.

“All the arms are bought in the United States… Before we would transport them over the bridges, but now we transport them across the river, with difficulty,” he said, according to the mexican public security ministry.

The Rio Grande — known as the Rio Bravo del Norte in Mexico — forms the 1,200-mile (2,000 kilometer) border between Mexico and the US state of Texas.

“El Manito”  was one of the founders of the Zetas cartel, an Army gang of former elite soldiers who use of military tactics and weaponry, have a military organization like organized in batalions, and the Zetas worked first as hitmen in the service of the Gulf cartel, and after a few years became independent. This group is the bloodiest of all mexican criminal groups. They have also a “broad portfolio” of criminal activities, drugs, kidnappings, human smuggling, weapons, etc.

The Zetas are accused of two mass killings, one in Mexico’s northeast and one in a Guatemalan border province.

Zetas imprisoned. Photo Credit Vanguardia Archive.260511

According to Vanguardia.com.mx, many of the victims of mass graves have died as gladiators. The goal of Zetas is to force their victims to fight as gladiators and the survivors became their new murderers to be send in suicide missions.

The website reports that the information was revealed by an assassin interviewed and later identified by U.S. authorities as an operator of a cartel in Texas.

“If what you say is true, common criminals who did the beheadings and hangings, have achieved a more cruel twist to their barbarism, ” they say.

According to the article, when the Zetas assault a buss, the elderly are murdered, young women are raped and healthy men are given hammers, machetes and sticks to fight to the death with other kidnapped passengers.

“Who will be the next murderer for hire?” says the gunman who call the new practice that forces its victims to kill each other.

“The victims are probably hundreds of people found in mass graves discovered in recent months, “he said.

The interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity, and he said he has not witnessed the confrontations, but his teammates did and brag about it.

The man said that those who are winners are sent on suicide missions, where ‘The Zetas’know that is unlikely to escape alive against their rivals.

A recent U.S. Senate report says  ‘Los Zetas’ are the most violent of all cartels in Mexico. It is believed that its members are responsible for the death of an agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE who was killed in a Mexican road.

A group of people kidnapped by alleged drug traffickers as they were rescued by members of the Mexican army in Sabinas Hidalgo north of Monterrey on April 27. Sixteen people, including a woman and a 2-year-old girl, were rescued during the operation. Photo Credit to Dario Leon/AFP/Getty Images

So far in 2011, Mexico reported 837 cases of kidnapping, a crime that in the past three years shows a rise of 60 percent, said the mexican Interior Minister, Jose Francisco Blake.

During the opening ceremony of the plenary session of the National Conference of Law Enforcement, which meets in the state of Chiapas, the Minister reported that in 2008 the country suffered 1172 kidnappings, as well as he urged prosecutors to speed up the evaluation work in their research units to build trust in society.

“A state that does not guarantee the security of its citizens necessarily faces the risk of its own dissolution, the crime is the shadow that seeks to threaten our future and we must respond with unity and unwavering commitment to serve the nation, ” said Blake .

Blake explained that Tamaulipas, the state of Mexico, Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua and Veracruz states have the largest percentage of abductions of people, “the most lacerating crime that hurts our society. ”

During his speech, the head of Government recalled that the Mexican state’s fundamental duty is to safeguard the security and integrity of its people, so he urged on the governments of mexican federal entities to restore the rule of law.

Marisela Escobedo, Attorney General of Mexico, gave details of the approval mechanism in which work is being done to determine the identification of the bodies victims of criminal rivalry, a phenomenon that already has to his credit the figure of 10.600 people killed.

Photo of massacre occurred in Tamaulipas, Mexico.

Since in 2006 Mexico´s President Felipe Calderón started the war on drugs against drug-trafficking cartel, there were more than 30 000 deaths linked to illegal drug trafficking in the country. The record year in terms of proliferation of massacres, promoted by so-called “drug barons”, was 2008.

Now, a summary of the largest massacres of the last five years occured in Mexico, since 2006. For this article we do not include recent massacres like the one occured in Guatemala, were Los Zetas killed and beheaded 27 peasants.

In 2011, in the City of San Fernando, in the state of Tamaulipas, staged the largest ever massacre led by drug traffickers in Mexico: 183 dead.  The first bodies were found in San Fernando on the last day on April 1. According to the Secretariat of State Government and Tameulipas, the victims were kidnapped while traveling by bus at the end of March. The mass murder was attributed to drug cartel Los Zetas, “one of the three largest in the country”. For the police there are three hypotheses to explain the crime: the passengers may have been kidnapped for use as slave labor  or to serve as a means of extorting money from their families or they could still be illegal immigrants who had paid to cross the border with the United States.

In 2010, August 24th, Mexican authorities found the bodies of 72 victims at a ranch in the same town of San Fernando in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The group of immigrants was murdered by members of the group Los Zetas, one of the largest drug cartels in the country. Only one survived the attack. Luis Fredy Lala, aged 19, was shot in the neck, but managed to escape from criminals pretending to be dead. According to Lala, the immigrants came from Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras, and intending to cross the border with the U.S. when they were intercepted by the Zetas.

