Borderland Beat
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| Alleged Tijuana Cartel member Luis Miguel Gonzalez Mantari at the moment of his arrest. |
Huamanga-Ayacucho, PERU.- An alleged member of the Tijuana Cartel was captured on May 9th by members of the Territorial Police Directorate of Ayacucho(Direccion Territorial Policial-Dirtepol).
The suspect identified as Luis Miguel Gonzales Mantari aka “Chanchamayo”,42, is a former Peruvian National Police third level non-commissioned officer, his records show an arrest warrant dating back to 2005 for his involvement with the Tijuana Cartel, among other drug related charges.
The arrest took place near the 28 de Julio and Carlos F. Vivanco streets. When the officers approached the suspect he locked himself inside his car along with his wife, the suspect demanded the agents to be shown the arrest warrant.
Gonzales Mantari also demanded the presence of his lawyer and that of the Attorney General in order to be detained; meanwhile he refused to step out of his vehicle. The officers ordered “Chanchamayo” to step out of the vehicle and show them some ID but he refused. This refusal prompted the presence of Hinostroza Barrionuevo, Sheriff of Huamanga and that of Jose Antonio Muñoz Rodriguez, Dirtepol director, who also tried to convince Gonzalez Mantari to step out of the vehicle to no avail.
The Attorney General arrived about an hour later, asking “Chanchamayo” to show his ID and vehicle documents but again, Gonzalez Mantari refused cursing at him and the officers. After this, the Attorney General ordered the officers to take Gonzalez Mantari out of the vehicle and arrest him.
The police officers broke the car´s door locks and opened the door, at that moment Gonzalez Mantari fired his car and tried to flee but was taken into custody by the officers.
The suspect was taken to the Judicial Police facilities where investigations will continue.
Dirtepol director Jose Antonio Muñoz Rodriguez mentioned that this capture was the result of more than one month of intelligence work by Dirtepol officers.
Gonzalez Mantari acussed one of the officers of asking money in exchange of setting him free, “Chanchamayo” claims he offered the officer 500 US Dollars but the officer refused the amount, he also claimed he had been intercepted before but was set free on several times in exchange of money.
Luis Miguel Gonzalez Mantari is accused of smuggling cocaine out of Peru into Central America for years, even when he was a police officer.
BACKGROUND INFO
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| Vladimiro Montesinos alongside former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. |
The Tijuana Cartel has been in Peru for some time now, according to the reports done by former DEA agent Elizabeth Viviana Rosales Linares, who was able to infiltrate the organization, the Tijuana Cartel was allied with Vladimiro Montesinos, right hand man of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. In her statements, Rosales Linares claims the Tijuana Cartel once bought 19 tons from Montesinos, Those tons were then sold to an Egyptian identified only as “Duvall”, she also claimed the late drug lord Ramon Arellano Felix was at some time guarded by 3 Egyptians by the names of Abdel Baset, Jalifa Rima and Ali Almegrafi, all three of them lived in Tijuana.
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| Port of Paita in Peru. |
Drug Lord Jose Maria Aguilar Ruiz aka “Shushupe” told Peruvian congressmen about an island located near Pisco, Peru in which the Tijuana Cartel had a cocaine lab.
In July 2006, Judge Hernan Saturno Vergara was killed in Lima, Peru, Peruvian authorities claim the Tijuana Cartel is responsible for his murder, a claim that is completely believable since at the time Saturno Vergara was in charge of the trial against 26 Tijuana Cartel members arrested in Peru.
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| Peruvian Police guarding a cocaine shipment from the Tijuana Cartel. |
Fast forward to May 2012, the Peruvian authorities seized a drug shipment in the port of Paita. The shipment was disguised between organic bananas and had Belgium as destination. Authorities identified the Tijuana Cartel as the one responsible for this shipment. More than 3700 lbs of pure cocaine were seized that day. Authorities said that if that shipment had reached Belgium, the Tijuana Cartel would have made more than one hundred million dollars in profits.
In that operation three Peruvian business men were arrested, police identified them as Harri Luzardo Balcazar, Mauro Javier Arcela Perez, Hebber Max Becerra Zapata, Luis Angel Serra Sandoval and Guillermo Gamarra Rios.
Walter Sanchez Bermudez, Director of the Peruvian anti-narcotics agency (Direccion Antidrogas-Direndro) called them “one of the biggest and most important cocaine trafficking networks”.
Sources for this article:
Sources for this article: