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 next day, Aug. 17, Ramos called to arrange a meeting in the parking lot of a closed warehouse in Atlanta. At 7:30 p.m., he pulled his semi-truck in and met with two men, Joe Lopez and Luis Trevino, who arrived in a white Nissan Maxima. Trevino and Ramos loaded three Navy duffel bags stuffed with $2,533,635 into the cab of Ramos' truck. Trevino and Lopez drove off and Ramos pulled away. On Aug. 18, the Georgia State Patrol stopped Ramos' truck on I-85 south of Atlanta and seized the cash. Ramos initially denied knowing anything about the bags of money (kind of wonder how that conversation went ... ). On June 11, a U.S. federal judge unsealed an indictment against Edgar La Barbie Valdez Villareal and five other men.

"This indictment shows that we are not content simply to arrest and prosecute those in our district who work on behalf of the Mexican cartels to bring cocaine into the United States. We are committed to tracing the drugs back to the cartel leaders themselves, and we look forward to the opportunity to prosecute the sources of this cocaine in federal court in Atlanta," boasted U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.

The indictment also names Carlos Montemayor, 37, Juan Montemayor, 45, Ruben Hernandez, 38, and Roberto Lopez, 31, with money laundering and with conspiring to import and distribute cocaine. According to the Feds: they gathered evidence during a January 2008 wiretap-based trial fingering La Barbie as the source of tons cocaine imported into Atlanta from 2004 to 2006. Evidence at the trial, the Feds say, demonstrated La Barbie's people were moving about 200 pounds of coke a week during the summer and fall of 2005. All that, they said, came up by semi-truck to Atlanta after crossing through Laredo, Texas. Still more trucks were used to run millions in cash back to Mexico. And then, on  June 18, a week after the U.S. put the heat on La Barbie, Ramos signed the plea agreement in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, admitting to the initial allegations. I thought this was interesting. The General Requirements of the plea agreement, a negotiation between Ramos and the U.S. Attorney's Office were:

The Defendant agrees to cooperate truthfully and completely with the Government, including being debriefed and providing truthful testimony at any proceeding resulting from or related to Defendant's cooperation . Defendant agrees to so cooperate in any investigation or proceeding as requested by the Government . Defendant agrees that Defendant's cooperation shall include, but not be limited to : (a) producing all records, whether written, recorded, electronic, or machine readable, in his actual or constructive possession, custody, or control, of evidentiary value or requested by attorneys and agents of the Government ; (b) making himself available for interviews, not at the expense of the Government if he is on bond, upon the request of attorneys and agents of the Government; (c) responding fully and truthfully to all inquiries of the Government in connection with any investigation or proceeding, without falsely implicating any person or intentionally withholding any information, subject to the penalties of making false statements (18 U .S .C. § 1001), obstruction of justice (18 U .S .C . § 1503) and related offenses.

Now, I doubt Ramos was the man who gave up La Barbie's locale in Mexico to the cops. First, he sounds like a drug mule, second, the case is five years old, third, if Barbie was dumb enough to let low-level mules know the addresses to his haciendas, he was a fool and was just asking to get popped. Fourth, these are general requirements, meaning they're standard for satisfying the plea agreement. Fifth, Ramos doesn't appear to be in protective custody (his plea agreement is a matter of public record, available to anyone with an online connection to the federal court database.). Finally, even in the Feds' own press release regarding the indictment, they mentioned El C-1 was already in custody. I don't think you announce to the world that you have a snitch in custody. Or do you? According to federal court records, Ramos was indicted Dec. 15, 2009 and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Ramos was arrested Feb. 8, 2010. The location of the arrest, according to the returned warrant: "DEA S. Texas/Laredo." It sounds to me, from the arrest locale, like the DEA knew exactly where Ramos was and were simply sitting on him in Laredo, waiting for the right time to effect his arrest. What it sounds like to me is that the U.S. nailed Ramos in 2005, cut him loose, maybe to work for them, maybe not, then indicted Barbie and immediately turned over the information they had obtained to the Mexicans for Barbie's arrest. Then the information was used to nail Barbie's 11 socios in Colombia, making this a network of arrests that spanned three countries in a three-month time period. I haven't seen a play like that since Operation Trifecta in 2004 that led to Mayito's arrest. I don't know that Ramos was the dedo, but the circumstances of his arrest are certainly interesting. The Americans sat on him for five years. Then, they took him in, and months later, Barbie's network in Mexico and Colombia goes down.

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. Now, as a Tejano, is the State Department going to abide by usual protocols, and visit him in jail to ensure his rights as an American citizen are being honored by the Mexicans? Will he be prosecuted in the U.S. first on those 2003 charges or face trial in Mexico? Or is he a dual citizen (I doubt he's a dual citizen, he started working so early in life, he probably didn't even have time to get a U.S. passport, let alone a Mexican one.) I wish the Mexicans had come up with the trading cards the Americans used on al-Qaeda, post-9/11; I'm losing track. It started with Arturo Beltran Leyva in Cuernavaca. Then a month later, Teodoro Garcia Simental, El Teo, in Tijuana. Next up was Nacho, yeah?

