The government’s star witness in the trial of El Chapo Guzman was trying to buy information from a man who was instrumental in the purchase of the DC-9 — dubbed “Cocaine One” for its resemblance to official U.S. government planes — busted in Mexico in April of 2006 carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine.
Fernando Blengio Cesena, alias Raúl Jiménez Alfaro, alias Luis Fernando Bertulucci Castillo, and known within the Sinaloa cartel as “El Rey” or “El Capitán,” was at the time being held in Miami on drug smuggling charges. He has since been convicted and is currently serving 13 years in federal prison in North Carolina.
Blengio alleges his family in Mexico was deliberately put at risk when word leaked in the U.S. and Mexican press that he would be testifying against Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, “El Vincentillo.” the government’s star witness in the El Chapo Guzman trial so far.
Zambada told authorities in 2011 the cartel had a deal with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to notify El Chapo of any Mexican security operation that could “endanger the cartel’s leaders.”
In a trial so far marred by excessive secrecy, it is a surprising development.
More to come…
Endless lies in an endless war
What does it say about the United States that the governments of all four key countries allied with the U.S. in supposedly fighting the growth of the still-burgeoning American drug trade — Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Honduras—are corrupt to the core?
One thing is certain: We aren’t about to find out.
When the head honcho of the drug war’s latest bugaboo—‘El Chapo’ Guzman of the Sinaloa Cartel—went on trial in New York two months ago, it wasn’t just his criminality being judged: It was our own. The evidence presented so far—and more importantly the evidence that’s been suppressed—points to a verdict of guilty on all counts.
Americans deserve better. It is, after all, our money which pays for the DEA’s annual $40 billion ‘war on drugs.’
So too do the long-suffering citizens of Mexico, where murders and massacres continue apace. One headline this week:
“Eight people were found stacked in the back of a cream-colored double-cabin pick-up truck without plates, on which ‘narcomensajes’ (drug cartel messages) were written, in the Nahuatl community of El Manzanilla.”
Last year was the worst year on record for homicide in Mexico. The only difference is the massacres no longer receive news coverage in the U.S.
Everyone’s on the take… except in the U.S.?
In the two months of testimony so far in El Chapo’s trial, nearly every level of the Mexican government from the President on down: from Generals to prison guards, from airport officials to the Mexican Attorney General, has been shown to be on the take. All have been compromised.
Even the architect of the Mexican government’s war on Mr. Guzmán and his allies — Genaro García Luna, the former public security director — is taking briefcases stuffed with cash.
When El Chapo sent his regular bribe to one former army official, Mexican General Gilberto Toledano, he told the bagman delivering the bribe to “Give the General $100,000 and a hug from me.”
One of the trial’s star witnesses, ‘El Chupeta,’ who the DEA once called the biggest drug trafficker since Pablo Escobar, calmly told the jury an entire wing of his North Valley cartel was devoted just to doling out payments.
“It’s impossible to be the leader of a drug cartel in Colombia without corruption,” he explained. “They go hand in hand.”
Mexican presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, Venezuelan Presidents Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro, and every one of Columbia’s recent Presidents, including Alvaro Uribe, who in retirement today oversees the resurgent Medellin cartel… all have a piece of the action.
Not to mention every tin-horn General in Honduras, and fascistic Central American dictators whose iron rule is responsible for the hordes of civilians who have been fleeing to our shore.
Donald Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn was right.
“Don’t tell me what you’re charged with,” he reportedly told clients. “Just give me the name of the judge.”
Keeping the lid on for reasons of… ‘national security’
It’s a Star Chamber proceeding. El Chapo’s trial has been defined by its secrecy. The most egregious evidence of corruption hasn’t even been heard—and probably never will be—by the jury.
Prosecutors have tried to ensure witness testimony about government corruption is suppressed from the jury.
In his opening statement, El Chapo lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman alleged that former Mexican presidents took hundreds of millions in bribes. The prosecution objected. Objection sustained.
Later, a witness, El Chapo ‘jefe’ Jesus Vicente Niebla, was on the verge of revealing the names of two Mexican presidents — neither of whom was named — had taken massive bribes from the cartel.
Which ones? No one knew. The witness never got the chance to tell his story after prosecutors objected to the line of questioning and a federal judge, largely working in secret, barred the testimony from being heard.
Another example: They worked to prevent the jury from hearing anything about the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) failed Operation Fast and Furious, the brainchild of former Obama Administration Attorney General Eric Holder.
It was designed to bust weapons smugglers, and straw purchasers for Mexican criminal groups, including the Sinaloa Cartel. Instead, US firearms were used in the murder of a US Border Patrol agent in 2010, and a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in 2011.
Worse yet, the government never even had a coherent explanation for the operation to provide a ‘fig leaf’ of plausibility.
Speaking from the bench, Judge Brian M. Cogan agreed with the prosecutors and limited the questions that El Chapo’s lawyers could ask Zambada on cross-examination. The judge ruled that whatever might be learned from a broader line of inquiry did not outweigh “protecting individuals and entities” who were not directly involved in the case who would be needlessly embarrassed.
Americans, and their yearly $40 billion investment, might beg to differ.
Will the truth ever come out?
I
t is no secret that Mexico’s drug cartels have, for decades, corrupted the authorities with dirty money. But while it is easy to point fingers at Mexico, it is mistake to localize the corrupting influence of narco dollars as only happening there.
The cartels have many thousands of willing partners here in the States, which is also where they buy their guns & launder their money in our banks. It’s a big “swamp”
The jury is unlikely to hear about that the judge has regularly disallowed evidence of complicity verging on corruption by American authorities. The jury is unlikely to hear any of it.
The same U.S. Attorney’s office trying Chapo reached a deferred prosecution agreement with HSBC after the bank was found to have laundered $800 million of Sinaloa drug cartel money.
Are the Mexicans all to blame? Is the US just a benevolent actor?
Stay tuned.
[…] lot about corruption, especially at the top of the Mexican government. He was a transportation and aviation manager purchasing dozens of American-registered aircraft, ‘go-fast’ boats, and ocean-going vessels, for use by the […]