Blouin Beat: World - Will ‘Narcos’ stick to reality, mystery safe and all?

"Will 'Narcos' stick to reality, mystery safe and all?"
W. Alejandro Sanchez
Blouin Beat: World
February 1, 2016
Originally published: http://blogs.blouinnews.com/blouinbeatworld/2016/02/01/will-narcos-stick-to-reality-mystery-safe-and-all/

In addition to periodic coverage of geopolitics in Latin America, W. Alejandro Sanchez has previously reported on substance abuse in Netflix’s ‘Jessica Jones’ and whether cyber warfare is accurately depicted in the USA network’s ‘Mr. Robot.’ 

A

 metal safe has been discovered by workers demolishing a Miami mansion overlooking Biscayne Bay, which was owned by the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Given the existing mythology around the notorious criminal, we can expect significant speculation about the safe’s contents until it is opened.

Escobar’s life has been well documented. For example, Mark Bowden’s book Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw, is a must-read for anyone interested in the late criminal. Additionally, Juan Pablo Escobar, the narco lord’s son, has published a biography entitled Pablo Escobar: Mi Padre (My Father), in which he labels his father as a “drug trafficker, terrorist and assassin.” Additionally, there are television and movie productions about Escobar. For example, a Colombian series was produced about his life, entitled ‘Pablo Escobar: El Patron del Mal’ (‘The Lord of Evil’), while Guillermo del Toro portrayed him in the 2015 film ‘Paradise Lost.’

Recently, Escobar became a household name in the U.S. due to ‘Narcos,’ a Netflix series that describes his life, his drug empire and the operations carried out by Colombian and U.S. security agencies to hunt him down. The series has generally remained true to history, though there are some exaggerations or adaptations of what really happened. Case in point: in one episode, Escobar and his bodyguards kill Ivan Marino Ospina (AKA “Ivan The Terrible”) a leader of the M-19 revolutionary movement. In reality, Ospina was killed by Colombian security forces.

Season 1 of ‘Narcos’ ended with Escobar fleeing the golden prison, known as “La Catedral,” that he had constructed for himself. The show’s popularity prompted it to be renewed for a second season, which will revolve around the Colombian and U.S. governments tracking Escobar down until his death on December 2, 1993. If ‘Narcos’ hews to history, Escobar will be shot on a rooftop in Medellin by members of a Colombian police unit known as Search Bloc, which was tasked with finding him. Then again, ‘Narcos’ may try to be vague about who killed Escobar, as there are theories that his murder was carried out by narco-paramilitaries (see the book This Is How We Killed The Boss), or maybe even U.S. Delta snipers (Bowden hints at this in Killing Pablo), while his son Juan Pablo argues that the drug lord killed himself to avoid being captured (and in all likelihood extradited to the U.S.).

It would be amusing if ‘Narcos’ decides to address the recently found safe. After fleeing La Catedral, Escobar remained in hiding and did not travel to Miami, but there could be a flashback scene of Escobar or one of his henchmen closing the safe one last time. The Miami Heraldexplains that Escobar bought the mansion in March 1980 for $762,500, and it was seized by the U.S. government in 1987 as Washington stepped up its fight against him.

At the time of this writing, the new owners of Escobar’s home have yet to open the 600 pound metal safe – inside there could be money, weapons, drugs or even documents that incriminate Miami businesses and individuals that were part of Escobar’s narco-empire. According to theBBC, “workers had already found one safe in the house shortly after demolition work began, but it disappeared before anyone could examine it,” which only adds to the mystery.

As ‘Narcos’ mentions at the beginning of the series, Colombia is the birthplace of the literary movement known as “realismo mágico,” magic realism, where magic and reality co-exist in harmony. When it comes to Pablo Escobar’s criminal life, there is certainly much “mágico” in his reality.

VOXXI: Mexico’s security operations: Winners and losers

"Mexico's Security Operations: Winners and Losers"
W. Alejandro Sanchez
VOXXI
October 3, 2014
Originally published: http://voxxi.com/2014/10/03/mexicos-security-winners-losers

On the evening of Wednesday, October 1st, Mexican security forces captured Hector Beltran Leyva, head of the Beltran Leyva Cartel. The arrest will likely be the final nail in the coffin for this moribund cartel, but a plethora of other criminal syndicates continue to operate throughout the country.

