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Saturday, October 25, 2014

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Ayotzinapa: "I PARTICIPATED KILLING TWO ..."

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 08:18 PM PDT

photos of the accused and their statements obtained from PGR by Sin Embargo
DD;  Many of the comments from readers of the following Sin Embargo story said they did not believe it and that the federal or state government got forced confessions from the two accused to try to quieten the protest of the missing students.

Two alleged murderers speak about some normalistas Ayotzinapa in ministerial statements made before the Public Prosecutor Assigned to the General Directorate of Control of Preliminary Common Law, Miguel Ángel Cuevas Aparicio during the first week of October 2014, based on the Attorney General of the State of Guerrero:

"I participated in killing two ayotzinapos, giving them a shot to the head, and I am not the one to burn them, now they are buried ... I killed them by shooting them from behind in the side of the head."

 "The Gaby with Choky had already killed three ayotzinapos, beat them and shot  each one, and Gaby killed two Choky one, 'to walk with the revolutionaires' said Choky."

"The Choky ordered them to go down to the ten (DD. Presumeably meaning to their knees), 
I shot two  in the head with the weapon of the Mind, Gaby killed two others, Choky killed one, the Vero killed another and we left four alive ... ".

"Then the Chaky, Vero and Mind dragged the  six dead to the the hole where the Gaby sprayed them with diesel and set them on fire and kept the fire going until they were burned up."

This was their statements to  the Attorney General of the State of Guerrero. These statements are in the hands of Sin Embargo .

The statements were made before the Attorney General's Office (PGR) got the case on Saturday, October 4, 2014.

The alleged executioners of the normalistas from Ayotzinapa describe how They had killed a group of students from the Normal "Raúl Isidro Burgos", between the night of September 26 and the early hours of Saturday 27 in Iguala.

They claim that the executed them with shots to the head. They also say that the burned and threw them  into pits and burned them, say the sicarios of Guerreros Unidos from Iguala.

Their  remarks coincide with Father Alejandro Solalinde, who told reporters, first, then the authorities, the normal school students were dead and some were burned alive.
The alleged murderers executed them to send a message to the  normalistas.  The also indicate where they are buried.

The statements of the detainees opened the doubts raised by parents of normal school to the claims of the Attorney General's Office, Jesús Murillo Karam, who says that DNA tests indicate that the bodies found in the graves days after the disappearance, not correspond to the students.

"Whose are the bodies found in the first graves at the foot of the hills in Iguala?" Questioned the parents.

This and other questions seem to reaffirm the statements. A source close to the investigation told

Sin Embargo the bodies in those graves "are also normal school."   

The source did not clarify whether these assumptions are other normalistas or the missing 43.

STATEMENTS

MARTIN ALEJANDRO BARRERA Macedo:

"I received the instruction to shoot (a normal school student), by the Choky; we did the shooting in the center of Iguala ... The support Choky asked the Municipal Police, so I knew that he did reach Choky to fuck several ayotzinapos as they were getting crazy; once they begin to drop students, the others begin to run and we assure seventeen, which got into our vans and took them to the safe house where they were  killed immediately because they did not want to be subjected to more like us., The Choky gave instruction to to them to get on the floor ...

"Some were killed with a coup de grace to the head and others by blows as they became very violent when they were kidnapped and that they were not fucking kill was decided; I think they used the bulldozer to bury them in the same ranch we have, seven of these guys burned  them on instruction of Choky ...

I note that once put me to view photographs of missing people I say, do not recognize none because we immediately boarded vans to cover the instruction that it was for anyone to see ...

"I participated killing two ayotzinapos, giving them a shot to the head, and are not one to burn, how are overalls ... I killed them by shooting them from behind in the side of the head."
 and shoot them on one side of the head ...".

MARCO ANTONIO RIOS BERBER

"The ayotzinapos got off the bus and on the street urban Guerrero and flag; were several, about fifty, all wearing hoods and headed to the event, when they arrived there were gunshots in the air.  I stood outside the Church of San Francisco and people started running ... the ayotzinapos started stealing cars to escape, took them off to people, among whom I remember was a black CRV and several taxis ...

