THE BORDER REPORT

Take a look at this video interview of José Vázquez  Villagrana, El Jabáli, for a moment.

Captured last month in Mexico City, Mexico’s Ministry of Public Safety presented the clean-cut 40-year-old Jábali, a drug lord from Santa Ana, Sonora, sporting a turtleneck sweater. The interview bothers me for many reasons, not the least of which are his wild admittances about what exactly he did for a living and for whom. Jábali claims to work for the Sinaloa Federation, but some people I had an opportunity to speak with over the past few days say he actually worked for the Juárez Cartel, not Sinaloa. Yet, in his interview, not only does Jábali portend to work for Sinaloa, he gives an astonishing amount of detail about what he did, how much he charged, and, most interestingly, that his bosses sought to protect northern Mexico. Looking down at the ground and rarely meeting the camera’s eye, Vázquez said he was the Sinaloa Cartel’s lead man in northern Sonora. Every month, he announced, two tons of cocaine came up from Central America and were delivered into the U.S. through his ranch, La Cebolla. The details he alleges about the cartel’s figurehead principle, Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, are interesting. “Have you spoken with El Chapo?” an officer off camera asks. “Yes, I spoke to him by telephone one day.” “And what does he say?” Even the question is put to him oddly. "Que te dice?" as if Guzmán is some estranged and well-regarded uncle living far away whom nobody has heard from and everybody wants news of. “He says that everything is at peace, that everyone must behave, that in this area, nobody is permitted to rob or to kidnap or to assault others. That anyone who does these types of things needs to be removed.” Really? How ... ingenuous. Guzmán wants the area to remain tranquil and under control, Vázquez said. Last year, the Mexican government said Vázquez worked for Arturo Beltrán Leyva. Last spring, when Mexican federal police arrested Cynthia Anahí Beltrán Cabrera with a M2 Browning .50-cal machine gun mounted on the back of a Ford pickup truck, she was identified as being in the service of Vázquez, and he, in turn, of the Beltrán Leyva family. The Mexican Federal Attorney General’s Office claims that Vázquez worked for both, the Sinaloa Cartel and Beltrán Leyva’s organization until the Beltráns joined with the Zetas, at which point he broke away because they were too violent. Yet people invested in northern Sonora's drug trafficking families say Vázquez never worked for either the Beltráns or Sinaloa. He worked for Juárez, they say. A minor corroboration; Jábali had feuded with Los Numeros for a long time and Los Numeros were the Beltrán's brazo armado in Sonora. A minor refute: Jábali had associated himself with Geovanni Páez, the Caborca cowboy who worked for Sinaloa. Sort of a micro-merger between Juárez and Sinaloa that didn't seem affected by the rivalry in Cd. Juárez. This leads me to a few questions on this fine, cold Monday morning: 1. Who did Vázquez really work for? If, in fact, he worked for Juárez, why claim Sinaloa? 2. Why was he in Mexico City and only then arrested? Why  not take him in Santa Ana when they've known for at least a year that he lived and worked here? 3. From the questions posed to Jábali, I ascertain that the federal interviewers knew what answers he would give. Was he told what to say? 4. The interview sure makes Chapo look good. It paints a picture of a security benefactor who will protect the Mexican people from the deranged Zetas. I wonder a little if that wasn't the point of the video; a manufactured public relations image of Chapo. Anyway.