Mexico News Aug.25

Posted by the Generals on September 4, 2011, 8:01 pm
50.92.181.60

Subject: Mexico News DAILY August 25, 2011 LatinNews Daily - 25 August 2011 Mexico to investigate US immunity offer Development: On 24 August the standing committee of the Mexican congress gave the attorney general and the foreign ministry five working days to report to it, separately, on whether the US had offered Mexico’s two most important drug gangsters immunity. Significance: The demand poses a host of problems for the government of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. The decision was made after the written testimony to a US court revealed that the two leaders of the Sinaloa gang, Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán and Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, had been offered immunity by US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents operating in Mexico. Key points: • Academics specialising in Mexican drug gangs have been pointing out, for at least the past two years, that the Sinaloa gang, the most powerful of the Mexican gangs, had been targeted by Mexican authorities much less than other gangs. • The congressional demand was triggered by written testimony to a US court in Illinois from Vicente ‘El Vicentillo’ Zambada, ‘El Mayo’s’ son, who said that his father and ‘El Chapo’ enjoyed immunity because they reported to their US handlers about other gangs. According to ‘El Vicentillo’, DEA agents tipped off the gangsters when the police was about to move against them. • ‘El Vicentillo’ was extradited to the US in 2010 and faces a series of drug-related charges. He said that the deal with the US officials was handled by Humberto Loya-Castro, the gang’s lawyer, who was also a DEA informant. The alleged cooperation began in 2004.

54

Be sure to visit www.lamanzanilla.info