"Chinese told me that me that Choky had kidnapped three ayotzinapos ... "Choky said they were going to pull for the hill was when the Chinese sent me out to buy diesel, gas station Zaragoza Street; after  twenty minutes he returned with them to the hill above the Old Town neighborhood to leave the diesel; Gaby at that time together with Choky had already killed three ayotzinapos, beat them and shot in the head each, and Gaby killed two Choky one, this one walks with the revolutionaries  said Choky ... "Mind told me Chaky ordered to make a pit and later with The Choky Gaby tossed the bodies  into the hole and sprayed diesel over the bodies and set them on fire until they were burned up.   for this, the Chinese told me by phone that to take them more diesel by orders of Choky ... "When I got to the hill at the time also came in white Tacoma and Gaby had ten of the ayotzinapos, and came to Vero; Mind was waiting and fell down ten at the time, ordered the Choky go down to ten ... I shot him twice in the head with the gun of Mind, Gaby killed two others, Choky killed one, Vero killed another and let live four others;

then  the Chaky, Vero and Mind dragged the six dead in the hole where the diesel Gaby sprayed them and set them on fire until the calcined and subsequently with Gaby The Chaky plugged the hole with soil and that left tied to the other four left alive who he beat and left unconscious ... ".

PERSONAL EFFECTS FOUND

Sin Embargo also reported today that some student personal effects had been found.

A backpack, pencils, a T-shirt of a technical high school, sandals, slippers, shoes and a blanket, are some of the belongings that the Union of Indigenous Peoples of Guerrero (UPOEG) found pits located in the day yesterday during the Loma del Zapatero in Iguala, Guerrero.

 
Vazquez Manuel Quintero, a lawyer for the organization, Sin Embargo confirmed the finding was made ​​in five  of the nine graves found in an area located in the rural area of Iguala.

"The are talking with peers of the missing students to see if in one or two days we hold a meeting with parents to present things, to see if anyone recognizes that bag," said Vasquez Quintero.

In the pits no recent human cadavers. According to Vasquez Quintero, the authorities assured them that they had made the discovery of the graves earlier.

"But it's not true, because we arrived and we saw no evidence that they  had worked here. We dig and found the graves and gave them notice. Do not tell that they had found them before, "he said.

The graves were found yesterday











The Pineda Villa Clan

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 06:10 PM PDT



In my recent article "What is Guerreros Unidos?" I mentioned the Pineda Villa family, with a focus on the mother Leonor Villa Ortuño. Thereafter, Proceso published an amazingly well written and researched article by AnabelHernándezabout the Pineda Villa siblings. The following is an English translation of the article in its entirety.

The attack by hitmen and municipal police officers of Iguala, Guerrero, against the students of the Normal of Ayotzinapa on September 26th, which left six dead and 43 missing, could have been avoided.

In court records and other information collected by Proceso the negligent actions of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), which allowed Salomón Pineda Villa, "El Salo" or "El Molón", to be free, is evident. The authorities identified him as "maximum leader" of the criminal group Guerreros Unidos and he was one of the authors of the attack against the normalistas.

According to the criminal case 101/2009, to which this weekly magazine had access to, "El Salo" —brother of María de los Ángeles Pineda, wife of now fugitive ex mayor of Iguala, José Luis Abarca— was arrested in Cuernavaca along with his father Salomón Pineda Bermúdez, his mother Leticia Villa Ortuño and nine more people on May 5, 2009, in an operation of the Federal Secretary of Public Security (SSP), headed by Genaro García Luna.

Ministerial records and testimonies identified "El Salo" and his brothers as drug traffickers that operated in Guerrero and Morelos since at least 2002, first in an independent form, afterwords as operative leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel and later of the Beltrán Leyvas.

But because of the shortcomings of the PGR —in the previous administration, when it was headed by Eduardo Medina Mora and Marisela Morales—in the integration of preliminary investigation, on April 5, 2013 the Second District Court in Federal Criminal Processes in the state of Nayarit acquitted him and issued the order of immediate liberty in favor of Salomón Pineda.

According to the ruling, during four years the PGR was incapable of presenting sufficient evidence to prove any of the four crimes that "El Salo" was charged: organized crime; crimes against health; possession of firearms of the exclusive use of the army, navy and air force, and possession of ammunition of the exclusive use of the army, navy and air force. Upon being detained he was in possession of 11 firearms and more than 300 rounds of ammunition.

FAMILY BUSINESS
Salomón Pineda Bermúdez and Leonor Villa Ortuño had five children: Julio Guadalupe, Alberto, Mario, María de los Ángeles and Salomón.

The criminal activities of the Pineda Villa brothers began as a small family business. At the beginning of 2000, Alberto, Mario and Salomón, without belonging to any cartel, sold drugs in their native Guerrero. For them, a business problem opened the door to the world of large-scale drug trafficking, according to the court record.

