Likely still up to their old tricks

January 5, 2019 10:21 AM

Among the fireworks this week were continuing revelations in the the ongoing trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka “El Chapo.” What has been left unsaid indeed. Friday, the NYT reported:

While American authorities have acknowledged that Mr. Zambada met with federal agents, they have long denied there was any quid pro quo agreement. In a recent ruling, Judge Brian M. Cogan, who is hearing Mr. Guzmán’s case, said that Mr. Zambada’s claims regarding his cooperation with the Americans cannot be mentioned at the trial.

Testimony Thursday and Friday by Vicente Zambada Niebla (aka “El Vincentillo”, son of “El Mayo” Ismael Zambada García, the head of the Sinaloa cartel) included

Mr. Zambada also testified that his father’s bribery budget was often as much as $1 million a month. An Army general who worked as an official in the Mexican defense department earned a monthly stipend of $50,000 from the cartel, Mr. Zambada recalled. He also said that his father routinely bribed a military officer who once served as a personal guard to Mexico’s former president, Vicente Fox.

Although testimony about the close cooperation between the DEA and the Sinaloa cartel to take down El Chapo has been so far suppressed in this trial, it is no secret. El Vincentilo was captured and imprisoned in Chicago in 2009, held incommunicado, and entered into a secret plea agreement with the DOJ (which was finally revealed in 2014). An El Universal investigation detailed at that time:

El Universal, citing court documents, reports that DEA agents met with high-level Sinaloa officials such as Castro more than 50 times since 2000. ... What El Universal's investigation and the newly published court documents reveal is that there was a strong correlation from 2005 and 2009 between the rise of the Sinaloa cartel and the DEA's relatively regular contact with a top Sinaloa lawyer.

The actual testimony of “El Vincentillo” from 2009-2014 is still secret. During this period, the Sinaloa cartel became the dominant supplier of cocaine, heroin, and other drugs to the US. So far, there has been no naming of the recipients of the bribes in the US and of persons, banks, companies, and government agencies which facilitated the importation and distribution of tons of cocaine in the US. We still have to guess. Apparently this information is embargoed on “national security” grounds.

From the proceeds of the 18th century opium trade which benefitted some of the US’s major cities and first families, to the more modern examples of Air America’s drug trade from Laos and Vietnam, the decades of CIA asset Manuel Noriega’s drug trafficking, the Contra saga, the multiple US banks involved in money laundering, and continuing allegations of TLA involvement with Colombian and Mexican cartels, it’s a long history - still being written.

posted by sudogeek (8 comments total)

Thanks for this write up! I know little of this.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:01 AM on January 5, 2019

they have long denied there was any quid pro quo agreement.


Rule of thumb: never believe something until it has officially been denied.
posted by DreamerFi at 12:06 PM on January 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

the multiple US banks involved in money laundering,

Quite a while ago I worked briefly for a major new england bank, very very respectable, and a couple young guys were taking a vacation in Miami and happened to notice in the company phone book (paper) that there was a branch office. Being nice guys interested in all things bank they decided to drop in for a visit. Really made sense, backoffice bankers were some of the friendliest folks I've ever worked with. So the punch line: even with the address in hand they could not find any sign or evidence of a branch office. We were computer guys, could see significant transactions, an invisible major contributor to the bottom line. Great amusement.
posted by sammyo at 12:19 PM on January 5, 2019 [18 favorites]

lol

close cooperation between the DEA and the Sinaloa cartel

posted by sammyo at 12:20 PM on January 5, 2019

[Vicente Zambada Niebla] also testified that in 2007 he met with a group of “high-level politicians” and representatives from Pemex, Mexico’s national oil company, to discuss a scheme to ship 100 tons of cocaine in a tanker vessel owned by the firm.
posted by reductiondesign at 12:49 PM on January 5, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm going to have to watch Netflix's Narcos: Mexico series to figure out the back story to all of this. (I suppose the Narcos series about Pablo Escobar in Columbia provides the back story to the precursor that lead up to Mexico's drug trade).
posted by eye of newt at 1:33 PM on January 5, 2019

A great reminder that as genuinely hideous as the front-page headlines on the politics of the day may be, they are just the friendly face of a deeply evil organization. The organizations that are supposed to stop drug trafficking actually facilitate it. The organizations that are supposed to ensure peace actually cause war. The organizations that are supposed to protect actually oppress. And it's all for the enrichment and empowerment of the already wealthy and powerful. The surface stuff is real, it still matters, but it's just the surface.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 2:56 PM on January 5, 2019 [7 favorites]

There is also an interesting story of a Evanston, Illinois cop who moved up into the DEA and had several large Mexican cartel busts. The kicker? He was a deep cover agent for a Puerto Rican cartel. He was eventually caught gun smuggling.
posted by srboisvert at 5:30 PM on January 5, 2019 [5 favorites]