Where is La Barbie?: the mystery revives the criminal myth of Édgar Valdez Villarreal

Where is the Barbie?

The whereabouts of Édgar Valdez Villarreal, one of the bloodiest drug traffickers in the history of Mexico, is unknown.

The kingpin does not appear in the custody of the Federal Prison Agency of the United States, where he was serving a prison sentence until 2056, as EL PAÍS has corroborated in the search engine for prisoners of the US prison system.

The lack of official information from the authorities on the other side of the border has made Valdez Villarreal once again in the news, despite having been arrested in August 2010 and having been out of the criminal scene ever since.

"There are several reasons why a prisoner may appear as 'not in the custody of the Prison Agency," a spokesman for the US prison agency responded to EL PAÍS.

“Inmates who were previously in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons and who have not served their sentence may be out of custody for a period of time to attend court hearings, medical treatment or for other reasons,” he adds.

"We do not give specific information about the status of prisoners who are not in the custody of the Prisons Agency for security or privacy reasons," she settles.

Until the unknown about his whereabouts, Valdez Villarreal has been serving a sentence in the high security prison of Coleman II, in the central region of Florida.

When consulted by this newspaper, the Attorney General of the Republic and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico have assured that they are unaware of the legal situation of La Barbie, also known as El Güero

At the express question of this newspaper, one of the lawyers who represented the capo in a court in Atlanta (Georgia), where he was sentenced in June 2018, says he has no comments, arguing that he was unaware of why his client did not appear under custody in the prison system.

The US Embassy in Mexico has not made an official statement either.

"Information is being requested," declared the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at his press conference this Tuesday.

"In the course of the day or tomorrow everything will be known, we do not get ahead of ourselves to find out what is happening," the president commented.

“The Federal Police caught La Barbie, one of the most wanted criminals in Mexico and abroad.

He continues the operation on his group ”.

This is how the then President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) reported on the arrest of Valdez Villarreal.

The arrest of the capo was described as one of the most publicized blows of the Calderón Presidency to organized crime and it occurred 48 hours before the ex-president gave his fourth government report, the same one that López Obrador will formally present this week.

Authorities had been on the trail of La Barbie for weeks and tightened their siege until they stopped him near Mexico City.

That night of August 31, 2010, Valdez Villarreal was presented to the media as a war trophy, very much in the style of the official narrative in the early years of the so-called war against drugs.

The arrest had been pointed out by Genaro García Luna, Secretary of Public Security of the Calderón Government and arrested in 2019 in Dallas for his alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, former allies and later enemies of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, the group to which La Barbie belonged as a leader of hit men.

Barbie did not bow her head after the arrest, which took place without a single bullet being fired, according to the chronicles of the time.

She was dressed in designer clothes, had an expensive watch on her wrist, and looked defiantly at the cameras.

She was observed, even, smiling.

She was called El Güero or La Barbie because of her fair complexion, her blonde hair and her clear eyes.

She was born on August 11, 1973 in the Texan city of Laredo, just 20 days before she had just celebrated his birthday.

The crime boss with a Mexican and US passport had just turned 37, but he already had dozens of murders on his back.

Valdez Villarreal was one of the most trusted men of Arturo Beltrán Leyva,

.

La Barbie was the lieutenant in charge of collecting the profits of the plaza bosses of his criminal group and was also the head of the cartel's hitmen.

While the Beltrán Leyva brothers were partners in Sinaloa, the kingpin unleashed a war against Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel in Tamaulipas: La Barbie murdered, tortured, and videotaped his rivals, a practice he pioneered and later became known for. the standard of criminal daily life in Mexico would return.

When Arturo Beltrán Leyva was assassinated in December 2009, suspicions of treason arose within the criminal group itself.

the

He ended up facing off against the brothers of his former boss and stained with blood Acapulco and Cuernavaca, formerly known as the most famous beach in the country and the city of eternal spring, were filled with about twenty corpses per month and

.

Barbie was one of the faces of a new generation of

, who alternated violence with opulence and ostentation.

She had luxury residences all over the country, moved in high-end cars and dressed in fashion: she was accused not only of drug trafficking, but also of money laundering.

Her fall in Lerma, a dormitory municipality on the outskirts of Mexico City, put an end to the myth that the capital was exempt from war and off the country's criminal map.

In November 2012, two years after her arrest, La Barbie sent a letter to the journalist Anabel Hernández that was published in the

newspaper , in which she assured that she had been present at meetings of drug traffickers personally organized by still President Calderón.

"My arrest was the result of political persecution by C. Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, who instituted harassment against me," the letter reads.

Valdez Villarreal stated that he had refused "to be part of the agreement that Mr. Calderón Hinojosa wanted to have with all the organized crime groups."

The capo said that there were meetings between authorities and leaders of the Michoacan Family, Los Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel, as well as with Joaquín

Guzmán himself.

Jesus

Zambada, son of Ismael

Zambada would make the same remarks years later about alleged ties and payment of bribes between the Government and drug traffickers before US courts.

About García Luna, La Barbie wrote: "I know that he has received money from me, from drug trafficking and organized crime."

They are practically the same accusations that the former head of the Mexican Police faces in the United States.

A spokesman for the now-defunct Federal Police said at the time that the kingpin's accusations were an attempt to discredit authorities' efforts to bring him to justice.

In October 2015, already during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), Valdez Villarreal was extradited to the United States.

In the end, he would be sentenced three years later to 49 years in prison for four charges of drug trafficking, specifically cocaine trafficking, and another one for money laundering.

According to court documents from that trial, La Barbie and his lawyers said that he had been an informant for the DEA between 2008 and 2010, that is, until before his arrest.

In 2020, before the resurgence of the accusations against Calderón in the middle of the process against García Luna, the former president responded to the media that the accusations were false: "I acted with determination against those criminal organizations."

The capo's remembered smile after being arrested in 2010 has been an image that has returned time and time again in the last 12 years: first with a letter from jail, then launching accusations during his own trial in Georgia and now, in the midst of speculation about his whereabouts.

What is Barbie laughing at?

One possibility considered by the media in recent hours is that Valdez Villarreal has become a protected witness for the United States and that his identity has been protected since then, another is that his absence is justified by a merely routine matter, such as a review medical.

The Government of López Obrador has already requested answers from the White House about prisoner 05658-748, the number that identifies El Güero.

The promise is that the latest mystery surrounding the capo, and also the umpteenth controversy about him,

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