Borderland Beat

What goes on in the mind of a hitman * Sicario *
After Ayotzinapa's Disappeared, Locals Are Taking Power In Tecoanapa
Ariel Savein, Cartel Money Launderer, Sentenced to Time Served in U.S.
Against Organized Crime, An Organized Ostula

What goes on in the mind of a hitman * Sicario *

Posted: 14 Jan 2015 06:05 AM PST

Translated for Borderland Beat from a Oaxaca3.0 article by Otis B Fly-Wheel
Are hit men psychopaths or just sick or incapable of feeling empathy for the pain of others?

El Ondeado M1

Reporters note, Otis : I thought this would be a good article to translate as nearly everyone who reads BB has probably tried to understand why someone becomes one and what it must be like to be a hit man.

Serial killers suffer from dissociative disorders which cause a predisposition to violence with the consumption of drugs.

Miguel Angel Trevino Morales alias Z40 , was reputed to eat the heart of his victims , believing it would make him invincible, he recruited people like " Bart Simpson " forcing them to shoot to death someone as proof of loyalty. The original zetas from Gafe , trained with Kabilies , Guatemalan special forces , amongst who its common to eat the heart of someone you kill as an initiation ceremony and to spread fear.

Mira en los ojos del Diablo ( look into the eyes of the Devil )

Miguel Angel Trevino Morales Z 40

The ex leader of the Zetas was detained mid way through 2013 , exemplified the cruelty that members of cartels display to rise up within their organizations.

Even though the aggression has certain limits and is to some extent part of human nature, but the violent crimes associated with Z40 and others speaks about distortions and illness according to psychiatrist Christian Lukhau, director of laboratory of investigation at the University of Dusseldorf.

Its always a question that arises in relation to violent crimes , is the aggressor mentally ill or not? That will vary in each individual case, one cannot speak in general about the situation of a group of criminals , he said referring to the practices of members of cartels in their dispute for the supremacy of a territory , plaza , or drug route.

Dissociative Disorders

Lukhaus said one can treat the more diverse distortions that affect the personality. In particular dissociative disorders , that impede the capacity to feel empathy for fellow human beings, to put oneself in their shoes so to speak. Generally this empathy is conducive to the repression of aggressive conduct. The specialist explained that the lack of empathy permits an individual to engage in violence of a great magnitude, and this is a social personality disorder.

Additionally, mentally ill people that are conducive to a higher risk of violence, for instance schizophrenics, but not all patients are this violent but a small group.

People who abuse drugs are statistically predisposed to the use of violence.

Violence in childhood

"If I'd had psychological help , I don't think my life would have turned out the way it did" says Brian in a documentary entitled 'They killed my Father'. The ex hit man related that ten years had passed since his father was killed, whose body was burned with his head split in half in the desert on the outskirts of Cuidad Juarez.

The youngster related that his childhood was filled with hate , and became more violent with every year. At the age of 17 he killed his first victim, he didn't do it for money , he said he did it purely to see if he had the " cojones " to kill some one.

El Ponchis child serial killer

According to Laukhaus , this traumatic experience scarred him at a very young age, leading to him lacking the ability to conclude the process of maturing and the improvement of the personality. This provokes a strong predisposition to manifest compartmentalized violence, in fact it is an important requirement for such extreme violence, you can also translate this into a strong emotional swing .

The person does not have the emotional balance that comes with a mature personality , Lukhaus points out that in these cases the victims of violence have a predisposition to later on become violent perpetrators themselves.

Its not a requirement to be sick

Lukhaus treats sick people with psychosis , schizophrenia and those that have committed violent crimes , it points out that killers with security do not come in a normal pattern , but he stresses that the question is " if they are genuinely sick or have a mental disorder. It is not necessary to arrive at this to convert one into a serial killer. These type of executioners have a dissociative disorder coupled with the problem of drugs.

The expert said that cocaine and other drugs with similar effects , provoke a strong secretion of the drug dopamine in the brain , which is conducive to a great predisposition to violent behavior,

the abuse of these substances can provoke psychosis , its also conducive to compartmentalized violence.

Original article in Spanish at Oaxaca 3.0

After Ayotzinapa's Disappeared, Locals Are Taking Power In Tecoanapa

Posted: 13 Jan 2015 08:17 PM PST

"We would wake up to find bodies in bags along the roadside. The bodies were cut into pieces; their arms, heads, legs. The people decided to rise up in arms, and that's when things calmed down."

Source:Al Jazeera Plus

Ariel Savein, Cartel Money Launderer, Sentenced to Time Served in U.S.

