Security forces gathering intelligence on gang leader who threatened AMLO

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February 1, 2019

Yépez, suspected cartel leader in Guanajuato.

Federal security forces may be closing in on the suspected ringleader of a gang of fuel thieves in Guanajuato who is believed to be behind a threat directed at President López Obrador.

José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, believed to the leader of the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, has evaded capture during the last two and a half years, helped in no small part by highway blockades made of burning vehicles such as those seen in the municipality of Villagrán earlier this week.

However, intelligence reports seen by the newspaper Milenio reveal that federal authorities have a lot of information about the criminal leader known as “El Marro” that could make it difficult for him to remain free.

According to the reports, authorities have identified five ranches frequented by Yépez, his closest criminal associates and the locations his gang targets to extract fuel from Pemex pipelines.

Four people have been identified as members or past members of the ringleader’s inner circle.

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They are Yépez’s uncle, Efraín Labrada Reyes, a financial operator for the cartel; another uncle, Raymundo Labrada Reyes, who was involved in money laundering until he was killed in December 2016; El Marro’s sister, Karen Lizbeth Yépez, and her husband, Santiago González Martínez, both of whom work for the cartel in Celaya.

The intelligence reports also reveal the names of several other men with links to Yépez and the cartel he heads, including some who have already been arrested.

The Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, which since 2017 has been engaged in a bitter turf war with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), has a strong presence in a region of Guanajuato known colloquially as the Bermuda Triangle.

Made up of the municipalities of Apaseo el Alto, Apaseo el Grande, Salamanca, Irapuato and Celaya, the region has a high incidence of both violence and fuel theft. Both tanker trucks transporting gasoline and petroleum pipelines are frequently targeted.

The Yépez-led criminal group’s presence also extends into the municipalities of Villagrán, considered the cartel’s operational center, as well as Cortazar, Santa Cruz de Juventino Rosas, Valle de Santiago and its namesake Santa Rosa de Lima.

Pemex pipelines running between the refinery in Salamanca and the cities of Guanajuato, Zacatecas, León, Morelia and Tula have all been tapped by El Marro’s cartel, the intelligence reports reveal.

Residents of towns in the municipalities where the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel operates have set up highway blockades and shot at vehicles during operations carried out by the army and navy aimed at arresting Yépez.

The criminal leader is believed to be responsible for a narco-banner that appeared in Salamanca early yesterday morning, warning López Obrador to remove security forces from the state or innocent people will die.

After advising that a “little gift” had been left at the Salamanca refinery, which turned out to be explosive devices inside an abandoned vehicle, the banner concluded with: “Yours sincerely, El Señor Marro.”

Source: Milenio (sp)

Government reveals there were explosive devices near refinery after all

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MND Staff

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February 1, 2019

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The street in Salamanca where the explosive device was left. — The street in Salamanca where explosive devices were left.

The federal government has revealed that there were explosive devices inside a vehicle left outside the Pemex refinery in Salamanca, Guanajuato, yesterday after initially denying that was the case.

Presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez and other sources close to the investigation told the newspaper Milenio that the devices found inside an orange pickup truck parked at the entrance to door No. 4 of the Antonio M. Amor refinery have been destroyed.

Ramírez told reporters yesterday there had been a false alarm and that “there was no explosive in the abandoned truck.”

The suspicious vehicle, which had no license plates, was reported to authorities via the 911 emergency line just after 6:15am yesterday.

A narco-banner, allegedly signed by the leader of a Guanajuato-based gang of fuel thieves, also appeared in Salamanca early yesterday morning, warning President López Obrador to remove security forces from the state or innocent people will die.

The alleged author of the banner, José Antonio “El Marro” Yepez, warned that a “little gift” had been left at the refinery.

Officers from the Guanajuato state police force were the first to arrive at the refinery followed by soldiers, Federal Police and other security forces and authorities. The street on which the pickup was parked was closed for more than five hours.

Sedena said in a report that soldiers from the anti-bomb squad removed the explosive devices at 12:20pm and that they were destroyed later in the afternoon.

The report said the devices were cartridge emulsion explosives, which are used in the mining industry and demolition.

Ramírez said yesterday that the Attorney General’s office had opened an investigation to determine who is responsible for both the banner and the pickup.

López Obrador was unconcerned by the threat made on the narco-banner, which is presumed to have been made by the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.

“He who fights for justice has nothing to fear,” he said.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Jalisco authorities accused of burning 1,500 unidentified bodies

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MND Staff

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January 31, 2019

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A refrigerated semi in which bodies were being stored in Jalisco.

