02/22/2012

Sinaloa's inroads in the Caribbean

The Colombian drug cartels used Caribbean islands extensively in the 1980s as part of their smuggling routes to Florida. Looks like Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel is moving in the same direction.

The Dominican Republic ambassador to Washington, Anibal de Castro, had some interesting observations about this in testimony he gave Feb. 1 before the Senate drug caucus. Here is part of what he said:

“Recent public declarations by President Fernandez have confirmed that the authorities have detected cells of Mexican criminal factions in the northern regions of the Dominican Republic, specifically of the Sinaloa Cartel. The recent murders of a Spanish citizen, three Colombians and a Venezuelan are apparently linked to this trafficking organization, which might be operating in Santiago, La Vega and Jarabacoa.

“The president of the (Dominican Drug Control Agency), Rolando Rosado Mateo, has indicated that the Sinaloa Cartel might be receiving assistance from Dominican criminal groups in the Cibao region to acquire chemicals used for the fabrication of narcotics. This information was obtained through the capture of Luis Fernando Bertolucci Castillo, a Mexican trafficker who claimed that the Sinaloa cartel is seeking to create a route to Europe using the Dominican Republic. After his detention and interrogation, he was extradited to the U.S.”

I can’t find much on Bertolucci Castillo except that he was busted along with some Colombians and a Lebanese, who are allegedly involved in money-laundering in Massachusetts. One of the suspects was extradited to the U.S. last summer. Here is more background on the case in Spanish (scroll down to Julio 12, martes).

And here is a lengthy, interesting article from Global Post on the subject. 

Item: I'm aware that Anibal de Castro's testimony carries the date Feb. 1, 2011, but am sure it is misdated by one year as it refers to events in late 2011. 

A stray bullet and its injury to El Paso

Police and carjackers got into a gunfight Tuesday in Ciudad Juarez, and at least one in the swarm of bullets scorched at least 3,000 feet across the border.

It hit a 48-year-old shopper who was pushing her child in a stroller, penetrating her upper right calf. The shooting occurred at around 11 a.m. The victim received treatment at University Medical Center.

El Paso Mayor John Cook said the mother is a Mexican citizen who is a legal U.S. resident in Texas. Her identity hasn’t been released. 

In a news conference, Cook said that the public should not panic over the incident. It was an effort at damage control, recognition that El Paso's image was also affected by the spillover violence. 

Earlier in the day, Cook said: "People get struck by lightning, too, and that doesn't make us stay indoors when there is a rainstorm."

Yet preventing public distress is easier said than done. For one thing, the site of the shootout was fully half a mile inside Juarez at the intersection of Malecon Avenue and Xochimilco Street. And check out this map at the El Paso Times website to get a visual grasp of how far the bullet traveled. She was eight or nine blocks from the border crossing.

It is the first known case of a person in El Paso being struck by a bullet fired from Mexico, although rounds from gunfire in 2010 struck both City Hall and a building at UT El Paso. 

02/21/2012

Hillary Clinton didn't get the memo

Notice anything unusual about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's attire at the wrap-up photo for the G20 foreign ministerial summit in Los Cabos?

It seems there is one in every family photo.

Maybe it was a fear of turning up in exactly the same outfit as all the other ministers -- a de rigeur crisp white ensemble -- but the U.S. secretary of state decided to be different in lime green.

And from her broad smile, she was not at all red-faced about it.

Clinton, by the way, took a break from summitry to go whale watching off Los Cabos on Sunday. I was up in Baja doing an unusual whale story a few days ago, and you can click here to see it. And click here for a story about the evermore sophisticated smuggling tunnels from Tijuana across the border.

02/17/2012

Mexico City's latest tourism campaign

This is a very well-done promotional video for tourism to Mexico City. Makes me appreciate even more living in this marvelous and varied city.

Item: I am hearing from some readers outside of Mexico that they can't get video I am posting. Please let me know if the problem continues.

Will Mexico waver on crime war?

Doubts about whether Mexico will stay the course against organized crime after a change of government later this year are rampant in Washington.

Here’s a bit of interchange between Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper at a hearing yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on world wide threats.

MCCAIN: Quickly, is -- in the situation in Mexico, do you believe that -- as you know 50,000 Mexicans have lost their lives as a result of drug related violence. Is your assessment that these violent criminal organizations pose a threat to the United States, including states along the border?

CLAPPER: Yes, sir they do. There -- there is always the prospect of spillover and that's one reason why we were working closely with the Mexican government and that's particularly true with respect to intelligence initiatives that we're working with them, which I can -- happy to discuss in closed session. But there is a profound threat to both countries.

MCCAIN: Have you seen any indication that the top candidates vying to succeed President Calderon will alter the way the Mexican government addresses the threat of the cartels

CLAPPER: I believe, sir that -- I can't do a one by one assessment, but I believe that the -- no matter who succeeds President Calderon, they -- they will be committed to continue this -- this campaign.

MCCAIN: Well, I suggest you look a little more carefully because I think that may not be the case, at least with one of the candidates.

Set upon by journalists after the hearing, McCain declined to say whether he was referring to Enrique Pena Nieto, the front-runner in polls. Pena Nieto belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party which ruled Mexico for decades and has a history of accommodation with organized criminal groups.

“Do you think I am so stupid to give names?” McCain told the reporters.

02/16/2012

Scenes from a war on Mexican media

On the night of Nov. 5, 2011, 18 men armed with AK-47s broke into the installations of a newspaper in Codoba in Mexico’s Veracruz state. Over the course of a few minutes, they strong-armed employees, trashed the newsroom and doused the building with gasoline.