While, President Enrique Peña Nieto can pat himself on the back for a successful operation, Mexican security forces must balance two objectives: achieving tangible results in the war against cartels, while also respecting the rights of Mexican citizens. In Mexico, achieving such a balance is harder than it appears.

The capture

The Beltran Leyva cartel broke off from the Sinaloa Cartel in 2008. Hector’s brother Arturo (AKA “El Jefe de los Jefes”) led the organization until he was eliminated by the Mexican military in 2009. Hector, also known as “El H,” then took control of the organization until his recent arrest. The future of the cartel is now uncertain since two other Beltran Leyva brothers are already in prison – including Alfredo (AKA “Fireant”) who was a top lieutenant of the Sinaloa cartel until his arrest in January 2008.

For 11 months, Mexican security forces searched for Hector as part of “Operation Hotel,” he was finally located in the Mexican state of Queretaro, where he was posing as an entrepreneur. The 49-year-old was captured last Wednesday during the evening hours while he dined at a seafood restaurant in Guanajuato state. According to reports, the Mexican Army managed to arrest him without firing a single shot.

President Peña Nieto was quick to report this achievement via social media.  On October 1st, he tweeted “Thanks to the joint effort of the armed forces, the attorney general and the federal police, and CISEN [a Mexican intelligence agency], we have detained [Leyva].”

The broader picture

The arrest of Beltran Leyva can be analyzed from three different points of view.

First of all, the capture of “El H” foreshadows the likely disintegration of the Beltran Leyva cartel in the near future.  The cartel has had a short but violent lifespan since it originally broke apart from Sinaloa in 2009. The new group quickly became known for its ruthlessness as it engaged in a turf war with Sinaloa; additionally, it successfully profited from drug trafficking. Hence, it is no surprise that the State Department had a $5 million USD reward for Hector.

Ultimately, Sinaloa emerged victorious from this turf war, and nowadays the Beltran Leyva’s area of control has been narrowed down to only parts of Mexico’s Pacific coast. With Hector behind bars, the group’s last remaining senior leader is Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, is already the government’s next target. Given the history of Mexican cartels, one plausible scenario is that the moribund syndicate could eventually break apart into smaller gangs.

Secondly, President Peña Nieto can proclaim that under his administration, major cartel leaders have been arrested or eliminated. The list includes Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, leader of Sinaloa, who was arrested this past February, and Miguel Angel “Z-40” Treviño, leader of the Zetas, who was arrested in mid-2013. Moreover, according to a March report by the renowned Mexican daily Milenio, Peña Nieto’s presidency has not only been successful at crippling major cartels, it has also managed to prevent new ones from expanding their influence – such as the emerging cartels called Poniente, Los Rojos and La Corona.

Finally, while the Mexican government and security agencies are indeed carrying out successful operations against cartels, they are not free of sin. Human rights abuses carried out by security forces have occurred; including recent accusations that the Mexican Army executed 21 individuals in Tlatlaya this past June. The Army’s original version of the incident claims that the alleged delinquents were eliminated during a firefight with security forces. However, new testimonies claim that the soldiers executed the suspects, some of them minors, after they surrendered.

Even more, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon (2006-2012), has admitted that security agencies abused their power during his presidency; some 5,600 accusations of abuse of authority have been recorded by the Mexican National Commission of Human Rights. As for President Peña Nieto’s opinion on abuse of power in the country, he argues that the situation is improving. In September he declared that citizen complaints to the aforementioned Commission had decreased by 41.6 percent during the first seven months of 2014, when compared to the same period of 2012.

Hence, a main concern is that victories against cartels may give a sense of empowerment to Mexican security forces, indirectly implying that they can get away with disrespecting citizen rights; including forced disappearances, torture or summary executions.

Certainly, the Mexican military and police should continue with their intelligence and surveillance tactics as well as security operations to dismantle the cartels’ leadership. Nevertheless, they should do this while also respecting the rights of innocent Mexican citizens. The accusations of the June massacre eclipses the Beltran Leyva arrest as repression and abuses by security forces should not be accepted in the name of national security.

