Investigate the footprint of Los Cuinis, the Mexican drug traffickers who settled in Argentina – 04/11/2019

"I would like to see a less confrontational humanity, liberated from sectarianism and more committed to its peers"; "I am usually an urban comedido, I respect the freedom and the rights of the neighbor". The definitions belong to the Argentinean Oscar Calvete Souza (68) and are devoted to his blog – "My Bitácora" – where the man is defined as "free thinker, writer and versatile author"

But what about "free thinker"It's just one facet of Calvete, the other is that of business advisor, and it is in this role that the federal judge Morón Néstor Barral investigated on March 15, following one of the most mysterious narco scandals of the last years: the Mexican cartel attempt "Los Cuinis" to settle in Argentina between 2007 and 2011.

Regarded by the US government as one of the richest drug trafficking organizations in the world, "Los Cuinis" and its leaders, the brothers Abigael and Gerardo González Valencia, appear scattered in the Clinton list (group of people and those with whom Americans can not do business).

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In addition, they are referred to as the financial arm of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, one of the most violent in Mexico.

Many witnesses indicated that Calvete was one of the most trusted personalities of the Mexican Mexicans, especially Gerardo González Valencia, whom he had met while living in Mexico.

Gerardo has not only invested in Argentina. He came himself to settle here with his wife, Wendy Dalaith Amaral Arevalo, and their three children. The whole family occupied apartment E on the 4th floor of Hotel Faena, until In 2012, he decided to settle quickly in Uruguay. Nobody knows why.

As for Calvete, before judge Barral and the prosecutor Sebastian Bbado, he presented himself as a simple commercial adviser. But just in case, in order to take good care of himself, he hired Hugo Pinto as a lawyer, a lawyer with heavy powerful customerss.

Some examples. Pinto was one of the lawyers of Alejandro Vandenbroele, a key man in the Ciccone case. He also represented Skanska's CEO in the resounding case of corruption and tax evasion. And he was named defender by Fernando de la Rúa, the former head of SIDE, Fernando de Santibañes, accused of having participated in the payment of bribes for the approval of the law of the April 2000.

An important lawyer for a major charge: participate in the laundering of more than two million dollars in international drug trafficking. The money has reached three bank accounts of Santander Río by bank draft or cash deposit. From there, he left for the flagship company of Mexicans: a chain of drugstores only one of whom came to work in Puerto Madero.

The first steps of "Los Cuinis" in Buenos Aires are recorded in 2007. In the case that will be the subject of an investigation on April 17 he made a driver during their stays and that they even used as a figurehead.

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Coincidence or not, 2007 was the record year of ephedrine import, a phenomenon directly related to the smuggling of this precursor to Mexico, banned because of its use in the manufacture of methamphetamines

The amount of ephedrine imported into Argentina has increased from one and a half tons in 2003 to 20 tons in 2007. All this has ended a year later, when a traffic-related vendetta of this precursor resulted in the Triple Crime of General Rodríguez.

If the arrival of González Valencia had or had not to do with the boom of ephedrine it will remain as one of the many mysteries of the case. The truth is that after the creation of the company, Gerardo settled permanently in Buenos Aires in February 2011 and wrote to his children an elite school. Whoever asked him told him that his intention was to settle here.

Unhappy meeting

On March 10, 2009, a Chevrolet Astra had a car accident in the Puerto Madero area. Colombians Pedro Merced Lizarraga Medina, Julio Cesar Alegre Ortega and Francisco Marzio Medina Gonzalez were traveling in the car.

The incident was minor but had an unexpected diversion. When the prefects guarding Puerto Madero tried to identify the Mexicans, they insulted and even threatened them. That was enough for Prefectura to start investigating their identity.

He was quickly determined that the car they were going to was in the name of an Argentine, who lived in Ituzaingó. That's why the cause was rooted in Morón. Interesting data were then collected: the Mexicans entered Argentina at the end of 2008 and although they declared tourist reasons, they went to La Plata to register the Círculo Internacional company. HER

With this company, they start the pharmacy business and open – on behalf of González Valencia – "Corner My Place" on Olga Cossettini 260. Only in this trade, they invest two million dollars in redevelopment and design . They settled on the 5th floor of the Boulevard du Parc tower in Azucena Villaflor 450, where they organized parties and led a life of luxury and high notoriety.

The badysis of their phones also provided interesting information. The DEA determined that, by the telephone of one of the Mexicans (Medina Lizarraga), communications had been established with a Mexican subscriber connected to the Sinaloa cartel and another belonging to a person being the object of An investigation in Los Angeles (California) for money laundering drug.

Autumn and end

Gerardo González Valencia settled in Argentina in 2011 and organized everything to stay here to have a good time. same paid, six months in advance, the school of his children, an institution known in the environment because the parents of many foreign diplomats go there.

However, he packed up his belongings and moved hastily with his family to Uruguay on July 9, 2012. "In Argentina, there is a lot of inflation and insecurity", he alleged when, once arrested, he was questioned about his move to the other side of the Río de la Plata.

It is in Uruguay that he was arrested in April 2016, after Montella Global SA – a company with which he had bought a house in Punta del Este – was discovered in the midst of the Panama Papers scandal. .

This operation, amounting to two million dollars, finally revealed the location of Gerardo, who had taken over the cartel after the fall of his older brother, Abigael, in 2015.

Although he has always used his true identity, in Punta del Este and Montevideo, where he moved because of his children's studies, authorities have recently found him following the scandal of Mossack Fonseca .

In Uruguay, González Valencia was sentenced for money laundering and justice. authorized his extradition to the United States. However, it has still not been finalized because Mexico has appealed to the Supreme Court.

Although this is defined, the authorities have taken extreme measures for their safety and avoid a leak: they placed him in an outhouse of the Republican Guard, in Montevideo, where he is alone and has to go through three doors to to access.

Uruguayans worry about it and this is not for less. Upon his arrest, Gerardo complained of his conditions of detention and even of threatened Eduardo Bonomi, Minister of the Interior of Uruguay, to "suspend him at the highest bridge".

Gonzalez Valencia also does not neglect the case in Morón and in which the prosecutor Bbado had asked for the confiscation of the badets narco in Uruguay, knowing that the defendant himself had declared to have bought with the money that He had won with his company in Argentina.

In early April, he sent a lawyer to take certified photocopies of a good deal of the 2,800 pages of the case.