In June 2002, Richard Arroyo Guízar —stepson of Jesús Reynaldo Zambada, "El Rey Zambada", brother of "El Mayo Zambada"— received a call from Mario Pineda Villa, "El MP".

Since 1992, Arroyo was one of the chiefs of plaza of the Sinaloa Cartel in the Distrito Federal thanks to his closeness to "El Rey Zambada"; that was until his capture in October 2008. Afterwords he joined the protected witnesses program of the PGR under the pseudonym of María Fernanda.

"El MP" had restrained some Colombians because his brother, Alberto Pineda Villa, "El Borrado", had been kidnapped in Colombia because of a debt of five million dollars.

Arroyo and Mario Pineda met in Mexico City. The former accepted to serve as mediator in the conflict. An agreement was reached: the Colombians would release "El Borrado" and "El MP" would liberate the South Americans. Pineda made a commitment to pay off the debt, although he requested time to raise the money, and Alberto was immediately freed.

Two days later, " El Borrado " met with Arroyo to thank him for his help. There he learned "that they were originally from Guerrero", he said in his ministerial declaration. They became friends.

Thus, recommended by Arroyo, in 2002 the brothers-in-law of the fugitive former mayor formally joined the Sinaloa Cartel becoming the one in charge of the operations in Zihuatanejo and other areas of Guerrero, at the orders of Arturo Beltrán Leyva.

The Pinedas proved their effectiveness in the reception and transfer of drugs that came from Colombia and Venezuela to the beaches of Guerrero in speedboats, and by air to the Acapulco airport. They were also placed in charge of the control of the state of Morelos, where they bribed public officials to allow them transit through the entity without being arrested.

In 2005, on instructions of the Sinaloa Cartel, the brothers formed a cell of hitmen called Los Pelones to control Guerrero.

According to Arroyo, that group was the predecessor of Guerreros Unidos, the criminal group allegedly responsible for the attack on September 26 in Iguala, while María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa gave her second report as head of the municipal DIF.

According to Arroyo, Los Pelone were 200 hitmen "from the sierra of Guerrero". Newspaper records indicate that for years Los Pelones staged a bloody battle to defend the Guerrero plaza from the attacks of Los Zetas and La Familia Michoacana. Directly responsible for the hitmen was "El MP".

Of the Pineda brothers, "El Borrado" was the closest to Arturo Beltrán Leyva. He received the orders of action for Los Pelones and transmitted them to the "El MP". "El Salo" was always, according to the declarations of Arroyo, "the one entrusted with the distribution of cocaine in Mexico and trafficking from Mexico to the city of Atlanta, United States".

In December 2009 the federal SSP announced the death of "El Borrado" and of "El MP", whose bodies allegedly were found on the México-Cuernavaca highway. The homicide was attributed to Arturo Beltrán Leyva, who had retaliated because of a betrayal.

DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL
In 2009 in the PGR there was a man key in the composure of the preliminary investigations in the field of organized crime: Víctor Jorge León Maldonado, general coordinator of the Deputy Attorney of Specialized Investigation in Organized Crime (SIEDO, today SEIDO) from 2008 to 2010.

León Maldonado not only badly composed the preliminary inquiry against Salomón Pineda, which led to his release, but he was also the author of other cases of the PGR that ended up being overturned.

Invited by the governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero, León Maldonado is currently Deputy Attorney of Regional Control and Penitentiary Procedures of the Attorney General of Justice of Guerrero and locally responsible for investigating the acts in which Salomón Pineda Villa would be implicated in.

In the ruling handed down in April 2013, Carlos Verdugo Partida, Secretary in Functions of the Second District Court in Federal Criminal Processes in the state of Nayarit excluded all the pieces of evidence that the PGR presented against "El Salo".

With regards to the declarations of Arroyo, he said that the first was a public document and did not characterize it as testimonial evidence because it was given in another preliminary investigation, the PGR/SIEDO/UEIDCS/163/2009, not that which was carried against Pineda Villa.

With respect to the ministerial declaration of May 28, 2009, rendered directly in the preliminary investigation against "El Salo", he dismissed it because the PGR contaminated the testimony requesting Arroyo to identify Salomón Pineda Villa in photographs.

Likewise, Verdugo considered that the informative part of the federal police officers that detained "El Salo" was "legally insufficient" and all of the highlighted "does not assess that the active subject (Salomón Pineda Villa) was part of a criminal organization or that he participated in providing protection to the members of the same".