Blouin Beat: World - ‘Paradise Lost:’ Benicio del Toro plays Pablo Escobar

"'Paradise Lost:' Benicio del Toro plays Pablo Escobar"
W. Alejandro Sanchez
Blouin Beat: World
July 30, 2014
Originally published: http://blogs.blouinnews.com/blouinbeatworld/2014/07/30/paradise-lost-benicio-del-toro-plays-pablo-escobar/

The renowned actor Benicio del Toro will become the infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in the upcoming movie ‘Paradise Lost,’ written and directed by Andrea di Stefano. To what extent del Toro will play a convincing Escobar remains to be seen. At the very least, ‘Paradise Lost’ is yet another recent production portraying the Colombian drug trafficker. Over two decades after Escobar’s death, his life remains captivating to the masses.

Taping began in March 2013 and, after much waiting, a teaser trailer was released online in mid-July. The film will premiere in October in Spain and be released the following month in France.

The plot of di Stefano’s newest movie does not focus on Escobar himself, though he is obviously a prominent character. The film largely centers on a young American who travels to Colombia and falls in love with a young Colombian woman, whose uncle turns out to be Escobar. From the short teaser, del Toro seems to be portraying Escobar as a ruthless drug lord without much of a humane side.

As previously mentioned, this is not the first time that Escobar’s life has been adapted to either a movie or a TV series. In 2012, Caracol TV, a Colombian television station, produced a soap opera entitled ‘Pablo Escobar: El Patron del Mal’ (‘Pablo Escobar: The Drug Lord’).

Additionally, the drug lord’s son, Sebastian Marroquin (he changed his name after his father’s demise), is also profiting from his father’s legacy. Marroquin’s clothing line, Poder Poder, produces clothes that prominently display Escobar’s image, like t-shirts with Escobar’s birth certificate or his arrest warrant.

Other projects that discuss Escobar’s life include the 2009 documentary ‘Pecados de mi Padre’ (‘Sins of my Father’), which includes interviews with his son Sebastian, and Escobar’s widow Maria Isabel Santos. Escobar’s life and death was also reviewed in the 2001 book Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw, an in-depth analytical biography of the Colombian criminal by the renowned author Mark Bowden. In his book, Bowden discuses Escobar’s life, from his childhood to how he became the leader of the infamous Medellin Cartel in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Escobar finally met his end during a raid on one of his safe houses by the Colombian police in 1993. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that there are theories that the U.S., which at the time provided Colombian security agencies with financial and technical aid to crack down on drug trafficking and stop Escobar, may have been behind the Colombian’s death. (Moreover, a new book by Diego Murillo, an imprisoned Colombian drug lord, claims that his brother shot Escobar)

In a 2012 report entitled “Violent Threads: From Routine Murder to High Fashion” for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs I discussed Poder Poder’s potential ramifications on how Escobar is remembered today. In the aforementioned report I point to how new generations of Colombians are presently growing up without having suffered through years of “Escobar-authored terrorism.” They have not had to read daily news reports about the assassinations of politicians, police officers and journalists that occurred as a result of his orders. With that said, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the initiatives that the drug lord carried out in his native Antioquia (a northern department in Colombia) to help the local population, like building football fields and electric towers.

Producing a film or TV series about a real-life individual is always tricky, particularly a criminal as controversial as Pablo Escobar. We still have to wait a few months to see how Benicio del Toro portrays the deceased drug lord in ‘Paradise Lost.’ While some of the characters of this movie are fictional, Escobar was a very real individual and his legacy will continue to have a profound effect on Colombia for years to come.

E-IR:New Media and Latin American Violent Movements

 "New Media and Latin American Violent Movements"

W. Alejandro Sanchez and Kelly Morrison

E-International Relations

July 2, 2014

Originally published: http://www.e-ir.info/2014/07/02/new-media-and-latin-american-violent-movements/

The Commons Lab, an initiative of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars recently published a provocative article entitled: ‘New Terrorism and New Media.’ In his discussion, Professor Gabriel Weimann of Haifa University in Israel focuses on insurgent movements such as Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. His work explains how terrorist movements utilize social media outlets, such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to expand the reach of their ideology and attract new converts.

