Jalisco to investigate Gerardo Ortiz for links to organized crime

There is an investigation into the alleged links between organized crime and the owners of the property used as a location for his controversial video.

Mexican singer Gerardo Ortíz have been summoned by Jalisco Prosecutor's Office to testify, for the recording of a music video, Gerardo Ortiz Medina could become a suspect on suspicion to have links to organized crime, said the Attorney General of Jalisco, Eduardo Almaguer.

The Attorney General said that Jalisco (PGR) will investigate Gerardo Ortiz, because  the alleged links between organized crime and to know the origin of the funds used to make this video.

Surprisingly, the prosecutor announced the shift taken by investigation for the misuse of police vehicles and police officers involved in the controversial video for the song "You were mine," which was branded as misogynist and abettor to Femicide.


"What we are announcing today is that the investigations on all the participating companies, and the subjects who have been acting on the video, is giving us a very clear indications of the involvement of organized crime and the use of illegal proceeds" said Almaguer.

The state official said that up to today, they have obtained the statement of nine people and have located a number of unregistered companies - allegedly linked to organized crime, who engaged in video production and rental of luxury vehicles, which would have an important relationship with Gerardo Ortiz.

Eduardo Almaguer did not rule out that on this Friday April 22, when he shows up to his concert at the arena of Tepatitlán de Morelos, Jalisco, to parties called "Tepabril" Ortiz Medina could be detained to testify before the Public Ministry.

This article was translated from Zeta Tijuana 

Slain Texas Atty of Osiel Cárdenas was warned he was being hunted

Lucio R. Borderland Beat from Dallas Morning News 

A Mexican drug cartel lawyer who was slain by a masked assassin in Southlake Town Square in 2013 was warned prior to the hit that he was in danger, court records said.

Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa received phone calls from “others” warning him that he was being stalked and that he “needed to be on his guard,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua T. Burgess said in court documents filed Monday.

The documents didn't say when the calls were made.

Burgess is asking a judge to allow the information about Guerrero Chapa's fear for his life to be admitted as evidence in the upcoming trial of three men accused of tracking and stalking him.

Guerrero Chapa, 43, was killed shortly before 7 p.m. on May 22, 2013, at the suburban shopping center. A white Toyota Sequoia pulled up behind his Range Rover and a masked gunman stepped out.

The gunman walked to the passenger side where Guerrero Chapa was sitting and shot him multiple times with a 9 mm pistol. His wife, who was loading shopping bags into the vehicle, was not hurt.

The plot to kill Guerrero Chapa began as early as March 2011, shortly before he closed on a $1.2 million house in Southlake, according to the new court filings.

Guerrero Chapa, personal lawyer to Gulf cartel boss Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, was an informant for U.S. law enforcement authorities. Cárdenas is serving a 25-year sentence in a U.S. prison.

Guerrero Chapa received calls from “others to warn him that he was in danger because he had been found by people who wanted to kill him,” Burgess said in the documents.

“Immediately after hanging up the phone, he informed his wife he was scared,” the filing said. “He also told her he didn't want to go back to the house.”

Guerrero Chapa told his wife that the people looking for him knew where they lived. “He instructed her to stop using the cellphones they had,” the court filing said. Guerrero Chapa used four cellphones at the time.

The defendants, three Mexican men, are scheduled to go to trial April 25 in Fort Worth.

Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Cepeda, and his son, Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Campano Jr., 32, were arrested in September 2014 near McAllen while trying to cross into the U.S., officials said. They were former police officers in the same suburb of Monterrey, Mexico, where Guerrero Chapa and his family were from.

Ledezma-Cepeda's cousin, Jose Luis Cepeda-Cortes, 59, a legal U.S. resident with a green card, was arrested at his Edinburg home.

They were charged with interstate stalking resulting in death and conspiracy to commit murder for hire.

Three others are charged in sealed indictments because they remain fugitives. It's unclear what role they are believed to have played in the murder.

The killers have not been publicly identified or charged.

Another person, who is connected to drug traffickers, tried to get Guerrero Chapa deported to Mexico so he could be killed there, Burgess said in another court filing.

Luis Lauro Ramirez-Bautista was involved in the search for Guerrero Chapa and helped finance the effort, the prosecutor said.

Between November 2012 and January 2013, a drug dealer for Ramirez-Bautista met with Ledezma-Cepeda four times and gave him a total of $38,000, Burgess said.