Posted: 13 Jan 2015 09:55 PM PST

As reported by The Vancouver Sun

A Vancouver man who pleaded guilty in San Diego to laundering money for a Mexican cartel was sentenced to time served Monday.

Ariel Savein was handed a term of 30 months, which amounts to the time he spent in pre-trial custody in both Vancouver and San Diego. Savein will also remain on supervised release for three years, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn L. Huff ruled.

Written submissions filed for the sentencing hearing by Savein's defence lawyer and U.S. prosecutors are sealed.

Savein, 30, was arrested in July 2011 after a massive two-year undercover investigation into Mexican cartels by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

He was one of several Canadian money couriers used by the Sinaloa and La Familia cartels to collect millions owed to the gangs by local drug traffickers.

Savein and others working for the cartels in the Lower Mainland were also assigned to deliver the cash to a cartel contact in Vancouver.

What they didn't realize at the time is that the man who collected duffel bags containing millions was an undercover Vancouver Police officer working with a DEA agent who infiltrated the Sinaloa cartel and brought down dozens of its key people.

Savein was caught making one delivery for La Familia, a smaller cartel with close ties to Sinaloa.

He arrived in the parking lot of the Rona Home & Garden store on Grandview Highway in east Vancouver in April 2010 with $811,850 stuffed in a duffel bag and two cloth shopping bags.

Savein told the VPD officer he was worried someone might see the money sticking out of one of his bags.

After his 2011 arrest, Savein fought his extradition for more than three years before the B.C. Court of Appeal ordered him to surrender to American authorities last summer.

He was flown to San Diego in early September and pleaded guilty Sept. 30, 2014.

Two Mexican men living in Vancouver, who delivered more than $6 million in cartel cash in the same case, were earlier sentenced to 46 months each in San Diego.

Savein, who graduated from Vancouver's Point Grey Secondary in 2003, had no criminal record in B.C., though he was once suspected in a fraudulent lottery scam.

But police sources say he did have links to a former B.C. gangster named Shane (Wheels) Maloney, who is now in jail in Montreal awaiting trial on charges of smuggling cocaine into Canada.

Savein was also listed in a document obtained by The Vancouver Sun as an associate of Montreal's premier pot smuggler Jimmy Cournoyer, sentenced by a New York judge last August to 27 years for running a major international drug ring linked to the Hells Angels, the Mafia and the Sinaloa cartel.

Against Organized Crime, An Organized Ostula

Posted: 13 Jan 2015 05:39 PM PST

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

By: Rafael Camacho

On December 16, 2014, an ambush carried out against a truck in which Semeí Verdía (Commander of the Community Police of Santa María Ostula and General Coordinator of the Autodefensas on the coast of Michoacán) was supposedly driving in left a total of five people injured, including a minor. After these events, the community carried out clearing work on Federal Highway 200 to prevent further attacks.

At least 700 villagers from different syndicates, accompanied by the Community Police, cleared the highway section from Xayacalan to La Ticla, in an impressive display of organization, mutual support, and community work.

"We don't want them to continue harming innocent people, we have been in this movement and we don't fear death but it does bother us, we still worry that innocent families keep getting hurt and that is why we try to do the job, so that what happened before doesn't happen again"

— Semeí

It is worth noting that minutes after the attack, Community Police arrested Jonathan Aguilar Juan, alias "La Changa", who confessed that the armed group was composed of five people and directed by Luis N., alias "El Caracol", who also participated in the torture and murder of Trinidad de la Cruz, "Don Trino", on December 6, 2011, a crime that remains unpunished.

The arrested assailant stated that his intention was to assassinate Semeí Verdía, but they mistook the vehicle that he was traveling in and that the order was given by Federico González, alias "Lico", plaza chief of the Caballeros Templarios in the municipality of Aquila, and Mario Álvarez, former mayor of Aquila and former PRI deputy.

From that moment, up to early February of 2014, the Community Police restructured itself to oust the Caballeros Templariosfrom the Nahua territory, the community organizational process was retaken, and the community assemblies returned; the commissioner of community property was restored, and little by little, community members who had been forced into exile have returned to their homes. For more than 10 months, this process has had its ups and downs with the struggle for autonomy and for the defense of common lands, which have been stripped by smallholders (linked to the Caballeros Templarios and PRI politicians, all interested in the building of infrastructure to output iron that is mined in the region, and in doing so, consolidating a secure business). However, the decision to reconstruct has been stronger.

During busy and long community meetings, the residents of Ostula have recently identified people who are linked to organized crime and remain in the community. At these same meetings, detailed denunciations were made and measures were taken to address these issues, that is why the recent attack on Semeí Verdía could be considered a sort of response from those who have been identified as members of the cartel or as collaborators.