The Americas Post - This was the last face ever seen by a minimum of 75 murder victims

Police in northern Mexico have captured a suspected member of the Zetas drug cartel, who confessed to killing at least 75 people, authorities announced Monday.

Elizondo was captured Jan. 20 in the town of Salinas Victoria, but authorities postponed announcing his arrest in order to verify details of his confession, state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said.

Domene said the 35-year-old suspect told investigators he had worked in the region over three years and that his duty was killing members of the rival Gulf drug cartel en route to the towns of Cerralvo and General Trevino.

Elizondo and other gunmen last January started pulling passengers off buses as they arrived at Cerralvo’s bus station, Domene said. They were among at least 92 bus passengers the Zetas are accused of killing in three attacks in January and March 2011.

Elizondo was famous “for torturing, maiming and then killing his victims,” Domene added.

Last year, authorities in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas exhumed 193 bodies from unmarked graves in the town of San Fernando. Security forces were led to the site by Zetas who confessed to kidnapping and killing bus passengers in the area.

The exact motive for the bus abductions is undetermined. Prosecutors  suggested the gang may be recruiting at gunpoint or killing suspected rivals aboard the buses.

Northeastern Mexico has been inflamed by a turf war between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas since their 2010 division.  Over 47,000 people have been killed nationwide since President Felipe Calderon launched his December 2006 crackdown against drug traffickers.

The Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank,  reported Monday that $872 billion in proceeds from crime flowed out of Mexico between 1970 and 2010.

The Americas Post - Apparently you don't need to be tall to burn down a casino

Police in Mexico have arrested an alleged member of the Zetas drug cartel for masterminding  a casino fire that killed 52 people in the northern city of Monterrey, authorities said Friday.

The Americas Post - Plane? What plane? Oh, you mean THAT plane...

An American military aircraft helped monitor the deadly 2010 raid by Jamaican security forces to capture a fugitive crime boss, that country’s prime minister has admitted, in spite of earlier denials by his government.

The U.S. P-3 Orion provided aerial surveillance of the operation to arrest Christopher “Dudus” Coke, Prime Minister Andrew Holness told reporters on Thursday.   The raid ignited a vicious battle in a West Kingston slum that left over 70 dead.

Holness insisted that the U.S. played no other role in the raid in the Tivoli Gardens neighborhood.  ”We would want to reaffirm our position that the U.S. Government or its military did not participate in the operations in West Kingston,” he said.

His statement came just one day after National Security Minister Dwight Nelson claimed that the U.S. had not provided any surveillance of the raid, in spite of a report in The New Yorker magazine.

Holness said that Nelson made the statement in error because he was unaware of the U.S. assistance. Prior official statements had also denied any U.S. role in the raid. The prime minister said the surveillance was coordinated between the Jamaican Defense Force and the “relevant government agency” in the U.S.

“The United States Government initially made an offer to provide surveillance and technical equipment,” he said. “We accepted and followed the normal protocol of exchanging diplomatic notes to provide the government-to-government cover for such assistance.”

Ocsar Derby, director of Jamaica’s Civil Aviation Authority, said Friday that officials with the island’s Defense Force had notified him the U.S. craft would carry out a surveillance mission.

“We made sure to keep other aircraft away from the area,” he said.

The hunt for Coke in his West Kingston slum stronghold provoked fighting that killed 73 civilians and three security officers over the next four days. He was finally arrested by Jamaican authorities and extradited to the U.S., where he pleaded guilty in August to racketeering and assault charges. Coke faces up to 23 years in prison when he is sentenced.

The Americas Post - Illegal lottery results are openly posted in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazilian police are investigating possible connections between the organized crime groups controlling illegal gambling in Rio de Janeiro and Russian and Israeli mafias, with casinos in Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay.

According to daily newspaper O Globo, the legal casinos play a key role in laundering money for operators of illegal lotteries and slot machines in Rio.  Other crimes under investigation by Brazilian Federal Police include tax evasion, smuggling and homicide.

