“Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
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The following information that we are going to share with you is reproduced from what we consider to be the best blog dedicated to reporting on drug trafficking cartels in Mexico in the most comprehensive and reliable manner in English. Borderland Beat conducted an investigation of the events that took place in 2016 in the restaurant La Leche in Puerto Vallarta where on August 15 of that year the children of El Chapo Guzman were kidnapped.
Mica is the pseudonym used by the author of this article in which he analyzes the kidnapping of Los Chapitos focusing on news sources and conversations he had with locals. Well, he refers that he has traveled to Puerto Vallarta on several occasions and talked about the kidnapping with employees of the Marriott hotel, La Leche restaurant and cab drivers among others. Mica points out that on Monday, April 8, 2016 a group of people arrived to celebrate in Puerto Vallarta and stayed at the Marriott Vallarta Resort and Spa hotel located on the Marina Vallarta beach.
According to the publication, the group consisted of at least 20 adults and at least 2 bodyguards. They had traveled from different parts of Mexico. Including Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Jalisco. Mica reports that the group had arrived in at least 5 vehicles. All of those cars were white and many of them were using fake IDs. This meeting was not just an ordinary gathering of friends. It was a special occasion, as they would be celebrating the birthday of Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar El Chapito.
Mica said that family members and other people related to the Sinaloa Cartel arrived to help Ivan organize the celebration. And that among the brothers were Ovidio, Jesús, and Cesar. Cesar Guzman Salazar, according to Mica, is two years older than Ivan. He entered the real estate industry in 2019 and lived in Zapopan, Jalisco in 2016. In his account Mica points out that Ivan Archivaldo occupied the presidential suite of two hundred and forty-seven square meters. And that the dinner at La Leche restaurant would not be the only event to celebrate.
They had contracted all the hotel services for a week. These included drinks and dinners at the resort. The women enjoyed the days at the pool and spa and the men talked business all day drinking by the pool. For Sunday, August 14, a reservation was made at La Leche restaurant at nine o'clock. That day they would celebrate Ivan Archivaldo Salazar's thirty-third birthday. The first guests arrived at 9:03. They were three men and a woman. The second group arrived at 9:17.
One man and three women. The third group of two women arrived at 9:28. Mica points out that the government leaked edited parts of the video days after the kidnapping since the restaurant table was prepared for 16 diners and only 10 people appear in the video. From my research, Mica cites, these would be the 6 names of the men who were kidnapped. Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, 33 years old, Jose Manuel Diaz Burgos, 25, Juan Daniel Tapia Calva, 53, Josiah Nahuali Rabago Borbolla, 35, Victor Galvan Urena, 46, and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, 29 years old.
Once at the restaurant and during the celebration of Ivan Archivaldo's 33rd birthday and prior to the kidnapping, Mica said that the large group toasted and sang happy birthday to the leader of Los Menores. Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on Monday, August 15, two vehicles, a white Chevy Tacoma truck and a white Chevy Suburban, arrived at the restaurant. Seven hired killers broke into the restaurant looking for Los Chapitos and his friends, who were not carrying weapons and did not put up any resistance.
The well-armed gunmen with assault rifles immediately separated the men from the women. The government pointed out at the time that El Chapo's sons had a bodyguard and the gunmen easily overpowered him. However, Mica points out that 53-year-old Juan Daniel Tapia Calva, a retired army captain and owner of a security company, was one of those present. The authorities indicated that they had indications that among the victims was the owner of a private security company.
He had a federal permit to operate in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit. According to Mica it is reasonable to believe that Juan acted more as a well-connected security liaison that night if he had any role beyond dinner guest. Regardless of his role that night Juan must have been very well connected. He and Ivan were the first two to be released days before the others, added Mica.
And here at Retrovisor we did some research and discovered that one of the six kidnapped in La Leche is none other than a captain of the Mexican army. He is Juan Daniel Calva Tapia. And this active duty captain would be an alleged bodyguard for El Chapo Guzman's sons. This is the image from his Facebook page. This man, by the way, on his Facebook page claims to be a worker in the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics. The question is, what is this man doing, also on his Facebook page, presenting himself as a member of the Mexican Army next to the son of a drug lord.
