Xinhua: Mexico catches U.S.-born drug lord "La Barbie"

[Twoller]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/31/c_13470657.htm

Mexico catches U.S.-born drug lord "La Barbie"

Image released by Policia Federal de Mexico on Aug. 30 shows major drug trafficker Edgar Valdez, Villareal. Federal police caught Valdez in a residential area near Mexico City, the government said. (Xinhua)

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- Mexican authorities told Xinhua Monday they have captured "La Barbie" Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a U.S.-born criminal with a long career leading the nation's drug cartels.

An official with the Attorney General's Office (PGR) confirmed the arrest, but said she was not authorized to give further details.

Mexican newspapers reported Valdez was arrested by federal police close to the border between southern Mexican states Morelos and Guerrero.

Valdez had worked for the Sinaloa Cartel and its breakaway group the Beltrn Leyva cartel, which was dismantled in a recent police operation.

He is also wanted by a federal court in southern U.S. city Atlanta for smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. soil between 2004 and 2006.

Valdez's main crime partner, Jose Gerardo Alvarez, alias El Indio, was captured in April.

And also at the Canadian National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Mexicans+hope+drug+lord+arrest+turning+point/3464302/story.html

Mexicans hope drug lord’s arrest may be turning point

MEXICO CITY — Mexico paraded one of its most violent drug lords on Tuesday after a police raid that President Felipe Calderon’s government hopes will mark a breakthrough in its campaign against powerful cartels.

But the capture of Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez, a Texas-born 37-year-old, may do little to halt the flow of drugs into the United States or staunch bloodshed in Mexico’s most violent areas, many of them along the U.S. border.

....

Officials say Valdez, as a leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel based in central Mexico, trafficked a tonne of cocaine each month and was responsible for “several dozen” murders.

He is believed to be behind merciless beheadings of rivals, torture and mutilation of victims, and for ordering the slaughter of the family of a marine who took part in the killing of his former boss Arturo Beltran Leyva in December.

But Valdez’s operations were small compared to Mexico’s top gangs — the Sinaloa, Gulf and Juarez cartels — which smuggle the majority of the 140 tonnes of cocaine the United Nations estimates that Mexico exports to the United States every year.

....

Valdez had been a top contender to head the Beltran Leyva cartel since its boss was killed by soldiers in December.

Born into a middle-class family, Valdez is said to have played American football at school and developed a taste for luxury before coming to Mexico to work in the drug trade.

Anchor baby? Anyone know?

[ilbegone]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-08/31/c_13470657.htm



And also at the Canadian National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Mexicans+hope+drug+lord+arrest+turning+point/3464302/story.html



Anchor baby? Anyone know?

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "Barbie"
Nació en Laredo, Texas. Es de piel blanca, cuerpo atlético, rubio y con ojos azules. Su corpulencia física y actitud violenta le han valido convertirse en el principal pistolero del narcotraficante Arturo Beltrán Leyva.

***

MEXICO.- Uno de los capos de la droga más violentos y más buscados en México y Estados Unidos fue detenido, informaron las autoridades y dijeron que Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "La Barbie", tenía vínculos con el crimen organizado en el centro y sur de América...

...Valdez Villarreal nació en Laredo, Texas, el 11 de agosto de 1973, lo que lo convierte en el único ciudadano estadunidense en la lista de narcos de cárteles mexicanos por los que el Departamento de Estado ofrece recompensa.

Muchos individuos nacidos en Estados Unidos abundan en los niveles inferiores de los cárteles, pero el sitio alcanzado por Valdez Villarreal no tiene precedente. Valdez Villarreal, de tez blanca y ojos azules, estudió en la escuela preparatoria United High School, de Laredo, donde según el periódico The San Antonio Express News, era prácticamente una celebridad.

La vida de Valdez Villarreal dio un vuelco el 29 de mayo de 1992, cuando estaba por concluir su último año de preparatoria, cuando fue detenido bajo cargos de homicidio por negligencia criminal.

http://noticias.aol.com/2010/08/30/capturan-capo-la-barbie/

[Twoller]

Exactly what use is it posting a news item in Spanish? Speak English.

