HomeNewsAnalysis'Barbie' Talks?
ANALYSIS

'Barbie' Talks?

BELTRAN LEYVA ORG / 31 OCT 2010 BY INSIGHT CRIME EN

Mexican authorities are making it seem as if Edgar Valdez Villareal, alias “La Barbie,” is cooperating with them following their recent capture of the drug lord. The police released a video, seen here on El Universal’s website where the former top level security guard for Arturo Beltran Leyva, who tried to start his own organization following the death of his boss in December 2009, talks about his meetings Mexico’s most wanted traffickers, including Joaquin Guzman, alias “El Chapo.”

In their own press conference, the police also gave hints that Barbie is giving up more information behind the scenes, including details about his history as the head of the Beltran Leyva’s security apparatus and how he moved bulk cash from the United States to Mexico in “trailer trucks.” Barbie also told the police he had properties in Colombia that he used as depots and staging areas for his cargos that passed through Panama on their way to Mexico and eventually the United States. The Mexican police say that the Beltran Leyva Organization gave Barbie control over the lucrative Acapulco route. Barbie’s future, however, may be in the United States where he is a citizen and is wanted for drug trafficking. Authorities were determining his Mexican status and may move to deport him if it’s found that he is not a Mexican citizen.

Meanwhile, Colombian authorities said they had detained eleven accomplices of Barbie in various cities in Colombia, several of them members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), according to La Cronica newspaper in Mexico. The paper, citing a police press release, said that Denis Alvarino Gomez, alias “El Negrito,” the head of the FARC’s 30th Front, was among the captured. The FARC allegedly moved cocaine from laboratories in the Choco region along the Pacific coast through Panama and Costa Rica where Barbie’s counterparts picked it up and moved it to the United States.

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