Closed-circuit video cameras at the paper, El Buen Tono, captured the assault. Look at minutes 3:25 through 6:30 to see most of the action.

While the attack was bad enough, what happened a day later was even more revealing of the criminal assault suffered by parts of Mexico’s media. Prosecutors in Veracruz state confiscated the video. The supposition of local journalists is that they did so to prevent airing of the video to help the public identify the mobsters. It is a further sign that organized crime has literally “captured the state” in places like Veracruz, part of the Zetas cartel turf. With prosecutors in their pockets, the Zetas enjoy vast impunity. 

El Bueno Tono said it received the video anonymously.

The excellent website of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas said a dozen journalists and designers quit El Buen Tono after the assault, fearing for their lives.

Animation of real news events

I helped report yesterday on the horrific Honduran prison fire that killed some 350 inmates, and as a result was sent an email this morning by a Hong Kong/Taiwan company that animates news events. They came up with the one above on the prison fire. I don't see these kinds of animations on U.S. news shows often but remember that they are the rage in Asia, partly because of the work of Next Media Animation, a division of the Next conglomerate. I'd be curious to think what readers think of this kind of news animation. Does it dangerously simplify? Or is it a way to edify when real images aren't available? 

02/15/2012

A 'gentleman' heads to prison

Regular readers here may remember the case of the “Gentleman of Las Lomas,” the Porsche owner who beat a valet without mercy because he wouldn’t change a flat tire. The valet lost two teeth _ and his job _ because of the run-in.

The scene was caught on closed-circuit television, and the Porsche owner, Miguel Moises Sacal, who is a textile tycoon, became the butt of ridicule on social media.

The case underscored the entrenched attitudes of entitlement among some rich people, and their abusive ways toward those weaker in wealth or power.

Turns out, there may be some justice in the world. A judge ordered Sacal’s arrest on charges of aggravated assault and according to this Milenio story he was thrown in Mexico City’s eastern prison this afternoon.

Under the law, Sacal could spend anywhere from three to eight years in prison.

I guess he won’t be visiting his condo in Aventura, Florida, any time soon.

02/14/2012

Debut for Mexico's hairless dog

An ancient Mexican breed, the Xolo, which is short for Xoloitzcuintli, is making its debut this week at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York City's Madison Square Garden. The Xolo is usually hairless although the one you see above has some whiskers. It also has bat-like ears. A Xolo is a prized breed with a history dating to Aztec times. According to this story about Chabella, the Xolo competing at the show (which is not the Xolo in the video), the breed takes its name from Xolotl, the Aztec god of lightning and death. The dog was believed to accompany people upon their deaths to the afterworld.

The Xolo (pronounced 'sholo') is one of six new breeds making a debut at the dog show. The others are American English Coonhound, Cesky terrier, Entlebucher mountain dog, Finnish lapphund, and Norwegian lundehund.

02/13/2012

Tijuana's culinary renaissance

Did you know the venerable Caesar Salad had its birth in Tijuana?

I certainly didn’t before last week. The cradle of the Caesar Salad is the Caesar Hotel on Avenida Revolucion in the middle of Tijuana, just blocks from the border. 

It was there where an Italian immigrant, Caesar Gardini, tossed his namesake salad for the first time in 1924. Gardini had left San Diego because of Prohibition. A true Caesar Salad as you probably know is made of romaine lettuce and croutons dressed with parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and black pepper – all mixed tableside.

The tides of Tijuana’s destiny – gambling in the 1930s, prostitution and cantinas in the 1940s, quickie marriages, divorces and abortions in the 1950s through the 1970s, and drug cartels in the 1990s and last decade – have created an image of vice that some in the city are trying to shake.

Until 2010, the Caesar Hotel seemed to be in inexorable decline.

But I’m happy to report that the hotel and restaurant have been lovingly restored and are worth going out of your way – far out of your way – to visit.

See the photo I took Saturday afternoon before the evening rush. The waiters are in white aprons, starched just like the tablecloths. The black-and-white floor is retro classic, going hand in hand with the polished wood bar and walls. The chandeliers, paintings, huge copper coffee machine and pleasant din of a busy restaurant all add to the experience.

But that’s only the half of it. The food was really good, starting with a classic Caesar Salad. I had Seafood Newburg while one companion had seasoned bone marrow and another classic tortilla soup. We watched as the bartender whipped up tamarind martinis and served handcrafted local beer. The famed culinary Plascencia family took over the Caesar a few years ago, and their elegant touch is everywhere. Little wonder that the restaurant ranks No. 1 among 97 on tripadvisor.com in Tijuana.

A newer restaurant, Mision 19, is run by Javier Plascencia, one of the sons of patriarch Juan Jose Plascencia, and was just featured in The New Yorker. Click here and here and here to read more. 

Nearly all the clients when we were at the Caesar were locals, not foreigners coming from across the border. Word still hasn’t seemed to filter up to San Diego that there is good reason to head south. A culinary renaissance is taking place.

I went to another restaurant, La Querencia, for lunch and was so awed at the quality that I went back again the next day with friends. Here are a few pictures. I had a tuna tostada with shallots, avocado and shitake mushroom that had me licking my fingers, followed by a venison hamburger. I think the bill was something like $12. Chef Miguel Angel Guerrero isn’t quite getting the press of Plascencia. But if I lived in Tijuana, I’d be making trips to his restaurant as often as I could.