According to Weimann, social media is different than traditional internet resources because, with social media, terrorists are able to directly target individual followers. Thus, social media has increased the number of “long wolf terrorists,” namely individuals who commit terrorist acts without being connected to a particular terrorist organization. With the rise of social media, Weimann argues that the war on terror has become increasingly “vital, dynamic, and ferocious” and creates a new front in the struggle for international security.

However, the use of social media and new technology is not limited to violent groups in the Greater Middle East. Thus, the authors of this article would like to expand upon Weimann’s research by discussing how criminal groups in Latin America have also been successful at utilizing new media resources.

A Game of Definitions

Weimann’s discussion focuses on terrorist movements in the Arab world. It is essential to note that the same general term “terrorists” cannot be applied to the criminals that currently operate in Latin America. Rather, Latin American criminal groups include narco-insurgents like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia, Shining Path in Peru, the Bolivarian Liberation Front (FBL) in Venezuela, and the Paraguay People’s Army in Paraguay.

Mexico’s main criminal groups are drug trafficking organizations. These cartels include the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas, the Knights Templar, the Gulf Cartel, and New Generation. Additionally, Central America has its own share of criminal organizations. Maras, as they are known, are multinational gangs that have branches in countries ranging from the United States to South America.

For simplicity’s sake, we will utilize the term “violent movements” to encompass this vast number of criminal entities.

The Rise of the Latino Netizen

Latin America has experienced an explosion of internet activity in recent years. Some quick statistics help put this situation in the proper perspective. The World Bank estimated that the region had 581 million citizens in 2012, and a 2013 analysis by ComScorefound that “Latin America had the fastest growing internet population, increasing […] to more than 147 million unique visitors in March 2013.” Due to this increasing online presence, several institutions have carried out comprehensive analyses on internet usage in the region. Most recently, the Organization of American States and the internet security company Symantec published a major analysis entitled “Latin America + Caribbean Cyber Security Trends,” which focused on the rise of cybercrime in the Western Hemisphere, such as social media scams.

As Weimann notes, the internet and social media are valuable resources for criminal groups in general. When one considers the rising population of Latin American netizens, it is understandable why the region’s violent movements have turned to such resources to further their agendas.

Colombia: The FARC and ELN’s Virtual Presence

The FARC is Latin America’s oldest insurgent movement and will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year. The movement’s strength has declined during the past decade and a half; its membership has shrunk from around 16 thousand in the late 1990s to an estimated 8,000 today, and it has lost several of its leaders in recent years.

Even though the FARC has been severely weakened, the group remains a major force in Colombia and it has an active online presence. Its main online outlet is its own webpage. The FARC’s website has a section that discusses the history of this organization and another page devoted to press releases, most of which praise the FARC and critique the Colombian government. For example, the FARC published astatement on its website announcing that it declared a unilateral cease fire from June 9 to June 30 of this year due to the ongoing electoral process in Colombia. The website even has a “Contact Us” form where individuals can send inquiries to contact FARC commanders for interviews.

Additionally, the website has links to videos and news articles which clarify the group’s position on social issues. Though the FARC is one of Latin America’s most well-known insurgencies, its website promotes “wisdom and patience” in their conflict with the government. In a section addressed to soldiers and police, the FARC states that in other circumstances, “the groups could have been friends.” Moreover in an effort to demonstrate that the FARC is a gender-friendly entity, the FARC created a webpage last October dedicated to the female members of the movement. A FARC statement regarding the creation of the website “Mujer Fariana” declares that, “without a doubt, in the FARC, female guerrillas found a great number of possibilities to be recognized as women, social fighters, political individuals, as fighters against every kind of discrimination and exploitation.”

Additionally the FARC has had a Twitter accountsince 2011, boasting more than 22,000 followers. On their profile, the group claims to fight for “a just Colombia with equality for everyone.” The FARC’s most recent tweets came from August 2013, when the group announced that it would no longer post on the site. It seemed that officials had attempted to track the account. The authors thanked Twitter for its support and announced that the Colombian people would be the FARC’s official voice from then on. The group tweeted that it would march for the countryside, “without looking back.”

