Mexican social services official accused of trafficking babies
Jose Hernandez (left) and Vladimir Azarte both stand accused of selling stolen babies.
Maria Garcia has not seen her daughter since Mexico’s social services took her away over three years ago. The same social services branch has now been implicated in a baby-trafficking scandal, prompting fears her child could have been sold to another family.
“I don’t know if they sold her or what happened,” she told The Independent. “I just want my daughter back.”
Authorities in the northern Mexican state of Sonora, which borders Arizona in the United States, announced this week they have recovered three babies from the child-trafficking ring but are still searching for the culprits and at least nine more missing children. The case has led several mothers to come forward and complain that local officials unfairly stripped them of their children.
The prime suspect is Vladimir Arzate, the 30-year-old deputy legal director at the local branch of Mexico’s family welfare agency, the DIF. Now a fugitive, Mr. Arzate stands accused of stealing 12 babies from vulnerable young mothers over a period of several years and selling them for adoption at about £3,100 to £5,800 each…
The Guadalajara Geopolitics Podcast
I was kindly invited to appear on the Guadalajara Geopolitics Podcast this week to discuss the war on drugs, corruption, forced disappearances and journalism in Mexico. The podcast is presented by Hrvoje Moric, a humanities professor at the Guadalajara campus of the prestigious Tec de Monterrey university. You can listen via Soundcloud (above) or Youtube (below). Comments or questions are always welcome!
Mexican cartels laundered money at vaginal clinic and hotel favored by Hollywood stars
Mexican authorities shut down Hotelito Desconocido after the US government warned that it was being used to launder drug money.
What does an upmarket clinic for vaginal surgery in the Mexican city of Guadalajara have in common with a luxury beach hotel frequented by major Hollywood stars?
Both have been used to launder illicit profits on behalf of two of Mexico’s wealthiest and most powerful drug cartels, according to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Gary Oldham and Blake Lively are among the celebrities who may have inadvertently given their money to violent drug traffickers, according to reports that they stayed at the secluded Hotelito Desconocido on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
Likewise, the women who paid for vaginal rejuvenation or g-spot augmentation at Dilava, a gynaecological clinic located in one of Guadalajara’s most expensive private hospitals, may also have unknowingly helped criminal gangs to launder drug money…
Click here to read this article in full at Latin Correspondent.
The Tequila Files 