[ilbegone]

Exactly what use is it posting a news item in Spanish? Speak English.
It was very usefull as a slap at your McCarthy-esque preoccupation with "Anchor babies", which is akin to Chairman Mao's "ten year leap forward" hunt for "reactionaries" and "capitalist running dogs".


I'll give the core info, and mix in content from an article in today's Press Enterprise (associated press). Give a little thought as to the national origin of individual writers.



It says that Edgar Valdez was born In Laredo Texas August 11, 1973 and rose to become one of the principle gunmen for Arturo Beltran Leyva.

Valdez has white skin, blond hair and blue eyes (PE says green eyes) (which is why he is called "La Barbie" I believe its a reference to the doll.) as well as an athletic body. He has a violent attitude.

Valdez attended United High School in Laredo and according to the San Antonio Express News he was practically a celebrity. His life took a turn in his senior year with an arrest on a lesser negligent homicide charge.

The Cartels have quite a few foot soldiers who were born in America, but the heights Valdez Villareal reached has no precedent.

***

The PE article says that Valdez grew up in a middle class suburb popular with Border Patrol agents, police officers and fire fighters; his father was a nightclub and bar owner. Valdez is called "La Barbie" for his fair complexion and green eyes.

PE adds that that Valdez was a linebacker in high school and a small time street dealer as a teen. Valdez's first arrest at 19 was a criminally negligent homicide charge for allegedly running over a middle school counselor while speeding in Laredo. He wasn't indicted.

After that, he accumulated a minor rap sheet including DUI, public intoxication, and speeding. He was a small time drug dealer according to a former undercover cop.

Valdez left Texas to work for the Beltran Leyva Cartel, living illegally in Mexico.

He rose quiclkly through the ranks, becoming in succession Arturo Beltran Leyva's top personal bodyguard and head of the cartel's Acapulco operations.

Valdez lived a life of luxury, owning expensive homes in Mexico City and a bar called Xxxotica in Acapulco.

After Mexican Marines killed Arturo Beltran Leyva, a vicious war broke out between Valdez and Hector Beltran Leyva.

***

It seems that some of the content in the Associated press article was a rip off from a wikipedia entry, there are direct quotes without attribution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Valdez_Villarreal

[Twoller]

Along with the witless name calling, you failed to the answer the question.

Was the dope-dealing scumbag an anchor baby? Were his parents US citizens? Pretty simple question.

Anyone else care to give it a try?

Here's another question, if he wasn't an anchor baby, then where did he become fluent in Spanish? He must have been fluent in Spanish, else he could not have run an organized crime syndicate out of Mexico.

[ilbegone]

Along with the witless name calling, you failed to the answer the question.

Was the dope-dealing scumbag an anchor baby? Were his parents US citizens? Pretty simple question.

Anyone else care to give it a try?

Here's another question, if he wasn't an anchor baby, then where did he become fluent in Spanish? He must have been fluent in Spanish, else he could not have run an organized crime syndicate out of Mexico.

I didn't call you any names, just described your behavior.

Have you ever been to Laredo?

Give it a try sometime, stroll around the streets in both the barrio and on snob hill, you might learn something.

Here's another quote for you:

A former counterterrorism agent with the U.S. State Department said "He's a kid you would not expect, coming from a nice family, upper-middle class, living the American dream. The next thing you know, he's swallowed up in this narco business and has become highly successful."

Money has a way of "persuading" people, even you.

Money talks and bullshit walks.

...When Edgar Valdez played high-school football in his home town of Laredo on the Texas-Mexico border, a coach nicknamed him Barbie because of his blond hair, fair complexion, and the colour of his eyes...

...Unlike most traffickers, who are born into poverty, Mr. Valdez hails from a middle-class family. He played American football at school, became bilingual and developed a taste for luxury cars, nightclubs and Versace clothes...

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Mexico+hopes+Barbie+arrest+brings+calm/3467150/story.html

[ilbegone]

Double post

[ilbegone]

Yet some more.

I don't think in his case it really matters whether this dirt bag is an "anchor baby" or not. He is a very smart, sophisticated, pathological criminal. An unusual person among any population...

Man or Myth? American Drug Lord 'La Barbie' Fascinates and Terrorizes

Edgar Valdez-Villareal at Forefront of Drug Wars, Killing Hundreds Along the Mexican Border

By JOHN QUINONES (ABC NEWS)
May 19, 2010


For some along the Texas-Mexico border, Edgar Valdez-Villareal is an American success story.

