“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
Jesús Héctor Palma Salazar, identified as the founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, sent three letters to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in one of them, in the hands of Proceso, informing him that he is a victim of corruption inside the Federal Center for Social Readaptation number 1 “El Altiplano”.
In the letter, which consists of four letter-sized pages written in his own handwriting and stamped “Presidency of the Republic. Atención Ciudadana”, dated November 17, 2022, Palma Salazar explains to the president that he is appealing to him since he has said on several occasions that there are “inmates in prison who don’t have the money to buy their freedom”.
He also reminds the president that “he emphasizes that there is no more corruption in his government”. However, Palma, 62 years old, claims to be a victim of corruption, “the same corruption that you (president) have insisted to fight and banish”.
He details that officials from “different institutions” asked him for a astronomical amount in exchange for his freedom, and even visited his family in his homeland, Sinaloa, to collect the money.
They even offered his family “payment facilities to cover the amount,” which would be in dollars.
In the letter, “Güero” Palma mentions that he has spent 27 years in prison, where in addition to “paying for my guilt”, he lost his health and loved ones, without forgetting that he has been subjected to torture.
Questions to AMLO
In the letter, Palma Salazar asks six questions to the president. The following stand out: “Aren’t the years in prison that I have lived through enough to pay for the mistakes committed in the past?”; “Doesn’t our country’s social reinsertion system work?”; “Can the corrupting instinct of a group of public officials do more?”.
Letter sent by “Güero” Palma to the president.
Palma reiterates that “there is no crime, as they try to make it seem, fabricating crimes against me, making me the victim of perverse accusations, whose purpose is to obtain money that I do not have, crimes that I did not commit, for which I shouldn’t have to pay”.
He ends his letter pointing out that the extortionists are active officials of the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic, and that he hopes that his complaint will be attended to.
The accusations of extortion that he made in the letter were made public before a judge during the hearing of May 10, which was postponed until June 1.