When he was stopped at the Mexico-U.S. border in March 2011, Ramirez-Bautista told a U.S. border agent that he was looking for Guerrero Chapa.

“He had photos of [Guerrero] Chapa's house, and he told HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] that [Guerrero] Chapa was a drug dealer,” Burgess said in the court filing. “And he told authorities that [Guerrero] Chapa should be deported to Mexico.”

Those statements were designed to “enlist the assistance of the government in returning Chapa to Mexico so that Ramirez-Bautista and others could kill him,” Burgess said.

The murder of Guerrero Chapa was a sophisticated covert operation run by assassins who used surveillance cameras and tracking devices to stalk their victim.

The suspects made several trips across the border to North Texas to stalk Guerrero Chapa while they lived in a rented Grapevine apartment, authorities said. They used at least eight rented and purchased cars. A camera set up in his neighborhood captured Guerrero Chapa driving his Range Rover, which also had a tracking device attached underneath. And cameras were also aimed at the victim's home, officials said.

Ledezma-Cepeda and his son, Ledezma-Campano, had three surveillance tracking devices in their 2012 Volkswagen Jetta when they were arrested trying to re-enter the U.S. in 2014, court records show.

Government authorities have linked the defendants to at least nine other men who were murdered or vanished in Mexico from 2011 to 2014. Some of the murdered men had tracking devices placed on their vehicles by the defendants, prosecutors said in court filings. Others were named in the defendants' emails, records show.

Most recently, Moises Tijerina De La Garza was shot to death in Monterrey, Mexico, on Feb. 23, court documents said.

His contact information had been found in Ledezma-Cepeda's emails, records show. De La Garza was Guerrero Chapa's brother-in-law, 

The defense plans to call nearly 60 witnesses, including federal agents who can testify about Guerrero Chapa's “illegal activities” while he was a U.S. informant, court records show.

Some defense witnesses will testify about how Guerrero Chapa's family was kidnapped and later released based on an agreement with “Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

Slain Texas Atty of Osiel Cárdenas was warned he was being hunted

Lucio R. Borderland Beat from Dallas Morning News 

A Mexican drug cartel lawyer who was slain by a masked assassin in Southlake Town Square in 2013 was warned prior to the hit that he was in danger, court records said.

Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa received phone calls from “others” warning him that he was being stalked and that he “needed to be on his guard,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua T. Burgess said in court documents filed Monday.

The documents didn't say when the calls were made.

Burgess is asking a judge to allow the information about Guerrero Chapa's fear for his life to be admitted as evidence in the upcoming trial of three men accused of tracking and stalking him.

Guerrero Chapa, 43, was killed shortly before 7 p.m. on May 22, 2013, at the suburban shopping center. A white Toyota Sequoia pulled up behind his Range Rover and a masked gunman stepped out.

The gunman walked to the passenger side where Guerrero Chapa was sitting and shot him multiple times with a 9 mm pistol. His wife, who was loading shopping bags into the vehicle, was not hurt.

The plot to kill Guerrero Chapa began as early as March 2011, shortly before he closed on a $1.2 million house in Southlake, according to the new court filings.

Guerrero Chapa, personal lawyer to Gulf cartel boss Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, was an informant for U.S. law enforcement authorities. Cárdenas is serving a 25-year sentence in a U.S. prison.

Guerrero Chapa received calls from “others to warn him that he was in danger because he had been found by people who wanted to kill him,” Burgess said in the documents.

“Immediately after hanging up the phone, he informed his wife he was scared,” the filing said. “He also told her he didn't want to go back to the house.”

Guerrero Chapa told his wife that the people looking for him knew where they lived. “He instructed her to stop using the cellphones they had,” the court filing said. Guerrero Chapa used four cellphones at the time.

The defendants, three Mexican men, are scheduled to go to trial April 25 in Fort Worth.

Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Cepeda, and his son, Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Campano Jr., 32, were arrested in September 2014 near McAllen while trying to cross into the U.S., officials said. They were former police officers in the same suburb of Monterrey, Mexico, where Guerrero Chapa and his family were from.

Ledezma-Cepeda's cousin, Jose Luis Cepeda-Cortes, 59, a legal U.S. resident with a green card, was arrested at his Edinburg home.

They were charged with interstate stalking resulting in death and conspiracy to commit murder for hire.

Three others are charged in sealed indictments because they remain fugitives. It's unclear what role they are believed to have played in the murder.

The killers have not been publicly identified or charged.

Another person, who is connected to drug traffickers, tried to get Guerrero Chapa deported to Mexico so he could be killed there, Burgess said in another court filing.

