The Latin American Report # 470
A notorious Guatemalan drug trafficker was captured in the southern Mexican border state of Chiapas and handed over to authorities in Guatemala City. The Guatemalan, named Baldomero Samayoa, aka Chicharra, 58, was on the Central American nation's most wanted list and had been indicted on drug trafficking charges in the U.S. District of Columbia back in 2018. Samayoa appears in several official and press reports as co-leader of a criminal organization known as “Los Huistas,” which allegedly controlled Huehuetenango, a Guatemalan department bordering Chiapas, from where it run the business of U.S.-bound drugs, specifically cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin, “frequently laced with fentanyl".
According to U.S. authorities, “Los Huistas” are allied with the Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation cartels. In a sign of the flamboyant corruption in Central America, a former PARLACEN representative—and Samayoa´s son-in-law—was also indicted in the District of Columbia. Chicharra faces potential extradition to the United States, which supported his arrest in collaboration with Guatemala and Mexico. “This is what happens to us sooner or later. I am calm, I prefer to be detained than to have run with any other [bad end] as it happens in this kind of life,” he told EFE in a detention room of the Judicial Organism in Guatemala City.
SourcePederasty in Brazil
Police in the South American giant arrested nearly 30 people yesterday in a mega-operation deployed throughout the country against a ring dedicated to producing and sharing child sexual exploitation content, EFE reports from official sources. Dozens of agents carried out some 80 judicial measures against at least 26 suspected pedophiles—caught red-handed—operating via the Internet, according to the Federal Police. Most of the accused were arrested in the states of São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul, in a continuation of efforts begun last year that had already led to the imprisonment of 60 people involved in this shameful industry.
Just over seven years ago, another police mega-operation led to the arrest of more than a hundred people involved with this type of crime in a country where official statistics reflected that 50 children were sexually abused per day. On that occasion, the security forces came across actions and dynamics that surpassed the threshold of repulsion they had hitherto conceived, including a mother having sex with her 11-year-old son while the stepfather was filming. This is a regional problem, besides the fact that today we are focusing on the Brazilian case.
SourceThe tariffs saga
Brazil will not retaliate against US steel tariffs immediately, mulls all actions https://t.co/0MMBZnidPx
— Yahoo News (@YahooNews) March 13, 2025
BMW To Absorb Tariff Costs On Mexican-Built 3 Series Sedans - @WSJhttps://t.co/aHV2qhyZ9S
— LiveSquawk (@LiveSquawk) March 12, 2025
On immigration
There are Colombian and Brazilian families affected by this 👇 trend.
Trump administration resumes detention of immigrant families after Biden-era pause https://t.co/kJ1aMI4GWl
— O.C. Register (@ocregister) March 12, 2025
Argentina: high tension in the streets
On an agitated day, soccer fans of enemy clubs joined—in apparent authentic and organic support—the weekly protest of hundreds of retirees against the consequences for them of the harsh fiscal adjustment implemented by President Javier Milei. Journalism loyal to the libertarian leader accuses that there is complicity of the Argentine soccer authorities and that it was an action that opportunistically appropriated a legitimate claim—i.e., the crisis experienced by retirees.
Channels such as LN+ and TN call for respecting the rule of law and democracy, but they are quite cautious in criticizing the anti-democratic actions of the liberal Pink House. Neither do they connect enough with the situation of retirees, except to quickly say on these days that “it is true that they earn little”. The security forces arrested more than 70 people in a very repressive deployment that included the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, and water horses. There are people hospitalized with varying degrees of seriousness, while the Ministry of Security informed that firearms and bladed weapons were seized.
In Congress, there was another unfortunate spectacle involving deputies of Milei's political force.
