Friday, January 8, 2016

El Chapo, Escaped Drug Lord, Has Been Recaptured, Mexican President Says

 

By AZAM AHMEDJAN. 8, 2016

The drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, also known as El Chapo, in a photo released on Friday by the office of the Mexican Attorney General. Credit Office of the Mexican Attorney General

MEXICO CITY — Nearly six months after his escape from a maximum-security prison in Mexico, the drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera, also known as El Chapo, has been arrested by the Mexican authorities, President Enrique Peña Nieto announced Friday.

  • The arrest came after an intense gun battle this morning in the city of Los Mochis, a seaside area in Mr. Guzmán’s home state of Sinaloa.

“Mission Accomplished: We have him,” read the announcement from Mr. Peña Nieto. “I would like to inform the Mexican people that Joaquín Guzmán Loera has been detained.”

The mission began shortly before 5 a.m. Friday, after an anonymous tip came in from a citizen concerned about armed men in a nearby home.

The authorities went to the house, where they were fired upon. The operation was conducted by Mexico’s most-trusted military wing, the Marines, which captured Mr. Guzmán in early 2014, before his escape last July.

It is unclear whether the government knew Mr. Guzmán was in Los Mochis, or whether his capture was a fortunate coincidence. Orso Ivan Gastelum Cruz, a leader of Mr. Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel, managed to escape, the Navy said, in the first indication that the gun battle involved high-ranking members of the cartel.

The capture of the fugitive drug lord concludes a deeply embarrassing chapter for the government of Mr. Peña Nieto, which has been waylaid by a series of security and corruption scandals that reached their low point with Mr. Guzmán’s daring escape.

Mr. Guzmán stunned the world last summer when he stepped into the shower in his cell — in the most secure wing of one of the most secure prisons in Mexico — and abruptly vanished in full view of a video camera. When guards entered the cell, they discovered a small hole in the shower floor, through which Mr. Guzmán had disappeared.

The opening in the shower led to a mile-long tunnel to a construction site. The tunnel was more than two feet wide and more than five feet high, tall enough for Mr. Guzmán to walk through standing upright — his nickname translates to Shorty — and was burrowed more than 30 feet underground.

It had been equipped with lighting, ventilation and a motorcycle on rails. Some engineers estimated that the tunnel took more than a year and at least $1 million to build.

The prison break humiliated the government of Mr. Peña Nieto, which had proclaimed the arrest of Mr. Guzmán and leaders of other drug cartels as crucial achievements in restoring order and sovereignty to a country long beleaguered by the horrific violence associated with organized crime.

It was particularly embarrassing because Mr. Guzmán had already escaped from prison before, in 2001, when his conspirators managed to smuggle him out. By some accounts, he escaped by hiding in a laundry bin.

There are still major questions looming, including the potential extradition of Mr. Guzmán to the United States.

Shortly after Mr. Guzmán was captured in 2014, the attorney general of Mexico at the time refused to extradite him to the United States, saying that the criminal would serve his time in Mexico first before he was sent to another country.

Officials and analysts said it was an effort to show sovereignty and put some distance between the Mexican authorities and their American counterparts, who often used a heavy hand to influence policy in Mexico.

But that stance came to haunt the Peña Nieto administration after the kingpin escaped. The United States had issued a formal request for his extradition less than three weeks before Mr. Guzmán broke out.

The Drug Enforcement Administration issued a statement via Twitter on the arrest Friday, saying the agency was pleased with Mr. Guzmán’s capture and congratulating the Mexican government.

While the likelihood of Mr. Guzmán escaping from an American maximum security prison is considered low, extradition would come at a cost to the image of the Mexican state, some analysts say.

“Extraditing him is a way to say we cannot cope with this with our own institutions,” said Pablo A. Piccato, a history professor at Columbia University. “While this is something everyone knows, obviously the government has not been able to publicly recognize this or tackle it in the past.”

Many analysts suspected that after his latest escape, Mr. Guzmán would hide-out in the mountains of his native Sinaloa state, where passage in and out of the area is monitored by young men driving four-wheelers and local communities revere the cartel leader as something of a Robin Hood figure.

In October, security forces said they had located Mr. Guzmán in the remote northwestern mountains where he had been hiding out, an area known as the Golden Triangle at the border of his home state of Sinaloa, Durango and Chihuahua.

But the authorities ultimately found Mr. Guzmán in Los Mochis, a coastal town of about 250,000 people that has long been known as a center of boxing in Mexico.

