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Witness says El Chapo paid $100mn bribe to ex-Mexican president

His former chief of staff rejected the accusation on social media. Alex Cifuentes told a court on Wednesday that Guzman had boasted about paying a $100million bribe to the former president of Mexico to call off a manhunt for the notorious kingpin. But an enormous https://rehabliving.net/ grassroots opposition rose up to protest the coup, coordinated through the National Front of Popular Resistance, which united the women’s, labour, campesino, LGBT, Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous movements along with a broad swath of other Hondurans.

  • As president, he militarized the police, oversaw near-complete repression of protests and quickly asserted dictatorial control over the military, police, congress, judiciary and most of the media.
  • They have a greater “invisibility” to law enforcement, explained in part by a widespread assumption that women are less likely to engage in crime.
  • Under cross-examination by defense lawyer Lichtman, who referred to transcripts of de-briefings Cifuentes had with US authorities, Cifuentes alleged that a $100 million bribe was paid to Peña Nieto, who was President from 2012 to 2018.
  • So far, she has joined their longstanding demand for a constituyente – or constitutional convention – which could be used to refound the nation from below.

Over the course of three decades, El Chapo was responsible for smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, meth, and fentanyl around the world, becoming in the process the most celebrated and reviled drug lord since Pablo Escobar. El Chapo waged ruthless wars against his rivals and former allies, plunging vast areas of Mexico into unprecedented levels of violence, even as many in his home state of Sinaloa continued to view him as a hero. Fierce gunfights broke out in the city of Culiacan, a stronghold for the Sinaloa cartel, after security forces captured Ovidio Guzman Lopez – one of the infamous drugs lord’s children. HONDURAN President Juan Orlando Hernandez was accused of accepting bribes from drug-traffickers and sending huge shipments of cocaine to the United States in a case filed by US prosecutors on Friday. Despite his incarceration, Guzmán still casts a long shadow in Mexico, and the Sinaloa cartel, now partly led by his sons, remains a formidable force.

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Any anticorruption agenda will depend on the cooperation of the attorney general, whose term also expires in 2023 and is also elected by the Congress. Xiomara Castro’s resounding success in the November 28 elections was an astonishing victory for the Honduran people. Before the balloting, most assumed that the ruling National Party would once again intimidate voters, cook the books and steal the presidency, despite polling data which made clear that Castro, the centre-left candidate of a united opposition, was on track to win. When the first, partial results were released that Sunday night, though, she led the ruling party candidate, Nasry Asfura, by 19 points with a 62% voter turnout. It appeared she was unstoppable, unless the military rose up – and it hasn’t, yet. Now you see what I meant before about being a girl; after all it is not that bad.

  • Over the course of three decades, El Chapo was responsible for smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana, heroin, meth, and fentanyl around the world, becoming in the process the most celebrated and reviled drug lord since Pablo Escobar.
  • Investigative journalist Anabel Hernández, for example, has long argued that state-cartel collusion and bribery goes all the way to the top.
  • The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
  • The cars would return to Mexico packed with money, and the drug shipments would be held in safehouses in the US until new drivers came to collect them in trucks.

Her deceased husband had meetings withEl Chapo’s representatives in Panama, whilst she was responsible for making payments and implementing money-laundering strategies (Aguirre, 2010; El Pais, 2010). The houses she inherited from her husband were so big that it was possible for an aircraft to land and take off. The possibility of smuggling drugs by air facilitated the transfer of cocaine toEl Chapo’s affiliates in Sinaloa, making Monsalve’s criminal organisation known as theAirmen Cartel. Despite a crackdown on the drug trade on both sides of the border over the past decade and a half, there’s little evidence that either supply or demand has been hampered. In 2012, after six years of President Felipe Calderon’s all-out war on the cartels, a UN study found that the street price of a gram of cocaine in the United States was the same as it had been in 2002.

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As the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, El Chapo was the biggest supplier of drugs to the US, officials have said. Mexico’s security minister Alfonso Durazo said Guzman was arrested “to avoid more violence in the area and preserve the lives of our personnel and recover calm in the city.” Following eco sober house ma the election, Mr Hernandez’s ruling National Party government waged a brutal crackdown on legitimate protest, using the police, military and, allegedly, death squads. The case implicates a number of senior military, police, political and business figures in money laundering and bribery.

  • Remains of pregnant wife, 34, who was murdered by her husband more than 20 years ago when she discovered his…
  • Methamphetamine use has increased dramatically in Asia in the past five years, overtaking even the US.
  • Guzman is on trial in New York on drug trafficking charges that could put him in a US prison for the rest of his life.
  • Cifuentes also said testified that Guzman once told him he had received a message from the Mexican president saying he did not have to live in hiding anymore.

Claudia suggested that it might be better to go to a restaurant that she knew would be almost empty at that time of day. Although the Sinaloa cartel can be run by other drug leaders, the imprisonment of El Chapo means the downfall of one of the world’s most notorious criminals. Nonetheless, the significance of this trial in the fight against drug cartels is questionable.

