An independent report presented Sunday dismantles the Mexican government's investigation into last year's disappearance of 43 teachers' college students, starting with the assertion that the giant funeral pyre in which the attorney general said they were burned to ash beyond identification simply never happened.
While the government said the Sept. 26 attack was a case of mistaken identity, the report said the violent and coordinated reaction to the students, who were hijacking buses for transportation to a demonstration, may have had to do with them unknowingly interfering with a drug shipment on one of the buses. Iguala, the city in southern Guerrero state where that attacks took place, is known as a transport hub for heroin going to the United States, particularly Chicago, some of it by bus, the report said.
"The business that moves the city of Iguala could explain such an extreme and violent reaction and the character of the massive attack," the experts said in the report delivered to the government and the students' families during a public presentation.
"It was the state!" some members of the audience shouted.
The attack and disappearance of the 43 at the hands of officials became a pivotal moment in the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, which started fast out of the blocks three years ago with a series of key political and economic reforms. But the slow response to the case of the 43 and the implausibility of the government's version of the events sparked international outrage and eroded the credibility of Pena Nieto's government.
The report means that nearly a year after the disappearance, the fate of 42 of the students remains a mystery, given the errors, omissions and false conclusions outlined in more than 400 pages by the experts assembled by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. The team interviewed witnesses and detainees and reviewed the government's evidence and conclusions. A charred bone fragment of only one of the 43 has been identified and it wasn't burned at the high temperature of an incineration, contrary to Mexican investigators' claims.
The report recommends that authorities rethink their assumptions and lines of investigation, as well as continue the search for the students and investigate the possible use of public or private ovens to cremate the bodies. It also recommends investigating the drug angle, who was coordinating the attacks and who were the high level people giving the orders — all unknowns nearly a year later.
Mexican authorities may be closing in on escaped drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, but they still haven't announced his capture.
The Mexican military is carrying out operations across the two northern states of Sinaloa and Durango, Sinaloa Governor Mario López Valdez confirmed in a press conference on Wednesday. Some 260 people have been forced from their homes due to the operations, Spanish newswire EFE reports.
“The military personnel working in the area were sent by Mexico City,” López Valdez said, according to EFE. “You all know who they’re after. At the moment, we haven’t seen any results.”
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly intercepted Guzmán's cell phone calls and tipped off Mexican authorities to the kingpin’s location, according to NBC and CBS. The outlets cited unnamed U.S. law enforcement sources.
The Huffington Post could not independently confirm those reports, and a spokeswoman for the Mexican armed forces declined to comment.
lmfao everytime i read this thread, it's all one big joke, a sad one at that. i'm feeling like the more i read, the more trump is entitled to a vote. like it's blatantly obvious what needs to be done, if these news post are not evidence of the entirety of mexico being corrupt, i don't know what is.
i mean do i really need to state the obvious? even the comments made by DEA are being kind as to not outrightly speak their mind and call mexico out for what they are. they should honestly tell mexico exactly how the scenario looks like but that would probably invite war and non-correspondence. the whole government is corrupt, a rat's nest that's been there so long that it infected the whole country. the gang has pretty much taken over the majority if not ALL of the country. this guy has accumulated so much power he has multiple people on his side in every organization at every level.
- mexican armed forces declined to comment? you get tipped off of the location and you can't catch the fucker?
- you get this guy in an inescapable prison, and you can't even record or locate the people who assisted in his escape? heck he might have let himself get caught just to prove his power over the country. this isn't the 90's where we had no technology to backtrack if the whole penitentiary isn't corrupt, there is no way you can't isolate who assisted him with modern day technology and then imprison those fuckers too.
- refuse help from the US? LOL
this is what happens when you build a society around worshiping criminal behavior. let's throw gang signs and pretend we're cool, and then criticize other kids for staying in school. in fact let's keep doing it we'll get pussy and they won't. this type of cancerous behavior has spread too far and obviously there's no real solution to it. the only way is to bomb the fuckers and raze the whole country or to remove everyone with a position of power in their country from their seat and replace them with mexican translators which obviously isn't going to happen. any resistance to allow support or help in any way should be deemed suspect and that person immediately be investigated upon. like hate to break it to the good people of mexico but i'm sorry there's going to be no change unless all the gang members simultaneously die of a heart attack. the grip the gang members have on everyone is far too strong cause well, the majority of people in the country are weak, hate to say it to you. you're not willing to whistleblow, ask for help, build a foundation of integrity and uplift people who do. the rule "no snitchin" is used to keep the incompetent in line so criminal behavior can continue. no one can trust anyone for the fear of their own lives so no type of community or organization that's trustworthy can ever be built. no one from mexico can be trusted, you either put down anyone who is associated with criminal behavior or at this point, just continue being in their death grip, that's honestly where it comes to for your country.
I wonder how much information he is willing to spill once he gets extradited to the States. Although he probably isn't going to be let off and kept in a maximum-security prison.
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán had seen his name in headlines. He knew it graced the world's Most Wanted lists.
But it appears that the notorious drug kingpin wanted something more: He wanted his name in lights.
Guzmán was recaptured by the Mexican government on Friday, and has been returned to the same prison he broke out of in July. Mexican authorities tracked him down in the seaside city of Los Mochis thanks in part to Guzmán's desire to make a biopic about his life, Mexico's attorney general says.
The druglord had contacted actors and producers, Arely Gomez says, opening a line of investigation that helped Mexican marines ultimately capture the fugitive.
