Borderland Beat

by Alex Marentes

  "First they were ordered to surrender, but they refused and then they opened fire at us," said one of the ski-masked Marines who participated in the raid.

  The last meal of El Jefe de Jefes, the man who bought favors in exchange for millions of dollars and trafficked cargoes of drugs that were measured in kilos, the man with the jewels, the exotic animals, the ranches, the palaces, the planes; was eating eggs with ham that he had sipped in a plastic bottle of Coke.

  He had called two masseurs, one of 18 and the other of 44, with whom he spent his last hours.

  The first photos show him not at the door of the apartment, but inside it, with an energy drink next to his hands. According to the official version, the Marines found him with his pants to his knees and his shirt lifted to his chest. "I think he fell wounded and perhaps his clothes were loosened, he was pulled and he was left in that position, he was already in this position," exclaimed Admiral José Luis Vergara when questioned about the body of Arturo.

  Except that a photo shows three civilians dressed in sweatshirts and red latex gloves, lowering the pants of Arturo down to his knees, and placing the body on a white sheet. In a third photo, those same civilians begin to place jewelry and bloody bills on the body.

  No official explanation was offered about the humiliation of the body.

  Admiral Vergara maintained that the objective of the marines was to capture the criminal alive, "but he resisted any attempted to be captured alive."

  Testimony given to the ministerial agency by the masseurs gave a different version that official authorities did not disclosed. The two masseurs said that Arturo Beltrán had surrendered, that he had placed his hands up in a sign of surrender, before he was shot dead by the military.

  President Felipe Calderon, speaking from the Copenhagen climate summit, said "this operation represents an important achievement for the government and people of Mexico, and a resounding blow against one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in Mexico, and on the continent."

  Arturo Beltran Leyva was the highest-ranking figure killed under Calderon, who had deployed more than 45,000 troops across Mexico to crush the cartels since taking office in December 2006. Mexican Marines/Navy often had been used in these battles against heavily armed sicarios. The offensive earned Calderon praise from Washington even as 14,000 people had been killed in a wave of drug-related violence engulfing Mexico.

  Not long after the death of Arturo Beltran Mexican authorities were wondering who would take over operations of the BLO. His death, as is common with the death of any top boss, very rarely slows down operations.

  In fact, hitmen executed several members of the family of a dead marine that had participated in the operation that killed Arturo. Hours after the funeral of the marine who was killed in the raid that left Arturo Beltran Leyva dead, some of Leyva’s allies invaded the marine’s home and gunned down his mother, brother, sister and aunt.

  The message couldn’t have been clearer: Touch us, and your family will pay the price.

  When the family of an ordinary marine is massacred because he took part in a raid against a cartel leader, it means two things: First, the cartels are raising the stakes as high as they can go. Second, the government is hitting them hard and hurting them badly. This had become a war of desperation on both sides, and America ought to be paying attention.

  The family of Beltran claimed the body and held a funeral service in Culiacan, Sinaloa. It is said that the family bought all the white roses in the whole state of Sinaloa, to symbolize the white boots that Arturo often wore.

  For more than two minutes "they killed him, they killed him" are the only words that are heard in a corrido dedicated to drug trafficker Arturo Beltrán Leyva. Another corrido warns President Felipe Calderón that "operatives like this do not do you a big favor" and one more even alludes to the burial in Durango. In total, eight videos of narcocorridos were written hours after the death of El Jefe de Jefes and could be seen on YouTube.

  After the death of Arturo Beltran Leyva, the power of his criminal organization, one of the most powerful in the past 20 years, was put in the hands of Hector Beltran Leyva, one of the brothers who according to government official, is responsible for the laundering of money for the organization. Hector Beltran, El “H,” would eventually be arrested by Mexican authorities and would die of a heart attack while in prison.

  However, in the midst of internal realignment of forces, another name was mentioned as possible replacements; Edgar Valdez Villarreal, El Barbie, the leader of the sicarios under Arturo Beltran and one who had been marked as a traitor in the death of El Jefe de Jefes.

