Boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. deported to Mexico for alleged cartel ties and drug trafficking
Chávez was handed over by authorities and admitted to a prison outside of the city of Hermosillo, in the northern state of Sonora, an official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed the news at her daily press conference.
'I understand he was deported. I don't know if it was yesterday or this morning, but we were informed that he was arriving in Mexico,' Sheinbaum said.
Chávez, 39, had a warrant for his arrest in Mexico for alleged arms and drug trafficking and ties to the Sinaloa Cartel. Alejandro Gertz Manero, Mexico's attorney general, said the investigation into Chávez started in 2019.
The boxer, who is the son of legendary Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez, was arrested July 3 days after his high-profile fight with Jake Paul in California.
Sheinbaum said after the arrest she hoped the boxer would be deported to face his charges.
Chávez's father was a massive celebrity in the 1980s and '90s who mixed social circles with drug dealers and claimed to have been friends with drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
The iconic fighter defended his son following his arrest, but has not spoken since the deportation.
The younger Chávez has battled drug addiction for much of his boxing career, failing drug tests, serving suspensions and egregiously missing weight while being widely criticized for his intermittent dedication to the sport.
Chavez won the WBC middleweight title in 2011 and defended it three times. He shared the ring with generational greats Canelo Álvarez and Sergio Martinez, losing to both.
In 2012, he was convicted of drunken driving in Los Angeles and sentenced to 13 days in jail. In January 2024, he was arrested on gun charges. Police said he possessed two AR-style ghost rifles. He was later freed on a $50,000 bond and on condition he went to a residential drug treatment facility. The case is still pending, with Chávez reporting his progress regularly.
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San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Villagers offer harrowing accounts of one of the deadliest attacks in Sudan's civil war
CAIRO (AP) — When Ahlam Saeed awoke last month to the sound of gunfire and roaring vehicle motors, the 43-year-old widow rushed outside her home in war-torn Sudan to find a line of at least two dozen vehicles, many of them motorcycles carrying armed fighters. 'They were firing at everything and in every direction,' the mother of four said. 'In an instant, all of us in the village were fleeing for safety." Many people were gunned down in their houses or while trying to flee. At least 200 people were killed, including many women and children, in the community of straw homes, according to a rights group tracking Sudan's civil war. Saeed and her children — ages 9 to 15 — were among those who survived after rebel fighters rampaged through Shag al-Num, the small farming village of several thousand people in Sudan's Kordofan region. In interviews with The Associated Press, Saeed and four other villagers described the July 12 attack, one of the deadliest assaults since the war began more than two years ago over a power struggle between commanders of the military and the rival paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. The villagers' accounts add to the devastating toll of the conflict, which started in April 2023 and has wrecked the country in northeastern African. The fighting has killed more than 40,000 people, displaced as many as 14 million, caused disease outbreaks and pushed many places to the brink of famine. Atrocities, including mass killings of civilians and mass rape, have also been reported, particularly in Darfur, triggering an investigation by the International Criminal Court into potential war crimes and crimes against humanity. 'Hell's door was opened' The villagers from Shag al-Num said RSF fighters and their allied Janjaweed militias stormed into the community, looting houses and robbing residents, especially of women's gold. Some victims were held at gunpoint. Some young villagers attempted to fight back by taking up rifles to defend their homes. The RSF fighters knocked them down and continued their rampage, witnesses said. 'It was as if the hell's door was opened,' Saeed said, sobbing. Her straw house and neighboring homes were burned down, and one RSF fighter seized her necklace. 