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Los Angeles Times
3 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
How ‘El Diablo,' a corrupt Mexican lawman, helped create a narco-state
MEXICO CITY — By his own admission, the Mexican lawman known as El Diablo — The Devil — supervised a scourge of torture, murder, kidnappings, land grabs and other abuses while amassing a fortune in cartel bribes that bankrolled purchases of homes, cattle and a fleet of buses. Edgar Veytia's transgressions came while he was the top cop in Nayarit, a small Pacific Coast state that evolved from a sleepy backwater to one of Mexico's most violent cartel battlegrounds. Veytia, who honed the public persona of a crusading, pistol-packing prosecutor, brazenly traveled between Mexico and the United States, confident that no one would see beyond his righteous, tough-on-crime facade. 'I didn't think I would be arrested,' Veytia testified later. His sense of invulnerability was shattered on March 27, 2017, when U.S. agents busted Veytia at a border crossing in San Diego. This was no low-level mule who ferried drugs on his person, but a state attorney general who had facilitated cartel smuggling for years. Veytia pleaded guilty in January 2019 to narcotics trafficking. El Diablo, however, knew where the bodies were buried — a knowledge he peddled tirelessly to his U.S. handlers. And when he testified against an even bigger Mexican narco-politician, he secured a get-out-of-jail card — before completing even half of his 20-year U.S. prison sentence. Veytia, 55, was released from prison in Februaryand is currently a free man, residing in the northeastern United States. But now he is facing some of his alleged victims in a singular legal action. Five Nayarit families — among them farmers, small business owners and a former police officer — are suing Veytia in federal court in Washington, D.C., under the Torture Victim Protection Act. The law, passed in 1992, allows civil claims against abusers who, while acting in official capacities for foreign governments, engaged in atrocities anywhere in the world. The Nayarit plaintiffs say they endured torture, death threats and extortion during El Diablo's reign of terror. While Veytia may have paid his dues under U.S. law, they say his mostly anonymous victims in Mexico, some long-ago slain or disappeared, merit a reckoning. 'When the very institutions meant to protect and deliver justice become perpetrators of torture and abuse, they leave citizens with no recourse,' the plaintiffs said in a statement. 'In the face of that abandonment, we came together—as civil society—to resist silence and impunity.' Representing the Nayarit residents — who are seeking unspecified damages — is San Francisco-based Guernica37, a nonprofit organization seeking accountability for global rights abuses. Assisting are pro-bono lawyers and UC Irvine's Civil Rights Litigation Clinic, founded by attorney Paul L. Hoffman, a co-counsel and pioneer in such international actions. Veytia denies the residents' charges. His New York-based lawyer, Alexei Schacht, labels the accusers 'shake-down artists' and 'fraudsters' seeking a big payday. 'Mr. Veytia committed some terrible crimes, but he paid for it in a maximum-security prison and he's trying to turn his life around,' said Schacht. 'It's unfortunate that these people are lying about him.' Whatever the truth, Veytia's history of heinous crimes dramatizes the intractable nexus between Mexican officialdom and the country's ruthless mafias. For decades, the lure of cartel cash has ensnared prosecutors, generals, mayors, governors — and even the country's onetime top law enforcement honcho, Genaro García Luna, against whom Veytia testified in federal court in Brooklyn. That so many corrupt functionaries and cartel capos ultimately face responsibility in the United States — and not in Mexico — underscores a fundamental weakness of the Mexican justice system, observers say. 'It's one more instance of official impunity in Mexico,' said Guillermo Garduño, a researcher at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City. 'Organized crime and many politicians in this country are one and the same. The Veytia case is a very clear example of that, though it's far from the only one.' The Massachusetts-sized state of Nayarit, population 1.2 million, boasts both a tourist-beckoning coast ('The Nayarit Riviera') and a mountainous interior where cultivation of opium poppies and marijuana has long provided a subsistence living for some peasants. Nayarit's location, sandwiched between the drug-trafficking hubs of Sinaloa and Jalisco states, made it prized turf as organized crime syndicates expanded their terrain and embraced new rackets. Violence escalated rapidly in Nayarit, and elsewhere in Mexico, after President Felipe Calderón, with U.S. backing, declared 'war' in 2006 on drug cartels. Gun battles and gang killings convulsed Tepic, Nayarit's volcano-ringed capital, where the homicide rate soon rivaled that of Mexico's hyper-violent border cities. 'There were people hung from bridges,' Veytia testified when asked to describe Tepic in those days. 'There were people who showed up skinned.' And, he added, there was an especially macabre practice, a warning that evoked pozole, the signature Mexican corn and meat stew. 