Borderland Beat |
- Chapo Guzman escapes from prison AGAIN.
- Missing Students; Ex-Atty.Gen. Murillo "Case Closed"; New Atty.Gen Arley Gomez Gonzalez, "Not so fast"
- Another Iguala Type Cover-up? Where Are Mexico’s ‘Dead’ Doctors?
- The medicine cartel, a phenomenon made in the USA
Chapo Guzman escapes from prison AGAIN. Posted: 12 Jul 2015 12:19 AM PDT Borderland Beat (Tijuano´s note: This story has just been published, reports can be read on several news outlets including ZETA, El Universal and others, as soon as more info is available I´m sure you´ll read it here) Joaquin Guzman Loera aka "Chapo Guzman" escaped Federal "Maximum Security" prison No. 1 Altiplano, The National Security Council confirmed his escape. According to the Council, "At 20:52 of today (Saturday 11th), Joaquin Guzman Loera was seen in the Permanent Video Recording System of the Federal Prison Altiplano 1, where he was seen entering the showers area in the 20th room of aisle 2, where they usually, besides taking showers, clean their belongings". "When it was noticed he had been too long out of sight, they entered the cell, which was empty, immediately prompting the alerts regarding his possible escape". The corresponding protocol was initiated confirming the escape of Guzman Loera. It was informed "In response to this situation a search operation has been launched in the nearby area and roads in the nearest states. Operation in the Toluca Airport have been suspended". Joaquin Guzman escaped before from "Maximum Security" Puente Grande Prison on January 18th, 2001. SOURCE: El Universal | ||||
Posted: 11 Jul 2015 08:29 AM PDT Borderland Beat posted by DD. On July 2, we published a story of the reluctant cooperation, or lack thereof, with a team of experts from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IAHRC) whose mission was to examine and analyze the governments investigation into the abduction and disappearance of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School that rocked Mexico last September. The team was selected by agreement of the parties to an agreement signed by the Mexican Government, the IAHRC, and the parents of the missing students and consisted of experts from Columbia, Spain, Chile, and Guatemala. The team is in effect investigating the investigation done by the various government agencies into the disappearances. As reported in the July 2 BB story, the government has only given complete responses to 30 percent of the request for information made by the team. One of the biggest obstacles facing the team has been the Army has not responded to a request made by the team over 90 days ago to interview up to 27 soldiers who witnessed some of the events of Sept. 26 and 27 in Iguala or at least were present there when the events were taking place. There are only 2 months remaining on the mandate given to the team of experts to conduct their analysis and make recommendations. While AG Arley Gomez Gonzales did not say the exact words "Not so fast", what she did say this past week was that her office agreed with the parents of the missing students that the government would resume the investigation which Murillo had said in Dec. that the case was closed. The Attorney General's Office agreed to pursue new lines of investigation, although Gomez did not specify what leads they would pursue. This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Mexican-Attorney-General-to-Reopen-Ayotzinapa-Investigation-20150710-0007.html. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english The Attorney General's Office agreed to pursue new lines of investigation, although Gomez did not specify what leads they would pursue. This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Mexican-Attorney-General-to-Reopen-Ayotzinapa-Investigation-20150710-0007.html. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english As reported in Telesur the Attorney General's Office agreed to pursue new lines of investigation, although Gomez did not specify what leads they would pursue. At the behest of the relatives, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, known as the GIEI, also participated in the meeting. The GIEI said that the meeting was "fruitful" and "an important step to move the investigation forward and improve the relationship with family." Even though I think this has to be a good thing, don't hold your breath waiting for any big change in EPN's administration. Arley Gomez Gonzales was formerly head of the Special Office for the Prosecution of Electoral Crimes (and we know how few of the thousands of electoral crimes are prosecuted), then a PRI Senator, and is the sister of the Vice President of News for Televisa TV. It may be that she is just better at public and press relations than her Predecessor, Murillo. She probably won't announce the end of a meeting with parents of the missing by saying "I am tired" or "case closed". At the behest of the relatives, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts, known as the GIEI, also participated in the meeting. The GIEI said that the meeting was "fruitful" and "an important step to more the investigation forward and improve the relationship with family." This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Mexican-Attorney-General-to-Reopen-Ayotzinapa-Investigation-20150710-0007.html. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english | ||||