Luis Lauro Ramirez-Bautista was involved in the search for Guerrero Chapa and helped finance the effort, the prosecutor said.

Between November 2012 and January 2013, a drug dealer for Ramirez-Bautista met with Ledezma-Cepeda four times and gave him a total of $38,000, Burgess said.

When he was stopped at the Mexico-U.S. border in March 2011, Ramirez-Bautista told a U.S. border agent that he was looking for Guerrero Chapa.

“He had photos of [Guerrero] Chapa's house, and he told HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] that [Guerrero] Chapa was a drug dealer,” Burgess said in the court filing. “And he told authorities that [Guerrero] Chapa should be deported to Mexico.”

Those statements were designed to “enlist the assistance of the government in returning Chapa to Mexico so that Ramirez-Bautista and others could kill him,” Burgess said.

The murder of Guerrero Chapa was a sophisticated covert operation run by assassins who used surveillance cameras and tracking devices to stalk their victim.

The suspects made several trips across the border to North Texas to stalk Guerrero Chapa while they lived in a rented Grapevine apartment, authorities said. They used at least eight rented and purchased cars. A camera set up in his neighborhood captured Guerrero Chapa driving his Range Rover, which also had a tracking device attached underneath. And cameras were also aimed at the victim's home, officials said.

Ledezma-Cepeda and his son, Ledezma-Campano, had three surveillance tracking devices in their 2012 Volkswagen Jetta when they were arrested trying to re-enter the U.S. in 2014, court records show.

Government authorities have linked the defendants to at least nine other men who were murdered or vanished in Mexico from 2011 to 2014. Some of the murdered men had tracking devices placed on their vehicles by the defendants, prosecutors said in court filings. Others were named in the defendants' emails, records show.

Most recently, Moises Tijerina De La Garza was shot to death in Monterrey, Mexico, on Feb. 23, court documents said.

His contact information had been found in Ledezma-Cepeda's emails, records show. De La Garza was Guerrero Chapa's brother-in-law, 

The defense plans to call nearly 60 witnesses, including federal agents who can testify about Guerrero Chapa's “illegal activities” while he was a U.S. informant, court records show.

Some defense witnesses will testify about how Guerrero Chapa's family was kidnapped and later released based on an agreement with “Mexican drug trafficking organizations.

"El Cenizo" leader of Los Caballeros Templarios arrested in Guerrero

Official sources confirmed the arrest of Ignacio Renteria Andrade, "El Cenizo", he was the last main objective of the Knights Templar Cartel and was arrested in the state of Guerrero, as it was published by news portal Quadratin.

Unofficially it was learned that Renteria Andrade was located by members of the Navy and Federal Police after an operation in Guerrero, which also managed to capture several of his cronies, but they did not determined the number or the identity of those arrested.

According to the same source, "El Cenizo" was transferred to the 43rd Military Zone, located in the town of Apatzingan, where he is expected to be brought to the Deputy Attorney Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO) in Mexico City , to be questioned by federal authorities.

Ignacio Andrade Renteria was one of the main leaders of the Knights Templar cartel and was a fugitive after the arrest of Servando Gomez "La Tuta", and the death of Nazario Moreno "El Chayo" and Kike Plancarte.

This article was translated from Excelsior

El R-3 and 8 others from Los Rojos detained

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a SDPNoticias article

{ Subject Matter: Hector Crescencio de Leon Fonesca, El R-3
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required ]

Click on image to enlarge

Fonesca is the second in command of the organization, and functions as the armed wing of the Cartel del Golfo.

Personnel of SEIDO detained nine members of a cell pertinent to the Cartel del Golfo that operate in Tamaulipas. Among the detained are Hector Crescencio de Leon Fonesca nicknamed "El R-3", who is known to be second in command of the group known as "Los Rojos".

According to the PGR, the detentions were the result of investigative work by the head the Unit Specializing in investigation of terrorism, and arms trafficking together with the Investigation division of the Federal Police.




The information published in La Journada indicated that, this group are dedicated to diverse criminal acts including, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, fuel theft, kidnapping, extortion in the towns of Tampico, Ciudad Madero and Altamira.

During the operation they confiscated two armored pickups, two .50 cal Barrett rifles, one assault rifle, one pistol, 1500 rounds of ammunition, weapon magazines, 200 grammes of heroin, 50 kilos of marijuana and Satellite communication equipment.