In 2009, in September, eighteen people were found dead in a rehabilitation clinic in Ciudad Juarez, a city that also live with high rates of drug addicts. Men invaded the clinic and forced patients to organize themselves in rows before the execution. The city became one of the worst scenes of violence in Mexico. In the week before the massacre at the center, there were 75 murders in Ciudad Juarez. Between late 2008 and September 2009, the city recorded more than three thousand victims of violence.

2008 has its particularities. The year 2008 marked the increase in violence involving drug trafficking in Mexico. The number of killings in the country and increased cases of beheading shocked the country, as f.e. the death of 12 people beheaded in the outskirts of Yucatan state capital of Merida. In the same year, nine people were found decapitated in Guerrero, the capital of Chilpancingo.
The states most affected by the “drug war” was Chihuahua, with 1,649 deaths, and Baja California Norte, with 604 deaths, both north of the country bordering the U.S., besides Sinaloa, which recorded 680 murders. A total of 5376 deaths across the country from January until December 2, 2008, an increase of 117% over the previous year.

In 2007 , about 2,500 deaths were linked to drug trafficking. The regions most affected were those that border the U.S., as the states of Chihuahua, Baja California Norte, Sinaloa and Guerrero as well as in southwestern Mexico. Many of the crimes related to drug trafficking cartels are also associated with illegal immigration to the nearby U.S. and many victims are immigrants (even from other Latin countries) who payed to clandestine organizations to cross the Mexican border.

Presidents Colom (Guatemala) Ortega (Nicaragua) Funes (El Salvador) Lobo (Honduras) with former President Zelaya and current Venezuelan Foreign Relations Minister Nicolas Maduro.Nicaragua last night restored relations with the northern neighbor after signing the "Agreement for national reconciliation and consolidation of democracy in Honduras", signed in Cartagena, Colombia with the presence of Honduras president, Porfirio Lobo, and the former president of that country, Manuel Zelaya. This agreement shall be conducted under the auspices and mediation of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia. This agreement benefits widely Zelaya, as it ensures, among other things, his return together with its partners and all rights that the Constitution confers. In the negotiations it was agreed that Honduras will return to different international organizations and fora, including the Central American Integration System (SICA) and the Organization of American States (OAS). Note that so far only the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, was the one who opposed the reinstatement of Honduras to these bodies, thus delaying the process of Central American integration. The declaration of the CA-4 presidents agreed to promote the reinstatement of Honduras to the OAS and SICA, on the eve of the annual meeting that the latter body will have in El Salvador from next 5 to 7 June.

The presidents of Central American countries -except Costa Rica- today expressed concern over the recent killing of 27 peasants on a farm in northern Guatemala, a fact attributed to the Mexican cartel Los Zetas.

In a joint statement, signed today in Managua by Presidents Alvaro Colom (Guatemala), Mauricio Funes (El Salvador), Porfirio Lobo (Honduras) and Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), the four Heads of State reiterated their solidarity and support for President Colom (Guatemala). “We express our concern over the slaughter of 27 Guatemalan peasants occurred in recent days in the department (province) of Petén in the hands of the criminal organization known as Los Zetas,” said President Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) to read the statement in the House of the People (Casa de los Pueblos)  , former presidential palace in Nicaragua´s capital.

In the document, the leaders acknowledged that the lack of security, the impact of organized crime and the consequences of these phenomena in the region, “are the major threats to the people and governments of Central America.”

They also noted that crime is affecting the chances of achieving sustainable economic growth, overcoming poverty and social inequality of people. Also admitted that drug trafficking, illegal arms trafficking, human trafficking and related crimes “are affecting the population and undermine political stability, democratic institutions and government management of the region.”

For these reasons, the Central American heads of state considered a “challenge” the next International Conference to Support the Central American Security Strategy, which is scheduled to be held from 22 to 24 July in Guatemala.

Morgue employees take in the bodies that were found on a ranch in northern Guatemala, at the local morgue in San Benito, Guatemala, Monday, May 16, 2011. Guatemalan authorities on Monday blamed the massacre on the Mexican drug cartel the Zetas. The Zetas also recruited some former guatemalan elite soldiers called kaibiles (Photo credit to AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Guatemalan Police killed two alleged members of Mexico’s Los Zetas drug cartel and arrested a third suspect, near the site where nearly 30 people were massacred and beheaded over the weekend, a police spokesman said in the northern guatemalan province of Peten, near the mexican border.

The three men are alleged members of “Zeta 200″ which is a “batallion” (cell) of Los Zetas acting in Guatemala. Los Zetas are considered Mexico’s most violent drug cartel.

The situation iss very difficult to control for the government, since Los Zetas are controlling parts of northern Guatemala in the border with Mexico.  Zetas drug cartel has set up shop in Guatemala in the largely indigenous region along the countries’ shared border.

What happened previous to the massacre?  Around 30 heavily armed criminals arrived in Los Cocos ranch, asking for the ranch’s owner, Otto Salguero.