Some FARC fighters also have their own Twitter accounts, such as Ivan Marquez, a member of the FARC’s Secretariat. Unlike the FARC’s official Twitter, Marquez’s account remains active (though it is unclear whether the guerrilla actually composes his own tweets). For example, a June 10 tweet states: “The ongoing electoral race for the presidency has been one of the most shameful in the history of the country.” Marquez’ tweet provoked some strong replies from individuals who begged Marquez to stop his harsh commentary.

Finally, the FARC has a YouTube account that gained prominence when the FARC and the Cuban rap group Cuentas Claras made a video entitled “Colombianos Pa’ La Mesa” (Colombians to the Table). The song’s lyrics critique the government’s participation in the ongoing peace talks. It argues that the FARC is fighting for “shoeless kids,” while the government only wants to protect “its businesses.” The video features two FARC fighters: an old insurgent commander and a Dutch female citizen who went to Colombia to teach and ended up joining the FARC.

On the whole, the FARC’s online presence, while impressive, is inconsistent. As previously mentioned, the FARC no longer has an active Twitter account. Furthermore, the FARC’s webpages sometimes go offline (most likely due to the efforts of the Colombian government). At the time of this writing, both the FARC’s main site and the Mujer Fariana website are inactive. Moreover, it is unclear whether the FARC’s various websites have improved its public relations. While the general population seems to approve of the governments’ ongoing peace talks with the FARC, popular opinion towards the FARC itself remains low.

The FARC is not Colombia’s only insurgent group that has an online presence. The ELN also has a website, which shares the group’s history and ideology. As with the FARC site, the ELN webpage has a form that enables the public to send inquiries to the group’s leaders. The page also features news articles describing its activities and recommendations for videos, music, and literature. On the front page, the site quotes Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez: “what matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” It seems the page is meant to share the country’s events through the lens of the ELN’s ideology.

Mexico: The Bloody Narco Blogs

In Mexico, drug trafficking organizations comprise the most prevalent violent movements. Mexico’s local media outlets fail to sufficiently cover accounts of cartel violence. This media self-censorship is unsurprising; Mexican cartels have made a hobby of killing media editors or journalists that air stories critiquing their actions. The competition between the media and the cartels culminated in September 2010 when El Diario de Juarez, a newspaper operating in one of Mexico’s violent cities, published an op-ed asking drug cartels for a “truce.” The Juarez newspaper agreed to limit its unfavorable coverage of cartels if the cartels promised to stop killing its staff.

Due to problems of fear and corruption associated with traditional news outlets, Mexican citizens have turned to the Internet for information regarding the ongoing internal drug war in their country. Narco-blogs, for example, originally appeared when citizen journalists tried to cover stories of violence. These authors would publish quick articles with photos and amateur videos soon after an incident took place. The publications served to inform the public of the actions of the cartels.

However, cartels soon infiltrated this informal online arena and began killing bloggers and forum moderators of sites that published stories on the narcos. In September 2011, for instance, a man and a woman were hanged from a bridge in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas after their eyes and fingers had been cut off. Coverage by CNN reported that a sign was found on the bodies, threatening those who used the Internet to report on organized crime. Two months later, the body of a forum moderator known as El Rascatripas was found decapitated at the foot of a Columbus statue in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. The murderers placed a sign above the body that read: “I’m Rascatripas and this happened to me for failing to understand that I should not report things on social media websites.”

Moreover, cartels have also been known to post videos of executions and executed bodies to scare off their opponents. Members also use social media to boast about their own sadistic actions. As example of this narco-goriness is the website elnarcotube.com, which has a compilation of videos made by different Cartels. One videoshows a member of the Zetas decapitating a woman who was believed to be a member of the Gulf Cartel. Another video shows the Zetas interrogating a police officer from Durango. In the final seconds of the video the officer was shot in the head. Mexican cartels are also known to hire musical bands to sing songs of praise for them. These have become known as “narco corridos” (narco songs), and many can be found on YouTube.