Valdez-Villareal is a wealthy businessman from Laredo, Texas, who has hit the big time, raking in millions of dollars. Now living the good life in Mexico, he drives fancy cars and has been nicknamed "La Barbie," thanks to his good looks.

Beautiful women want to be with him, and back in Texas, kids say they want to be like him. "Guys like money," said one male high school student who had heard stories about Valdez-Villareal. "They get fame, they get girls, they get houses. They get everything they want."...

...'La Barbie' Reputation Takes on Mythic Proportions

"La Barbie is a fascinating character that has reached the proportions of myth," said Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence for Stratfor Global Intelligence, who has followed Valdez-Villareal's rise to power. Burton is a former counterterrorism agent with the U.S. State Department.

"He's a kid you would not expect, coming from a nice family, upper-middle class, living the American dream," Burton said. "And the next thing you know, he's swallowed up in this narco business and has become highly successful."

So how did Valdez-Villareal go from being a high school football standout in Texas to one of the most wanted narco bosses in Mexico? Authorities say it all began by selling pot on the streets of Laredo.

"We were going to buy 300 pounds of marijuana. We met up with him, we talked, we negotiated," recalled Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar.
When the officers went to complete the deal, Valdez-Villareal never showed up. "You know, I guess he smelled something," said Cuellar...


...'La Barbie' Moves Across Border, Joining with Mexican Cartels

Soon, Valdez-Villareal took his drug business across the border, where his charisma, personality and fluency in English and Spanish put him in the good graces of the drug cartel leaders.

"He knows both sides," said a Texas homicide detective who asked ABC News to keep his identity a secret. "He knows our way of thinking, our ways of operating, so he uses that to his advantage. It helps him tremendously."
The detective says that La Barbie quickly went from pot dealer to cartel hit man.

"That's how he started building a name for himself," the detective said, claiming that Valdez-Villareal had personally killed or ordered the deaths of hundreds of people...

...La Barbie became the enforcer for a major drug cartel, waging war against another cartel, officials say. In 2005 and 2006, the border city of Nuevo Laredo was their battlefield, where there were nearly 200 murders a year.

"This is like the mafia wars of the '50s and '60s playing out in New York City as to which crime family is going to take control," said the detective...

...Message to the Mexican Government

So brazen is Valdez-Villareal, authorities said, that he sent a message to the Mexican government printed in a local newspaper.

Filmmaker Rusty Fleming, who researched Valdez for his film 'Drug Wars,' summarized the message, saying, "You're never going to eradicate the supply of dope any more than you are going to eradicate the demand ... somebody's going to do it and I'm the lesser of all evils. We don't kill women and children. If you're going to have somebody smuggling drugs through our country to the U.S. and the world, it should be me."...

[And now a word from Mom]

...No Contact With His Mother

On the American side of the border, ABC News tracked down Valdez-Villareal's mother, who described him as a good man, but admitted she hasn't heard from her son "in a very long time."

"There is never a good outcome with a kid like this," said the detective, who asked to remain anonymous. "He's either going to be killed or captured by the Mexican military or federal police inside of Mexico, or he is going to die in a hail of bullets by a cartel rival."


http://abcnews.go.com/WN/edgar-valdez-la-barbie-control-mexican-drug-cartel/story?id=10688794&page=1

[Twoller]

Still nothing about his parents. Were they US citizens? How did this scumbag become fluent in Spanish?

[wetibbe]

Still nothing about his parents. Were they US citizens? How did this scumbag become fluent in Spanish?

There isn't very much on the Internet about Villarreal's family. His father was a night club and bar owner. Found one header saying the father murdered the family but no details. Also says he grew up in a middle income family. The media isn't reporting on the family.

Just look at his name. He is Mexican American born in Laredo, a border town. Certainly his family all spoke Spanish at home.

For my trouble while surfing and opening various websites about Villarreal my computer was attacked and the attack was stopped by my anti-virus. Said it was a high priority, serious attack !

[Patriotic Army Mom]

Still nothing about his parents. Were they US citizens? How did this scumbag become fluent in Spanish?
Why is this so important!? Barbie is a scum bag no matter what his back ground is!