According to the police, the Israeli Abergil and Russian Bratva organized crime syndicates were sought out by the Brazilian operators of the illicit Bicho lottery, for their expertise in money laundering.  Evidence of the connection came to light during investigations of cash remittances to foreign bank accounts, mainly in Uruguay and Panama, associated with various hotels operating casinos in South America.

Investigations over the last two years have produced 21,000 hours of recorded telephone calls between known criminals such as Israeli Yoram El Al, Meir Zloff, Tal Amir, Genrich Birman and Vitaly Okorov.

The Americas Post - Al-Saadi Gadhafi wanted to go Al Puerto Vallarta. Photo Credit: AP

Mexican authorities said Wednesday that a surviving son of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and three other relatives planned to enter Mexico under false names and hide at a Pacific coast resort.

The plan to smuggle in al-Saadi Gadhafi allegedly involved two Mexicans, a Canadian and a Danish suspect, all of whom have been arrested according to Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire.

The plot was discovered by Mexican intelligence agents in September as al-Saadi fled Libya shortly after his father’s downfall.  He never made it as far as Mexico, ending up in the Western African country of Niger where he currently resides.

The plotters allegedly flew to Mexico, opened bank accounts and bought safe houses in several parts of the country, including one just outside Puerto Vallarta.

“The great economic resources which this criminal organization has, or had, allowed them to contract private flights,” Poire told a news conference.

Poire named Canadian Cynthia Vanier as the group’s ringleader.  He said she had been picked up on Nov. 10 and is now under house arrest with three other suspects on suspicion of document falsification, human smuggling and organized crime.

Poire said Vanier “was the direct contact with the Gadhafi family and the leader of the group, and presumably was the person in charge of the finances of the operation.”

The plot also allegedly depended on a Mexican woman living in the United States, who Poire said obtained the falsified Mexican identity documents.

A Danish man acted as “the logistic liaison” for the plan, Poire said.  He said the alleged conspirators also traveled to Kosovo “and several Middle Eastern countries.”

The Mexican officials made no mention of Moammar Gadhafi himself being involved in the plan, and Poire did not say which relatives may have planned to accompany the son to Mexico. The elder Gadhafi fell from power in late August and was killed in Libya on Oct. 20.

Poire said that false documents were issued in the names of “Daniel Bejar Hanan, Amira Sayed Nader, Moah Bejar Sayed and Sofia Bejar Sayed.”  The Gadhafi name does not appear anywhere in the documents.

The Americas Post - Meet the new boss.... Same as the old boss? Photo Credit: El Tiempo

Rodrigo Londoño, alias “Timoleón Jiménez” or “Timochenko,” has been promoted to the rank of commander for the FARC guerrilla movement, shortly after the Colombian military tracked down and killed its leader Alfonso Cano.

In a press release, the FARC Secretariat said Timochenko’s appointment was unanimous and that it remains committed to toppling the Colombian government.

The new leader of Colombia’s oldest rebel organization is said to be an sharp and experienced guerrilla, who leads the group’s intelligence operation and has strong connections in neighboring Venezuela.

Fighting since 1964, The FARC, or the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, controlled large parts of the country in the 1980s and 1990s, but suffered dramatic setbacks in the last decade.  When Cano was killed on Nov. 4, President Juan Manuel Santos called it one of the most decisive blows in the group’s history.

He also called on FARC soldiers to put down their weapons and seek a negotiated settlement.

Analysts say that’s not about to happen. Timochenko has a reputation as a hardliner, though not as inflexible as his predecessor according to Antonio Lopez, the president of Colombian think tank Arco Iris.

“This does represent a sense of continuity in the FARC,” he said “We’re not going to see them give in and negotiate over Cano’s body.  At least not anytime soon.”

Now down to about 9,000 combatants, the FARC have changed tactics and rarely confront the military directly, Lopez said.  Now smaller groups use hit-and-run ambushes, sabotage public infrastructure and attack soft military targets.  That shift may be starting to pay off.  In the first half of 2011, the FARC staged 1,115 attacks – a 10 percent increase over last year.