Individual cartel members have also been known to brag about their actions. One Knights Templar member, who calls himself ‘Broly,’ posted selfies with victims and weapons on his Facebook page last year. Likewise, Alfredo Guzmán, the son of former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, also had an active online presence until his father was arrested this February. On the positive side, the news agency Business Insider notes that the online presence of cartel members may enable law enforcement agencies to capture them. However, such prospects seem optimistic.

Other Groups

One additional insurgent movement that has its own website is Venezuela’s obscure Armed Liberation Forces (FBL). According to the security news agency InSightCrime, the FBL is a guerrilla movement that operates in western Venezuela, close to the border with Colombia. InSightCrime explains that, unlike other insurgent movements, the FBL has generally avoided clashing with the government and has supported the government of the late President Hugo Chávez.

The website is hosted by the blogging site Blogspot, and its content includes a history of the organization and various press releases. For example, a June 5 press release on the website claims that FBL fighters activated smoke bombs in various areas of Caracas, including the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance. “This action was not aimed at hurting anyone, or destroy private or public property, but to promote action,” the press release explains. Namely, the group was calling for popular protests against the “oligarchy” that brought about the ongoing crisis in Venezuela. However, Últimas Noticias only reports that pamphlets were found in the areas mentioned. Apparently no actual attack took place, though the ensuing tension resulted in an increase in security and police forces around the city.

There are certainly other criminal groups that operate in the Latin American region, such as the insurgency groups in Peru and Paraguay and the Maras in Central America. However, the authors of this article have not found any online presence that we can verify that is associated with these organizations.

Conclusions

In “New Terrorism and New Media,” Professor Weimann argues that terrorists use the Internet to distribute propaganda, radicalize the population, and recruit followers. When it comes to Latin America, it seems the region’s criminal organizations have a much more limited online presence. One cannot be certain whether individuals have been inspired to join insurgency groups like the FARC, ELN, and FBL, or other drug trafficking organizations because of their websites or Twitter accounts. However, the online forums these organizations use certainly have not hurt their causes.

Propaganda is definitely one important objective of the criminal groups who use online resources. At the very least, the websites of groups like the FARC, ELN and FBL put forward a “noble” version of their history and struggle against their governments. The internet provides these narco-insurgencies a chance to tell their side of the story when news outlets focus only on the violence that comes from their existence. For this reason, modern technology has made a difference in the ongoing power struggle between narco-insurgencies and governments.

As for the Mexican narcos, uploading videos of cartel members executing individuals (either from opposing cartels or security forces), seems to be more of a way to demonstrate a cartel’s power. Yet the Internet has helped to romanticize the narco lifestyle in Mexico in recent years. There are worrying reports that Mexican youth now wish to grow up to become narcos due to their power and extravagant lifestyles. The fact that narco-corrido songs are now online also contributes to the propaganda machine of cartels. In this way, the internet has also enabled drug cartels to tell their own side of history.

Ultimately, the online presence of Latin American violent movements may not be as extensive as the Islamic extremist movements mentioned in Weimann’s report. However, insurgency movements and cartels have begun to use the internet and social media for their own purposes. These resources have enabled criminal organizations to share their stories, whether this be the nobility of their causes or the extravagance of their lifestyles.

About The Author (W. Alejandro Sánchez and Kelly Morrison):

W. Alejandro Sánchez is a Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs where he focuses on geopolitics, military and cyber security issues. He regularly appears in different media outlets like Al Jazeera, Russia Today, BBC, El Comercio (Peru), Voice of Russia, among others. His analyses have appeared in numerous refereed journals including Small Wars and Insurgencies, Defence Studies, the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, European Security, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Cuban Affairs.

Kelly Morrison is an undergraduate student at Lee University where she studies Spanish and International Relations. Ms. Morrison is currently working as a Research Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, DC.

Tags: Colombia, FARC, insurgency, Insurgent Movements, latin america, mexico, Narco Blogs, New Media, social media, Violent Movements

VOXXI: Extraditing drug lords from Latin America impacts the drug war

"Extraditing Drug Lords from Latin America Impacts the Drug War"
W. Alejandro Sanchez
VOXXI
May 27, 2014
Available: http://voxxi.com/2014/05/27/juan-alberto-chamale-ortiz-extradited/

Last week’s extradition to the United States of Juan Alberto “Chamale” Ortiz marked the end of a three-year legal battle during which U.S. authorities requested that Guatemala relinquish custody of the aforementioned Guatemalan citizen, who is accused of shipping more than 40 tons of cocaine to the United States between 1998 and 2010.

