Mica for cartelinsider.com
A recent investigation published by Tim Golden in ProPublica and Anabel Hernández in DW revealed the suspicions held by the United States government regarding an apparent collaboration between the Sinaloa Cartel and Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) team for his 2006 presidential campaign.
According to testimonies collected by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office of the Southern District of New York and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), members of the faction led by Arturo Beltrán Leyva allegedly met with people close to the politician from Tabasco to negotiate illicit financing in exchange for protection and political influence.
Presumably, the first meeting took place at a luxurious hotel in Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit, at the end of 2005. According to investigations, among the representatives of López Obrador who met with Édgar Valdez Villarreal, alias ‘La Barbie’, was Héctor Francisco León García, better known as ‘Pancho León’.
At that time, ‘Pancho León’ was a declared candidate for the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) for the mayorship of Gómez Palacio, Durango, the municipality where he was born. Previously, he had missed out on obtaining a senate seat in Coahuila.
In addition to his political calling, what made ‘Pancho León’ a widely recognized figure in the region was the marble mining company that he owned, which he inherited from his grandfather.
The information obtained from DEA witnesses suggests that ‘Pancho León’ may have been present at another meeting in Mexico City with Roberto López Nájera – financial operator for the Beltrán Leyva, businessman Emilio Dipp Jones, and Mauricio Soto Caballero, a politician close to AMLO.
According to reports, the criminal organization would have contributed between two and four million dollars to López Obrador’s campaign and part of that money would have been used by ‘Pancho León’ for one of the most important events of the presidential candidate.
On June 15, 2006, AMLO appeared at Río Balsas, Coahuila, for one of his campaign closures. Reports indicated that ‘Pancho León’ managed to gather thousands of people and succeeded in having La Arrolladora Banda Limón participate in the rally.
León García did not obtain any of the positions he aspired to and in 2007 he disappeared along with two other people. Data gathered by the Observatory on Disappearance and Impunity in Mexico (ODIM) states that on February 21 of that year, ‘Pancho León’, his cousin José Ángel Esparza León and Daniel Cantú Iris were traveling to a mine in Paredón, Coahuila.
Around nine in the morning, they left Saltillo aboard a Chevrolet Avalanche truck in a sand color, but they never made it to their destination. On February 26th, the families of Daniel and ‘Pancho León’ filed the corresponding reports for their disappearance. As of the date of this publication, the whereabouts of the three are still unknown.
Thanks for reading!
Mica
Email: mica@cartelinsider.com
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