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He told prosecutors he had been confused about the exact amount of payment. Under questioning from Guzman’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, Cifuentes said he was not sure exactly when the bribe was delivered. Alex Cifuentes spoke about the alleged bribe to President Enrique Pena Nieto during his testimony day in Guzman’s trial in New York.

el chapo bribe us officials

Cifuentes said the bribe was paid in October 2012 by a friend of El Chapo when Mr Peña Nieto was president-elect. He also claimed El Chapo had told him that Mr Peña Nieto said he did not have to live in hiding any more if he paid the money. Cifuentes, a Colombian drug lord who has described himself as El Chapo’s “right-hand man”, worked as his secretary and spent two years hiding from authorities with him in the Mexican mountains, according to prosecutors. Cifuentes testified that he had told U.S. prosecutors Pena Nieto reached out to Guzman first, asking for $250 million.

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The landmark conviction, however, has not shaken Mexico’s political actors accused of corruption, nor has it managed to take down the cartel itself. Zambada also told the jury on Tuesday that he had met twice with former president Felipe Calderon’s head of federal police, Genaro Garcia Luna, and personally handed over at least $6 million in suitcases of cash. Zambada, who described himself as the cartel leader for Mexico City, alleged that he had met with the deputy director of security for Mexico’s incoming president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and handed over “a few million dollars” in 2005. Guzman, whose drug trafficking trial began last week in New York, sat with his arms folded as convicted Sinaloa Cartel member Jesus Zambada – the first of 16 cooperating witnesses – detailed allegations of how the Cartel had corrupted senior officials over decades. Drug kingpin Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman preferred US dollars he doled out his huge bribes to Mexican prosecutors, police, military and even Interpol to ensure smooth operations for his Sinaloa cartel, a key informant has told American jurors.

Cartels continue to find avenues across the border because there is a robust American market for drugs, and money always finds a way. It’s also worth bearing in mind that much of the crime that Trump blames on Latin American migrants – drug trafficking, gang violence – has its origins in the US. The Mara Salvatrucha gang formed in Los Angeles; mass opium cultivation began in California before moving down to Mexico. As for the idea that criminals are clamouring to enter, most cartel leaders want to stay as far away from the border as possible. As Pablo Escobar once remarked, a grave in Colombia will always be preferable to a prison cell in the US. The military and police present Castro’s most serious, and potentially deadly domestic challenge.

el chapo bribe us officials

Guzman is on trial in New York on drug trafficking charges that could put him in a US prison for the rest of his life. During his opening statements at the trial, El Chapo’s defence lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman had alleged that Mr Peña Nieto and other former Mexican presidents had “received hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes” from El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel. El Chapo, 61, said to have headed the world’s biggest drugs cartel, has been on trial in the US since November after he was extradited from Mexico to face charges of ­trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs.

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Putting the Sinaloa Cartel at a more disadvantageous position might well result in empowering its biggest rival organisation – The Jalisco New Generation. The intended outcome of the trial therefore might be reversed, and contribute to the growth of the world’s biggest drug-dealing cartels. Guzman, 61, has been on trial in Brooklyn since November after he was extradited from Mexico to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs as leader of what the US has called the world’s largest drug cartel. Mexico’s former president took a $100 million (£78m) bribe from drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the cartel leader’s secretary has told a New York courtroom. Guzmán, 61, has been on trial in Brooklyn since November after he was extradited from Mexico to face charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs as leader of what the US has called the world’s largest drug cartel. The US state apparatus has itself turned a blind eye to, or even facilitated, drug trafficking.

20 to 30 prisoners also escaped during the violence, though some were quickly recaptured. Guzman, thought to be in his twenties, was captured during a routine patrol, subsequently causing cartel members to launch an offensive to retrieve him. Police have been forced to release the son of El Chapo after his arrest sparked intense violence in northern Mexico.

Thirty-six candidates were murdered since campaigning began in Mexico last September, including numerous members of the president’s own Morena party. After his arrest, the Sinaloa cartel is headed by Ismael Zambada Garcia and Guzman’s sons, Alfredo Guzman Salazar and Ivan Archivaldo Salazar. There is no doubt that given the number of articles published during the court case the jurors would be swayed, even subconsciously. One of the many articles that were read by these jurors was the series of rape cases regarding girls as young as 13.

And he claimed that former Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto accepted a $100m bribe from Guzmán. At the trial, his lawyers argued he was the fall guy for other kingpins who were better at paying off senior Mexican politicians and law enforcement officials to protect them while the US government looked the other way. Experts say he is likely to end up at the federal government’s “Supermax” prison in Florence, Colorado, known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies”. El Chapo is escorted from a plane in New York state (US law enforcement/AP)“My case was stained and you denied me a fair trial when the whole world was watching,” Guzman said in court through an interpreter. The 62-year-old, who had been protected in Mexico by an army of gangsters and an elaborate corruption operation, was taken to the US to stand trial after he twice escaped from Mexican prisons.

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