Another Iguala Type Cover-up? Where Are Mexico’s ‘Dead’ Doctors? Posted: 11 Jul 2015 08:23 AM PDT Borderland Beat posted by DD Republished from the Daily Beast. By Jeremy Krypt
Charges of another tainted investigation in a high-profile kidnapping case threaten the government's credibility—in the state where 43 missing student teachers rocked Mexico. "It wasn't him," Hernandez told The Daily Beast during a recent demonstration outside the state capitol building to protest the government's handling of the case. "I raised him from a baby, so I ought to know. The body presented [by the government] didn't look anything like my boy." The Hernandez family joined about 50 doctors and nurses at the July 2 demonstration, braving the desert heat. The protesters chanted and waved signs outside the locked gates of city hall, demanding "Due process!" and "Security for health-care workers!" "Our family said we couldn't accept a body that wasn't ours," Hernandez explained. "But the DA declared my son dead anyway." His son Marvin vanished June 19 while traveling with three other medical professionals along a remote stretch of highway in Mexico's southwest Guerrero state. The local prosecutor's office has since come under intense criticism for allegedly mismanaging the investigation, especially for its insistence on claiming the victims are deceased without presenting credible evidence. "They told our families we couldn't talk to the press. That we shouldn't tell anybody about what happened at the morgue. But we can't be silent any longer," Hernandez said. Guerrero is home to Mexico's highest murder rate—and it's also where 43 student teachers disappeared last fall, near the small town of Iguala. In the Iguala case, the mayor and local police chief were eventually accused of colluding with organized crime to do away with the students—a scandal that shook the nation to its core. Now, in the wake of the Hernandez party's apparent abduction—and fresh charges of skulduggery in the case—another high-profile kidnapping once again threatens the government's credibility. Two other medical workers and a lawyer from Petatlán Community Hospital who were in the car with Marvin Hernandez were reported missing the same day. The four were en route to Acapulco on hospital business at the time of their disappearance. None have been seen since. Police found their vehicle the next afternoon near the resort town of Xolapa—riddled with bullets from an AR-15 assault rifle, the tires shot out, and the car seats covered with blood. Xolapa was also the site of a deadly shootout between rival factions of a civil defense militia on June 6, which left 17 dead and at least 10 wounded. Since then, the village of less than 1,000 inhabitants has been heavily patrolled by state police officers, including official checkpoints along the same stretch of road where Marvin Hernandez and the others vanished.
"Marvin had no criminal record of any kind, and he hadn't received any threats," said his father. "He'd just graduated from medical school a few months ago. All we want is to get him back alive," said Hernandez, 53, as outraged doctors, nurses, and relatives at the protest continued to cry out for "Justicia!" On June 24, authorities reported the discovery of several badly decomposed corpses in the chaparral-covered mountains, some 80 miles north of Xolapa. The deceased were found in the bed of an abandoned blue-gray Ford Ranger, and covered with a tarp. The first reports mentioned five bodies in the pickup truck. But by the time the bodies reached the morgue in Chilpancingo, there were only four—the same number, conveniently, that had gone missing the week before. And the missing corpse was just the beginning of the mystery: In the back seat of a taxi cab, parked close to the Ranger, investigators also found a state police shirt, undershirt, and a police utility belt. Despite the strange circumstances, and without conducting a formal inquest, Guerrero District Attorney Miguel Angel Godínez summoned relatives of the missing medicos to inspect the remaining cadavers found in the truck. More than a dozen people from the respective families filed into the morgue with Dr. Hernandez's father—and they all rejected the state's proffered corpses as belonging to their loved ones. In the absence of forensic evidence, or a positive ID—and ignoring the police accoutrements found at the crime scene—DA Godínez declared the probe complete. The families aren't buying the prosecutor's story. "The version presented by the DA's office is not the truth," said Hernandez, a compact, wiry man with a sun-creased face. "We don't want to create a controversy [for the government]—we just want our loved ones back alive." Like his father, Dr. Marvin Hernandez is on the short side, about 5 feet 7 inches. The body the state presented to Hernandez was about 6 feet tall—and much more robust than the slender physician. The remains presented to the other families as belonging to their loved ones also bore no resemblance to the missing. One was covered with tattoos, another had dentures, the third a beard and long hair.
