HomeNewsBriefJailed Drug Lord 'La Barbie' Begins 'Hunger Strike'
BRIEF

Jailed Drug Lord 'La Barbie' Begins 'Hunger Strike'

BELTRAN LEYVA ORG / 14 OCT 2011 BY GEOFFREY RAMSEY EN

The brother of U.S.-Mexican trafficker Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias “La Barbie,” made waves earlier this week when he announced that his brother was refusing food in protest against prison conditions, but the details of the “hunger strike” suggest that Valdez is less than serious about it.

On October 12, the San Antonio Express-News cited Edgar Valdez’s brother Abel as saying that his brother had ceased to accept food at the Altiplano Prison in Mexico City. According to him, Valdez stopped eating in order to protest alleged mistreatment, including the fact that he has not been allowed to have conjugal visits from his wife since he was first imprisoned in August 2010.

But as El Milenio reports, officials in the Public Security Secretariat say that although he is not taking meals in the facility’s cafeteria, he is still eating non-perishable food that inmates can buy inside the prison.

Exactly how this amounts to a hunger strike is not clear, but either way it is unlikely to result in officials giving in to Valdez's demands. Authorities claim that his wife presented false documents when she first applied for conjugal visits, and is therefore ineligible.

Valdez, for his part, alleges that this is part of a plot by corrupt officials to harrass him, in response to his threats to reveal high level corruption to investigators.

The U.S.-born trafficker, who was a member of the Beltran Leyva Organization, apparently told his brother that he was afraid he would be murdered in prison, which may further explain his reluctance to eat in the cafeteria.

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

FEATURED / 27 OCT 2022

In Sinaloa, Mexico, the uptick in forced disappearances is linked to one dynamic more than any other: synthetic drugs.

MEXICO / 29 JUN 2022

El Chueco has quite the rap sheet, having allegedly killed priests, a tour guide, baseball players and an American tourist.

ILLEGAL MINING / 27 JAN 2023

With cartels like the CJNG muscling in on illegal mining in Michoacán, Mexico, Indigenous community members continue to suffer.

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…