Mexican marines captured Sergio Villarreal Barragan, a presumed leader of the embattled Beltran Leyva cartel and one of the country’s most-wanted fugitives, in a raid on Sunday in the central state of Puebla, the government said.
The alleged capo known as “El Grande” did not put up any resistance when he was arrested along with two accomplices as they left a residence in Puebla City, government security spokesman Alejandro Poire said.
The raid involved 30 Navy marines, five vehicles and a helicopter.
PHOTO: AFP
“This is a new and resounding blow by the federal government against crime, given the high rank and dangerousness of this person inside one of the country’s most extensive criminal organizations, which has now been deeply weakened,” Poire said in a statement.
Villarreal’s capture is the fourth major blow delivered to drug cartels by the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon in the past year.
First came the death of Arturo Beltran Leyva, the top leader of Beltran Leyva cartel, in a raid outside Mexico City on Dec. 16 last year. Then soldiers killed the Sinaloa cartel’s No. 3 capo, Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, on July 29. On Aug. 30, federal police announced the capture of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias “La Barbie.” The two men are not related.
Villarreal, appears on an Attorney General’s Office list of Mexico’s most-wanted drug traffickers, with a reward of just over US$2 million offered for his capture. He faces at least seven investigations for alleged drug trafficking and organized crime, Poire said.
He is listed as one of the top remaining leaders of the Beltran Leyva cartel following the death of Arturo, who was known as the “Boss of Bosses,” and the arrest of “La Barbie,” a former Beltran Leyva hitman and operative.
Poire said the Beltran Leyvas “had constituted one of the groups with the largest presence in the country,” conducting operations in 32 Mexican states, including the capital, but trouble began when Alfredo Beltran Leyva was arrested in 2008. Then the death of his brother Arturo the following year splintered the cartel, launching a brutal war for control of the gang, involving mass executions and beheadings in once-peaceful parts of central Mexico. Carlos Beltran Leyva was arrested a few days after Arturo’s death.
The fight for the remains of the cartel pitted Hector Beltran Leyva and Villarreal against a faction led by “La Barbie.” Hector is the last Beltran Leyva brother at large.
The Beltran Leyva brothers once formed a part of the Sinaloa cartel, but broke away following a dispute. An indication of the problems they face is that three of the four main blows dealt to drug gangs in the past year involve Beltran Leyva leaders or operatives.
In the central state of Morelos, police discovered nine bodies in clandestine graves on Saturday in the same area where four more were recently found. The Public Safety Department said in a statement that all 13 victims were believed to have been killed on the orders of “La Barbie” in his battle for control of the cartel.
On Sunday, the military announced that it filed charges against four troops for the Sept. 5 shooting deaths of a man and his 15-year-old son along the highway linking the northern city of Monterrey to Laredo, Texas. Authorities have said soldiers opened fire on the family vehicle when it failed to stop at a checkpoint, though relatives who were also in the car say they were shot at after they passed a military convoy. The mother and wife of the two victims was also wounded in the shooting.
A captain, a corporal and two infantrymen are in custody in military prison and have been charged with homicide, the Mexican Defense Department said in a statement.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS