Mexico: ‘Mistaken identity’ over Guzman drug arrest
Mexico’s government has admitted that it mistakenly identified a detained man as the son of the country’s most-wanted drugs lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Mexican marines believed the car salesman they arrested was a growing force within the Sinaloa cartel
On Thursday officials paraded before the media a man they said was Jesus Alfredo Guzman, whose father leads the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
But the arrested man was in fact Felix Beltran Leon, a car salesman, the attorney general’s office said.
The authorities had hailed the arrest as the most important in years.
Known as El Chapo” or “Shorty”, Joaquin Guzman has been in hiding ever since he escaped from prison in 2001.
The Sinaloa cartel controls much of the flow of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine to the United States.
‘Embarrassing U-turn’
The BBC’s Will Grant in the capital, Mexico City, says within hours of the high-profile arrest, doubts had started to be cast on the official version of events.
A lawyer proclaiming to speak for the Guzman family released a statement denying that the suspect in custody was the drug boss’s son.
Mr Beltran Leon’s mother then spoke to journalists and denied any link to Joaquin Guzman or the Sinaloa cartel.
It took another few hours, while identity tests were carried out, before the government admitted it had made a huge mistake.
In less than a day, the episode has transformed from an apparent coup against one of Mexico’s biggest drug cartels to a major embarrassment for President Felipe Calderon’s administration, our reporter says.
US agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration, were among those that had applauded the arrest.
On Thursday, the Mexican Navy had said that Jesus Guzman – known as “El Gordo”, or “The Fat One” – was a growing force within his father’s cartel and controlled most of its trade between Mexico and the US, where he was indicted in 2009.
El Chapo was jailed in 1993, but escaped from his maximum-security prison in a laundry basket eight years later.
The US state department has offered a reward of up to $5m (£3.2m) for information leading to his arrest.
Our correspondent says if nothing else, the debacle goes to underscore how murky and confused the world of drug cartel arrests and government intelligence has become in Mexico.
With few recent photos of the main players in the drug world available, there may be more such cases of mistaken identity to come for the Mexican armed forces, he says.
More than 55,000 people have died in Mexico in drug-related violence since President Calderon declared war on the cartels nearly six years ago.
‘New kind of Mexican’
“The first things you see now when getting to Hidalgo are new houses, bigger constructions, more like American architecture, and equipped with modern technology. These are the homes of the migrants,” she says.
New kinds of businesses also flourish in the traditional towns, such as Chinese restaurants, pizza joints and English academies. These towns, even though the majority of their population are from indigenous cultures, are now experiencing American influences.
“There is a new culture coming from the north that is changing our communities, where the indigenous culture is still very powerful. For the first time you see young people with tattoos or piercings in our streets. They don’t want to work as farmers, like their parents used to,” Mrs Dorantes says.
“They are a new kind of Mexican.”
‘New kind of Mexican’
“The first thi…
“The first things you see now when getting to Hidalgo are new houses, bigger constructions, more like American architecture, and equipped with modern technology. These are the homes of the migrants,” she says.
New kinds of businesses also flourish in the traditional towns, such as Chinese restaurants, pizza joints and English academies. These towns, even though the majority of their population are from indigenous cultures, are now experiencing American influences.
“There is a new culture coming from the north that is changing our communities, where the indigenous culture is still very powerful. For the first time you see young people with tattoos or piercings in our streets. They don’t want to work as farmers, like their parents used to,” Mrs Dorantes says.
“They are a new kind of Mexican.”
‘New kind of Mexican’
Record deportations
Across the country, the situation is similar.
The number of Mexicans leaving their country for the US declined from more than one million in 2006 to 404,000 in 2010, a reduction of 60%, research by the Pew Hispanic Center suggests
Many Mexicans have decided either to stay or return voluntarily, but others have been forced to come back home.
Deportations have reached record levels under President Barack Obama’s administration.
The average number of deportations of illegal immigrants has been 400,000 per year since 2009, 30% higher than during President George W Bush’s second term.
The return of the ‘paisanos’ (friends or compatriots), may also change the country’s economy.
Mexico is heavily dependent on remittances from its nationals abroad; they represent the country’s third-largest source of income after oil and tourism.
Remittances sent to Mexican nationals last year totalled $22.7bn, according to the National Bank of Mexico. This is less than was being sent before 2008’s downturn, when more than $26bn dollars were sent every year.
“
There is a new culture coming from the north that is changing our communities”
Carmen Dorantes Returning migrant welfare director
Mexicans are bringing back American know-how, culture and money, which the authorities hope they will invest in Mexico.
“People come with their assets to establish new businesses. Those returning may speak three languages – English, Spanish and their local indigenous language. They have new skills. In a way, it will be easier for them to find a job than for those who never left the country,” Mrs Dorantes says.
And that might cause some misgivings in the local communities, as the returning migrants change the make-up of their home towns, local authorities fear.
Improving economy
“The sad situation is that we are not prepared to welcome so many migrants. It is worrying, there will be chaos if they start returning en masse, there’s not much we can offer them here,” Mayor Ramos tells the BBC.
Some 400,000 Mexicans returned last year, the country’s National Migration Institute (INM) says.
The country’s booming economy and improved living conditions are being cited by the government as reasons why fewer Mexicans leave for the United States.
However, in small towns like Chilcuautla, returning migrants add pressure to the local administration’s budgets.
More money is needed for health care for the increased population, more places in public schools, more programmes to assist returning families. But there just aren’t enough resources, Mr Ramos says.
For decades, Hidalgo has been one of the main departing points for migrants. But now it is seeing many people coming back from the US.
State authorities say that in 2011 20,000 people left Hidalgo to find a new life in the US. But during the same period, 10,000 ‘Hidalguenses’ returned, a record figure for this part of the country.
“The difficulties in finding a job in the US and the threat of new immigration laws in states like Arizona have led to a curb in migration,” says Carmen Dorantes, director of Hidalgo’s government office to help returning migrants.
“Mexicans who live there are now deciding to return, or at least send some members of their families back to Mexico,” she says.
Mexico’s migrants return as the American dream fades
Silvano Ramos, 36, left his home of Chilcuautla, a town of 12,000 inhabitants in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo, 12 years ago. He left, like so many others, in search of the American dream.
He crossed the river Rio Grande – or Rio Bravo as it’s known in Mexico – along the Texas border to work illegally as a construction worker in Nevada.
But when the US economy began to stall with the housing market collapse six years ago, he decided to leave that dream behind. Last January he became the mayor of Chilcuautla, where 80% of the population has a family member in the US.
He represents a new wave of Mexicans who are deciding to return home – though it is unclear whether their homeland is ready to take them all back
“Cada semana soy más pobre y tengo más miedo”
Los griegos tratan de sobrevivir a las penurias diarias de la crisis
La ruina es terrible. La humillación es aún peor. Los griegos, gente orgullosa, se sienten reducidos a la condición de parias, acosados por las acreedores y traicionados por sus políticos. Su economía se asfixia desde hace dos años y en el futuro sólo puede empeorar.
El miedo y la desolación, unidos a un punto de esperanza y al arrojo irracional de quien tiene ya poco que perder, componen el inestable ánimo colectivo ante las elecciones del 17 de junio. Si el pánico bancario se acelerara, la pertenencia de Grecia al euro podría no sobrevivir hasta entonces.
Un vendedor callejero empuja su carrito bajo la lluvia en Atenas
2010
arturodetexas 193 December 27, 2010 Reply
RT @50cent: Is this@jackie_long cheating hahaha http://plixi.com/p/65867772
Of all our truest hopes
“Of all our truest hopes and desires for our work is that, what we find, we ourselves never knew. It came as a shock. It came as a surprise. It was new. We could never have known what we were going to do before we did it, and in that sense, we discover too. Here is what I’ve got to say to you: there are things in your life you will see; there are stories you will hear; if you don’t write them down, if you don’t make the picture, they won’t get seen, they won’t get told.” – Emmet Gowin
She has a lot of things
she has a lot of things on her plate she cooked all at once while cutting her hair and taking a business call
i wonder can she just sit on a rock and look out at the sea? or lay in a field and listen to the bees?
because what’s the point of life if you can’t put away all your moving parts and let yourself feel just one thing at one time completely
Arturo Detexas 