Thursday, January 26, 2017
El Chapo, The Most Most Wily And Deadly Drug Cartel Leader Ever, Is For Now Locked Up - In Manhattan
Posted by Peter Quennell
Who’d a known it? We are being told that the highrise prison adjacent to the courts in downtown Manhattan is maybe the US’s most escape-proof.
Well that is a relief…
The career of Sinaloa cartel leader and escape artist “El Chapo” (three escapes so far) in northern Mexico (see the great 2015 movie El Sicarrio for a fictional version) has been littered with bodies - he himself claims to have bumped off thousands.
Having escaped those three times very ingeniously from Mexican prisons, the authorities there were not unhappy to send Guzman northward. He faces his first American trial soon, in the Federal courts in Brooklyn. The Chicago courts will be his next destination.
Much of northern Mexico is a desert - actually a quite beautiful one - and the drug-transporting cartels had traditionally divided it up into corridors to run the drugs that are produced further south, especially in Colombia. The Sinaloa cartel initially settled for only the western several.
But as the video explains, a fired-up and mistrustful El Chapo set about taking over all of the corridors.
The Sinaloans are assiduous builders of long tunnels, and there are said for example to be many dozens between the Tijuana and San Diego areas.
No border wall like that being mooted is likely to have any effect on them. This is though experts say hard drugs do way more harm to society than the dwindling trickle of illegal immigrants.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/26/17 at 05:20 PM in
Comments
To many in Mexico El Chapo is a magnetic Robin Hood kind of guy. Bumping other drug dealers off is seen as the Lord’s work! There are popular toys that resemble him.
Two other cases also in the news, in the smallish “women who kill” category which addles rather too many Americans. The FOA will of course be seeking their liberation…
Added: A BBC 4 series on women who killed is mentioned in the news. This article on the BBC site says root causes need to be explored.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160601-the-women-that-kill-abuse-and-torture
But how to do when there’s PR?
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/26/17 at 06:49 PM | #
Between TJMK and the Wiki and PMF we actually carry a lot of scientific information on the sites which while being low-key will be the winning tortoise in the race. The FOA in contrast carry a lot of garbled “science” and much of it is simply made up and very easily shot down.
There are some papers suggesting we citizens of the world are maybe close now to “peak political bipolarity” and maybe soon extreme bipolarity could start to unwind. This paper suggest that the more grounded in science people are, the more readily they personally unwind and head for scientific truth.
Group development processes (of which the US is very deprived) have excellent ways for quickly getting all but a few to buy in.
Maybe we should run a big conference on the case? Invite some from Italy to come here? Some have said they would like to do that. Our coming blast at Netflix should do a good job to pave the way.
It could use development process approaches to promote high participation. Any conference should above all not be simply a panel of drones, like this below, waffling on by the hour as what remained of the tiny audience tiptoed out.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/27/17 at 07:25 PM | #
The wisdom of crowds… do you believe in it? The notion that a hive mind is the best of all possible?
Two things I learned quickly in development is that (1) education systems leave out whole universes and the first steps have to consist of filling in the blanks on a grand scale; (2) mental paradigms explaining the world are more often that not wrong, but people individually and in groups CAN be pointed to better paradigms.
So this report is not too surprising although as usual it only addresses a problem through a keyhole.
https://qz.com/895735/mit-economists-designed-an-algorithm-to-combat-groupthink/
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/28/17 at 08:27 PM | #
Film actor Sean Penn made a widely criticised “secret” trip to Mexico to “discuss drug policy” with El Chapo. His interview is on various YouTubes and he sounds very nervous, presumably scared they come after him f he sells them out. Here is a comment under one YouTube.
Mariana Jaime
Mariana Jaime
3 years ago (edited)
I am Mexican, I live in Sinaloa, and I’ve seen the pain in the eyes of mothers whose children have been tortured and burned alive, women who’ve been raped, and children who’ve been corrupted and mutilated… All by the orders of Joaquin Guzman Loera.There’s a reason why el Chapo is ranked as the most dangerous man alive, forget the drugs, forget the dealing, el Chapo is the kind of man who kills children in the most painful and horrible ways just because someone related to them said the wrong thing in front of him and now this man (Sean Penn) dares to tell a camera that he wanted to “Begin a conversation about the policy of the war on drugs” when Chapo has killed his own men in trust just because they talked back or contradicted him in any possible way; Chapo is not the kind of man who you can just disagree with and part ways, he is a psychopath.
