In addition to the arrest of former Vera Cruz deputy Xochitl Tress in Puerto Vallarta on Sunday, July 31, other “celebrities” of entertainment, business, terrorism and drug trafficking have been captured in this tourist destination.
In June of 2003 the American bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman traveled to Mexico to catch Andrew Luster, heir to the cosmetics brand Max Factor, who had been convicted of rape in a California court. The millionaire, who had faced the trial in the United States, received a sentence of 124 years in prison.
The bounty hunter was accompanied by a brother, his son, a collaborator and cameraman, who would record the moment of arrest and then sell the material to a television station.
Duane Chapman spotted the millionaire in a taco stand and after talking to him he sprayed pepper spray to subdue him, put him in a van and took him to the airport, where they would take a flight to the United States.
However, the bounty hunter did not expect that diners at the taco stand would alert police about the attempted abduction, so Duane Chapman was arrested when he arrived at the airport. Mexican law prohibits the activities of bounty hunters.
Andrew Luster was placed under the protection of the Mexican authorities who handed him over to FBI agents, who brought him to the US justice; while Duan Chapman was detained in Mexico and after posted bail fled to the United States. Three years later, he was arrested at his Hawaii residence, but a US judge denied his extradition to Mexico.
Another famous arrest in Vallarta was of two members of the Basque terrorist organization ETA, who had escaped from Spain in 1992 and settled in Puerto Vallarta.
The terrorists Juan Jesús Narváez Goñi and Itzia Alberdi Uranga married in Mexico and formed a family from which two children were born, who did not know the bloody past of their parents.
Intelligence work by the Mexican and Spanish authorities found the whereabouts of terrorists accused of committing more than 16 crimes and belonging to one of the bloodiest cells in ETA.
The couple was arrested in January 2014 in the colony La Moderna of Puerto Vallarta and after confirming their true identities were taken to Spain where they received between them a sentence of 294 years in prison.
On February 28, 2015, the Federal Police and the Mexican Army arrested Abigail González Valencia, from the “Los Cuinis” group, who are the financial operators of the Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) Cartel.
After his arrest the prisoner offered the agents 50 million pesos so that they did not show their photograph in the media and thus remain anonymous.
Abigail is the brother-in-law of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes alias “El Mencho”, leader of the CJNG, the fastest growing criminal organization in the last seven years.
The CJNG distributes synthetic drugs to Japan, China, Australia, Russia and Eastern European countries, making it the most economically powerful cartel in the world, thanks to the money laundering work of Abigail.
The 200 million dollars spent on Zhenli Ye Gon’s home was financed by CJNG, an organization that had hired the Chinese employee for the purchase of chemical precursors used in the manufacture of synthetic drugs.
The last arrest of relevance was the one of Xóchitl Tress, lover of the ex-Governor of Veracruz Javier Duarte, who is accused of deviation of public resources, since she was an official in the Duarte administration and received gifts and homes paid for by taxpayer money.