Authorities in Jalisco cremated 1,581 unidentified bodies between 2006 and 2018, acts described as “totally criminal” by the director of one of the organizations that discovered them.

A study entitled Cremations of Unidentified Bodies in Jalisco, Crimes without Justice, also tells of cases in which authorities attempted to intimidate family members of missing persons into accepting ashes, even though there was no genetic evidence to indicate they belonged to their loved ones.

The Center of Justice for Peace and Development (Cepad), a non-governmental organization, and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a public policy think tank, presented the study yesterday.

Family members who attended the presentation say they have been deprived of the opportunity to find out the truth about what happened to their sons and daughters and to seek justice.

“I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the moment when we can’t find our children is not the only time they disappear. When they don’t identify the bodies, in one way or another, they disappear again,” said María del Rosario Cervantes, the mother of a missing child.

Rosario Hernández said that a state police officer threatened her with a gun when she refused to accept the ashes that authorities said belonged to her son.

“I told him, ‘I can’t accept the ashes if there’s no body, I want to see the body . . . because I didn’t authorize the cremation of my son.’ And he asked me, ‘what do you want us to do? Isn’t it enough what you have? You have the photos, the fingerprints, everything, it’s your son,’” she said.

“When I didn’t want to accept the ashes . . . He tried to intimidate me so that I would accept them out of fear . . . It was all a lie, it was all a ploy. Those people did a lot of damage to me,” Hernández added.

Cepad director César Pérez described the cremations carried out by successive state governments as “totally criminal.”

He said that thousands of families had been left with the uncertainty of not knowing if their missing relatives were among the unidentified bodies that were cremated.

The possibility of recovering a loved one’s body and being able to say goodbye in accordance with their traditions and beliefs was taken away from families forever, Pérez said.

Ana Karolina Chimiak, a lawyer for Cepad, rebuked authorities for trying to publicly justify their actions.

“They said that it was all regulated and in accordance with the law, that the cremations had to be carried out for health reasons . . . that it was more honorable to cremate a body than send it to a mass grave,” she said.

Chimiak said it was never too later for justice and called on authorities to respond to the seriousness of the situation to ensure that there is no repeat of “another human tragedy” such as last year’s case of unclaimed bodies being stored in refrigerated trailers.

Pérez said it was possible that authorities in Jalisco had acted the way they did due to complicity with organized crime gangs such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

“We don’t know the extent of these relationships, the depth with which authorities and organized crime are complicit.”

For that reason, he said, his organization intends to ask for the intervention of the United Nations.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Treating wounded criminals falls to doctors in Tierra Caliente

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MND Staff

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January 31, 2019

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An empty hospital in Luvianos, México state.

“Sometimes it’s mandatory but they do pay you something.”

The words are those of José N., a doctor in southern México state’s Tierra Caliente, a region notorious for cartel violence and he’s talking about being kidnapped by criminal gangs that need a doctor to treat their wounded.

“We don’t have much choice,” José says. “In the end, they’re human lives and we have to do what we can.”

Scores of doctors have been abducted from México state municipalities such as Luvianos, Tlatlaya, Tejupilco and San Simón in recent years.

While most have returned unharmed after the ordeals, three have been murdered, leaving doctors in the region fearing for their lives.

Ongoing turf wars between cells of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), La Nueva Familia Michoacana, the Guerreros Unidos and Los Rojos mean that doctors’ skills and expertise could be needed at any time.

José, who has been a doctor in southern México state for 10 years and and has been kidnapped by criminal groups at least four times, told the newspaper Milenio that he left Ciudad Altamirano, Guerrero – also in the Tierra Caliente region – precisely to escape the kind of violence he continues to see.

“There [in Ciudad Altamirano], kidnappings went hand in hand [with the job]. A lot of doctors closed their offices and I left to have a calmer life but [here] it’s the same,” he said.

But it’s not just abductions and forced labor that doctors have to contend with.

“Here, [criminal] groups ask me for money. I’ve paid as much as 100,000 pesos [US $5,250] because they think that I earn a lot and you end up giving in. It’s that or you leave,” he said.

Another doctor in southern México state, who asked not to be identified due to fear of repercussions, says that criminal groups not only kidnap doctors but seek to exert control over them at hospitals.

“Those of us in the emergency room are most at risk,” he said.