'They were these big tins where they would put dismembered parts like legs, heads,' Veytia said. 'And they would add some corn grains to it, and call it pozole.' Veytia, who attended elementary school in San Diego — he is a joint U.S.-Mexican citizen — arrived in Tepic in the early 1990s, running a transport firm and a jewelry shop, according to his testimony. He says he later earned a law degree. Veytia hitched his fortune to the spurs of the charismatic Roberto Sandoval, a glad-handing pol in a cowboy hat who was elected mayor of Tepic and, in 2011, governor of Nayarit. Sandoval named Veytia to top law enforcement slots in both the capital and the state as the folksy politician amassed illicit riches, according to prosecutors. (Sandoval remains jailed in Mexico on corruption charges, which he denies.). Veytia, a portly figure with a bushy mustache, seemed an unlikely Eliot Ness, but he was credited with reducing violence and hailed as 'the terror of every criminal' in a laudatory corrido, or ballad. In fact, human rights activists say, Veytia crafted a kind of a paz narca, or narco-peace: His legions of corrupt cops didn't mess with Veyta's favored mobsters of the moment — the ones lining his pockets. That guaranteed one gang's dominance. Intra-cartel warfare plummeted, but drug trafficking boomed. From the moment of his arrest, Veytia tried to secure favor by informing on other narcos, and in 2019 he got his big break with the arrest in Texas of García Luna, Mexico's security chief under ex-President Calderón. García Luna was a big fish ready to be fried in Brooklyn. But during his testimony, Veytia recounted his own crimes. During his nine-year law enforcement career, Veytia said, he pocketed about $1 million in kickbacks, along with gifts, including Rolex watches, from traffickers — who dubbed him El Diablo — Veytia admitted being 'responsible' for the murders of 10 'or more' people and the torture of dozens of others utilizing various methods — sometimes electric shocks, sometimes waterboarding. While testifying against García Luna, Veytia dropped a bombshell: He said a former Nayarit governor (not Sandoval) had told him that orders came from then-President Calderón and García Luna to protect the legendary Sinaloa cartel boss, Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán. Calderón, who was never charged in the case, denounced Veytia's testimony as 'an absolute lie.' But a jury in 2023 convicted García Luna of pocketing millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel. He was sentenced to 38 years in prison. A judge halved Veytia's sentence, from 20 to 10 years. When Veytia walked out of prison in February, he had served slightly less than eight years. According to his lawyer, Veytia lost most of his accumulated wealth on legal fees and seizures of properties in Mexico, where prosecutors are seeking his extradition on kidnapping, torture and other charges. The ghosts of crimes past have proved persistent. In the civil lawsuit, Nayarit residents say Veytia tortured them, threatened to kill them and engaged in systematic property theft as he inflamed a statewide 'culture of fear.' Among the plaintiffs are Gerardo Montoya and his wife, Yadira Yesenia Zavala. In June 2016, the couple allege in court papers, cops waylaid them on a road, handcuffed them and drove them to see 'boss Veytia' at a police headquarters in Tepic. According to Montoya, Veytia threatened to kill him unless he turned over a property the couple owned. Montoya said he was beaten so badly that a paramedic was called to check on him. His wife says she was sexually harassed and forced to go home and retrieve the deed. The couple says Veytia forced them to sign away the property. Before he was released, Montoya said, Veytia warned him: 'If you say anything, you're a dead man.' Yuri Disraili Camacho Vega, a former Nayarit state police officer, said he resigned from the force fearing for his life. Camacho said he received death threats after filing a criminal complaint with federal authorities denouncing Veytia's directive ordering police to protect members of an infamous crime family. Upon returning to Nayarit more than a year later to visit his ailing mother, Camacho said he was arrested, accused of driving a stolen vehicle, tortured and jailed. According to Camacho, Veytia demanded that Camacho withdraw his allegations against him — and fork over 1 million pesos, then the equivalent of about $77,000. Camacho said he was severely beaten and subjected to waterboarding, or simulated drowning. If he didn't agree to Veytia's terms, Camacho said he was told, he and his loved ones would be killed. Camacho said his family made the payment and he withdrew the complaint. In court papers, Veytia denies it all. He accused Montoya of being 'a longtime drug trafficker' and called Camacho a 'thoroughly corrupt officer' who worked for the Sinaloa cartel and tried to kill Veytia. Veytia's lawyer, Schacht, said the allegations defy credibility. Recalling how Veytia wielded power in his narco days, Schacht said, 'If my client wanted to torture you, you would be dead.' Special correspondents Cecilia Sánchez Vidal and Liliana Nieto del Río contributed to this report.