The ranch owner was not there. Then, without warning, the criminals attacked the farmworkers, police said to guatemalan press.If founded , this rancher will be investigated by the police , to determine whether he is involved in any way with the drug trafficking or with the Zetas organization. The police thinks that the investigation on Salguero will give leads to find the motive for the massacre and possibly the attackers, officials said.

Salguero owns four ranches and hundreds of head of cattle.Los Zetas has been accused for several massacres in Mexico, including the mass graves in Tamaulipas and killings of migrants from Central America.

Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, known as “El Lazca,” deserted from the Mexican army in 1999 and formed Los Zetas with three other soldiers, becoming the armed wing of the Gulf drug cartel. In Guatemala, as well as in Mexico, Lazcano hired former elite soldiers from the guatemalan army, the famous kaibiles.

So there is a chance that the killers are not only mexican Zetas but also former kaibiles recruited by the Zetas.

The President of Guatemala declared the state of emergency in Guatemala, giving the army extraordinary powers, including permission to detain suspects without warrants.

However, there are two survivors of the killings in the ranch:  a 23-year-old farm laborer, and he is at the moment bei9ng interrogated by the police and a pregnant woman.  Relatives of the woman said the attackers spoke with Mexican accents, but that can be a distraction to cover the possible action of recruited former kaibiles now working for the drug traffickers.

Peru’s presidential front-runner Keiko Fujimori has hired former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as an adviser in public safety, and the former mayor of New York travelled to Lima to see first hand the situation of crime in Peru.

Rudolph Giuliani,  whose tough police tactics cutted crime in New York and were popular among citizens is now working as a consultant expert in Public Safety and as a global expert on Terrorism after the September 11 attacks, will help Fujimori´s campaign to design effective  public safety programs.
“He has a great record of fighting delinquency, so I think his presence here is helpful to strengthen our proposals,” said front runner Keiko Fujimori of Giuliani on Monday.
However, this initiative could improve Keiko´s chances in the main cities, where she is already much stronger than Humala. Giulani´s presence will also improve the amount of conservative voters, which is like adding more water in the pool, since Keiko is already strong among conservatives.

Analysts said what she needs is to gain votes in the countryside and from the voters with low socio economic status, and it is difficult to say how Giulani´s presence will help her to achieve that. Public safety is a top concern ‘of voters, according to the polls. So, time will say..

Ollanta Humala won the first elections round, and since then Keiko Fujimori has been more succesfull by gaining more votes than Humala. Now, Fujimori is leading the polls by a small margin.
Keiko Fujimori indicated Giuliani will help with Programs combating urban crime in cities like Lima.  Nowadays, Peru faces broad security though risks.
Peru has seen a rise in violent crime in recent years that local police say is related at least in part to drug trafficking. The country is the top global producer of coca leaf in the world. The coca leaf is the raw material used to produce cocaine.
The Government is also trying to catch two remnant bands of the maoist terrorist movement Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) who, as the FARC did before, went into the cocaine business after  tyhe leader Abigail Guzman was in the 1990s by the elder Fujimori’s security forces (Alberto Fujimori, former President of Peru and father of Keiko, now in prison).
Giulani has already worked as a consultant in Latin American countries like Mexico, Brazil and Colombia and Peru, and now he decided to send two experts who have been two months in the country and will articulate the recommendations to Keiko Fujimori.
Giuliani, who said he was surprised “a lot” about high public perceptions of insecurity in Peru, said that programs to reduce crime rates should adjust to the reality of each place. “Before making recommendations, it is necessary to know the people of the city, because no single method can serve all the cities,” said the international consultant.
He warned that reducing levels of crime in the cities “can not happen  in two or three months” and exemplified by the “two years” it took to see the first results in New York and even the four that are necessary for citizens to take consciousness. For the consultant, public support is essential to achieve good results in reducing crime, but also stressed the need to create a police force “honest, responsible, accountable.”

The news has generated considerable media attention which could favor the candidate who is currently ahead in the polls over his opponent, Ollanta Humala, in the face of the second round on 5 June. Recent survey by the pollster CPI, released last weekend shows that the centrist candidate Fujimori would get 52.9% of the vote while leftist and “Chavez” admirer Ollanta Humala  achieved 47.1%.

Director of European police cooperation group Europol Rob Wainwright

The Internet has become one of the main tools of European organized crime and human trafficking, drugs and money laundering in addition to being a vehicle of cybercrime.

According to a new report by the European Police Office, Europol, in the last two years have seen a marked increase of criminal groups who use the Internet to commit “traditional “crimes.

“This is a new picture of crime, increasingly marked by highly mobile groups and flexible operating in multiple jurisdictions and criminal sectors, and supported, in particular, by widespread and illegal use of internet, “says the report.

According to the institution, the network is being increasingly used to facilitate illegal immigration and trafficking in counterfeit goods provide with endangered species, among other crimes.

“The Internet has become the main facilitator of organized crime , ” said the director of Europol , Rob Wainwright .