"El Chapo" Named World's Most Powerful Drug Trafficker

The U.S. Treasury Department called Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman "the world's most powerful drug trafficker" Tuesday. The fugitive Sinaloa cartel leader also got a boost from Mexican actress Kate Del Castillo, who said she believed in Guzman more than in the government.

It was the latest in an odd series of encomiums for Guzman, who was included this year on the Forbes list of the world's richest people, with an estimated fortune of $1 billion.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City issued a statement saying three of Guzman's alleged associates had been hit with sanctions under the drug Kingpin Act, which prohibits people in the U.S. from conducting businesses with them and freezes their U.S. assets. The two Mexican men and a Colombian allegedly aided Guzman's trafficking operations.

The statement quoted Adam J. Szubin, director of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, as saying the move "marks the fourth time in the past year that OFAC has targeted and exposed the support structures of the organization led by Chapo Guzman, the world's most powerful drug trafficker."

Guzman, who escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001 in a laundry truck and has a $7 million bounty on his head, has long been recognized as Mexico's most powerful drug capo. Authorities say his Sinaloa cartel has recently been expanding abroad, building international operations in Central and South America and the Pacific.

Del Castillo, who played a female drug trafficker in the TV series "La Reina del Sur" ("Queen of the South"), offered grudging praise for Guzman in a posting Tuesday on the social media site Twextra, linked to her Twitter account.

"Today, I believe more in El Chapo Guzman than in the governments who hide truths from me," she wrote.

The actress did not specify whether she was referring to the Mexican government, or what she meant when she accused "governments" of "hiding the cures for cancer, AIDS, etc. for their own benefit and enrichment."

Del Castillo's publicist, Marianne Sauvage, confirmed in an email to The Associated Press that the actress wrote the posting, and that the account belonged to Del Castillo.

The 800-word posting ended with an impassioned plea to Guzman:"Mr. Chapo, wouldn't it be great if you started trafficking with positive things? With cures for diseases, with food for street children, with alcohol for old people's homes so they spend their final days doing whatever they like, trafficking with corrupt politicians and not with women and children who wind up as slaves?"

"Go ahead, dare to, sir, you would be the hero of heroes, let's traffick with love, you know how," the message concluded.

Also Tuesday, Mexican authorities said they had seized 32.6 metric tons of a precursor chemical used to make methamphetamines at the Pacific coast port of Manzanillo.

Mexico's navy said the chemical methylamine came in a shipment from China, but did not say whether Manzanillo was the final destination of the shipment. Mexico seized almost 675 metric tons of the chemical at sea ports in December alone, all of which was destined for Guatemala.

Experts say that when another chemical is added, methylamine can yield its weight in uncut meth.

Also Tuesday, federal police reported they had defused a car bomb left outside the state detectives' agency offices in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the northern border state of Tamaulipas.

After detectives reported the car smelled of gasoline, specially equipped federal officers opened the trunk and found 10 sticks of explosives, two jugs of gasoline, wires, a cellphone and what appeared to be detonating devices.

There was no immediate information on who left the car bomb.

Tamaulipas has been the scene of bloody turf battles between the Gulf and Zetas drug cartels, and the gangs have attacked police and police offices with car bombs in the past.

Thanks to Adriana Gomez Licon

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Mafia Movies to be Featured at National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement

A mob museum slated to open soon in Las Vegas will trace Hollywood's portrayal of mobsters from the birth of the silver screen in a violence-fraught exhibit that organizers said is not intended for children.

Screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote the book "Wiseguy" and then adapted it into the Martin Scorsese film "Goodfellas," told The Associated Press that he will help usher in the exhibit when the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement opens in Las Vegas in mid-February. Pileggi will appear in a five-minute documentary on the mob and pop culture that will be shown near the end of the museum tour.

The film, part of an exhibit called "The Myth of the Mob," will attempt to explain why so many people are fascinated with organized crime. The exhibit will also feature costumes from mobster-centric TV shows and movies, including "The Sopranos."

"Just because you are depicting something ugly, it doesn't mean you are honoring it," Pileggi said. "I don't know too many gangster movies where the gangster wins in the end. These are tales of morality and that is the key to them."

The downtown Las Vegas museum will open at a former courthouse where a famous mob hearing that helped expose organized crime to ordinary Americans was held in 1950. It is expected to feature gangster artifacts, including the wall from Chicago's St. Valentine's Day massacre, the only gun recovered at the mass shooting and the barber chair where hit man Albert Anastasia's life came to an end in 1957.

