HomeNewsAnalysisHector Beltran Leyva, the BLO's Gentleman Operator, Captured in Mexico
ANALYSIS

Hector Beltran Leyva, the BLO's Gentleman Operator, Captured in Mexico

BELTRAN LEYVA ORG / 2 OCT 2014 BY STEVEN DUDLEY EN

Hector Beltran Leyva’s criminal career is an illustration that even the most violent groups need a soft side. 

Beltran Leyva was captured exactly where anyone who has followed his trajectory would expect: eating a meal at a popular restaurant with a political insider, according to the Attorney General’s Office. 

No bodyguards. No deadly gunfight. Just a quiet arrest, fingerprinting, photos (see one example above) and a perp walk (see video below).

Since becoming the head of the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) in 2009, he has passed himself off as as many things, most recently as an art dealer and real estate monger, the government said. It was a good cover for a guy who had a $5 million bounty on his head in the US and a $2 million bounty in Mexico.

Indeed, Hector, alias “El H,” was always on the dollar-side of the business, running the trafficking from above and managing the movement of money, which included funneling it regularly to political and security officials with which he presumably hobnobbed. (See US Treasury list of companies the BLO controlled in 2009 - pdf).

Hector, who also went by the moniker “the Engineer,” an honorific in Mexico, was not known to get his hands too dirty, which is why many thought the BLO would fall to pieces when his brother -- the legendary, bloodthirsty Marco Arturo “the Boss of Bosses” Beltran Leyva -- was killed in a hail of bullets from the Mexican Marines in 2009, and Hector took over. 

It was a turbulent time. The unraveling of the family empire began when Alfredo Beltran Leyva, alias “Fireant” -- who apparently lives up to his name in the worst sort of way -- was arrested in 2008. Arturo interpreted this as a betrayal from his longtime partner, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and declared war on Chapo and his Sinaloa Cartel. 

The fratricide that followed spread up and down Mexico and turned several states into virtual war zones. The underworld, meanwhile, realigned but with Arturo dead and Fireant in jail, the BLO’s days seemed numbered. 

Initially, under Hector, the BLO lost territory, in particular in Acapulco, a key entry point for drugs and operational stronghold. It also split into factions, which included one led by Edgar Valdez Villareal, alias “La Barbie,” and another led by Sergio Villareal Barragan, alias “the Big Boy.” 

Big Boy allied with Hector but when he was captured and Barbie turned himself in, it looked as if it was a matter of days before Hector himself would fall. That was 2010.

Four years later and it’s clear that Hector was more adept and more connected than most imagined. He reconstituted the BLO, working his business and political contacts and operating in some of the least violent places behind his inconspicuous cover.

Hector made his home in Queretaro, according to Proceso. The state had but 111 homicides in 2013 (see government statistics in pdf here), compared to Morelos, the place where his brother Arturo was thought to have operated, which had 597 homicides in 2013.

Queretaro’s most notorious recent organized crime related act was the kidnapping of Diego Fernandez de Cevallos, a top political operator for the National Action Party (PAN), in a case that remains a mystery to this day.

In recent months, the BLO appeared to be flexing its political muscle, a testament to Hector’s strong suit. Cases against supposed BLO allies in the military fell apart and those implicated released. The most prominent among these was Tomas Angeles, a retired general and former deputy defense minister.

Hector undoubtedly had a more belligerent side and understood very well that violence was part of the business (a less known nickname he had was the “General”). After Arturo’s death, the BLO firmed up its alliance with the Zetas, Mexico’s most violent criminal organization, and the armed wing of the Juarez Cartel, known as La Linea.

The new alliance has since waged a bloody campaign throughout the states of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua, killing hundreds of rival gunman and displacing thousands more. That battle has extended into Sonora as well where BLO strongman Fausto "Chapo" Isidro Meza Flores has left his imprimatur and made a name in his own right.

But the story of Hector is not one of violent conquests with big guns and narcocorridos. It is that of low key meetings in fancy restaurants with insiders such as German Goyeneche, the man captured with Beltran Leyva.

Goyeneche’s Twitter account says he is the president of the Citizens' Council "100 percent for Queretaro" and  the president of the Citizen Parliament of Mexico for Queretaro.

Goyeneche’s involvement in the BLO is unknown, but his tweets are from an environmentalist, political and business perspective, hardly the type one would take for a narco-accomplice, especially in Mexico where bravado is often displayed on YouTube in the form of gruesome beheadings.

“The Engineer's" outward appearance at his arrest also went against the typical image of a "Mexican narco." And it fits with his role: that of the political, economic and social operator that is necessary for every large criminal group.  

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

ELITES AND CRIME / 20 MAY 2022

Political assassinations, record drug seizures, gang wars – an avalanche of criminal concerns in Paraguay are coalescing around the city…

COVID AND CRIME / 30 NOV 2021

Leftist opposition candidate Xiomara Castro appears to have ridden a wave of outrage to become Honduras' next president, beating out…

CHILE / 1 JUN 2022

A new report by Chilean think tank AthenaLab has laid bare Chile's ever-increasing spectrum of criminal threats, from copper theft…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…