Timochenko enlisted in 1982, and ascended rapidly to become a member of the Secretariat just seven years later.  His last turn on the media stage came in 2008 when he announced that FARC founder Manuel “Tirofijo” Marulanda had died and that Cano was stepping up. With graying beard and glasses, Timochenko punched his finger into the air as he shouted at the camera.

Colombian authorities think that video was shot in Venezuela. Emails recovered in 2008 from the laptop of FARC’s then No. 2, Raul Reyes, also hint that Timochenko was a liaison with the Venezuelan government, which denies supporting the group.  In those missives however, Timochenko describes FARC bases inside Venezuelan territory and frequent border crossings since 1997.

Timochenko has over 100 outstanding arrest warrants, including for terrorism, kidnapping and aggravated homicide.

Mexican soldiers guard state prosecutors meeting

The body count has continued to climb in the Mexican port of Veracruz, as at least 11 more cadavers were located two days after 35 others were dumped by presumed narcotraffickers.

A Mexican military official who declined to be named said that the bodies were dropped Thursday afternoon in various locations around Veracruz and nearby Boca del Rio.  Hundreds of police, soldiers and marines were called out to provide security for an urgent meeting of justice officials.

The source could not confirm any immediate connection between the latest round of victims and the the previous massacre.

Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte denied the discovery, referring to it as “only unconfirmed rumors”.  Thursday night three photographers waiting at the city morgue were beaten by state police, who forced them to erase the memories from their cameras.

The latest bodies were dumped in plain view of the public; witnesses described the scene as terrible.

“I never thought it would get this bad”, said Erika Gutierrez.

This week’s earlier killings are being attributed to the self-named “New Generation” cartel, presumably aligned with drug baron Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.  The 35 victims, including 12 women and two minors, are presumed to be associated with the Zetas cartel battling for control of the Gulf Coast region.

Less than one month ago 52 people were killed in a casino burned by narcotraffickers in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey.  The total death toll in Mexico since the drug war began in 2006 is estimated to be between 35,000 and 40,000 victims.

The former Director of the Special Anti Narcotics Force in Bolivia Gral. Oscar Nina. Photo Credit to Abi Agencia

The U.S. television network Univision claims to have access to Bolivian intelligence reports.

In Univision´s report, released Thursday, the network linked the former commander of the Bolivian Police General Oscar Nina with the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Loera , known as “Chapo” (Shorty).

The Police Commander Nina allegedly provided protection when Chapo Guzman was in Bolivia.  However, Nina rejected the accusation.
The TV network states that the Bolivian government met this report days before the arrest in Panama of the country’s former anti-drug  Czar René Sanabria, now in jail in the United States.
Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said yesterday that the government will study the Univision video, but he ruled out the presence of drug cartels in Bolivia.
Who is Joaquin Guzman?  “Shorty”, 52, is the leader of an international drug dealers called “Alianza de Sangre”, known as the Sinaloa cartel, leading operator in the illegal drug trafficking industry in Mexico and would be the new “king of cocaine and synthetic drugs in the world. “  He is the FBI´s  second most wanted criminal .
Univision reported that Chapo Guzman  “took advantage of the environment of corruption in Bolivia to expand his cocaine business and also sent one of his children to this country.”

Bolivia is the third world producer of cocaine, after Peru and Colombia, and is now the hub where much of the cocaine of the region is shipped via Brazil and Argentina, then to Africa, Europe and to the U.S. via the Caribbean route.
Univision interviewed Maximiliano Paredes, a well known Brazilian drug trafficker,  who also lived and operated in Santa Cruz (Bolivia) , but is now in jail in Brazil.     He said that “the presence of Joaquin ‘Chapo’ Guzman in Bolivia is a “well known secret”. Paredes heard that the leader of the Sinaloa cartel  had been in Santa Cruz.
The report said that at least 40 Bolivian nationals provided coverage to Guzman´s cocaine business in Bolivia.

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