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He Gave Up
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Just got off the phone with a criminal defense attorney familiar with Edgar La Barbie Valdez Villareal’s cases in both countries, including this one in Atlanta. Turns out La Barbie gave himself up, surrendering to Mexican officials and cutting a deal for deportation to face charges in the U.S.
“He’s got the Zetas after his ass. He’s got the Beltrans after his ass. He’s got the Sinaloans after his ass. He had no place to go to so he turned to the enemy of everybody. How’s that saying go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the attorney says.
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THE BORDER REPORT
This story took me the better part of the night to root out from federal court cases but I like it. It’s easy to jump to conclusions but more importantly, it’s interesting to see what’s revealed about the intel that led to the fall of La Barbie.
On an August afternoon in 2005, Jesus Ramos, a truckdriver, was driving south to Atlanta and called Romero Roel Martinez, the Sinaloa Federation’s cocaine distributor for that region. Ramos told him he would meet Martinez and run a load of cash proceeds down to Texas.
THE BORDER REPORT
The dynamics of this arrest are interesting. But is he important? Other than being the sole (known) Anglo, is Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal as important a catch as the Mexican government and the American federal agencies will make him out to be?
Resilient, yes he was, on the move since the late 1990s, indicted on a $3 million pot trafficking charge out of federal court in Louisiana in 2003, I believe. He and Arturo were credited with helping Joaquin El Chapo Guzman recover from a bout of alcoholism following the Puente Grande escape of 2001. By 2006, he’d lost Nuevo Laredo to the Gulf Cartel, and by 2008, he and Beltran had gone to war with the Sinaloa Federation. All told, a decade running before his arrest today in Morelos.
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¿Quien Puso a la Muñeca?
THE BORDER REPORT
This story took me the better part of the night to root out from federal court cases but I like it. It’s easy to jump to conclusions but more importantly, it’s interesting to see what’s revealed about the intel that led to the fall of La Barbie.
On an August afternoon in 2005, Jesus Ramos, a truckdriver, was driving south to Atlanta and called Romero Roel Martinez, the Sinaloa Federation’s cocaine distributor for that region. Ramos told him he would meet Martinez and run a load of cash proceeds down to Texas.
He Gave Up
THE BORDER REPORT
Just got off the phone with a criminal defense attorney familiar with Edgar La Barbie Valdez Villareal’s cases in both countries, including this one in Atlanta. Turns out La Barbie gave himself up, surrendering to Mexican officials and cutting a deal for deportation to face charges in the U.S.
“He’s got the Zetas after his ass. He’s got the Beltrans after his ass. He’s got the Sinaloans after his ass. He had no place to go to so he turned to the enemy of everybody. How’s that saying go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the attorney says.
Green-Go?
THE BORDER REPORT
I was hoping this week would be a good opportunity to take a closer look at the Obama Administration’s movement of 1,200 National Guard units to the Mexico border. According to this Arizona Republic article, it’s gonna be a few weeks.* The first question I have is, why.
While I continue to believe that the National Guard movement is for Americans’ peace of mind (those not living in border states, anyway) and not to stop illegal immigration or drug trafficking, I’d like to point out the astuteness of the story; the administration said Aug. 1. Apparently they meant they were going to start addressing the movement of troops on that day.
