Édgar Valdez Villarreal
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Édgar Valdez Villarreal (born 1973), alias "La Barbie", is a criminal Mexican-American. Edgar Valdez Villareal, nicknamed "La Barbie" because of his white complexion and his appearance, is a Mexican drug trafficker, known for having been bloodthirsty, cruel and reckless, and one of the protagonists of the bloody war between drug cartels.
Beginnings edit
Born in United States of Mexican origin, he attended United High School, where he received, from his American Football coach, the nickname "La barbie" (due to his white skin, hair blond and light eyes related to the Ken Carson of the doll Barbie).
Valdez's first arrest came at age 19 in Texas; he was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide for allegedly hitting a middle school counselor with his truck. He became a marijuana dealer on the streets of Laredo while he was still in high school. Valdez Villarreal, turned down his father's offer to finance a college education in order to focus on his business, and was soon indicted on marijuana distribution charges. He fled to Mexico to avoid capture, where he joined the Beltrán Leyva brothers - partners at the time of Joaquin "el chapo" Guzman, in the Sinaloa federation, he quickly rose through the ranks due to his connections in the United States, his ability to recruit police, military etc. to put themselves at the service of the organization and his friendship with Marcos Arturo Beltrán-Leyva, alias "el barbas" head of said cartel who was killed by the police on December 16, 2009. Reports from the DEA add that at the end of 2004, "La Barbie" began a fight for control of the plaza against the "Los Zetas" group, the armed wing of the Gulf cartel. In particular, through the Nuevo Laredo plaza, a border territory in which there are 7,000 daily crossings into the United States according to data from the PGR, and only 10 percent can be reviewed. This makes the place one of the most desired by human smugglers and traffickers after Tijuana-San Diego, a border area where up to 50,000 vehicles cross per day. Intelligence reports affirm that "La Barbie" became a key piece in the battles that "El Chapo" Guzmán started against "Los Zetas", the protective encirclement of the Gulf cartel. He also waged a tough fight for control of the port of Acapulco this with great success
Los Negros edit
It was a criminal paramilitary unit of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel in Mexico. Los Negros were formed to confront the operations of the Gulf Cartel and its armed wing Los Zetas, but after the breakup of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel with the Sinaloa Cartel, the Negros allied themselves with the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. The criminal group is led by Edgar Valdez Villarreal "La Barbie" and supervised by the Sánchez brothers in Mexico they have also used gangs such as the Mexican Mafia and MS-13 to carry out assassinations and other illegal activities. The group was involved in fighting the Zetas in the Nuevo Laredo region for control of the drug trafficking corridor.
Its area of operations began in Tamaulipas, and later expanded its influence to Nuevo León and the states of Coahuila. Its operations have also been observed in San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, Michoacán, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Morelos and Sonora.
Arrest edit
On August 30 of 2010, he was arrested by the Federal Police in a country house located in Cañada de Alferes, near the town of Salazar.
La Barbie, in addition to facing several charges for drug trafficking and homicide in Mexico, is required by the United States government to face three trials for drug distribution.
His father-in-law Carlos Montemayor González and presumably his successor in the cartel structure was arrested in Mexico City on Tuesday November 23 of 2010 .
In October 2011 it was announced that Édgar Valdez Villareal has been on a hunger strike since September 26 of that year, in protest at the alleged way in which he is treated. La Barbie denounced the conditions in which he finds himself inside the Altiplano Prison, where he is confined to a small cell and without opportunities to exercise.
By November 27, 2012, with the help of his lawyer, they handed over to Grupo Reforma (daily newspapers El Norte, Reforma, Mural)
On June 11 of 2018 the sentence was handed down to Valdez Villareal, which includes a sentence of 49 years, one month and 192 million dollars.