THE BORDER REPORT

So, so far we're up to 72 people in that mass grave near Matamoros; then two car-bombs in Cd. Victoria, then the killing of the ministerio publico into the murders. He was found on the highway. Still want to tell me it's the Zetas? Pres. Felipe Calderón has been expounding on the point for days now, insisting that these migrants had been killed because they refused to work for the Zetas. Again with the Zetas. Last year, when the killings began along the Guatemala border, that was blamed on the Zetas, too. In fact, every time a new travesty breaks out, it's usually the Zetas who are blamed. Not, mind you, that I have any love for the Zetas, but I do appreciate facts when I come across them and this excuse of the Zetas has been used so many times, it's grown wearisome and frankly, suspect. Let's be clear here; Calderón has no proof. At last count, 31 of the 72 bodies had been identified. If the Mexican government can't even identify the bodies of the dead, how are they going to identify the motive?  They're not, it's ridiculous. In fact, he actually doesn't know, he's guessing. This is what he says about the Zetas in a press release issued this morning:

"Son ellos los que están recurriendo a la extorsión y al secuestro de migrantes como mecanismo de financiamiento y de reclutamiento debido a que están enfrentando una situación muy adversa para abastecerse de recursos y de personas." Very roughly: "It is they who keep returning to extortion and kidnapping of migrants as the financial mechanism and recruiting plan because they are facing a very adverse situation to supply themselves with resources and manpower."

In other words, this is their modus operandi, and therefore, it is they who did this. The president is taking much the same tack as his American counterparts. In the Americans' case, they say the same thing about smugglers in general. Calderón's convenient boogeyman is more specific, the Zetas. That's obscene. I'm going to go more with the Rev. Pedro Pantoja, director of the Casa del Migrante in Saltillo who tells  The AP: "The permissiveness and complicity of the Mexican state with criminals ... is just as much to blame."

THE BORDER REPORT

About two weeks ago, a blog that professed to illuminate the drug wars in Mexico, but did little more than cut and paste news stories from Mexican news websites, made the big time with a write-up by The Associated Press. Today, it's under a new visage; BlogDelNarco was a blogspot account started in March of this year, a clearinghouse of Mexico drug cartel combat stories. Now it's mundonarco.com. The site was initially hosted by Google as a blogspot account, so it's possible that Google removed the site because of it's graphic content. You'll recall that a few months ago, they tried that nonsense with me, threatening to remove advertising if I didn't remove graphic photos. The AP profiled the blogger under a premise I considered misleading: "Narco-blogger beats Mexico drug war news blackout" The story made the argument that as Mexican media retreated from covering the drug wars and the cartels ravaging the country, a lone, anonymous blogger had taken to publishing accounts reporters feared to write themselves. The reality was a cut-and--paste clipjob that constantly lifts existing content without attribution or even a link to the original story. I found this and the resulting AP story offensive because it minimized the hard work of Mexican journalists who continue to do their jobs in spite of the threats against them. In fact, here's a blogger who accuses BlogdelNarco of plagiarism, saying the blogger steals not only his stories, but his photos, as well (thank you, ilegal, for pointing this one out). As an American journalist and blogger, I'm under no illusion that I live in the same threatening climate as my Mexican colleagues. It's simply not the same animal. An El Debate newspaper reporter whose family lives in Culiacán, whose kids go to the same schools as the children of the associates of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, is at far greater risk than me or any other American journalist working in Mexico. In fact, I can only think of two American journalists, a daily newspaper reporter and a television reporter who wouldn't appreciate their names being placed here, that work under the same threat as Mexican crime and political reporters. A blogger in Mexico, working remotely, never showing their face, is no Mexican crime reporter, I promise you. Journalism in Mexico is under siege and has been for several years running. The country has consistently maintained the top tier of dangerous places to work as a reporter since 2005. Profiling a cheap hack and pretending they're doing their own work is an insult to the country's profession. BlogDelNarco had some scoops in its short time - but so do narconews, lavidamafiosa, an excellent blog I used to check daily, El Ciudadano, a great Nogales, Sonora, blog, and Maggie's Madness, usually murder photos and videos passed around the Internet by people with a heavy interest in these affairs. One thing Blogdelnarco does do well is act as a portal for chats about narco-trafficking. This is an important dynamic, even in the age of anonymous commenters. But let's not pretend the site is replacing original fact-gathering. That is an expensive endeavor that doesn't happen by keyboard alone. I've written to the owner of BlogdelNarco to ask him about this lifting of content but haven't yet received a response. But whatever his answer will be, there is a tremendous difference between a journalist who creates original content and a blogger who cuts and pastes it and claims it for their own. Now, bloggers and new media pundits will argue that information wants to be free. I'd argue that information doesn't care. Ironically, The Associated Press recognizes the difference, or at least, it's lawyers do. Earlier this year, The Associated Press filed complaints and threatened to sue a blogger who'd done much the same thing blogdelnarco is doing. Apparently, when an American blogger lifts AP's stories, this is deemed "misappropriation." When a Mexican blogger lifts everybody else's, this is deemed giving the public "what they can't get elsewhere." Footnote: At the time The AP's story came out, I was also confused by the name: There's "blogdelnarco" the website that The AP profiled and there is "elblogdelnarco" a website that does much the same type of cut-and-paste lifting but has existed since 2007.

THE BORDER REPORT

Take a look at this story in El Imparcial about a lawsuit filed against the German gun manufacturer, Heckler and Koch. The company was prohibited from selling weapons in specific Mexican states, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Jalisco, and Chiapas - all states with relatively recent conflicts between indigenous populations, like the EZLN, and the Mexican government.

The weapons, mind you, are being sold to law enforcement in the rest of Mexico. In fact, H&K carried the sole contract up until 2007 I believe to arm the Mexican military with G36s. They're being phased out in favor of the Mexican industried FX-05 Xiuhcoatl. But from my conversation with a source in the U.S. State Department this morning, it is the Mexican government who decides which states it is prohibited for companies to sell to.

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