Alleged DEA document could prove there were meetings between drug cartels and former Mexican President Felipe Calderon
In a special report for the website Aristegui Noticias on Thursday, journalist Anabel Hernández - author of several books on the history of the drug war in Mexico - revealed that Edgar Valdez Villarreal, aka "La Barbie," was a DEA and FBI informant from 2008 to 2010, when he was arrested in one of Mexico City's upscale neighborhoods. In 2012, the former member of the Beltrán Leyva cartel and founder of the La Union Tepito cartel in Mexico City, delivered a letter to Hernández implicating former President Felipe Calderon in meetings with drug traffickers.
"In the letter published on November 28, 2012 in the Reforma newspaper, Valdez Villarreal states that President Felipe Calderón himself was leading meetings with drug traffickers. Information that he surely shared with the DEA and the FBI at that time," reads the investigation by the author of Narcoland.
Edgar Valdez Villarreal aka La Barbie at the time of his detention in Mexico City.
A court document filed in the Northern District Court of Atlanta, Georgia, reveals that between 2008 and 2010 the drug lord gave sensitive information to the DEA's San Antonio office, the FBI's McAllen office, and the FBI's offices located in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico through a third party.
In addition to confirming the dealings between Genaro García Luna, Calderón's security secretary currently detained for drug trafficking in New York, with the Sinaloa Cartel, the journalist reported on Valdez Villarreal's activities during Calderón's six-year term (2006-2012), when the war on drugs began and homicide and violence levels increased throughout the country.
"In La Barbie's cooperation with the U.S. government, he revealed the corruption of high-ranking officials in the Mexican government and how they shared sensitive information with the Sinaloa Cartel and the Beltrán Leyva Cartel, among others," Hernández said.
"He witnessed corrupt officials from the government of Felipe Calderon hand over to the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Beltrán Leyva the identity, photographs, and locations of DEA agents working undercover in various parts of the Mexican territory, putting their lives at risk. In the document, the U.S. government acknowledges that this information helped protect the lives of its agents".