In the penitentiary case 234/2013 of the Second Unitary Tribunal of the Twenty Fourth Circuit in 2013, to which Proceso was able to consult, it was recorded that the PGR, headed by Jesús Murillo Karam, appealed the throwing out of the sentencing of Pineda Villa, but with the same deficiencies with which the criminal case was formulated... and they lost.

The documents prove that the PGR in this administration already knew the background of Pineda Villa, brother-in-law of the ex mayor Abarca; despite this Murillo Karam did not immediately act when he received the first complaints against the now fugitive former official.

Ever since Abarca flirted with the highest bidder —PRI or PRD— to be candidate for mayor of Iguala in 2012, in the Guerrero press the reports that he was a relative of the Pineda Villas and that he also was allegedly implicated with drug trafficking grew.

LOST CAPO
On Thursday the 9th the federal government leaked to the media that Salomón Pineda Villa had been detained by the marines in Cuernavaca. The news, reported on the internet, radio, television and published the next day in the newspapers, was not denied by the PGR, but by the governor of Morelos, Graco Ramírez, Monday the 13th.

On Tuesday the 14th, Proceso requested from the PGR the number of the newcriminal case opened against Salomón Pineda Villa and the court where it would be found. Two days later the official response from SEIDO was: "We do not have it". It was thenasked if the marines might have it and they responded that that would be illegal, since by law, if he was arrested by the federal government, he should have been presented before the PGR.

Despite that the federal government had informed that "El Salo" was detained yesterday, it was unaware of his whereabouts. To this must be added that on Friday the 17th Murillo Karam announced the capture of Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, whom he referred to as the "maximum leader of the Guerreros Unidos Cartel".

Zonta Norte Tijuana boss 'El Mono' detained

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 11:34 AM PDT

                                                                  'El Mono' detained in Tijuana

Luis Rodriguez Toscano, longtime boss of retail sales in Zona Norte, was arrested last night for the third time in 30 months.  State Police, (PEP) made the arrest in colonia La Mesa.  Toscano, was traveling in a 2009 Nissan Murano, with a female passenger, Adelia Varella, 35 years old. 

Police searching Zona Norte
Zona Norte is Tijuana's Red Light District, where locals and tourists travel for drugs, sex, and strip clubs, among other indulgences.  Many of the women are trafficked from southern Mexico, and forced to strip, prostitute themselves, while paying fees to organized crime.  Women come from San Diego to dance in bars like Hong Kong, men come to Adeltias, and Purple Rain, unknowingly or perhaps without care, supporting sex and human trafficking.  In a city where the elite dine in Baja/Med fusion restaurants, men and women sell crystal and themselves in Zona Norte.  Its the way of the city.  

Toscano has a longstanding feud with Los Litos, a rival retail drug operation in Zona Norte, and has survived assassination attempts, surviving through bloodiest times in Tijuana history.  Recent reports designate him as former CAF, but make no mention of his current loyalties.  Toscano, nearly identical to previous arrests was carrying a wrap of cocaine, a .38 caliber pistol, and chargers and ammunition for the weapon.  His brother were arrested in July of this year, Roberto Toscano, and Antonio Toscano, with weapons and drugs. 

Brothers of El Mono, July 2014
He was first arrested in July 2012, on charges of organized crime, shortly after the arrest of 'El M4', Julio Salas, another longtime CAF operator.  He was quietly released sometime thereafter, and rearrested in October 2013, for firing a weapon in public.  Again, Toscano walked, and presumably has been continuing his enterprise in Zona Norte.  Although, based on recent events in Tijuana, and the facts of his arrest, it is debatable whether Toscano is still in a position of power, in relation to retail drug sales. 

El Mono, October 2014
Toscano is 37 years old, and a native of Manzanillo, Colima.  He has been involved with organized crime and Arellano Felix specifically for at least 5 years, and likely dating back to the mid 2000's.  Upper mid level guys like 'El Mono' often find themselves displaced, and while free, reduced to making drug sales and kidnappings, on their own, without the backing of more connected and powerful traffickers.  

They are free, but without alliances, usually are arrested and killed.  As the CAF continues to loose influence in the city, and chaos reins, as Sinaloa affiliated traffickers contest the plaza, many will not survive the latest rearranging of loyalties.  It's the ever continuing cycle of blood, crystal, and the dynamics of poverty and income inequality, which leaves a trail of corpses and arrests in it's wake.  'El Mono' and the valuable commodity of Zona Norte isn't going anywhere, not really. 