And This man (Sean Penn) now tries to call us hypocrytes because we’re not out there doing everything we can to stop the war against drugs when he sit to interview him and shaked his hand, a man who has caused a war in Mexico where millions of people have died and a man who’s responsible for most of the illegal drugs in the U.S. How many people wouldn’t kill for the oportunity to contribute to his capture, to make him pay for all the suffering he has caused…
Sean Penn has no idea, americans have no idea. Our goverment is a failure, but the fact that narcos are against it doesn’t mean that they are in our side, Chapo has built schools in my town, he’s built hospitals, but he’s taken children from their families and has incorporated them in his own narco ranks to be killed before they even turn 13 on the turf war against the other cartels. I’m not grateful for what he’s done, just because I have the hability simpatize to all my fellow Mexicans who’ve died on his war and their families, no hospital and no school would be enough to make up for what he’s done to my country and the U.S.
And I don’t even want to start with that puta Kate del Castillo, I don’t know about the U.S. , but here in Mexico, when you know the location of a criminal and you don’t tell the police, the legal term for it is complicity, and it’s a crime, for which, she should already be in jail. Sean Penn and that bitch were stupid enough to think they are untouchable, and Sean Penn states his fucking death wish just by implying he doesn’t fear for his life, and if you ask me, that’s a very challenging statement if we’re talking about Chapo, and let’s say Chapo decides to believe that what Penn calls a “myth”, he’s screwed.
I don’t see the point on getting involved with a murderer, why would you want to interview Chapo? To know his point of view on the drug war? Does it even matter? Is it not wrong in any possible way? I think that what Kate and Sean did is a mock to all the people who’d do anything to see him behind bars, and I know they didn’t have that intension, but they didn’t think this trough, and now, we all know they both fear for their lives, because one does not simply mess with el Chapo. (I’m sorry if my grammar is not good, I’m new in this lenguage)
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/30/17 at 07:29 PM | #
Two ironic developments in Italian politics.
Ex PM Renzi in one of his reforms was trying to bring in an election rule that the party with the most votes wins. More decisive government by one party would flow.
The constitutional court has just struck that down and as no party can get more than 40% of the vote more coalitions are inevitable now.
The likeliest coalition in an election this year? Renzi’s party - with Berlusconi’s. So Renzi wins while he loses. That is one irony.
The other irony is that the Five Star party which doesnt do coalitions fought the reform - and may now be permanently out in the cold.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-elections-law-idUSKBN15923X
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/30/17 at 08:00 PM | #
Re El Chapo, if this is the plan - why did the dopes tell the world?!
http://nypost.com/2017/01/27/inmates-vow-to-bust-el-chapo-out-of-prison/
Maybe they are just covering their backs? He sure is one scary guy.
The very best report was aired on the US History Channel a few weeks ago, some of the best crime and scariest reporting I’ve seen, but it is not on YouTube yet.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/30/17 at 08:09 PM | #
This happened a week ago and so the pace of the digging kept up but no more of the 20+ missing came out alive.
<iframe width=“640” height=“360” src=“https://www.youtube.com/embed/UXFyZz9WT9o” frameborder=“0” allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width=“640” height=“360” src=“https://www.youtube.com/embed/rdWpYGp54Vs” frameborder=“0” allowfullscreen></iframe>
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/30/17 at 08:21 PM | #
Raffaele told Victoria Derbyshire on BBC News tv that his family is roughly 400,000 Euros in debt from the last ten years, and if he receives the 514,000 euros from Italy for his wrongful imprisonment, it will barely cover the Sollecito’s expenses.
When asked, “What does your future hold?” he replied with a sincere smile, “To make my company bigger”. He added as his second goal, “To help the wrongfully imprisoned. These are the two goals I am following.”
He wore a black shirt and black dressy jacket with a flashy blue printed silk handkerchief in jacket pocket.
When asked about mistakes he had made that had been misinterpreted, he cited carrying his pocketknife (an old childhood habit) into the Questura. When asked who the victims in this tragic case were, he mentioned the Kerchers, Amanda’s parents, his parents, and also very clearly stated Lumumba was a victim.