  La Barbie

  Edgar Valdez Villarreal (born August 11, 1973) also known as La Barbie, is a Mexican-American, born and raised in the United States.

  In his initial stages Valdez Villarreal was a member of the Gulf cartel, responsible for coordinating all logistics of espionage in a large group of informants, known as Los Halcones.

  He then left that criminal organization and became a key part of the Sinaloa cartel, when the brothers Arturo, Hector and Alfredo - known as "Three Caballeros" were part of what is now known as The Federation and that according to the PGR, were led by Ismael Zambada García El Mayo, and Joaquín Guzmán Loera, El Chapo.

  Soon Barbie became leader of the group of Beltran's sicarios and was placed there specifically because he showed the ability to orchestrate the executions of rival members without blinking an eye. He is also distinguished himself by his ability to corrupt public officials.

  According to some of the friends and foes of Edgar Valdez Villareal "La Barbie," they said that La Barbie was one of the most efficient hunters of Zetas.

  La Barbie was once quoted as saying "Yes the Zetas are a danger, they do not respect anyone, because the truth is, they are filth, for not even their mother wants them."

  La Barbie was described as a criminal master mind who had full control of airports and was also good in counterintelligence from within his criminal group to help him discredit public officials.

  Those who knew him and later some who testified in legal proceedings with federal prosecutors of SIEDO gave information that sicarios under his leadership conducted routine executions, even of innocent people, without hesitation and some of which included the 24 farmers and masons from La Marquesa.

  Mateo Díaz López, or "Comandante Mateo," a former military and a commander for Los Zetas that was arrested on July 2006 told SIEDO that "La Barbie" was responsible for filming the execution of four sicarios in Tamaulipas. This video was sent to The Dallas Morning News on December 1, 2005.

  "I know that on that occasion the Preventive Police and the AFIs abducted nine members of my group (Zetas) in a nightclub in Zihuatanejo. These men were in that city in order to fight for control of the plaza,” said Comandante Mateo.

  Once abducted they took them to the city of Acapulco and there, they delivered them to La Barbie, who later released a video in which four of the men are seen being interviewed. Among them were "El Peterete," and Vizcarra, his cousin. According to Mateo Díaz, on the video these men said many things about Los Zetas. During the interrogation La Barbie forced the gunmen to say that Osiel was receiving protection from Santiago Vasconcelos, then head of SIEDO, with full intention to discredit him.

  After interrogators, who are not seen on the video (one is alleged to be the actual Barbie) questioning the men, the video ends when a handgun enters the frame and shoots the man believed to be Vizcarra in the head.

  Later on, the rest are also executed and their bodies were disposed to never be found. Also, in this video the captured Zetas say that the attorney Vasconcelos was involved with the Zetas. “this was not true, as this was only a strategy of La Barbie' to force the PGR to go after us," said Mateo Díaz.

  La Barbie took control of illegal operations in the airports of Cancun and Toluca, through a partnership with federal agents José Antonio Rosales and Edgar Octavio Ramos Cervantes "El Chuta".

  To gain thei
r cooperation, La Barbie gave Rosales a BMW, $65,000 (dollars) and he also gave him the nickname "El buen hombre" or "The good man." He gave him that name because since 2008, he had provided access to move a cargo of cocaine in the airport of Cancun, according to the federal investigation and statements from the protected witness known only as "Jennifer."

  "Rosales, apart from being in charge of operations at the Cancun airport, made sure that when we arrived, we were not inspected in the terminal," said "Jennifer" before the PGR.

  La Barbie allegedly worked for several years as a cartel lieutenant before rising to a leadership position in an enforcement squad called Los Negros. Following the death of cartel boss Arturo Beltrán Leyva (BLO) in late 2009, Valdez was engaged in a bloody and protracted turf war for control of the BLO cartel, employing techniques such as videotaped tortures, decapitations of his adversaries, that resulted in over 150 deaths.