In the aftermath of Mr. Guzmán’s escape last July, American officials were frustrated with what they considered Mexico’s resistance to accepting help in the manhunt. In the days after his escape, American officials offered to give their Mexican counterparts whatever assistance they could.

When the offer was rebuffed, many analysts as well as Mexican and American officials worried that it would mean Mr. Guzmán would never be caught.

Interesting FOIA and Open Meetings Act facts

The following are few of the interesting facts supplied by Ancel Glink & Associates, Attorneys at law.    at:  http://www.ancelglink.com/Resource

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Mitsubishi, taxing bodies reach terms on plant's value

 

This Normal, Illinois plant was built by a joint partnership with Chrysler and is very similiar in design to the original Belvidere Assembly plant.  This is  what happens to RE taxes when a plant is closed with no apparent buyer.

  • By Derek Beigh dbeigh@pantagraph.com
    NORMAL — Mitsubishi Motors North America and McLean County taxing bodies have come to terms for the taxable value for the automaker's Normal manufacturing facilities.

Mitsubishi will accept an equalized assessed value of $5.9 million for its plant at 100 Mitsubishi Parkway and $1.1 million for its warehouse at 2601 W. College Ave., according to stipulations filed with the county on Wednesday.

A final agreement is pending. It will specify those values are valid for two years and three years, respectively, said Dry Grove Township Supervisor Jim Phillips.

The values fall between the properties' current EAVs — $7.5 million and $1.8 million, respectively — and Mitsubishi's requests of $5.3 million and $833,000, based on an appraisal.

Taxing bodies could lose about $195,000 per year. Some of that loss is likely to be passed on to taxpayers through higher tax rates.

The company asked to lower the EAV of its Normal facilities effective Jan. 1, 2015, because of the plant's upcoming closure. Vehicle production ceased in November, and the facility will shut down in May.

Normal-based McLean County Unit 5 schools, Heartland Community College, Dry Grove Township and the township's road district intervened in the reassessment.

The county's Board of Review held a hearing on the subject Dec. 15, and a decision was expected to be released within three weeks of that date.

“We had to weigh the cost of an agreement against the cost of getting our own appraisal; … litigating through the (state-level) Property Tax Appeal Board and possibly the courts; and the risk that we would not have ended up with a better result than what we agreed to,” said Curt Richardson, director of human resources and attorney for Normal-based schools.

Unit 5 stood to lose about $150,000 per year if Mitsubishi's appraisal proposal was accepted. That amount stands to be reduced to $115,000 in the agreement, using the district's 2014 tax rate.

Heartland could lose $11,000, or $4,000 less. Other taxing bodies affected include the town of Normal and McLean County. Normal stands to lose $64,000, or $21,000 less, and McLean County $64,000, or $20,000 less.

Officials with those three agencies said the losses are unfortunate but won't significantly affect their bottom lines.

For Dry Grove Township, “it’ll be a 10-year process before this is completely resolved,” said Phillips. The township could dip into reserves or raise its tax rate to offset a $10,000 annual loss.

“We would have lost approximately $30,000 a year (total for both taxing bodies)," he said. "Unit 5 looks at it as three teachers or four teachers, and I’m looking at it as losing my entire workforce."

By the time the warehouse's agreement expires at the end of 2017, Mitsubishi will be finished paying property taxes on it through a lease, Phillips said. The property is owned by HSA Commercial Inc., a Chicago-based real estate company, according to property records. 

Phillips said he hopes Mitsubishi can sell the plant before that property's agreement expires at the end of this year. A task force of state and local officials has been looking for a buyer since the closure was announced in July.

If it remains vacant," Phillips said, "we’ll be back at the table again."

Mitsubishi declined to comment on this report.

Rauner implements merit pay for some workers; AFSCME opposed

CHICAGO (AP) — Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration is outlining a new compensation system for state workers that includes merit pay and bonuses for employees who save taxpayers money.

General counsel Jason Barclay says the administration is implementing the system for members of 17 labor unions that signed new collective bargaining agreements last year.

In a memo to state agency directors, Barclay says the Republican governor has offered a similar compensation package to Illinois' largest state-employee union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Above is from:  http://www.pantagraph.com/ap/state/rauner-implements-merit-pay-for-some-workers-afscme-opposed/article_59013266-ad5c-5e2a-8882-602c88829d80.html