La Barbie Planned To Kidnap The President Of The Electoral Tribunal After AMLO Lost The 2006 Election.

Mica for cartelinsider.com

A new “bomb” has hit the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador like a cold shower after it was revealed on Tuesday that operatives from the Sinaloa Cartel allegedly injected 2 million dollars into the campaign of the Tabasco-born candidate when he first ran for the presidency in 2006.

However, the revelations made by journalist Tim Golden of the independent media ProPublica also reveal that the drug trafficker Édgar Valdez Villarreal, alias “La Barbie”, not only participated in the meetings to agree on the financing, but also planned to kidnap the President of the Electoral Tribunal at that time when the PAN candidate, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, was declared the winner over López Obrador.

Before his election as president of Mexico in 2018, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) discovered evidence that major drug traffickers had contributed approximately 2 million dollars to the first presidential campaign of AMLO.

According to interviews conducted by ProPublica with more than a dozen US and Mexican officials, as well as a review of government documents, it is believed that this money was destined for campaign assistants in exchange for future facilities in criminal operations under the potential administration of the then-candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). However, the investigation failed to establish whether López Obrador approved or was even aware of these alleged donations.

According to the aforementioned source, DEA agents considered that they had an extraordinary internal source after arresting Roberto López Nájera, a lawyer who would have represented “La Barbie”, and who was a protected witness under the identity of “Jennifer”.

In order to avoid federal prison, the detainee provided a detailed account of cash donations from drug traffickers, which he claimed to have helped deliver. He also secretly recorded conversations with Nicolás Mollinedo Bastar, a close collaborator of López Obrador, who, according to the operation, was involved in the scheme.

However, some authorities considered that the evidence was not strong enough to justify the risks of a large-scale undercover operation in Mexico.

According to ProPublica’s investigation, among the individuals who participated in the negotiation were Nicolás Molinero and other collaborators of AMLO who were involved in the negotiations; Mauricio Soto Caballero, a businessman and political operator accused of receiving and distributing drug money for the campaign; Sergio Villarreal Barragán, “El Grande”, former state police officer and one of the lieutenants of “La Barbie”.

Another one of the key characters mentioned is Francisco León García, known as Pancho León, son of a mining businessman who at that time was launching his own candidacy for the Mexican Senate as a representative of the leftist alliance. León is mentioned in the investigation as one of the figures who organized a meeting in January 2006 with drug traffickers at a hotel in the tourist center of Nuevo Vallarta, on the Pacific coast.

During this meeting, which also involved other businessmen and drug traffickers, León allegedly presented the financing proposal and the benefits that the drug traffickers would have.

Therefore, the role of León in these negotiations was to act as a bridge, proposing and facilitating agreements that would benefit both parties if López Obrador won the elections.

This agreement included the possibility for traffickers to influence the election of police commanders in key areas and ensured that the president would not appoint an attorney general adverse to them.

The 2006 presidential elections in Mexico ended with an extremely narrow difference in the results. Felipe Calderón was declared the winner by a margin of less than one percentage point over Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Calderón Hinojosa won by approximately 0.56 percent, which in terms of votes translated to around 240,000 difference. This close result was accompanied by controversies and accusations of irregularities in the electoral process.

When AMLO did not win the 2006 presidential elections, the reaction of Édgar Valdez Villarreal was rage. According to informant Roberto López Nájera, “La Barbie” felt betrayed after the election results declared Felipe Calderón as the winner by a narrow margin.

In response, “La Barbie” devised an improvised plan to kidnap the president of the Electoral Tribunal, at that time Leonel Castillo González, with the goal of forcing him to reverse the election results.

A convoy of armed men was sent to carry out the kidnapping, but they had to retreat upon finding that the area was protected by troops from the Army.

After this event, and despite insisting that he was the legitimate winner of the elections, Lopez Obrador organized a massive protest in Mexico City, during which La Barbie supposedly donated funds to support the demonstrators.

The sit-in on Paseo de la Reforma began on July 30, 2006. This manifestation of discontent, characterized by the establishment of camps along one of the most important avenues of the capital, lasted approximately 47 days, concluding on September 14, 2006.

At the end of 2011, DEA agents proposed a trap in which they would offer $5 million in alleged drug money to operatives working in the second presidential campaign of López Obrador. However, officials from the Department of Justice closed the investigation, in part due to concerns that even a successful accusation would be seen by Mexicans as an unacceptable interference by the United States in their political affairs.

Since taking office in December 2018, after winning on his third attempt to reach power, López Obrador has led a notable shift in the fight against drugs, focusing on social programs to combat the sources of criminality instead of direct confrontations with criminals. However, with police and military forces generally avoiding confrontations with major drug trafficking groups, these mafias have extended their influence throughout Mexico.

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Mica

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