  On August 30, 2010, La Barbie was arrested by the Mexican Federal Police near Mexico City on charges related to large scale drug trafficking with the Beltrán-Leyva Organization Cartel. He was facing charges in both Mexico and the United States.

  Mexican authorities had been closing in La Barbie's allies in recent weeks. On July 10, 2010 marines raided a house in Acapulco and captured Gamaliel Aguirre Tavira, suspected regional chief of the Valdez faction.

  Narcotics agents hunting "La Barbie" got a lucky break in a raid on August 9, in the elegant Bosques de las Lomas district of Mexico City, which turned up evidence leading them to the accused drug lord's mountain safe house in the region of Salazar.

  A group of federal police officers encircled the rustic mountain house in Salazar, about 20 miles west of Mexico City, where Valdez-Villarreal had holed up. Mobile phone service in the area was spotty, and the La Barbie along with six sicarios couldn't summon backup to fight their way out, he said. They were detained around 6:30 p.m. without a shot being fired.

  The special unit that conducted the operation was highly qualified to operate in various types of terrain, as well as in the use of all kinds of weapons, thanks to extensive training both in Mexico and the U.S.

  Another version of the capture of La Barbie is said that it did not happened in a spectacular police operation in Mexico as had been reported by Mexican authorities, but merely by chance.

  Federal police on regular patrol on a highway in the state of Mexico were passed by three vehicles, a Chevrolet Cruze, a Chevrolet Malibu and a Ford Focus, traveling at a high rate of speed.

  The police conducted a traffic stop and ordered the occupants through a police vehicle's loudspeaker to step out of their vehicles.

  The first to get out was a white skinned man. The police officers did not know who he was at first, but later on they found out they had detained Édgar Valdez Villarreal, La Barbie.

  The Federal Police requested his personal information and he told them that he was Édgar Valdez Villarreal, who is known by "La Barbie." He immediately told the police officers that he was a drug trafficker.

  Based on the fact that his capture by Mexican federal police was completely without violence or casualties, there was a rumor that he made a deal to turn himself in and receive favorable treatment in exchange for providing intelligence information on his rival cartels.

  In the U.S., when the police want to display a suspect for journalists and in front of a wider public, they commonly do a "perp walk," showing off the alleged perpetrator to the media as they walk him to the vehicle that is going to be transporting him to and from jail.

  But not in Mexico, they truly know how to present their prized catch. Masked police paraded a handcuffed Edgar Valdez Villarreal before reporters during a press conference. Wearing a green polo shirt and jeans, the man nicknamed "La Barbie," named for his fair complexion, grinned openly as officials discussed his capture near Mexico City.

  Mexico displayed one of its most violent drug lords that gave President Felipe Calderon hopes of a breakthrough in its campaign against the powerful drug cartels. Federal Police Commissioner Facundo Rosas said the capture of Valdez-Villarreal came after a yearlong hunt that involved as many as 1,200 law enforcement officers.

  La Barbie had been labeled as one of the most powerful and bloodthirsty criminals in Mexico.

  La Barbie showed no signs of ill treatment and had the chance to answer reporters' questions, but declined to do so without saying a word. Later on, Valdez would be allowed to be questioned by a reporter and the video was posted on the internet within minutes.

  La Barbie was characterized by his enormous coldness. Maybe that's why he was seen laughing in front of the cameras and microphones when he was introduced by the federal authorities ... as if defying them.

  "Are you really La Barbie?" a foreign correspondent asked in English.

  "Is it true that you betrayed Arturo Beltrán Leyva?"

  "Do you deny that? Do you deny it? " A journalist asked in Spanish.

  Valdez Villarreal kept smiling.

  "Do you want to be extradited to the United States or do not want to return there?" The foreign correspondent asked again in English.

  La Barbie kept smiling.

  "What are you laughing at?" A reporter asked.

  The detainee turned to see her, but he did not answer.