Sources: AFN Tijuana

Dr. Mireles Speaks of Normalistas

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 09:45 AM PDT

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat Translated by Vato

Today is the birthday of Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles Valverde.  My friend, who was arrested on June 27th, 2014 on what ,in my opinion, were false charges in order to stop the progression of the coastal autodefensas.  He is being imprisoned in Hermosillo, Sonora, as his case moves through the courts.  His massive defense team has filed for amparo relief. His health has been sketchy, spending almost half his prison time in the hospital.

On this day I cannot wish Doc Mireles a "feliz cumpleaños", but I can say, I celebrate his life and have not given up hope that he will be given his freedom in the coming months.

Below is the translated narrative of his last letter

 Twelfth Message to the Nation from Prison.
Message to the Nation
Hermosillo, Sonora. October 10, 2014

To the Mexican State
To National Public Opinion
To International Public Opinion
To the Mexican Studens
To our Yaqui brothers
To our Autodefensa brothers in Guerrero
To our Autodefensa brothers in Michoacan
To the Mexican people

By this means, the undersigned, Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles Valverde, Founder and Member of the Municipal, State and National Council of Autodefensas:

I express my deepest sorrow for the murders, kidnappings and disappearances of the students in the State of Guerrero, as well as for the unjust violations against our brothers, the Yaquis of Sonora.

I also wish to express my support and that of all of our social organization for our brothers, the students of the National Polytechnic Institute, in the defense of their rights.

At the same time, and with this document, in my own handwriting and spontaneous free will, I Declare,

That the messages to the Nation delivered by my lawyer and autodefensa comrade, Lawyer Talia Vazquez Alatorre, are of my own authorship, and she is the only one that I have asked to make them public in my name and as my representative.

Fraternally, for the Constitution and for Justice.
Manuel Mireles


More clandestine graves found in Iguala

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 10:02 AM PDT

El Diario de Coahuila (October 23, 2014)

Source: SinEmbargo, translated by un vato for Borderland Beat.

Photograph of clandestine grave found on Loma del Zapatero, Iguala
(Seen from the top of the pit)

"Comunitarios" (community police) find more clandestine graves in Iguala; they are "higher up, the bodies are recent".

MEXICO CITY, D.F.- (SinEmbargo, Thursday, October 23, 2014).-- Members of the organization "Union de Pueblos Originarios de Guerrero (UPOEG: Union of Original Peoples of Guerrero) reported this afternoon that between seven and nine more clandestine grave sites with human remains have been found in the Loma del Zapatero (Zapatero Hill), Iguala.

Manuel Vazquez Quintero, lawyer for the organization confirmed that the graves contain recently buried cadavers and that the discovery was made today by one of the teams that go out every day to look for the 43 disappeared students in the rural area of Iguala. "They are higher up from the graves they found on the Loma del Zapatero , and they (contain) recent bodies (sic)," said the lawyer. Another UPOEG source said the bodies were treated with acid.

At this time, other UPOEG members are headed up to the site, where the PGR (Procuraduria General de la Republica (Office of Attorney General)) found four clandestine graves with human remains some weeks ago. "We're going to gather information to call in the PGR  so they will go up to the grave sites", he said. Miguel Angel Jimenez Blanco, also a UPOEG member, confirmed the existence of human remains in one of the graves, where there were remains of (human) skin, hair and some huaraches (sandals) "burned with acid, not fire. The smell is hideous... a little flesh remains. It is not possible to determine how many bodies there are, but the graves are fresh".

The activist describes the existence of seven similar pits in an area with canyons close to the Colonia Zapatero de Iguala.  "They are 2 meters long by 1/2 meter wide. There could be three more grave sites right here, and our companions are telling us that, higher up in the hills, there are 10 more excavations, which could bring the total to 20 (graves)", said the community police member in a telephone interview. He said that no authorities from any level of government has shown up yet. La Loma del Zapatero is very close to an area known as "La Joya", where they found 4 clandestine graves some weeks ago.

According to the residents of the Colonia San Miguelito, very close to La Joya, the area is known as a place of torture and death, where Hummers, Jeeps, pickups, motorcycles, and also municipal police vehicles, would go up. A young man who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, informed SinEmbargo that when the normalistas (student teachers) disappeared, he heard vehicles moving in the area and shooting.

According to this young man, it was common for some time to hear shots fired with "cuernos de chivo" (AK 47), and vehicles coming and going in the middle of the night and at dawn. A woman who works at a small grocery store said that organized crime activities took place there. "I would attend to them here, but one doesn't say anything, I would ring up their purchases, and that's it", she said. 

With this discovery, the community police have located around 26 clandestine graves since they began their searches. "We're not leaving until we find the boys; that's our only objective," said Manuel Vazquez.

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