I guess he became too cocky for his own good. Of course, it's not like the Mexican government hasn't vindicated his belief in their incompetence over the last few decades.
Operation Black Swan, Mexican Marines. Capture of El Chapo.
The extradition of Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán to the U.S. will likely take at least a year, according to the head of Mexico's extradition office, Miguel Merino.
Speaking Monday on a Radio Formula program called Ciro Gómez Leyva por la Mañana, Merino said Mexico has begun processing two extradition requests from the U.S., but warned that Guzmán's lawyers could pursue a number of possible legal appeals that could delay the drug kingpin's extradition for four to six years.
NPR's Carrie Kahn reports that Interpol officers presented Guzmán with two U.S. arrest warrants this weekend. He has been "indicted on drug and arms trafficking, money laundering and murder charges in at least six U.S. states," she says.
Mexico's willingness to consider extradition marks a shift from the government's previous position, Carrie reported Saturday. When Guzmán was captured in February 2014, Mexico said it would not extradite him until he had served a lengthy prison term in Mexico.
The drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán bankrolled the election of senior Mexico politicians and twice secretly entered the United States to visit relatives, according to his eldest daughter.
Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz said that shortly after an interview with Hollywood star Sean Penn last year, her father dodged a massive manhunt with the complicity of corrupt Mexican officials and evaded US border controls to sneak into California – despite being one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.
She also accused senior Mexican politicians of accepting donations from El Chapo when they ran for office, and said that in return officials turned a blind eye to his escapes from prison.
“My dad is not a criminal. The government is guilty,” she told the Guardian.
The explosive allegations made by Guzmán Ortiz could not be independently verified and are likely to be vigorously contested by Mexican and US authorities.
Guzmán Ortiz, 39, made the claims in a series of interviews which she said were given in consultation with her father.
State and civic officials seldom speak happily about the prospect of a high-profile prisoner, or see a crime lord’s arrival as a sign to the world that their city is recovering and attracting investment.
Yet the governor of Chihuahua state appeared enthused about having cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán occupy a prison cell in Ciudad Juárez – the border city once considered the murder capital of the world. Local leaders there are anxious to shed old stereotypes and show that security institutions are improved enough to house Mexico’s most notorious criminal and two-time escape artist.
“The decision of having him brought here is because there will not be any escape,” Governor César Duarte said on Saturday evening.
“This speaks well of the state’s [security] system, speaks very well of the environment that we are experiencing in Chihuahua, and above all, the strengthening of institutions, which we have achieved,” Duarte said, according to the newspaper Reforma.
Guzmán was sent suddenly during the early hours of Saturday morning to a federal penitentiary in Ciudad Juárez, though his lawyers say the move in no way speeds up possible extradition to the United States.
Federal officials say the move was made so they could “reinforce security” at the Altiplano prison to the west of Mexico City, where Guzmán tunnelled out in July 2015 and was returned after his recapture six months later. The interior ministry said in a Saturday statement that it regularly rotated prisoners around the country as part of a policy introduced last September while Guzmán was on the lam.
Guzmán’s lawyers have applied for injunctions against his extradition, though the process is proceeding slowly. The interior ministry said it had advised the judges weighing the injunctions that Guzmán had been sent to Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Mexico’s foreign ministry has approved the extradition of cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán to the United States, where to the two-time escapee would face charges ranging from murder to money laundering to conspiracy to import cocaine – and, if convicted, presumably find fewer opportunities for slipping out of prison unannounced.
In a statement released on Friday, the foreign ministry said it received assurances Guzmán would not face the death penalty, a punishment not carried out in Mexico. It added that Guzmán, is allowed to appeal the extradition decision though legal experts see scant chances of success.
“They want to send him right away,” says Octavio Martínez, law professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana, who said Guzmán’s recent transfer to a prison in Ciudad Juárez on the border with Texas was a way to “hinder, to a certain point, the defence he could have”.
He estimated the appeal process could drag on for at least a year.
Lawyers for Guzmán told Mexican media on Friday they would seek an injunction against extradition, saying they would take the case to the supreme court if necessary.
Friday’s announcement was in relation to federal charges in California and Texas on money laundering, murder, conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine, weapons offenses and organized crime charges. Guzmán has also been indicted by prosecutors in Brooklyn.
Armed men burst into a restaurant in the Mexican beach resort of Puerto Vallarta and abducted as many as 16 customers early on Monday, according to local authorities.
Prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco said that around 1am local time, the gunmen entered a restaurant called La Leche on the resort city’s main boulevard, bundled the victims into SUVs and sped away.
At a news conference, Jalisco state prosecutor Eduardo Almaguer said the preliminary results of the investigation indicated that all the victims were members of “criminal organizations”.
“They were not tourists or residents who work in legal activities,” Almaguer said. “They were people tied to a criminal group we can very clearly presume.”
He said authorities believe they know which groups were involved, but declined to name them.
Witnesses reported that four women in the targeted group were not taken by the gunmen, he said. He said authorities were looking for those women.
All of those abducted were from the western states of Sinaloa, Nayarit and Jalisco, Almaguer said.
Five vehicles, including a Jeep, Land Rover and a Cadillac Escalade, were left at the restaurant, but it was unknown if any belonged to the victims or attackers.
In a message on Twitter, Jalisco governor Aristoteles Sandoval said such violence would not be tolerated and a search was under way for the victims and the kidnappers.
EPT