Chamale’s extradition shows that, in spite of an evolving inter-American system, Washington still has allies among Central American government officials who are willing to extradite their citizen-criminals. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether the arrests (and extradition) of high-profile leaders will actually impact drug trafficking in Central America.

“Juan Chamale” Extradited

The Guatemalan daily “Diario Digital” has published a series of photos documenting Chamale’s exit from Guatemala. This past Thursday, he was transported via helicopter from the Matamoros military prison to the La Aurora airport. From there, he was handed over to DEA agents and promptly flown to Florida.

In March 2011, Chamale and two of his lieutenants were arrested in a rustic house in Quetzaltenango. A press release by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency explains that he was captured thanks to information obtained from the Operation Panama Express Task Force, a multi-agency effort to combat large scale drug trafficking organizations that smuggle narcotics into the United States.

On February 2012, the Guatemalan judiciary approved a U.S. request to have Chamale extradited. Nevertheless, Chamale’s lawyers managed to delay the move for over two years, though they eventually ran out of excuses to put off the extradition.

Chamale was reportedly known in the narco underworld as the “Master of the Pacific” due to the vast cocaine-smuggling operations that he carried out for years. The Guatemalan drug lord received shipments of cocaine from South America and stored them in his ranches in the San Marcos province (which borders Mexico). From there, his partners in the Sinaloa Cartel moved the drugs to Mexico and eventually into the U.S.

U.S. initiatives against drug lords

Chamale’s extradition can be added to a growing list of Central American criminals who have been sent to the U.S. for trial.

During its coverage of Chamale’s extradition, the Guatemalan daily “Prensa Libre” pointed out that several Guatemalans have ended up in the hands of U.S. law enforcement agencies. These extradited criminals include Waldemar Lorenzana and a father-son duo, both named Erick Leonel Estrada.

Moreover, Guatemalans are not the only Central Americans being flown to the U.S. for trial. In early May, the Honduran drug lord Carlos Arnoldo “El Negro” Lobo was also extradited to the U.S. on drug trafficking charges. This marked an important milestone as he was the first Honduran to be extradited to the U.S. Before his arrest this past March, Lobo oversaw marine drug trafficking for a variety of narco-organizations. According to the Treasury Department, he has ties with “the reputed leader of the Sinaloa Cartel Joaquin ‘Chapo’ Guzman […] and the Honduran drug trafficking organization Los Cachiros.”

The extradition of high-profile criminals from Central America to the U.S. can be analyzed from various points of view.

First of all, these arrests are a domestic victory for the Guatemalan and Honduran governments and their security forces. This is particularly important for Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who came to power this past January after an electoral campaign during which he promised to crack down on crime and improve citizen security.

Additionally, these extraditions demonstrate the generally good relations between the governments in Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa with Washington. Cooperation between U.S. law enforcement agencies and their Central American counterparts seems to be increasing; case in point; Washington donated six helicopters to Guatemala in 2013 to combat drug trafficking. Diplomatic relations also seem to be improving, as exemplified by an April visit of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to Mexico and Guatemala.

One must also question whether this wave of extraditions will continue. “Prensa Libre” explains that there are other Guatemalan criminals whom the U.S. wants to have extradited. However, it will be interesting to see whether there could be a high-profile individual that a Latin American government chooses not to extradite, in spite of pressure from Washington.

The future of drug trafficking in Central America remains questionable without the aforementioned high-profile criminals. Interestingly, Guatemala’s Chamale and Honduras’ El Negro were affiliated with the Sinaloa Cartel, which lost its own leader, El Chapo, in February.

In other words, Sinaloa’s leadership has taken a hit over the past years, since even its allies in other regions have been arrested. This is an important development that reinforces the view that Sinaloa will experience irreversible change in the near future.

As for Chamale himself it is likely that his lawyers will be unsuccessful in keeping him from serving a life sentence in a Floridian prison, since they were unable to prevent his extradition to the U.S.