Original article in Spanish at SDP Noticias.

Rolling Stone:Full 17 minute video of Sean Penn/Chapo interview

DD for Borderland Beat video: Rolling Stone Magazine/Kate Castillo Productions
My thanks to Chivis for her help in acquiring and embedding the video and helping put this together.

It is hard to believe that last Friday, just shy of six months on the lam, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera was recaptured and now is once again incarcerated in Mexico’s only “super-max” prison, No.1 Altiplano, Centro Federal de Readaptación Social Número 1, in Mexico State. The capo, premier leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, famous for his narco tunnels, escaped from Altiplano in July, 2015, in a Chapo-tunnel, engineered with precision, having been constructed from a farm house a mile from the prison, to Chapo’s cell shower floor.

His days of freedom, relatively short lived, came to an end because of the successful operation, “Black Swan” of the Mexican Navy. He once again was prepared and almost eluded capture using a secret door to a staircase and sewer system. He was successful in using an alike escape plan, February, 2014 plan in Culiacan, Sinaloa.

Few people knew there was another shocker coming, about the man whose life history, is a gift that somehow keeps on giving.

Within 48 hrs news broke that Actor Sean Penn had traveled to Sinaloa, in October 2015, just three months ago, met with Chapo and conducted an interview for Rolling Stone Magazine.

A video teaser of two minutes was included with the interview article, and today the full and complete 17 minute version was released.

It should be noted that Arely Gomez, eluded to the fact that it was Chapo’s communications with “actors and producers”, regarding his making and staring in a biographical movie, that lead the government to Chapo’s hiding network.

Yesterday Mexico said people should be grateful to Penn, for because of his involvement with Chapo, he was able to be captured.

You may want to turn the volume down or off, as the Gallo?Rooster constant crowing is more than annoying.

Dr. Mireles Asks For Forgiveness

Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

José Manuel Mireles Valverde, former spokesman of the autodefensas of Michoacán, asked for forgiveness from the government and his family “for having disrespected them with his words or actions.”

“I use this message to apologize to the Government of Mexico and its official and unofficial institutions, and its structures spread out throughout the national territory, for having disrespected them with words or actions, for having offended them with my omissions and civil disobedience,” Mireles said in a message posted on social networks.

To mark the start of the year, Dr. Mireles also apologized for having abused “liberal thinking and for having altered the political and social order of Michoacán and Mexico.”

Mireles, who was detained on June 27, 2014 and is being held in a prison in Hermosillo, Sonora, confessed to taking the decision of being “at peace with God, with the government, with my family, and with the autodefensa movement.”

“I humbly pray and from the bottom of my heart, I ask that they forgive me for all the harm I may have caused them or for the reason or reasons that they may have been. I apologize to my children, for having abandoned them trying to solve a problem that is only up to the bodies of government,” is heard in the audio allegedly recorded by family members during a phone call.

In a part of the audio, he talks about his father and dedicates this message:

“To my venerable father, I ask for forgiveness for having left him at the age of 83; forgive me father for having done this during the last part of your existence, for having gone to fight in order for them to let us live in peace and dignity.”

“Forgive me father for having disobeyed you when they came to us asking for our help in order for the village to rise up in arms, you gave your good reasons: I’ve lost my wife, I’ve lost my cattle, I don’t want to lose any of my sons. Sorry for having disobeyed you and now being left alone,” said the former spokesman of the autodefensas.

The audio, which lasted 7:42 minutes, includes a call from the former spokesman of the General Council of the Autodefensas for the release of all civilians detained for having faced against organized crime.

In the recording, Mireles says that it is necessary to build a new Mexico, but without arms and quotes Javier Sicilia, Bishop Raúl Vera and General Gallardo.

José Manuel Mireles Valverde, founder of the autodefensas of Tepalcatepec, Michoacán, was detained on Friday, June 27 2014. The Attorney General of the State (PGJE) reported that the arrest occurred in the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas for violating the Federal Law on Firearms and Explosives.

Mireles was the only founder of the autodefensas who didn’t join the Fuerza Rural, a group which Estanislao Beltrán “Papa Pitufo” and Hipólito Mora did join. He is accused of carrying firearms for the exclusive use of the Mexican Army, as well as possessing cocaine and marijuana.

Unlike the other 77 people who were with him at the time of his arrest (five of the detainees were minors and later released), Mireles Valverde was sent to the Federal Social Rehabilitation Center #11 in Sonora, on Sunday June 29.

Source:Sin Embargo