'We were dying of fear,' she said. The villagers said the fighters also sexually abused or raped many women. One of the women said she saw three fighters wearing RSF uniforms dragging a young woman into an abandoned house. She said she later met the woman, who said she was raped. Satellite imagery from July 13 and 14 showed 'intentional arson attacks' and 'a large smoke point' over the village as well as 'razed and smoldering' buildings, the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health reported. In the two-day RSF attack in Shaq al-Noum and surrounding areas, more than 450 civilians, including 35 children and two pregnant women, were killed, according to UNICEF. After the assault, many of the survivors fled, leaving behind a mostly deserted village. The RSF did not respond to questions about the attack from the AP. Both sides seek control of oil-rich Kordofan region Beyond the village, the oil-rich Kordofan region has emerged as a major front line following the military's recapture of Khartoum earlier this year. The warring parties have raced for control of the three-province region stretching across southern and central Sudan because it controls vital supply lines. 'Kordofan has become the most strategic area of the country,' said Cameron Hudson, an Africa expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The fighting has exacerbated the already dire conditions in the region. In Kadugli, the provincial capital city of South Kordofan province, 'roads have been cut off, supply lines have collapsed and residents are walking miles just to search for salt or matches,' said Kadry Furany, country director for Sudan at Mercy Corps aid group. A mental health therapist in Obeid, the provincial capital of North Kordofan province, said the city received waves of displaced people in recent weeks, all from areas recently ambushed by the RSF. The therapist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about her safety, said she supported 10 women and girls who endured sexual abuse, including rape, in RSF-seized areas in July alone. Among the victims were two women from Shag al-Num village, she said. 'The conditions are tragic,' she said. Another epicenter of starvation and disease To the west of the Kordofan region is el-Fasher, the military's last stronghold in the five-province Darfur region. The city — which has been under constant RSF bombardment for over a year — is one of the hardest hit by hunger and disease outbreaks, according to the U.N. The World Food Program has been unable to deliver aid by land. It warned this month that 300,000 people, who are 'trapped, hungry and running out of time,' are at risk of starvation. 'Everyone in el-Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,' said Eric Perdison, the food program's director for eastern and southern Africa. 'Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost.' The paramilitaries and their Janjaweed allies imposed a total blockade of el-Fasher, leaving no route out of the city that the RSF does not control, according to satellite imagery recently analyzed by the humanitarian lab at Yale. The blockade caused food prices to spike up to 460% higher than in the rest of Sudan, according to the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies. Most staples are scarce or no longer available. Civilians who want to leave the city are required to pass through a single RSF-controlled point, where they have been robbed, forced to pay bribes or killed, according to the Yale lab, aid workers and residents. On Aug. 2, a group of people, including women and children, attempted to flee the city. When they reached Garni, a village on a crucial supply route just northwest of the city, RSF fighters ambushed the area, residents said. 'They tell you to leave, then they kill you,' said al-Amin Ammar, a 63-year-old who said he escaped because he is old. 'It's a death trap.' At least 14 people were killed, and dozens of others were wounded in the village, said the Emergency Lawyers rights group said. Aside from fighting, the region has been ravaged by lack of food and a cholera outbreak, said Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local aid group known as General Coordination. Many people have nothing to eat and resorted to cattle fodder to survive, he said. Some have not found even fodder, he said. He shared images of emaciated children with their exhausted, malnourished mothers on the outskirts of el-Fasher or the nearby town of Tawila. 'People don't await food or medicine,' he said, 'rather they await death.' The 12-year-old son of Sabah Hego, a widow, was admitted with cholera to a makeshift hospital in Tweila, joining dozens of other patients there. 'He is sick, and dying,' Hego said of her youngest child. 'He is not alone. There are many like him.'