“Straight after a shootout, they call – here almost everyone in the town has our telephone number – to warn you that they’re coming to the clinic, not to ask questions and to attend to their people. We can’t ask their names nor where they’re from . . .” he explained.

The director of a hospital in the region, who also asked to remain anonymous, said that members of organized crime groups have even demanded they be employed as medical staff so it is “they who control everything.”

Carlos Aranza, head of the México state Institute of Health, said that while visiting health care facilities in the Tierra Caliente region a few months ago, he was caught up in an incident involving a criminal gang.

“. . . they showed up at a hospital . . . and demanded medical supplies and some medications,” he said.

Aranza said he told hospital managers to comply with the demands.

He explained that doctors and other medical personnel who have been threatened have decided not to file formal complaints out of fear.

“[The threats] remain on an anecdotal level and don’t progress to a formal investigation,” Aranza said.

The only investigations that have taken place followed the murder of the three doctors, including one whose dismembered body was found near Querétaro in February 2018. However, no arrests have been made.

Aranza said that 36 clinics in four southern México state municipalities have closed as a result of the presence of organized crime and the inability to attract new medical personnel.

He explained that residents of rural communities who were previously able to access health care services close to home are now forced to travel to the larger municipal seats for medical attention.

“There is resistance from doctors, interns and social services personnel to working in the area. They don’t want to go even though there are vacant positions and [patients] to take care of,” Aranza said.

Source: Milenio (sp)

Migrants’ caravan leaves Mexico City, bound for northern border

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MND Staff

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January 31, 2019

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Migrants leave Mexico City this morning.

Thousands of Central Americans left Mexico City Thursday morning to continue their journey towards the United States border as President Donald Trump railed against past and present migrant caravans and continued to argue for his long-promised wall.

Authorities said that just under 2,400 migrants began leaving a sports stadium-cum-shelter at 4:30am to travel by subway to the north of the capital, where they were going to look for rides to Querétaro.

An additional 500 to 600 migrants remained in the shelter, waiting for humanitarian visas to be granted.

The National Immigration Institute (INM) said on Monday it had registered 15,582 requests for the visas and on Tuesday it reported that another 4,750 had been granted.

Since last October, thousands of Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence have entered Mexico as part of several migrant caravans, with most continuing to cities on the northern border, especially Tijuana.

There they remain stranded on the border, where they face long waits to lodge asylum requests with United States authorities.

Despite the likelihood that they too will have to wait for months or even years in cities with high rates of violent crime, members of the latest caravan are determined not to give up.

“I know it’s violent at the border, but I have to take that risk. I don’t have any more money and my family is waiting for me in the United States,” 27-year-old Honduran migrant María Murillo told the news agency Reuters.

Standing alongside her young son at the Mexico City shelter, she added: “Only God knows what we have gone through during all this time. I know that He is not going to abandon us.”

Another Honduran migrant, 33-year-old Óscar López, who is traveling with his wife and two children, said that he planned to go to Monterrey and then decide which section of the border to travel to.

“I’m not thinking of going to Tijuana . . . I want to find a more accessible border to hand myself and my family in [to United States immigration authorities]. I don’t want to be returned to Mexico,” he said.

On Tuesday, the United States government returned the first Central American asylum seeker to Mexico since a hardened immigration policy known as “Remain in Mexico” was introduced by the Trump administration.

Many migrants have expressed their opposition to the U.S. policy because they say that it will expose them to the kind of violence they are trying to escape back home. Other say that they will try to cross the border illegally, even if that means paying a smuggler.

“I’m not thinking of returning to Honduras, and if it’s necessary I’ll pay to have a [smuggler] help me cross,” said Mauricio Gómez, a young Honduran man.

A few hours after the migrants left Mexico City this morning, Trump took to Twitter to announce that United States authorities are preparing for their arrival.

“More troops being sent to the southern border to stop the attempted invasion of illegals, through large caravans, into our country. We have stopped the previous caravans, and we will stop these also. With a wall it would be so much easier and less expensive. Being built!” he wrote.

In other tweets today, he cited Mexico’s record 2018 homicide numbers, charging “this is a big contributor to the humanitarian crisis taking place on our southern border” and that the situation was worse than Afghanistan.

“Why wouldn’t any sane person want to build a wall! Construction has started and will not stop until it is finished,” Trump wrote.

Asked about the tweets this morning, President López Obrador said he respected Trump’s right to say what he wished but added, “I don’t want to say anything about that.”