[ilbegone]

There isn't very much on the Internet about Villarreal's family. His father was a night club and bar owner. Found one header saying the father murdered the family but no details. Also says he grew up in a middle income family. The media isn't reporting on the family.

Just look at his name. He is Mexican American born in Laredo, a border town. Certainly his family all spoke Spanish at home.

For my trouble while surfing and opening various websites about Villarreal my computer was attacked and the attack was stopped by my anti-virus. Said it was a high priority, serious attack !

My computer was attacked as well.

The name doesn't mean anything about what language he spoke at home or the national origin of his parents. I know a person from New Mexico whose family has been here since the Spaniards founded Santa Fe in the 1600s. He looks like an Indian, his brother is white looking and has blond hair and blue eyes. The style of Spanish they speak with their elderly mother long predates the Mexican Spanish brought here in relatively recent times.

The account says he played football and became bilingual. Growing up in a middle class family in a middle class suburb and attending an English speaking high school, the wording suggests that he learned Spanish. Besides, I believe pandering media would have a lot out of his middle class parents if they originated out of Mexican poverty.

How did I learn what Spanish I know? Some of it in school and the rest by being around Spanish speakers.

As far as the father murdering the family, I believe that would be another story bundled with the search item "Edgar Valdez" + "family" result. He is described as coming from a nice family by an ex federal agent, his mother spoke with ABC last May, and the sensationalism of familicide combined with a notorious gangster would have been too much for the media to resist. Perhaps for once the media is leaving innocent relatives alone.

Why is this so important!? Barbie is a scum bag no matter what his back ground is!

Some people incessantly wash their hands. During the fifties, some people saw a communist under every rock.

Was Al Capone an "anchor baby" and did he speak Italian? It doesn't matter in the scope of how he made his mark on history.

This is the short explanation of Valdez and Capone in their respective times:

Beautiful women want to be with him, and back in Texas, kids say they want to be like him. "Guys like money," said one male high school student who had heard stories about Valdez-Villareal. "They get fame, they get girls, they get houses. They get everything they want."...

Oldest story in the world concerning ambition.

[Twoller]

There isn't very much on the Internet about Villarreal's family. His father was a night club and bar owner. Found one header saying the father murdered the family but no details. Also says he grew up in a middle income family. The media isn't reporting on the family.

Just look at his name. He is Mexican American born in Laredo, a border town. Certainly his family all spoke Spanish at home.

For my trouble while surfing and opening various websites about Villarreal my computer was attacked and the attack was stopped by my anti-virus. Said it was a high priority, serious attack !

If his father was a night club and bar owner and Mexican in a border town, then he was very ripe to be in or working with organized crime himself. And the facility with which his son became dominant in organized crime suggests a family relation as well. Many organized crime figures look upper or middle class. And for all the reports we are getting about his appearances and social stature and the fact that his family is a complete blank really points out the problem.

It is pretty suspicious to suggest that this guy learned to speak Spanish in high school well enough to run an organized crime syndicate in Mexico. Mexican criminal figures are very fussy about who they do business with and aren't going to keep some tourist from Laredo in power just because he speaks high school Spanish.

The public needs to know everything about this guy's background and especially whether his parents were citizens or not and the circumstances of their presence in the US. Isn't this obvious?

This is how bad its gotten. Don't fixate on the anchor babies coming under the public welfare system. A lot of these anchor babies who loom as this kind of threat, or worse, are growing up middle class, paid for and enabled by middle class pandering to illegal immigration. And when the illegals are themselves middle class, the problem has even worse potential.

Al Capone's parents were legal immigrants. Al Capone was one of nine children who adopted a life of crime before he dropped out of school. Since his parents were naturalized citizens, he does not fit the definition of "anchor baby", which isn't to say he wasn't evidence of an immigration problem. He was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_capone

Incidentally their is practically nothing on La Barbie at Wikipedia,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Valdez_Villarreal

[ilbegone]

The public needs to know everything about this guy's background and especially whether his parents were citizens or not and the circumstances of their presence in the US. Isn't this obvious?

With this sort of reasoning I suppose it's obvious that since Jeffery Dahmer was a white homosexual cannibal with parents who were English speaking American citizens...

What's in your refrigerator?

