“Char” for Borderland Beat
This article was translated and reposted from RIODOCE
WRITTEN BY: MIGUEL ANGEL VEGA
JUNE 3, 2024
From security chief to witness against Ovidio
The extradition of Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas el Nini could have two sides to it, and in both, the US government seems to have total control, because on the one hand, the former Los Chapitos lieutenant is accused of executing several DEA informants and collaborators in 2023, and they want to punish him with the full weight of the law, although the more obvious route is that prosecutors are preparing the ground for a possible trial against Ovidio Guzmán López.
DEA sources told Ríodoce that, although there has been anger for months against El Nini for the collaborators he killed, prosecutors may be focusing on what Perez Salas represents in a possible trial against Chapo Guzman’s son.
“It is clear to me that if they took him (Perez Salas) away in six months, it is because the prosecutors are already beginning to prepare the ground for the upcoming trial, and the indictment is to pressure him to cooperate,” said a DEA agent with knowledge of the case, interviewed in Mexico City.
Just last week Wednesday, U.S. prosecutors deepened the indictment against Perez Salas, in which they specify that El Nini killed Alexander Meza Leon, a DEA informant, on October 28, in addition to ordering the death of seven other individuals with whom the victim had family and work ties, including a 13-year-old minor.
The victims were “kidnapped” from different homes in Culiacán on October 24, 2023, one of them located in the Bosques del Rey subdivision, in the La Conquista sector, and four days later their bodies appeared in one of the streets of the municipality of Tamazula, Durango. Among those deprived of their freedom was a woman, who was released.
According to file number 1:23-cr-00180-KPF, filed in the Southern District of New York, El Nini killed and ordered those executions, and from that moment on, DEA agents in Mexico began an investigation until they gathered enough evidence to accuse Los Chapitos’ lieutenant.
“I was not in charge of that investigation, because we are several teams investigating the same criminal, but I imagine that the agents who had the contact were affected, because when you make a pact with a collaborator, he is afraid that he will be discovered and you take all the decisions you can imagine and try to protect him, but we all have in mind that sometimes things can get out of control,” said the agent interviewed.
Mike Vigil, former head of special operations of the DEA, and who also had a series of contacts with collaborators and informants of that agency, agreed that it is difficult for them to affect a collaborator, and that it is too obvious that the extradition, carried out in record time, is to have all possible evidence against Ovidio Guzman, because of the great pressure that exists in the United States to punish those who traffic fentanyl, due to the number of deaths it has caused in that country.
“It would be a huge failure if they try Ovidio and lose the case, that’s why they need to gather hard evidence against Ovidio, and who else but the Nini, who knew Ovidio and the rest of his brothers, knows his activities, and the whole criminal organization,” said Vigil.
Both sources consulted indicated that, if El Nini were integrated into a protected witness program, the United States would forget about Perez Salas’ crimes, and instead would become pure gold in a trial against El Raton, because of all the information he has, And because he is not a capo like Dámaso López Serrano el Minilic or his father Dámaso López Núñez, el Licenciado, because although both are integrated into the protected witness program and would be willing to face Ovidio Guzmán, el Nini is the one who would bury el Ratón.
“Perhaps for many it is imperceptible, but we see that his (Nini’s) extradition is part of a strategy that has been prepared since before Ovidio was taken,” said the DEA agent, who agreed to speak to this reporter in exchange for anonymity.
Ovidio’s next preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 17 at 9:45 a.m., according to official court documents from the Southern District of New York.
During the hearing held in New York on Thursday, May 30, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking, murder, kidnapping, firearms and money laundering charges and will return to the dock on September 5.
US authorities also accuse him of murdering and ordering the death of several DEA collaborators, for which, if found guilty, he could face life imprisonment.
El Nini was arrested on November 22, 2023 in a house in the Lomas de la Rivera neighborhood, north of Culiacán, where several soldiers arrived and surrounded the place. They later detained him when he tried to flee through the roof. During the operation, no armed group attempted to rescue him.
Luis Cresencio Sandoval, Secretary of National Defense, stated that El Nini ordered the aggressions against the housing unit of military families during the first Culiacanazo, on October 17, 2019, to pressure for the release of Ovidio Guzmán.
From the arrest of Perez Salas until his extradition last May 25, barely six months passed.
Article published on June 02, 2024 in the 1114th edition of the weekly magazine
JUSTICE FOR JESÚS ALBERTO CHAIDEZ BELTRAN 13 YEAR-OLD MURDERED BY ‘EL NINI’ ‘EL 19’