Source: Reuters (sp)

Drug war is over, AMLO says: drug lords no longer a target

By

Madison Koen

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January 31, 2019

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The drug war is over and arresting drug lords is no longer a priority, President López Obrador told reporters yesterday.

“We are no longer at war,” he announced after a reporter asked if the government had captured any crime bosses since anti-fuel theft operations began in December.

“We haven’t detained any cartel leaders because that’s not our principal function. The government’s foremost responsibility is to ensure public security; our strategy no longer includes capturing drug lords.”

As for the drug war, launched in 2007 by former president Felipe Calderón and continued by his successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, the president replied, “There is officially no more war. We want peace, and we are going to achieve peace.”

López Obrador said his strategy will focus instead on reducing homicides, which he claims is seeing progress. He expressed satisfaction over a report that said Tuesday’s homicides totaled just 54.

The daily average during 2018, a record year for homicides, was 90.

The president said what was important to him was reducing the number of homicides, robberies and kidnappings.

The president’s announcement drew skepticism from security consultant Alejandro Hope, who told the AFP news agency there was “a clear contradiction” in Wednesday’s statements.

“His anti-crime strategy barely changes anything, it’s not different from that of previous governments, and even accentuates the use of the armed forces for public security.”

A priority for former president Peña Nieto was locking up cartel capos, which his administration did. It arrested more than 100, including Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, Dámaso López, Miguel Ángel Treviño, Omar Treviño, Héctor Beltrán, Servando Gómez, Vicente Carrillo, Nazario Moreno and Enrique Plancarte.

But instead of curbing violence, it only became worse as the cartels fragmented and traffickers began to broaden the range of their criminal activities.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Time (en)

Officials cancel Cuernavaca fair: ‘too much beer, too many pirated goods’

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César Hernández

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January 31, 2019

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Cuernavaca Fair: lots of beer and a fake products market.

For the third year in a row, the Cuernavaca Fair has been cancelled by municipal authorities for security reasons.

Mayor Antonio Villalobos Adán explained that one of the main reasons to suspend the event, scheduled for mid-April, was the uncertainty over what security strategy the municipality’s new government will adopt.

“We must first guarantee the physical safety of those visiting . . . [the fair] can take place on another date, and not necessarily during Easter Week,” he said.

The municipality’s tourism promotion secretary said the fair needs to recover its status as a tourist and cultural attraction, which it lost many years ago, and become an event worthy of the capital of Morelos.

Andrés Remis Martínez said the fair instead has become more like a cantina, or bar, contributing to insecurity and violence.

“The Cuernavaca Fair should be about culture, flowers and food, and not a beer fest,” he said.

Violence and insecurity have contributed to the cancellation of the fair in the recent past, including the murder of its organizer in 2017. But before that the event had earned criticism for the sale of counterfeit products and copious amounts of alcohol, and for showcasing bands that were apologists for narco-culture.

Remis dismissed the suggestion that the fair would be cancelled permanently, asserting that the event could well take place in the summer and become a cultural and gastronomic festivity with ties to nature, instead of a “beer fest and counterfeit goods market.”

Source: Milenio (sp)

Teachers agree to lift Michoacán rail blockades but other protests to continue

By

MND Staff

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January 31, 2019

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Michoacán teachers enjoy a game of dominoes on the railroad tracks.

Teachers in Michoacán have agreed to remove rail blockades that stranded trains for more than two weeks and cost the economy billions of pesos.

Representatives of the CNTE teachers’ union reached the decision at 2:00am today after a marathon 17-hour meeting.

Yesterday, the Michoacán government paid teachers more than 1.2 billion pesos (US $62.7 million) in salaries for the second half of January.

The CNTE said the rail blockades, which have been in place at seven locations since January 14, would be lifted beginning at 9:00am.

However, the union said that other protests, including barricades at government offices, would continue until all of its demands have been met and all outstanding payments have been made.

“The labor stoppage continues . . . The only variation is the call to the members of section 18 to leave the tracks,” CNTE Section 18 leader Víctor Zavala told a press conference this morning.

More than 94% of schools in Michoacán are affected by the strike action, he said.

Zavala explained that the decision to lift the rail blockades was to enter into talks with both Michoacán and federal authorities. A meeting was expected to take place in Mexico City this afternoon.

Teachers previously said that they wanted 5 billion pesos before they would end the rail blockade and return to the classroom.

President López Obrador this morning praised the decision to remove the blockades and said it was a “sin” that the state government hadn’t paid the teachers.

Michoacán Governor Silvano Aureoles said on Twitter that his government was willing to work with its federal counterpart and teachers to reach a “comprehensive solution.”