Dennis Barrie, the museum's director, said he interviewed Pileggi for up to three hours to create the five-minute film on the history of gangster flicks. Barrie said he wants museum-goers to explore whether popular movies glamourize mob culture, or get it right."I don't think it's a kids' museum," Barrie said. "This is a pretty brutal world and it comes across in the museum."

Pileggi, whose parents were Italian immigrants, said he was attracted to mob stories as a young man because he wanted to know why some people in his neighborhood were drawn to organized crimes, while others shunned it."I don't think they are the worst people in the world," Pileggi said. "I think they are fascinating."

Pileggi began his writing career as an Associated Press crime reporter. He received an Oscar nomination for "Goodfellas" and teamed up with Scorsese again for the Las Vegas crime-opus "Casino" in 1995. He said the movies are "unbelievably realistic."

Pileggi said former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman asked him to get involved with the museum. Goodman, a former mob lawyer who came up with the idea of the museum, provided Pileggi with facts and insight when he was writing "Casino" and had a brief cameo in the movie."Who knows it better than Nick Pileggi?" Goodman said. "When you have his stamp of approval on these kinds of exhibits, it takes on a certain sense of reality as well as legitimacy."

The $42 million museum will be the second gangster-focused attraction to open in Las Vegas in the past year.

The Tropicana casino and hotel on the Las Vegas Strip unveiled its interactive "Mob Experience" attraction in March. The venue is undergoing a renovation after a brutal start. Attendance was sluggish from the beginning, and then its developer, Jay Bloom, was forced to resign amid multiple lawsuits over unpaid bills, said Spence Johnston, a Mob Experience spokesman.

Goodman said the organized crime museum will have a more successful launch because its collection will focus on history instead of entertainment."I was interested in having a real museum with real culture," he said. "This is not a gimmick."

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Mob Month Panel & Book Signing: How the FBI, Nevada Gaming Control and the IRS Took Down the Mob

Mob Month: How the FBI, Nevada Gaming Control and the IRS Took Down the Mob


1/10/2012 • 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Clark County Library
1401 E. Flamingo Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Room: Main Theater

This panel discussion includes former & current representatives from the FBI, Nevada Gaming Control, Las Vegas Mob Museum, and IRS Criminal Investigations Las Vegas unit. Topics will include the strategies and devices that mobsters used to skim the casinos, the creation of The Black Book, and how the Feds conducted their field research and mafia round-ups. Moderated by Master Cheat author and former NV Gaming Control agent Jack Miller.

Book sales/signing will be available at each event. All seating will be on a first come, first served basis. Entry wristbands will be issued starting at 6 p.m. from the Theater box office on day of event only. For more information about any of our Mob Month events, please call 702-507-3458.

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Mobster Confessions

Discovery will premiere MOBSTER CONFESSIONS on Monday, January 9 at 10 PM ET/PT. Andrew DiDonato, John Veasey, Frank Cullotta and Frank Calabrese Jr. are featured in the initial wave of episodes:

MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2011:

10 PM ET/PT - MOBSTER CONFESSIONS - Andrew DiDonato

New York street thug is seduced by the power and protection of the Gambino crime family. Yet once the family turns on him, he must choose between being hunted by the mob or working with authorities to bring them down.

10:30 PM ET/PT - MOBSTER CONFESSIONS - John Veasey

A troubled teen turned hitman kills for the Philadelphia mob but is later targeted by his own mafia family. After surviving an attempted hit, he testifies against the men he once swore to protect.

MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2011:

10 PM ET/PT - MOBSTER CONFESSIONS - Frank Cullotta

The riches of a glittering life in Las Vegas tempt a man to do anything, even kill, for the Chicago Outfit. His world is turned upside down when an FBI sting brings him in to warn him that he's about to be whacked by his own mafia family.

10:30 PM ET/PT - MOBSTER CONFESSIONS - Frank Calabrese Jr.

A son, desperate to escape the grip of his brutal mafia father, faces a difficult decision: turn on his own dad or be forced to continue a life of crime.

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Victoria Gotti Joins Celebrity Apprentice

Victoria Gotti is a writer, reality television participant and daughter of former Gambino crime family Mafia boss, John Gotti. She will be competing on the upcoming season of Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice.

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