Boston Globe
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Former mayor from Haiti sentenced to nine years for visa fraud
During Friday's sentencing, Viliena's attorney, Jason Benzaken, maintained his client's innocence and asked for leniency because it was his first criminal conviction. Benzaken did not respond to a request for comment Friday night. Until his arrest two years ago, Viliena had Advertisement 'Today's sentence brings a measure of justice for the lives he shattered and sends a clear message: the United States will not be a safe haven for human rights abusers.' Viliena was also Advertisement Viliena served as mayor of Les Irois from December 2006 until at least February 2010, Foley's office said. Prosecutors detailed a pattern of violence and intimidation linked to his time in office during the two-week trial that led to his conviction. Both during his campaign and tenure, Viliena committed numerous violent acts backed by Korega, a hardline political faction notorious for attacking journalists, activists, and opponents, the statement said. In 2007, Viliena allegedly led a mob targeting David Boniface, a witness who testified against him. When they found only Boniface's younger brother, Eclesiaste, at home, Viliena and his men shot and killed him. One attacker 'smashed his skull with a large rock before a crowd of bystanders,' the statement said. In 2008, when local activists and journalists launched a community radio station, Viliena and his allies forcibly shut it down. He armed Korega members—some carrying machetes and picks—and personally led the attack, according to the statement. Viliena pistol-whipped and punched one victim, Nissage Martyr, and when Martyr tried to flee, ordered an associate to shoot him. Martyr was hit in the leg and later had it amputated above the knee. Another victim, Juders Ysemé, was shot in the face and left permanently blind in one eye, according to Foley's office. In 2009, as Haitian investigators probed these actions, Viliena fled to Malden on a legal visa. After being indicted in Haiti in 2010, he skipped trial, and no in absentia proceedings occurred, according to a Advertisement Boniface, Martyr, and Ysemé filed the civil suit in 2017 under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows victims to seek justice in U.S. courts when denied in their home countries, Foley's office said. Both Boniface and Ysemé testified at Viliena's criminal trial as well. Boniface broke down on the stand when shown a photo of his brother's bloodied body. 'This is the picture of my brother who Jean Morose and his group assassinated,' he said, speaking in Haitian Creole, the Globe On Friday, Viliena's attorney argued for a lighter sentence for his client. 'Mr. Viliena has never been convicted of a crime and therefore this is his first incarceration,' said Benzaken. 'It has been a jarring and destabilizing experience for him, and 33 months of imprisonment is significantly impactful to him.' The court rejected those arguments. In addition to the nine-year prison term, Viliena was sentenced to three years of supervised release and faces deportation proceedings upon completion of his sentence, according to Foley's office. Rita Chandler can be reached at
The Star
20-06-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Haitian ex-mayor gets nine years in US prison for visa fraud tied to political violence
A poster used as an exhibit in court during former Haitian mayor Jean Morose Viliena's trial is seen in this undated handout image obtained by Reuters on March 28, 2025. U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo BOSTON (Reuters) -A former Haitian mayor was sentenced on Friday to nine years in a U.S. prison after being convicted of illegally obtaining a green card allowing him to reside in the United States by concealing his role in a brutal campaign to kill and torture his political opponents. Jean Morose Viliena, 53, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston after a jury in March found him guilty of committing what prosecutors in court papers said was "the most egregious type of immigration fraud." They had urged Saylor to sentence him to 10 years in prison, saying a lengthy sentence would "provide justice to the survivors and families of the victims who continue to suffer the effects of the defendant's persecution and concealment." Prosecutors charged Viliena with visa fraud a day after a jury in a civil case in 2023 ordered the former mayor of the rural Haitian town of Les Irois to pay $15.5 million to three Haitians who accused him of persecuting them or their families. Viliena, who at the time of his indictment was working as a truck driver and living in Malden, Massachusetts, has maintained his innocence throughout the litigation. He is appealing the civil verdict and can appeal his conviction as well. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. Prosecutors said that in applying for a visa in 2008, Viliena affirmed on a form that he had not "ordered, carried out or materially assisted in extrajudicial and political killings and other acts of violence against the Haitian people." In fact, Viliena, after being elected to a four-year term as mayor of Les Irois in December 2006, personally committed or ordered the maiming, harm, humiliation or death of his adversaries, prosecutors alleged. They said the victims include the three Haitians who pursued the earlier lawsuit, David Boniface, Juders Yseme and Nissage Martyr. That case was filed in 2017 under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows for U.S. lawsuits against foreign officials accused of extrajudicial killings or torture when avenues for redress in their home countries are exhausted. Prosecutors said Viliena in 2007 led a group of armed men to Boniface's home who then beat and fatally shot his brother, and later mobilized a group in 2008 that beat and shot Martyr and Yseme at a community radio station. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
