by Lucio R. Borderland Beat
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The Houston Chron is reporting that Texan native, Edgar Valdez Villareal, aka “La Barbie”, will be filing a “change of plea” in Atlanta U.S. District court.
The so-called “American born narco” will plead guilty to charges stemming from a 2008 indictment. (see indictment below)
The Laredo Texas born and raised Valdez, gain notoriety not only for his rise within a cartel (BLO) and eventual leadership of a cartel, but for his exceptional brutal executions.
In 2010 a Contralinea report was released claiming Valdez had been a witness and collaborative for Mexican authorities beginning in 2008. The reports revealed that Valdez was informing the government of the movement of his boss and close colleagues in the BLO and Sinaloa cartels. Read full article here
According to the information made available by Contralinea ,the collaboration between the narco trafficker and the authorities of the Secretary of National Defense occurred to establish geography and locations of his bosses in the Beltran Leyva and Sinaloa cartels. Supposedly under torture, Valdez Villarreal had given names and methods of operations for protection rackets and hidden caches of weapons and money. The data from these sessions were used by the government of the Felipe Calderon to arrest and kill several high value targets.
This lends itself to the theory that it was Valdez who betrayed his boss Arturo Beltran Leyva, by giving information of his location that led to his death in December 2009 in a shootout with the Mexican military. And clears the mystery of exactly how Valdez was able to pull off the Houdini act and survived unscathed not once but twice in military operations that month to capture Beltran Leyva.
Valdez himself was arrested under unusual circumstances; reports indicated he and his attorneys negotiated to turn Valez over to authorities in exchange of assurances for his protection, safety and protection from certain prosecutions.
He was “arrested” without incident.
He since the arrest, fought against extradition to the U.S., and was successful until September, 2015. It is thought that his high powered attorney Kent Schaffer of Houston Texas, used this time negotiating a plea deal. That assumption is fortified with this prompt guilty plea, coming only three months after extradition and after five years behind bars.
Below is a letter Valdez wrote to the public and sent to Reforma denying he was a state witness and gave information of collusion of top federal officials.
Sent to Reforma in 2012
"First I would like to express that I was not eligible for the witness protection program. Likewise, I categorically deny the accusations and declarations that are related by the apprehending elements regarding my detention, and the the truth of the matter is as follows:
My detention was the result of a political persecution on the part of C. Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, who set up a harassment against my person for the reason that the undersigned [La Barbie] refused to be a part of the agreement that Mr. Calderon Hinojosa desired to have with all the organized crime groups for which he personally held numerous meetings in order to have talks with organized crime.
Subsequently, different meetings were carried out through General Mario Arturo Chaparro who met under the orders of the President and Juan Camilo Mouriño, with two of the bosses from La Familia Michoacana. Subsequently, the general had an interview in Matamoros with Heriberto Lazcano and Arturo Beltran Leyva, "El Barbas", and also with "El Chapo" Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Calderon wanted the meeting with all the cartels: The Zetas, the Gulf Cartel, with me, the Juarez Cartel, with Vicente, Mayo and Chapo. A situation for which there was no answer on my part and I did not want to have connections with anyone form the criminal organizations [and] a quick persecution began against my person, to the degree of having my various homes searched without a legal warrant for it and during which they stole money, jewelry, cars and other belongings from me.
Genero Garcia Luna, head of the federal SSP, who from at least 2002, first in the AFI and then in the PFP, it was evident that he had received money from me, from drug trafficking and organized crime, the same that a select group made up of Armando Espinosa de Benito who was working with the DEA and passing me information, Luis Cardenas Palomino, Edgar Eusebio Millan Gomez, Fransisco Javier Garza Palacios (Colombian Federal Police), Igor Labastida Calderon, Facundo Rosas Rosas, Ramon Eduardo Pequeno Garcia, and Gerado Garay Cadena who also formed a group that took money from organized crime and from me.
Among others, they were charged with "stopping me in some operation" when in reality they had orders to kill me, so much so that at the moment of my arrest, which came out in the mass media, when they found me alone at home. They said that on that day there were no gunshots reported but the truth is that there was.
A federal cop who was the same that brought me to this place and who actually found me, urged me to run so that he could shoot me and that he could say that he repelled an attack an had killed me as they did with ARON ARTURO GINES BECERRIL who they killed in the vicinity of the Perisur Mall, and who had most of his bullet wounds in the back on the same day of my arrest. Everything was covered up by the Federal Police.
It is worth making mention that despite the background of Genero Garcia Luna, which are found in many criminal proceedings of which the American government already has knowledge, that even formed part of the themes touched upon in the Merida Initiative, and to which I already had access in the most recent testimony of the collaborating witness, "Mateo" (Sergio Villarreal); the President Felipe Calderon argues against the charges against [Genero Garcia Luna].
It is worth noting that the Federal Police, no matter how many detentions they conduct, they never seize anything, everything gets lost -e.g. money, jewelry, vehicles, drugs.- yet it should also be mentioned that the Mexican military and the Navy Secretariat are the most honest, because when they detain someone, they turn them over to the corresponding authorities with whatever evidence they had at the time of their detention."
I might have done that which has been done, but they, the public servants that I have mentioned are also a part of the criminal structure of this country."
Signed,