Business Behind Bars

Hole of Justice

By Peter G. Jimenea

Business Behind Bars

 

“In underworld business, there are betrayals, swindling, double cross and cut-throat competition. But criminals have no way to approach the Court of law for the settlement of differences. Here, death is the most logical solution to all judicial problems.”

On April 29, 2015, an inmate (name withheld to protect the family) at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in Ungka District Jail at Jaro, Iloilo City, was reported to have committed suicide inside his cell.

Three days later, May 3, 2015, another inmate in the same compound was also reported to have committed suicide. But the autopsy report of the medico legal revealed otherwise, the two prisoners are victims of foul play. Other than traces of torture, one has a punctured wound on the head.

The two victims are facing drug charges and one is on schedule for hearing the next day. There were signs of torture in their bodies and worse, they were found positive of drugs during autopsy. Parents of the victims are asking justice but to date no inmate cooperates.

We cannot discount the possibility that the two victims have unpaid debts while still outside to the supplier of their vices. People hooked-on-drugs will always find ways to provide their addicted bodies with drugs and other substance to satisfy the need.

This reminds me of the arrest of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman of the dreaded Sinaloa Cartel on February 2015, in Northern Mexico. The powerful Mexican drug lord faces multiple indictments in the US Court. But until now Pres. Barack Obama has not yet requested his extradition.

The Sinaloa Cartel displaced the Carrillo Fuentes criminal organization in Ciudad Juárez. The court papers identify Gabino Salas Valenciano as El Chapo’s man who ran the cartel’s business in Ciudad Juárez. His job was to hire arms dealers, drug traffickers and assassins in the U.S. to eliminate clients who will not pay their debts.

On August 5, 2009, at Sierra Blanca, Texas inspection station, agents stopped two persons with trailer containing 303.9 kilos of marijuana. It was learned that a 30 year-old Sergio Saucedo owned them and was trying to smuggle from Mexico.

A month later, on September 3, a group of masked gunmen from the U.S.–broke into a house in Horizon City, in the suburbs of El Paso, and kidnapped Saucedo in a maroon-colored Ford Expedition. It is widely believed that El Chapo ordered the kidnapping.

Five days later after his kidnapping, on September 8, 2009, Saucedo’s body was found on the banks of the Rio Grande river semi-nude, with signs of torture and with cut-off hands placed over his chest, a sign of not-paying-debts.

A suspect in the kidnapping case when arrested eventually revealed that Saucedo had stolen more than 600 pounds of marijuana from the drug lord. It was Salas Valenciano, El Chapo’s man in Ciudad Juárez, who paid them $250,000 to deliver Saucedo.

El Chapo like other kingpins in the underworld business has a nice way to deliver his message. Through his man Salas Valenciano who ran the cartel business in Ciudad Juárez, they made their rule known to the underworld – “TILL DEBT DO US PART.”