But the most telling difference was the advanced state of decay witnesses reported—and that the corpses produced by the state had been exhumed from another site. "We're not a bunch of dumb hillbillies," said Omar Hernandez, Marvin's cousin, who accompanied his grieving uncle to the protest in the state capital. A defense lawyer in Acapulco, Omar was also the first family member notified of the newly discovered bodies on June 24. "I look at deceased people in the morgue all the time," Omar said, "and the corpses [the DA] showed us had clearly been dead for weeks. But Marvin and the others were only missing for a few days. "None of the evidence we've seen would hold up under a thorough, honest investigation." Two days after the failed identification session at the morgue, DA Godínez—who has previously been accused of having links to organized crime—announced that genetic testing had confirmed that the corpses were those of the health-care workers. "Those doctors have already been found," said Godínez, when The Daily Beast met with him in his book-lined, air-conditioned office. "DNA samples were taken and tested positive. The families don't want to accept the results—but there's no question that it's [the missing doctors]." Godínez was wearing a satiny shirt with the top three buttons open across his bare chest; his hair was heavily gelled into place. He said he has no idea who might have killed the doctors, or why. "I'm working with a very limited budget here," he complained. "We've had over a thousand murders so far this year [in Guerrero]. I just don't have the resources to solve them all." Godínez declined to provide The Daily Beast with the official autopsy reports in the Hernandez case. Families of the four victims also say they were never given the results of the DNA analysis, or copies of the forensic results. Withholding of such evidence constitutes a breach of legal protocol in Mexico—but the prosecutor's office declined a request for comment on the lack of shared documentation. Meanwhile, Godínez's decision to halt the search for the missing men has sparked a wave of marches and demonstrations by doctors, nurses, and lab technicians across Guerrero—as the medical community protests the lack of safety for their personnel. Overall, violence against medical workers has spiked recently across Mexico. In just the last three weeks, at least six health-care professionals were killed, wounded, or abducted—including a prominent surgeon who was gunned down outside his home last week in the neighboring state of Morelos. A new study by Mexico's National Security Council reveals that some 75 percent of public-service physicians across nine states report being subjected to armed assault, extortion, vehicle theft, and other forms of violence. For the health-care workers of Guerrero, the missing Hernandez party is just the latest example of the risks posed by organized crime in this lawless region. "Unfortunately, there's a precedent for this kind of thing in Mexico," attorney Omar Hernandez told The Daily Beast after a press conference with the doctors' families in the blocked-off street outside the municipal palace. "Our concern is that the [Guerrero] attorney general's office is manipulating the case," he said. "We don't know if it's a political maneuver, an error, or if they're trying to cover something up. All we know is that they're telling lies." It's not just the victims' relations who are concerned. Both the governor's office and the state congress have expressed their doubts about Godínez's conclusions—and ordered the search for the disappeared doctors to be renewed. Congressional leader Bernardo Ortega even went so far as to dress down the embattled DA on the floor of the state legislature last week, ordering him to use all tools necessary to "search for the missing alive… rather than seek out what appears to be unlikely and unbelievable evidence for their deaths." Because of the signs possibly linking the state police to the crime scene—and because they feel the prosecutor has already "washed his hands" of the case—the victims' families aren't putting their faith in the local authorities. They've already petitioned the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) to take up the case. This won't be the first time the EAAF has been called in to study a mysterious mass abduction in Mexico. The South American super-sleuths were also tapped by the families of the 43 students who disappeared in Iguala. Marvin Hernandez's cousin Omar said he sees a disturbing likeness in the two cases: "The abuse of power committed by the authorities is very similar to what happened [in Iguala]. Once again, there's every indication of official corruption," the lawyer said. "And, once again, human rights are being trampled by the state." Standing outside the capitol, he pulls up a photo of Marvin on his cellphone. It's a closeup shot of better days, the promising young doctor grinning into the camera—and Omar's voice turns shaky as he views it. "How can we put our trust in government officials," he said, "if they won't be honest with us?" | ||||
