Mexican drug cartel leader Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel Villareal, a top kingpin and, one of the three leaders of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel, was killed during a gunbattle with soldiers Thursday.
Nacho Coronel is considered as the founder of the country’s massive methamphetamine trade. He was killed during a gunfight near the city of Guadalajara. This is the biggest strike against the Sinaloa cartel which is led by Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman and this could mean more violence as factions fight for the cocaine and methamphetamine empire that the founder left behind.
Coronel was the No. 3 of the gang led by El Chapo who is also a Mexico’s most wanted drug lord. The major hit to one of the world’s most powerful drug cartel is the latest since President Felipe Calderon launched a military offensive against drug traffickers is late 2006.
Coronel, who had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head was believed to be the “forerunner in producing massive amounts of methamphetamine in clandestine laboratories in Mexico, then smuggling it into the U.S.” according to the FBI.
The 56-year-old Coronel, controlled meth and cocaine trafficking routes that was said to extend from Mexico’s Pacific Coast and inland up to Arizona.
An army raid was closing in one of Coronel’s safehouses in an upscale suburb of the Western City of Guadalajara, when the drug lord opened fire on soldiers.
“Nacho Coronel tried to escape and fired on military personnel, killing on soldier and wounding another,” Villegas said at a news conference in Mexico City. “Responding to the attacks, this Capo died.”
Coronel’s downfall came amid persistent allegations that Calderon’s administration appeared to be favouring the Sinaloa Cartel, or not hitting it as hard as other drug gangs.
The army operation happened as it challenges a long-held notion that the Mexican government officials were supporting the Sinaloa cartel to win the drug war.
After a month of intelligence work, the Mexican army zeroed in on Coronel at his mission in a ritzy suburb of Guadalajara.
“I absolutely believe that this will have an impact on… the Sinaloa federation’s capability to move their drugs, at least in the short term,” said Dave Gaddis, deputy chief of operations that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “They will require time to rebuild”
Category : World
Four Mexican journalist were abducted in the Laguna region which includes Durango and parts of the neighboring state of Coahuila – all in the northern part of the country where the fighting of the Zetas criminal group and the Sinaloa cartel has been happening.
The four journalists were named through media reports as Jaime Canales, who is a cameraman for the TV station Multimedios, Oscar Solis, who is a reporter with the local newspaper El Vespertino, and Hector Gordoa and Alejandro Hernandez who were both cameramen for the national Televisa network.
The three journalists were abducted and reported missing on Monday afternoon after covering protests at the center by prisoners and their relatives who were seeking Margarita Rojas reinstatement as director, a report from the Milenio group. The fourth journalist was abducted Monday night.
Center director Margarita Rojas, and several other center employees were arrested last week and accused of permitting prisoners to leave to jail to commit crimes.
The Committee to Protest Journalist had appealed to the Mexican government on Wednesday to do everything it can do to bring about the release of the four journalist that were abducted on Monday by an alleged criminal group. The members of the said group have demanded press coverage of videos they made in exchange for the reporters’ release, according to international and local news reports.
“We urge state and federal authorities to do everything in their power to locate the four missing journalists and bring them to safety,” according to Carlos Lauria, the Americas Senior program coordinator of CPJ.
“Mexican journalists are paying a terrible price for their work and authorities must send a clear message that this brutal cation will not go unpunished.”
Milenio Diario reported Wednesday that the cameraman for Multimedios had called his managers and told them that his captors were demanding that they broadcast three videos on the noon news of the local channel Grupo Milenio in exchange for his freedom. Milenio, said today that they had already broadcast the videos, which showed interviews with two men said they worked for Los Zetas, and also another man who was identified as a police officer.