Latinnews Daily - 5 December 2005

Significance: Cabeza de Vaca is directly contradicting his top anti-drug official, José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who made the accusation after a DVD was shown on the website of the Dallas Morning News. Mexican TV networks then broadcast the "narco video" on 1 and 2 December.

The video showed people torturing four men who described themselves as killers employed by the Gulf drug smuggling gang. At least one of the self-confessed killers was shot during the video. Vasconcelos alleged that federal agents were involved and eight were arrested. Five were released almost immediately.

Cabeza de la Vaca said there was no evidence that any federal agent was involved in the torturing and killing. Vasconcelos had alleged that the federal agents had been freelancing for the bit of the Sinaloa gang headed by the Beltrán Leyva brothers. The Sinaloa gang as whole is run by Joaquí­n "El Chapo" Guzmán who escaped, very easily, from a federal prison in January 2001.

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