The medicine cartel, a phenomenon made in the USA Posted: 11 Jul 2015 07:32 AM PDT Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Proceso Special Report [ Subject Matter: Black market in legal medicines Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required]
Reporter: Rafael Croda The Special Agent of the DEA, Rockwell Herron, has his centre of operations in San Diego, California, a few kilometres from the frontier with Mexico, but his work doesn't have to do with the Mexican drug trafficking cartels, it is in whats called "The Medicine Cartel", 100% American mafia. This Cartel, considered the first economic beneficiary for consumers of drugs in the United States, more than 25,000,000,000 dollars per year. Their profits for the illegal sale of prescription medicines is greater than the Mexican Cartels that traffic cocaine, marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine. For Agent Herron, The Medicine Cartel is the greater threat. He has spent 8 years investigating it and is convinced that the abuse of medicines that get to the black market is greater than the illicit drugs provided by Latin America. "We have a problem of illegal drugs and another equal or worse, the consumption of legal medicines that have been acquired illegally, said the DEA Agent to Proceso during a trip to Colombia to give young students talks about the sordid world of drug traffickers. According to Herron, The Medicine Cartel doesn't have capos or public faces, doesn't have cowboy boots, large belt buckles, huge gold medallions and AK47's slung over their shoulders. You have on the other hand, Doctors in white coats, in plush offices, with the power of your signature on a receipt to provide drugs to millions of United States citizens with addiction problems. "My work is to investigate the doctors that sell prescriptions, exchange prescriptions for sex and use them to use that power to supply the black market and the illegal consumption of pills", he explained. The National Institute for the Abuse of Drugs in the United States, NIDA, estimate that 52 million Americans have consumed prescription medicines and that 1 in every 12 secondary school students take opiate analgesic prescription drugs. Herron, known as Rocky by the students with whom he talks, says that a normal American family doesn't have methamphetamine, heroin or cocaine in their house, but they do have analgesics, anti depressants, and stimulants in the medicine cabinet. "The youngster go to the bathroom, take some pills and use them. This way they start, and as there are not sufficient pills in the bathroom to supply their demand, they generate a black market for medical prescriptions", he explained. Among the medicines of major illegal consumption in the United States are the analgesic opiates like, Oxycontin, Percocet (oxicodona), Vocodina, and Methadone. Also the anti depressants and sedatives, like Valium and Xanas, and stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall. "If the Latin American drugs reach the United States, addicts will continue to use drugs made at home, in laboratories legal or clandestine of acid and amphetamines", said the expert in security and professor of the National University of Colombia, Pablo Reyes. According to investigations of NIDA, U.S. counties with high average incomes, whose families were victims of the financial crises of 2008 and 2009, thousands of families could no longer afford costly prescription medicines, and so their children who have been using their drugs, started to dabble in illicit hard drugs like heroin. The Department of Health for the United States considers that the country lives with an epidemic of abuse of heroin that cause over a 100 deaths by overdose every day. According to the institution, between 2007 and 2013 the number of addicts of this drug rose by 172% from 161,000 to 289,000, and of those 85% started with the consumption of prescription medicines. Herron said that the business of medicines includes passing it across the frontier to Tijuana, where it is more easily acquired by United States citizens. "There are Mexican traffickers of pills that have arms inside the United States that corrupt doctors, rob pharmacists and give patients false prescriptions. This is the way they supply these medicines.. They are the only drugs that are made in the United States, travel across the border to Mexico, to return to the United States and still give profits", said the Special Agent with 25 years service with the DEA. For Herron, who thinks that the principal battle front in the war on drugs, is education and prevention, The Medicine Cartel is very dangerous and at this time, for me, the biggest narcos and the doctors of my country that sell prescriptions". (Otis: doing a little math here, 25 billion in domestic illegal drug sales of prescription medicines, plus the 30 billion handed to Mexican Cartels annually totals 55 Billion dollars per year!, that's a sizable chunk of the total United States Gross Domestic Product of 17.7 trillion in 2014). Original article in Spanish at Proceso |
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