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Édgar "La Barbie" Valdez, one of the most bloodthirsty drug traffickers, "reappears" as a prisoner in a high-security prison in the United States.

2023-02-17T20:54:13.188Z


After months without his whereabouts being known, the trafficker and hit man is once again a prisoner in Florida, at the same time as the trial of Garcia Luna is coming to an end, where it was speculated that he was testifying.


After vanishing from federal prison records for more than two months, ex-narco and hitman Édgar

La Barbie

Valdez Villarreal reappears serving his sentence for drug trafficking and money laundering in the United States, in the high-security Coleman II prison in Florida, and will remain behind bars until July 27, 2065, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. 

This change in the records coincides with the end of the judicial process against the former Mexican Secretary of Security Genaro García Luna, accused of receiving bribes from the drug trafficker, during which it was speculated that

La Barbie

would be one of the witnesses of the Prosecutor's Office.

The trial is seen for sentencing, and the jury has been deliberating since Thursday.

At the end of November, the news generated a stir that

La Barbie

, one of the most bloodthirsty drug traffickers in the history of Mexico, was no longer listed as a detainee of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and his whereabouts were unknown.

“We want to know where he is,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his morning press conference at the National Palace on November 30.

"The consultation has been carried out and there is no precision on the subject, but we are going to continue asking that they inform us," he added. 

La Barbie

has arrest warrants in Mexico, being considered one of Arturo Beltrán Leyva's trusted lieutenants, to supervise hitmen and collect payments from the criminal organization, which supported the Sinaloa Cartel to eliminate its rivals (Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel).

La Barbie

recorded videos of victims being tortured and murdered, a practice he pioneered but is now the day-to-day standard of Mexican organized crime.

The ex-narco was arrested in Mexico in 2012 and extradited to the United States in 2015. Three years later, he was sentenced to 49 years in prison. 

Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez Villarreal at the time of his arrest in 2010. Alexandre Meneghini / AP

"There are a number of reasons why an inmate may be listed as 'not in the custody of the Prisons Office," a spokesperson for the prison bureau explained to the newspaper El País at the time, citing "attending judicial hearings or receiving treatment doctor". 

His name began to sound strongly in the process against García Luna and he was considered one of the "significant" witnesses of the prosecution as one of the ex-narcos of the Federal Witness Protection Program, who speak in exchange for certain benefits.

According to court documents,

La Barbie

and his lawyers said that he had been an informant for the federal anti-drug agency between 2008 and 2010. And he was one of the first drug traffickers in the United States who openly accused García Luna of ties to drug trafficking.

The trial against the former official in a federal court in New York began in January and some witnesses from the Prosecutor's Office told the jury that

La Barbie

would have had in-person meetings with the defendant and received favors from the Federal Police.

Francisco Cañedo Zavaleta, a former agent of the Mexican Federal Police who worked in the anti-narcotics unit, stated, for example, in his testimony that on Sunday, October 19, 2008, he happened to see García Luna together with Villareal and drug lord Arturo Beltrán Leyva, stationed in two trucks on the side of a highway in Cuernavaca. 

The day that 'El Rey' Zambada alleges that he bribed García Luna with $3,000,000: "I was very surprised"

Feb 13, 202302:49

The former leaders of the Sinaloa cartel have assured that in exchange for the millions of dollars they gave García Luna they received protection and help as notices of imminent raids.

One of those was the operation at La Barbie

's wedding party 

in Acapulco.

"The party was held, but no one came," said an ex-narco, "they found no one."

After presenting more than twenty witnesses, from an original list of more than 70, the Prosecutor's Office decided to end its presentation of evidence ahead of schedule: the judge asked it, accepting a complaint from the defense, to only convene those who had a pertinent and direct link with the accusation.

Many stories had already been heard about how the drug world worked in Mexico from former police officers and traffickers who did not directly mention García Luna.

[These are the evidences against García Luna so far in the trial]

The prosecution then requested a few extra days for logistical issues and preparation of its last "significant" witness and

La Barbie

resonated again as one of the possible candidates.

But instead, another of the most anticipated was summoned: Jesús

El Rey

Zambada García, brother of

El Mayo

García, current leader of the Sinaloa cartel, who told the jury that at the beginning of the 2000s Genaro García Luna paid him $1.5 million a month for his help to the cartel.

The King claimed that he was involved in two meetings in 2006 for bribery payments.

The Texan leader of the narco hitmen

The arrest of

La Barbie

occurred in 2010 near Mexico City and a year after Arturo Beltrán Leyva was assassinated, and suspicion fell on the ex-narco, generating a bloody internal war in the criminal organization.

His arrest was one of the most significant blows against organized crime during the presidency of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012), when García Luna headed the Secretary of Public Security.

On the night of August 31, 2010, it was exhibited in front of the media as a trophy.

He was 37 years old at the time and had already accumulated dozens of murder charges. 

García Luna later told Mexican legislators in September 2010 that

La Barbie

was one of the pioneers of high-impact violence, and responsible for beheadings throughout the country, and said that her arrest was a government success, according to the La Jornada newspaper.

Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar displays 1997 transfer photos of Edgar Valdez Villarreal.Eric Gay / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Valdez Villareal, who was nicknamed

La Barbie

due to her fair complexion, blonde hair and light eyes, was actually born in 1973 in Texas, and has dual citizenship: American and Mexican.

His style was a trademark, being part of a new, more glitzy drug gang, with sports cars, lavish estates, designer clothes and expensive watches.

He also goes by the nicknames

El Güero

and

El Comandante

, according to State Department records. 

The Sinaloa cartel is considered one of the most powerful and violent criminal organizations, currently operating in Mexico, with cells in the United States.

Federal authorities accuse the group of manufacturing, storing, importing and distributing cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana, and money laundering. 

Although originally part of the Sinaloa cartel, Arturo Beltrán-Leyva severed ties with the organization in 2008, creating a new organization, which is currently accused of acquiring weapons and ammunition from the United States and illegally importing them into Mexico, as well as trafficking drugs.

In Mexican territory, kidnappings, torture, murders and other crimes are attributed to him.

The Barbie

, according to court records, was "key in the bloody turf war for control of the Interstate 35 smuggling route to the US."

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, he was responsible for taking the fight to central and southern Mexico. 

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2023-02-17

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