After the abduction the kidnappers left the restaurant La Leche and traveled south using the tunnel. Their destination was about 16 kilometers away and it took them about 40 minutes, said Mica. As to who perpetrated the abduction according to Mica there are several suspects. Los Damasos, El Mochomito, Los Beltran Leyva, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. This is what I think after researching it Mica quotes in his note. However, he dismisses Los Damasos because despite their attempts to annihilate the Guzman brothers, they ended up in prison. According to Mica, the kidnapped victims were released thanks to conversations led by El Mencho, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Daniel Silva Gárate El H9 then leader of the Beltrán Leyva and related to Juan Francisco Patrón Sánchez aka El H2 received messages on his BlackBerry while the events took place. Among them 4 photographs, 2 where Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo appear. Mica's investigation indicates that the mastermind of the Chapitos kidnapping was El Mochomito, although he did not participate.
Mica states that the motives were that El Mochomito wanted revenge. The Beltran Leyva wanted a solid alliance with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The hitmen who kidnapped Los Chapitos belonged to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel under the orders of Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, aka El R3, the alleged stepson of El Mencho. For Mica, there is no way that Beltran Leyva's hitmen under the orders of El Mochomito would have allowed Los Chapitos to live in any situation.
Nor does he believe that men under El Mochomito's orders simply kidnapped them and handed them over to El R3's hitmen. Mica says that in that period the Jalisco New Generation Cartel was expanding rapidly with the goal of becoming the most dominant cartel in Mexico. El Mencho would not have allowed anyone other than his men to carry out the kidnapping so he could use them as a bargaining chip, Mica said.
Mica points out that after the kidnapping a lot of false news was published. First, the government had confirmed that the only son of El Chapo Guzman who had been kidnapped along with 5 other men was Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar. Then the lawyer for the family of El Chapo Guzman Pablo Badillo said that it was very likely that the eldest son of the kingpin had been kidnapped and that he was contacted by the Guzman family and told of the possibility that Ivan Archivaldo had also been kidnapped.
My research shows,"Mica said," that El Mencho kidnapped the Guzman brothers to resolve a standoff between the two cartels over disputed drug routes to the United States. Using them as a bargaining chip, Mica points out in his note and adds that the Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana regions were among the territories in dispute between the cartels. Mica reports that a day after the kidnapping on Tuesday, negotiations to free the kidnap victims began.
The life of Los Menores would be negotiated with Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes El Mencho. The kidnappers got rid of their victims' phones in the parking lot of the restaurant. But on Wednesday, two days after the kidnapping, someone in the government with access to those phones leaked the famous photograph of Kate del Castillo and Jesus Alfredo.
By then, according to Mica El Mayo Zambada and El Chapo Guzman from jail, they allegedly called a high-level meeting with top cartel members at a ranch in Sinaloa. The meeting was to discuss the kidnapping of Los Chapitos by the rival cartel and to consider possible retaliation strategies. Including the possibility of an all-out war against the four-letter cartel, Mica pointed out.
One of the chapters of infighting within the Sinaloa Cartel that came close to triggering an endless war between organized crime groups was the kidnapping of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera's children in August 2016 at the La Leche bar in Puerto Vallarta. The man who guarded El Chapo after his two escapes until he was extradited to the United States was the one who told Guzman Loera about the kidnapping.
Eduardo Guerrero Durán: It was my turn to tell him, this is in Ciudad Juarez, it was my turn to tell him that his children had been kidnapped in Puerto Vallarta. His first reaction was angry, his first reaction was angry. He even asks where. We showed him a video of when the group came in to take his children out of the restaurant. And he said to me, "Hey, where are the bodyguards?
Well, I don't know where the guards are. I am demonstrating the video and I brought people from the then Attorney General's Office, the people in charge of the Seido were there with me in case he wanted to file a complaint. And he desists from being able to file that complaint. And then the same thing happened to his wife if they wanted to file a complaint for the disappearance of their children and she said no.
After a while we had to come see him and say that he had disappeared. Afterwards we have to come and tell him that they have recovered him, inform him that they have recovered him. This is in Ciudad Juarez. I noticed that he was not surprised, but his expression was one of joy.
It is said that there were negotiations between El Mayo Zambada and El Mencho but that they reached a deadlock when El Mencho's brother-in-law refused to release El Chapo's sons. Mica reports that El Mencho's son El Menchito was kidnapped by Sinaloa Cartel agents while he was in prison as a countermeasure to secure the release of Los Chapitos.
To prevent further warfare between the two drug trafficking cartels, it is believed that the federal government and Rafael Caro Quintero intervened, which ultimately led to the release of Ivan Archivaldo and Jesus Alfredo. Two days after they were kidnapped on Wednesday, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Juan Daniel Tapia Calva were released. By Friday so were the rest of the kidnapped including Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar concludes this article in Borderland Beat of which we have made this brief summary.