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Military deserter roommates allegedly confess to killing, dismembering missing Army vet: ‘I don't f–king regret it'
A pair of military deserters allegedly slaughtered and dismembered a member of their Army unit and dispersed parts of his corpse along a highway in New Mexico — and the one that pulled trigger said it was 'not a hard decision for him.' Rainor Joiner, 23, and David Degroat, 22, were both arrested by the Taos County Sheriff Department and allegedly confessed to murdering Matthew McLaughlin, a 25-year-old US Army veteran from West Virginia who was reported missing on July 31. 3 Army veteran Matthew McLaughlin, 25, was reported missing on July 31. The three men were all living together in New Mexico after serving in the same unit at Fort Benning in Georgia. Joiner and Degroat allegedly had active warrants out for their desertion. It's unclear how and when McLaughlin may have been relieved of service. Joiner allegedly told authorities he was fed up with McLaughlin for 'speaking ill of him, bringing random people to the residence, and the use of narcotics at the residence,' according to a criminal complaint obtained by KRQE. 3 Rainor Joiner allegedly told authorities he killed McLaughlin and didn't 'regret it.' Taos County Adult Detention Center The deserter and supposed mastermind behind the violent murder had apparently threatened to kill Degroat too if he didn't help or if he snitched, according to a confession signed by Joiner. Joiner allegedly confessed that he shot McLaughlin with Degroat's help, adding that 'I did it, I f–ked him, and I don't f–king regret it,' according to KOB. He also allegedly said killing his roommate was 'not a hard decision for him,' the documents state. Degroat contended that Joiner forced him to assist with the grisly murder and lure McLaughlin into an ambush while he was walking home with groceries. He allegedly told authorities that Joiner shot McLaughlin three times with an AR-15 style rifle — once in the chest and twice in the head. Afterwards, Joiner allegedly made Degroat hold open a plastic bag to place parts of McLaughlin's dismembered corpse in. From there, they dispersed the severed body parts along Highway 64. Once they were caught at their home, Joiner led authorities to each spot where they uncovered multiple trash bags with body parts inside that were turned over to the medical examiner's office. 3 David Degroat allegedly told authorities that Joiner forced him to help ambush McLaughlin. Taos County Adult Detention Center McLaughlin's grieving family members are struggling to fathom why people he trusted enough to move cross-country with would do such a thing. 'All I want to say is, I found out that they had planned this for weeks. I'll never see my son again,' his mother, Rebecca, told the Santa Fe New Mexican. The Army veteran is survived by his mother and seven siblings, according to a GoFundMe organized by a family friend. Joiner was charged with a laundry list of felonies, including first-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated battery. Degroat is facing charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with evidence.
Yahoo
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Mexican president denies deal to target drug cartels in place with US
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday denied that her government has any agreement with Washington on a bilateral project to dismantle drug cartels. On Monday, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced a "bold bilateral initiative" with Mexico to fight drug cartels, an operation initiative named "Project Portero." However, Sheinbaum said that Mexico had not been consulted on the matter. "The DEA issued this statement, we don't know on what basis," Sheinbaum said during her daily press briefing. "We have not reached any agreement, there is no deal between our security institutions and the DEA." Sheinbaum added that Mexico's Foreign Ministry and the US State Department had been working for months on a security agreement that is "about to be signed." "This deal is fundamentally based on sovereignty, mutual trust, and territorial respect ... and coordination without subordination," she said, adding that the only other ongoing bilateral security activity was a group of Mexican police officers attending a workshop in Texas. "That is all there is. There is nothing else," the president continued, adding: "We do not know why they issued this statement." "The only thing we will always ask for is respect. Always. If you are going to report something related to Mexico that is part of the security issue, we ask that it be done within the framework of the collaboration we have." In its statement, the DEA said Project Portero would target drug cartel operatives who control the smuggling corridors along the US south-western border by bringing together Mexican investigators and US authorities. "Project Portero and this new training program show how we will fight - by planning and operating side by side with our Mexican partners, and by bringing the full strength of the U.S. government to bear," said DEA Administrator Terrance Cole in the statement, calling the project "a bold first step in a new era of cross-border enforcement." Sheinbaum's rebuttal comes after a positive exchange in late July, when US President Donald Trump delayed higher tariffs on Mexican goods. In addition to tariffs, Trump and Sheinbaum have been clashing on cross-border migration from Mexico into the United States and Trump's attempts to stop the flow of the opioid fentanyl into the US. Sheinbaum in recent months has agreed to extradite dozens of high-profile drug-trafficking suspects to the US. Solve the daily Crossword