Straits Times
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Haitian ex-mayor gets nine years in US prison for visa fraud tied to political violence
A poster used as an exhibit in court during former Haitian mayor Jean Morose Viliena's trial is seen in this undated handout image obtained by Reuters on March 28, 2025. U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Haitian ex-mayor gets nine years in US prison for visa fraud tied to political violence BOSTON - A former Haitian mayor was sentenced on Friday to nine years in a U.S. prison after being convicted of illegally obtaining a green card allowing him to reside in the United States by concealing his role in a brutal campaign to kill and torture his political opponents. Jean Morose Viliena, 53, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor in Boston after a jury in March found him guilty of committing what prosecutors in court papers said was "the most egregious type of immigration fraud." They had urged Saylor to sentence him to 10 years in prison, saying a lengthy sentence would "provide justice to the survivors and families of the victims who continue to suffer the effects of the defendant's persecution and concealment." Prosecutors charged Viliena with visa fraud a day after a jury in a civil case in 2023 ordered the former mayor of the rural Haitian town of Les Irois to pay $15.5 million to three Haitians who accused him of persecuting them or their families. Viliena, who at the time of his indictment was working as a truck driver and living in Malden, Massachusetts, has maintained his innocence throughout the litigation. He is appealing the civil verdict and can appeal his conviction as well. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. Prosecutors said that in applying for a visa in 2008, Viliena affirmed on a form that he had not "ordered, carried out or materially assisted in extrajudicial and political killings and other acts of violence against the Haitian people." In fact, Viliena, after being elected to a four-year term as mayor of Les Irois in December 2006, personally committed or ordered the maiming, harm, humiliation or death of his adversaries, prosecutors alleged. They said the victims include the three Haitians who pursued the earlier lawsuit, David Boniface, Juders Yseme and Nissage Martyr. That case was filed in 2017 under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows for U.S. lawsuits against foreign officials accused of extrajudicial killings or torture when avenues for redress in their home countries are exhausted. Prosecutors said Viliena in 2007 led a group of armed men to Boniface's home who then beat and fatally shot his brother, and later mobilized a group in 2008 that beat and shot Martyr and Yseme at a community radio station. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Haitian ex-mayor guilty of US visa fraud linked to torture
By Nate Raymond BOSTON (Reuters) - A former Haitian mayor was convicted on Friday of U.S. charges that he had lied about having led a brutal campaign to kill and torture his political opponents in order to secure a green card allowing him to reside in the United States. Jean Morose Viliena, now a lawful permanent U.S. resident who at the time of his indictment in 2023 was working as a truck driver and living in Malden, Massachusetts, was found guilty by a federal jury in Boston of three counts of visa fraud. Prosecutors announced those charges a day after a different jury in a civil case ordered the former mayor of the rural Haitian town of Les Irois to pay $15.5 million to three Haitians who accused him of persecuting them or their families. Viliena, 52, is appealing that earlier verdict and has argued he is innocent. Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor scheduled sentencing for June 20. Viliena's attorney did not respond to a request for comment. Both the criminal and civil case shed a light on the widespread violence that has plagued Haiti. Prosecutors said that in applying for a visa in 2008, Viliena had affirmed on a form that he had not "ordered, carried out or materially assisted in extrajudicial and political killings and other acts of violence against the Haitian people." In fact, Viliena, after being elected to a four-year term as mayor of Les Irois in December 2006, personally committed or ordered the maiming, harm, humiliation or death of his adversaries, prosecutors alleged. They said the victims include the three Haitians who pursued the earlier lawsuit, David Boniface, Juders Yseme and Nissage Martyr. That case was filed in 2017 under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows for U.S. lawsuits against foreign officials accused of extrajudicial killings or torture when avenues for redress in their home countries are exhausted. Prosecutors said Viliena in 2007 led a group of armed men to Boniface's home who then beat and fatally shot his brother, and later mobilized a group in 2008 that beat and shot Martyr and Yseme at a community radio station.