A report today by the newspaper El Universal said CNTE-affiliated teachers in Michoacán receive as many as 22 bonuses or additional payments on top of their regular salaries.

Family support payments and productivity, Teachers’ Day and Christmas bonuses are among the additional compensation teachers receive, the report said. They also receive annual bonuses equivalent to 65 days of salary whereas the legal minimum is 15 days.

All told, the additional payments, most of which were approved by two former Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) state governments, add up to more than 1.4 billion pesos (US $73.2 million).

Source: Reforma (sp), El Universal (sp), El Sol de México (sp)

‘Ruthless’ ride-sharing app to take on Uber in Mexico City

By

Madison Koen

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January 31, 2019

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'Your Beat is arriving:' new ride-hailing service prepares to open.

A ride-sharing app owned by German auto maker Daimler is preparing for its launch in Mexico City.

Beat, which leads the market in other Latin American countries such as Peru, Chile and Colombia, will take on market leader Uber and relative newcomer Didi.

On Wednesday, Beat announced plans to hire 10 times more drivers in Mexico City than in other Latin American cities in which it operates, effectively converting the capital into its biggest and most important market.

It also plans to pay them well.

The first drivers to sign on will receive a guaranteed weekly salary of 30,000 pesos (US $1,500). Company spokesman Sanja Ilic said Beat will also invest heavily in attracting new customers to its platform.

The Greece-based company announced in November it would set up in Mexico City this year.
“We want to be ruthless,” Nikos Drandakis, the company’s 55-year-old co-founder and chief executive, said in a phone interview with Bloomberg at the time. “We’ve got what it takes to carve out a sizable piece of the Mexico City market.’’

Drandakis and three friends started the company in Athens in 2011 as a taxi-finding app during Greece’s debt crisis. Now, about a third of the city’s 3.1 million people use the service, according to Drandakis.

It opened in Lima in 2014 where it has become the market leader, out-competing Uber, which opened there at about the same time.

Beat plans to open in Guadalajara and Monterrey next.

Drandakis told Bloomberg he hoped to recruit thousands of drivers before launching in Mexico City, and become the No. 1 ride-sharing app within three years.

“We’re smaller, but we’re more agile and capable of innovating faster than our larger global competitors,” Drandakis said.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Bloomberg (en)

Narco-banner’s message to AMLO: remove forces or innocent people will die

By

MND Staff

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January 31, 2019

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The truck found near the Salamanca refinery.

A gang of fuel thieves is believed responsible for threatening violence if federal security forces remain in the state of Guanajuato.

A narco-banner appeared in Salamanca this morning, warning President López Obrador to remove security forces from the state or innocent people will die.

The narcomanta was found hanging from a bridge a few kilometers from the Antonio M. Amor refinery and was allegedly signed by José Antonio “El Marro” Yepez, the suspected leader of the gang of fuel thieves known as the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel.

“Andrés Manuel López Obrador, I demand that you remove the navy, army and federal forces from the state. If not, I’m going to start killing innocent people so that you see that this is not a game and that in Guanajuato we don’t need them,” the banner reportedly read.

“I’ve left you a little gift in my refinery so that you see how things are going to get if you don’t release my people who have been taken . . . Face up to the consequences. Yours sincerely, El Señor Marro.”

Shortly after the narco-banner was located, a pickup truck was found near the Salamanca refinery inside which was an object thought to be an explosive device.

Federal Police and the army cordoned off the area but presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez Cuevas said later this morning that there was no explosive in the abandoned truck.

He acknowledged that the narco-banner was “directed at the president,” adding that “it’s a banner directed at he who is carrying out the fight against fuel theft.”

Ramírez said the Attorney General’s office has opened an investigation to determine who is responsible for both the banner and the pickup.

“[It’s] a matter that has to do with the [anti-fuel theft] operations . . . and also the dispute that there is between different cartels,” he said.

The federal government has deployed the military and Federal Police to protect petroleum infrastructure as part of the strategy to combat fuel theft, a crime that costs the state oil company billions of pesos a year.

Two days ago, residents of Villagrán, a municipality just east of Salamanca, responded to an anti-fuel theft operation by setting up fiery blockades to repel security forces.

Authorities believe that Yepez’s Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel was behind the hostile response.

Guanajuato has one of the highest incidences of fuel theft in Mexico and last year was the country’s most violent state, with 3,290 homicides.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Economista (sp), Radio Fórmula (sp)