  Police confiscated two rifles, a grenade-launcher, nine packets of cocaine, computer and communications equipment and three vehicles.

  Calderon confirmed the arrest in a short message on Twitter: "Federal police trapped 'La Barbie,' one of the most wanted criminals in Mexico and abroad." Government officials seemed to be seeking to regain support by offering abundant details about Valdez-Villarreal's background and capture.

  "This is an extraordinary achievement," Felipe Gonzalez, head of the Senate commission on public security told Foro TV, "there was an air around this guy that he was untouchable, that he would never be caught."

  The arrest was certain gave Calderon a boost in his campaign to confront drug traffickers, even at great human cost. The government was hoping that the arrest would give Felipe Calderon some positive attention since when he decided to declared war on drug cartels after taking office in late 2006. The death toll, which just in 2010 soared past 28,000 people, has upset many Mexicans on Calderon's tough drug enforcement policies. But the government maintains that the effort has produced some results, Valdez-Villarreal is the third top drug lord to be arrested or killed in nine months.

  Less than a month ago before the arrest of La barbie, law enforcement agents in Guadalajara killed Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, a drug lord in the Sinaloa Cartel who was considered the "king of crystal," or methamphetamine.

  Certainly, this arrest dealt "a high impact blow to organized crime," said Alejandro Poire, a spokesman for Calderon's national security team. Poire said Valdez-Villarreal had ties to gangs operating in the United States, Central and South America.

  It is unusual for an American to climb so high in the ranks of Mexican organized crime, but not unprecedented.

  Texas-born Juan Garcia Abrego was captured in Mexico in the 1990s and sent to Houston, where he was convicted of drug-trafficking crimes as the head of the Gulf Cartel. He is now serving multiple life sentences.

  "The operation that resulted in the arrest of la Barbie closes a chapter in drug trafficking in Mexico," said senior federal police official Facundo Rosas. Six other men, including another Texan, were arrested with Valdez, and police found weapons, late model trucks, cocaine and cellphones at a safe house guarded by cartel gunmen.

  The capture of Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez, a Texas-born 37-year-old, may do little to halt the flow of drugs into the United States or staunch bloodshed in Mexico's most violent areas, many of them along the U.S. border.

  But it's too early to celebrate, while La Barbie was in custody, cartel bosses were eager to replace him. His arrest has clearly left an opening for others to become the new kingpins.

  The El Universal newspaper reported that Valdez-Villarreal has "one foot on a plane bound for the
United States" to stand trial.

  A federal indictment unsealed in Atlanta in June charged that Valdez-Villarreal, a U.S. citizen, imported tons of cocaine by tractor-trailer across the border at Laredo, Texas, and into the eastern United States between 2004 and 2006.

  Valdez's Houston lawyer Kent Schaffer said his client has plenty of enemies in Mexico.

  "I think he'd be much safer in an American facility," Schaffer said.

  The Mexican magazine Proceso published a letter sent to journalist Anabel Hernández García by La Barbie while being held in the Altiplano maximum security prison. The journalist who had been threatened with death reported that a few days before the end of the Calderón administration in 2012, La Barbie sent her a letter from prison where he accused Calderon directly of protecting the Sinaloa Cartel.

  La Barbie said that despite the rumors, he refused to participate in the witness protection program.

  The letter says that "the war the Calderon administration started was to protect the Sinaloa Cartel and to take out the adversaries of El Chapo Guzmán.”

  In the letter, La Barbie announces that his arrest was due to "political persecution by Felipe Calderón," the former president of Mexico, because "the undersigned (La Barbie) refused to be part of the agreement that Calderón wanted have with the groups of organized crime." The letter went on to say that Calderón "personally held several meetings with criminal groups."

  According to La Barbie, there were other meetings that included, on one side several high-ranking Mexican officials and military, and on the other side were leaders of Mexican cartels such as La Familia Michoacana, the Zetas, Beltrán Leyva Organization and El Chapo Guzmán.