[Twoller]

With this sort of reasoning I suppose it's obvious that since Jeffery Dahmer was a white homosexual cannibal with parents who were English speaking American citizens...

What's in your refrigerator?

Go hang yourself. If you can't post civil posts, go spread your lying filth somewhere else.

[ilbegone]

Go hang yourself. If you can't post civil posts, go spread your lying filth somewhere else.

My long ago ex wife once was very angry with me, and suggested that I should go F*** myself.

I replied "If I could do that, I WOULDN'T BE MARRIED!"

Bad choice of words.


Getting to the meat of your reply, perhaps you protest too much. :D:D:D

If you're going to present a WIIIIILD assumption to "prove" a point about presumed "anchor babies", I can suggest an equally wild association to demonstrate the bigotry of assuming that the dispicable actions of one person is "proof" that barbaric criminality is inherent in everyone with Latin American ancestry - citizen or not.

[Twoller]

Your wife said it better than I did. When your wife tells you to go **** yourself, then she knows you better than I do. But I'll say it again.

Go **** yourself.

You haven't got a useful opinion about anything. You are just taking up space and oxygen.

I'm just asking for information, information that is glaringly absence in the news. If requesting this simple information qualifies as a provocation to you, then consider yourself provoked and ****ed.

I'll ask again, to anyone else reading these posts. (Not you, ilbegone, you cockroach.) Has anyone heard anything about La Barbie's parents? Are they citizens? What is their history? Really, the public needs to know.

[Rim05]

What's in your refrigerator?

ROFL. Seems only one person has a great interest in the parents. :confused:

[Twoller]

ROFL. Seems only one person has a great interest in the parents. :confused:

Or nobody knows any more than I do. If you don't care, that's no suprise. What's weird is going out of one's way to say that La Barbie's parents and their US citizenship is not an issue. That's suspicious.

[ilbegone]

Or nobody knows any more than I do. If you don't care, that's no suprise. What's weird is going out of one's way to say that La Barbie's parents and their US citizenship is not an issue. That's suspicious.

If you are so concerned about the legal status of the Valdez family, why don't you quit seeking third and forth hand guesses and go straight to the source?

Go to Laredo and look the family up.

Don't be chickenshit afraid to confront them as you have stated should be done with people who fit your profile of undesirables.

Go ahead, pound on their door. Tell us what you learn about them.

[Twoller]

If you are so concerned about the legal status of the Valdez family, why don't you quit seeking third and forth hand guesses and go straight to the source?

Go to Laredo and look the family up.

Don't be chickenshit afraid to confront them as you have stated should be done with people who fit your profile of undesirables.

Go ahead, pound on their door. Tell us what you learn about them.

You haven't ****ed yourself yet? What are you waiting for?

[ilbegone]

You haven't ****ed yourself yet? What are you waiting for?

Of course I have. Are you asking me for a copy of the home movie?

What I'm really waiting for is for your hummingbird posterior to load up your alligator mouth for a trip to Texas to "confront" Edgar Valdez's family concerning their legal status.

However, it's a safe bet that rather than gassing up the rig and heading out on a road mission, you'll just clack in another post.

[Twoller]

Mexico's Drug War Hits Historic Border Cantinas

Aug. 16, 2010 | John Burnett | National Public Radio

John Burnett/NPR

The Kentucky Club is three blocks from the international bridge connecting Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas. It has lost more than 75 percent of its clientele due to people fleeing violence in the area, the owners say.

The country's drug violence has ruined border tourism and forced residents in border cities to flee. Three famous Prohibition-era border bars, all founded in the 1920s, are in jeopardy. Survival has meant paying off local thugs for security, and paying employees out of pocket.

Mexico's drug cartel war has killed more than 28,000 people in four years, but some of the collateral damage has not been as noticeable. A trio of famous, Prohibition-era cantinas in Mexican border cities, having survived more than 80 turbulent years, are in deep trouble.

On a recent weekday, a headline in Mexico's El Diario newspaper screams: "Juarez is the Center of the Country's Narco-War." That can't be good for business at the Kentucky Club, a venerable saloon that's been here since 1920, three blocks from the international bridge that connects Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas.

