*The Chancellery revealed a report sent by the US containing transcripts and screenshots of phone messages. The DEA also refers to statements and seizures, but there was no detail of those.
A letter summarizing the case against former Defense Secretary Salvador Cienfuegos, and more than 700 pages with transcripts and captures of phone messages between narcos where third-party sayings, nicknames and spelling errors abound, make up the file that the DEA sent to Mexico last October to justify the capture of the retired general.
The US report, which was published yesterday by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs (SRE) after the FGR decided to exonerate Cienfuegos, is about an investigation consisting of telephone interceptions, statements of collaborating witnesses, and drug seizures.
But the 751-page document transparent by the Mexican government contains only the breakdown of telephone intercepts and the summary of the drug agency. According to the Mexican Chancellery, that was all the information that was provided.
In compliance with this January 15 presidential instruction, information on the case of retired General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda.https://t.co/C52sQZtpT0
— Foreign Affairs (@SRE_mx) January 15, 2021
The three-quarter letter signed by the DEA’s interim administrator, Timothy J. Shea and addressed to Mexican Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard, explains that the finding of Cienfuegos’ alleged collaboration with a Nayarit-based drug trafficking organization was rather circumstantial.
Originally, the indegatory that began since 2013 sought to clarify the mainly heroin-based drug supply chains that were distributed in Las Vegas. With the progress of the investigation, it was discovered that the one behind this operation was the poster led by Juan Francisco Patrón Sánchez alias “El H2”.
In the end, the agents obtained judicial authorizations to intervene the communications of Patrón Sánchez, and with it access to the extensive conversations he held via Blackberry messages with his nephew, Daniel Silva Garate alias “El H9”. From the exchange between these criminals (both dejected in 2017 by the Navy) the alleged role of Cienfuegos was discovered.
Find out: US warns to restart accusations against Cienfuegos if Mexico does nothing
“The DEA did not investigate Cienfuegos Zepeda as a primary target and did not directly intercept its communications- He was accused as a co-conspirator after being personally identified in the intercepted evidence that unfolded against Silva Garate and Patrón Sánchez,” says the DEA administrator.
In the letter, the U.S. official explains that he attaches “the key evidence” that was used to charge Cienfuegos Zepeda, but clarifies that there is other evidence that continues to be “analyzed,” possibly involving more people than were not given details.
Head of the Army and sponsor of the narco?
The copies that DEA attached along with his letter are captures, transcriptions and translations of messages exchanged via Blackberry between Silva Garate, Patrón Sánchez, and other alleged criminals. None of them are identified by name, but by aliases such as “Samanta”, Spartacus”, “Iron Man”, “Thor”, “Superman”, or “Bubble”.
The initial pages of the dossier break down a first conversation held on December 9, 2015 between Patrón Sánchez and Silva Garate, where the latter refers to being reunited with “El Padrino”, which is the alias supposedly belonging to Cienfuegos Zepeda.
In the messages among the criminals, full of misspellings, Silva Gárate tells his uncle and boss that “The Godfather” is willing to cooperate.
At this point some of the first inconsistencies warned by the Mexican authorities arise, because “El H9” describes the so-called Cienfuegos as a man of white robe and medium stature, which does not match the profile of the former secretary. In addition, according to the offender’s saying, the general referred to a gift for his son, although in reality Cienfuegos has three daughters.
Read more: Government publishes DEA evidence against Cienfuegos; contradictions were found: FGR
In the course of this conversation Patrón urges Silva Gárate to achieve the general’s collaboration, and to explain that they have had trouble moving shipments of drugs from Colombia to Mexico.
The talk advances to the point where Cienfuegos, always according to the sayings of “The H9”, proposes a range of multiple supports, from helping them take control of their distribution routes, until they are affected by military operatives, eliminate their adversaries and drive people like “El Mencho” (leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel) out of southern Nayarit. It even offers support to get a tuna boat and move various shipments of drugs, and invite him to play golf to introduce him to “a friend”.
Cienfuegos allegedly adds, as Silva tells his boss, that he had previously collaborated with other criminals such as Arturo Beltrán Leyva although there were complications in the delivery of the resources.
In the following months and years such collaboration would have been consolidated, as warned of the messages, and thus the cienfuegos requests for money.
Distribution, pleas and spelling horrors
Although the communications of the then Secretary of Defense were not intervened, on several occasions “The H9” made screenshots of the messages sent to him by the one who was supposed to be Cienfuegos (with username Zepeda), and then passed them on to Patrón Sánchez. This allowed the DEA to obtain them.
The common denominator of messages attributed to Cienfuegos is that they are full of spelling faults similar to those of drug traffickers coupled with the zero use of punctuation marks. Terms like “boy” instead of “I go,” “fence” instead of “go” or “asta” instead of “up,” abound in messages. This is another inconsistency that, according to the FGR, detract from the credibility of these communications, since Cienfuegos has Master’s studies as proved in its appearance before the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
As for the content, in several of the messages the alleged secretary of defense informs the drug traffickers of operatives or the deployment of “their boys” or “their children”, as referred to by the soldiers. On one occasion, on June 12, 2016, he questions “The H9” why his men shot a military convoy and killed two soldiers.
You may be interested: FGR closes Cienfuegos case: never had encounter or communication with criminal organizations, says
But the most common thing in the messages of the so-called Cienfuegos are the requests for money. Quantities refer only by number (2, 4 or 6) although they are presumed to be, in all cases, millions of pesos. On several occasions the head of the Mexican Army justified the criminals that the appeal was not for him but to distribute it.
“I feel bad every time you tell me that, tell him if he can’t lend 2 to me.” (sic), says one of the messages attributed by the DEA to Cienfuegos. “But it’s not for me that money is to be distributed” Or “I know that’s pretty much what he does for us but tell him to send me 3 and I’ll give him half” were other messages.
Sometimes the requests of the so-called Cienfuegos to “The H9” even seemed to be begging: “You see he told me yesterday that for the other week I told him it’s okay that it’s okay, but the truth is, I have to give a few things to a staff, tell him that for God’s sake and friendship I’m going to get my hand tomorrow or Saturday very early.”
In a message exchanged among drug traffickers in February 2016, they came to complain that “The Godfather” had taken away “11 melons” in just 20 days.
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