Raffaele speaks rather slowly, choosing his words carefully. This may be due to his using English which is not his native tongue, or a certain caution or both. He looks well, his face a bit thin with jawline more evident. He implied that the family had to sell some of their properties at a loss, when Ms. Derbyshire asked about the family debt.
He spoke about the pressures of being in the limelight. He mentioned he had received criticism for his company that tends to gravesites of departed loved ones. This was said in connection with the criticism he has received for many things, based on prejudice that he is guilty.
He said when he meets people personally, they soon see him as just a normal guy but he assumes that 50% of the population consider him guilty, the other 50% innocent.
He says he only rarely speaks to Amanda anymore, they never talk of the past and that their 5-day dating history is nothing compared to the big picture of life (or words to that effect).
He said he and Knox had “parallel” experiences yet very different experiences, with her being in the women’s prison and he in the male prison, two separate environments despite the same time period of incarceration. He seemed to want to make a point of that, the differences in their experiences behind bars. So he distanced himself from Amanda in the interview.
He wishes the Kerchers did not heed the prosecution’s case. He tended to use the term “persecutors” when he meant “prosecutors” and “persecution” for “prosecution”.
When asked if he would consider leaving Italy, he said no because his family is there, he runs a business there, and his friends are there. Moreover, he said, “I did nothing wrong really…”(then goes on to say it was all the persecution’s fault or police misinterpretation) and that it was he himself who had been wronged. Therefore he refuses to be run out of Italy. That seems to be the gist of his feeling about staying in his homeland.
Posted by Hopeful on 02/01/17 at 11:45 PM | #
The only reason Sollecito gets any kind of break at all in public eyes is… Amanda Knox. If Italians generally dont like him and suspect him, it is Knox who above all who everybody blames.
He knocked Italian justice somewhat in his book, but it was never released in Italian, and after charges were laid (and Vanessa fired) the PR by his family was toned down.
Starting in 2008, the Knox PR was making money by the ton, and by late 2009 Papa Doc was really ticked at that. He complained that Bongiorno’s & Maori’s legal fees WERE a strain.
When shots of the Doc’s car appeared (it was an Audi A6) I could see the model was maybe 5 years old then. His Bisceglie house is quite modest (like a typical US suburban bungalow selling in most areas for below half a million dollars).
The outsides of the two apartment buildings where RS grew up look pretty scruffy on Google Earth (though in Italy that doesnt prove how nice it is inside!)
***
Sollecito started off locked up in Capanne Prison just SW of Perugia, which was quite new and fairly empty at the time. He was moved to the very modern Terni Prison in 2008 because it was computerised. There is a map here:
He mostly remained there for a couple of years, and squawked when he was moved back to Capanne even though AK was there, in the womens wing.
He was never put in the sex offenders wing (why not? Guede was) or put in the age in the court (why not? Guede was) and rarely if ever handcuffed (why not? Guede was).
***
He could not establish a right to stay in the US (Ergon tracked down and posted on his failed attempts at marriage) and he was kicked out of Switzerland. He has a right to live anywhere in the EC area.
But he has zero job record and a computer science degree of rapidly diminishing worth. So my guess is the UK’s gain is Italy’s loss.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 02/03/17 at 05:48 PM | #
The luckiest guy is the Italian. Papa could do little because of the bad publicity. He is a quiet man and strongly dislikes unnecessary noise.
How about the American? I have not figured out yet how much the publicity helped her but without the massive propaganda machine she would be still playing the guitar. She does have a teflon skin but she is not enjoying her life.
The Ivorian is the unluckiest but you can study and get a degree in Italian prisons and, if you want, can be really reformed. Well, two out of three escaped but some justice has been served. He can grumble (sometimes it pays) but cannot complaint.
I could not think well what I would have done if I were in their company. The times and age are different and I have asked some Italian students about what they would have done if they were in the same position. Most agree it is tough to get out of the mess.
The American has no body else to blame except herself.
Posted by chami on 02/05/17 at 07:59 PM | #
El Chapo “the most dangerous man alive” (see long comment by a Mexican in the box if you are unconvinced!) is at the end of his third month in Brooklyn and the government rests its scary case.
https://news.yahoo.com/el-chapo-trial-three-month-plunge-bloody-ways-013837955.html
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/28/19 at 02:15 PM | #
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