"Actually, in these times, the wave of violence here in Juarez is tremendous," says Raul Martinez, who has been the doorman at the Kentucky Club for 25 years. "Before, we had to turn people away, we were so full -- $10 or $20 wouldn't get you in. Now, I wish we had customers."

Organized Crime

Outside the tavern, federal police with ski masks and assault rifles patrol the streets of Juarez, a city of more than 1 million people. Inside, the white-jacketed, one-eyed bartender walks over to the jukebox and punches in a Sinatra tune for two tables of customers who are sipping the bar's potent margaritas.

It's estimated that one-fourth of the people of Juarez have fled the city, which has been overrun by organized crime and logs a murder every three hours, on average. The Kentucky Club estimates it has lost more than 75 percent of its clientele.

The nightclub boasted visits by Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne and then-actor Ronald Reagan, among others. Those glamorous days are long gone. Like many businesses in drug-war-torn Juarez, Raul the doorman says the Kentucky Club has to pay a cuota, or extortion, to local thugs just to keep the doors open.

"In a way, I feel calm because we pay the cuota not to have problems," he says. "Many businesses have been burned and shot up. But here, they protect us and the customer, because we pay."

'No Business, No Nothing'

Hundreds of miles downstream, the Mexican city of Ciudad Acuna sits across the river from Del Rio, Texas. In the incandescent August heat, a cab driver waits for a fare.

"Look in the street, nothing. No business, no nothing," he says.

His taxi is parked in front of what used to be the most popular bar and restaurant in town: Mrs. Crosby's, also founded in the 1920s.

Acuna is not a war zone like Juarez, but it's not the sleepy town it used to be. In May, after a state police commander was murdered, reportedly by mafia hit men, the Del Rio police chief urged people to stay out of Mexico. They have.

Crosby's co-owner, Gabriel Ramos, a 62-year-old architect, says he can't go on indefinitely paying his 22 employees out of his pocket.

"We have 87 years here, and something like this has never, ever happened. You can see," he says to a reporter who is his only customer.

How much longer can he survive? "I don't know. I think one more month, two more months. No more," he says.

Mrs. Crosby's is like a museum. The place still has the original floor tile and barstools. The walls are hung with pictures of Mexican revolutionaries, bullfighters and its namesake, Mrs. Garza Crosby. George Strait even mentions the establishment in a song lyric: "In a bar in Acuna called Ma Crosby's, I found myself not feeling any pain."

Suffering All Around

Border tourism was suffering even before the cartel war exploded.

Security measures after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks slowed traffic on international bridges. That was followed by the global economic downturn and the swine flu outbreak. Border businesses like dental offices and curio shops have been struggling.

But these historic cantinas are irreplaceable, says Tom Miller, a Tucson-based author and longtime denizen of the border.

"They're not a whole lot more than watering holes," he says. "But because of their longevity, and because they're passed down generation to generation, they have become institutionalized. There's a certain aroma that's lost if these three bars die."

For one bar, it's already too late.

A sign taped to the door of the famed Cadillac Bar, which opened in Nuevo Laredo in 1926, says it is "temporarily closed" as of Aug. 1. Nuevo Laredo -- across from Laredo, Texas -- has experienced a new spasm of violence between the Zetas gang and the Gulf cartel. A few months ago, someone tossed a hand grenade into the U.S. consulate.

A parking lot attendant on the corner says he'll be surprised if the Cadillac reopens.

"There's no future now," he says.


Interesting ... speaking of Al Capone ... These places were set up in the twenties in response to the Prohibition of Alcohol. Which means that similar criminal activity was occuring on the US side of the border, especially in places like Laredo Texas. Especially in nightclubs and bars.

Well established crime figures like to set up their kids like they were middle and upper class heroes. They are football stars, get good grades. The Kennedy model.

[ilbegone]

Interesting ... speaking of Al Capone ... These places were set up in the twenties in response to the Prohibition of Alcohol. Which means that similar criminal activity was occuring on the US side of the border, especially in places like Laredo Texas. Especially in nightclubs and bars.

Well established crime figures like to set up their kids like they were middle and upper class heroes. They are football stars, get good grades. The Kennedy model.

You did just as I thought you would. No trip to Texas for you.

Some prohibition era bars in Mexico pay out protection money and pay employees cash or are closed. And there's lots of drug violence in Mexico.

