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.
