Word: beltr
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...shrapnel-ridden apartment to snap photos of the corpse late into Wednesday night. The graphic images of the bullet-ridden 51-year-old man, clothes hanging off and hands grasping religious beads, were soon plastered across the Internet alongside triumphant declarations from Mexican officials. The marines had shot Arturo Beltrán Leyva, or "The Beard," one of the bloodiest and most powerful drug traffickers in Latin America, they said. This death, they claimed, marked a major victory in the war against the drug cartels that are wreaking havoc south of the Rio Grande. "This is a crushing strike against...
There is little doubt that Beltrán Leyva was a bona fide kingpin and a genuine threat to the Mexican security services. Born in a rough-hewn village of the northern Sierra Madre, he was alleged to have been trafficking heroin and marijuana since the 1980s. As Mexican cartels grew in power, drug agents say, he forged a smuggling empire stretching from the jungles of Colombia to the avenues of New York City. He is alleged to have masterminded the killing of hundreds who stood in his way, including federal police chief Edgar Millan, who was shot dead...
However, some agents worry that the reins of this smuggling empire may now be taken over by Beltrán Leyva's feared chief of hit men, Edgar Valdez, 36, a Texas-born fugitive known as "The Barbie" because of his blond hair. Mexican officials allege that Valdez was behind the videotaped torture and killing of a rival gangster in Acapulco in 2005. Similar to an al-Qaeda propaganda film, the video triggered a wave of copycat movies posted on the Internet, raising the stakes in the Mexican drug war. Such a figure could unleash even more carnage...
Alternatively, there is concern that the demise of "The Beard" may strengthen the hand of his top rival, Joaquín "El Chapo (Shorty)" Guzmán, the most wanted man in Mexico. Reputed to have been childhood friends in the mountains, Guzmán and Beltrán Leyva were alleged to have trafficked together for decades before turning into deadly enemies in 2008. The subsequent turf war left hundreds of dead bodies, including Guzmán's 22-year old son Edgar, on the streets of their native state of Sinaloa. The death of Beltrán Leyva...
There are also questions about how the nature of Beltrán Leyva's end will affect the drug war. Back in the 1980s and '90s, key Mexican kingpins were arrested peacefully by police officers. However, amid the militarization of the conflict under Calderón, the armed forces conduct most major detentions. In the operation to nab Beltrán Leyva, hundreds of marines swept on an apartment building in the spa city of Cuernavaca, an hour's drive from the capital. A two-hour battle ensued, involving grenades and mounted machine guns, before the drug lord, five...