So, what's new?

And not a one of those bars is in Laredo.

Here's your train of thought:

Corruption and violence in Mexico attaches itself to people with Spanish last names -> all people in America with Spanish last names are either illegal aliens or anchor babies -> those same are all barbaric criminals who smuggle cocaine into America and are responsible for hundreds - if not thousands - of dead people in Mexico.

How about JFK's father with the same train of thought?

Joe Kennedy (Edgar Valdez) runs to Ireland (Mexico) allegedly because Massachussetts (Texas) cops are shaking him down for bribe money. Winding up in a Dublin (Mexico City) Jail, Kennedy (Valdez) meets a booze smuggling (drug smuggling) Irish Capo (Mexican Cartel boss Arturo Beltran Leyva) who bribes them both out of jail. Kennedy (Valdez) stays illegally in Ireland (Mexico) and rises to the top of one of several gangster organizations, where he (he) murders indiscriminantly while smuggling booze (smuggling drugs) into the US until he is captured by Irish (Mexican) police.

And everyone in the United States with an Irish (Spanish) last name is either deportable or a mass murderer.

Or you can flip it over, and one of Valdez's bastard children will become president of the United States.


Is that stuff over the counter?


Meanwhile, you still have someone in Texas to harass concerning citizenship.

[Twoller]

The town of Laredo is clearly the key in understanding "La Barbie". Everyone concerned about illegal immigration should know our border towns very well, especially on the southern border and their history too.

Here is Wikipedia's entry on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laredo

And here is some older discussion here at SOS on subjects where Laredo comes up incidentally:

Top Five Most-Crime-Ridden U.S. Judicial Districts All on Mexican Border (http://www.saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=2633&highlight=laredo)

Mexican Troops Arrest Suspect in the Killing of US Consulate Worker (http://www.saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=1619&highlight=laredo)

MECha's Plan: The Plan of San Diego (http://www.saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=1901&highlight=laredo)

[ilbegone]

The town of Laredo is clearly the key in understanding "La Barbie". Everyone concerned about illegal immigration should know our border towns very well, especially on the southern border and their history too.

Here is Wikipedia's entry on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laredo

And here is some older discussion here at SOS on subjects where Laredo comes up incidentally:

Top Five Most-Crime-Ridden U.S. Judicial Districts All on Mexican Border (http://www.saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=2633&highlight=laredo)

Mexican Troops Arrest Suspect in the Killing of US Consulate Worker (http://www.saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=1619&highlight=laredo)

MECha's Plan: The Plan of San Diego (http://www.saveourstate.info/showthread.php?t=1901&highlight=laredo)

It's pretty hard to get worked up on the wiki link with entries like this:

Annual festivals

The Washington's Birthday Celebration (WBCA)[33] is a month long event that celebrates George Washington's Birthday. It was founded in 1898 by the Improved Order of the Red Men, local chapter Yaqui Tribe #59. It is the largest celebration of its kind in the United States, with 400,000 attendees annually. The first celebration was a success, and its popularity grew rapidly; in 1923 it received its state charter. In 1924, the Celebration featured its first Colonial Pageant, which featured 13 young girls from Laredo, representing the 13 original colonies. The celebration includes parades, a carnival, an air show, fireworks, live concerts, and a city-wide prom during which many of Laredo's elite dress in very formal attire. The related Jalapeño Festival is one of the United States' top 10 eating festivals.

Jamboozie is held in late January in downtown Laredo as part of the Washington Birthday Celebrations. Similar to New Orleans' Mardi Gras, the Jamboozie is a colorful event, with many people dressed in beads, masks, and flamboyant outfits.

Edgar Valdez is smart and can fit in, a cunning opportunist.

It's not hard understanding what motivates Valdez. He likes women, the good life, "respect", and the money to buy it all with due to a chance encounter with Arturo Beltran Leyva.

If not for that meeting, he might still be in a Mexican jail waiting for someone to bribe his jailers.

If you want to understand Ted Bundy, you don't profile everyone he went to school with. Same with Valdez.

And if you want to understand a city you've never been to, it's best to go there and hang out for a while. Otherwise you'll just remain stuck in your basement clacking out proclamations and demands over the internet you have no intentions of involving yourself with.