One Woman Cracks the Pedo Elite. Chapter 4.

Preface & Chapter 1 here. Chapter 2 here. Chapter 3 here.

Trial 3: Succar Kuri’s trial for child pornography, in which Lydia Cacho is to appear as a witness.

‘Lydia Cacho never realized just how far-reaching (Succar Kuri’s) network was…’ a Special Prosecutor working under federal authority told reporters in March 2006. This acknowledgment by certain Mexican feds – that they knew more than Lydia Cacho, that they knew how far-reaching Succar Kuri’s Pedo Elite network was, – was made while Succar Kuri sat in a US prison awaiting extradition to Mexico. When asked if all the child rape and child porn networks worked together, the Special Prosecutor answered: ‘Very probably. And not only at the national level, but on an international scale as well.’ The Special Prosecutor went on to say Succar Kuri’s detention does not necessarily mean his networks have been dismantled: ‘In the Succar Kuri case specifically,…it is a large-scale network… (M)ultiple international connections have been shown to exist. More than were previously thought.’ Who these ‘multiple international connections’ were was not revealed. – But for the first time, certain Mexican authorities had now acknowledged that Lydia Cacho’s book was factual: Succar Kuri was kingpin of an international child rape and child porn network, running “sex tourism” operations in Mexico for men to rape children. His extensive money-laundering likely linked him to organized crime.

Succar Kuri had been held in a US prison for over two years because the US Magistrate tasked with extraditing him didn’t trust Mexican authorities would charge Succar Kuri, and feared he would be freed. On April 4, 2006, a few weeks after the Special Prosecutor made these remarks to the press, US Magistrate David K. Duncan finally authorized Succar Kuri’s extradition to Mexico. Succar Kuri was returned to Mexico on July 5, 2006, in the darkness of night, and escorted by federal agents to Cancun’s low-security prison. Succar Kuri shook the federal agents’ hands before they left, and waved them a friendly farewell.

*

In Cancun’s low-security prison, Succar Kuri rented a luxury suite. Family members, – sons and grandsons seen visiting him here, for example, – weren’t searched, and came and went as they pleased. Emma also visited Succar Kuri in his luxury suite several times, each time accompanied by Succar Kuri’s lawyers. Due to rumors Succar Kuri was planning a large-scale jail break, Succar Kuri was moved from Cancun’s low-security prison to Chetumal, a medium-security prison. He was then moved to Altiplano, a maximum-security prison. A few days after this final transfer, nearly 100 inmates broke out of the Cancun Prison as planned, – but without Succar Kuri.

Lydia Cacho: “I had been receiving calls on my cell phone from an unknown number; the person (sic) on the other end would breathe heavily for a few moments and then hang up. Then the calls began coming in on my apartment landline, until I had to eventually unplug the phone every evening when I arrived home. In the final days of October 2006, I got a phone call from Chetumal – a special agent at the prison there asked for my fax number. He said he was an admirer of mine and read my book; he respected my bravery and needed to warn me that my life was in danger… He faxed over a document (showing Succar Kuri had hired two inmates) at the Chetumal Prison to assassinate several witnesses, myself among them. Succar Kuri had given (the men) a drawing of my home in Cancun, sketched in blue ink on the back of a napkin. That same morning, when I went out to buy the day’s paper, (this story) was on the front page.”

*

A year after Succar Kuri had been extradited back to Mexico, the day had finally come: Lydia Cacho would face Succar Kuri. She had been summoned as a witness at his trial, a trial in which he was charged by eight of his victims with producing child pornography. Videos found of Succar Kuri raping these girls would substantiate their statements in Court. But because Mexican law on child rape was weak, Succar Kuri was not additionally charged with raping these girls, but instead with “corruption of minors.” Lydia Cacho anticipated she would be asked to testify that she had sheltered these girls, asked to detail the crimes against them disclosed under trauma-care, asked to explain the psychological damage to a 5-year-old girl raped by a 200-pound man on film, that film then sold, anticipated she would testify that she and shelter staff had now spent years trying to return these girls to some semblance of normalcy. Lydia Cacho would now look into Succar Kuri’s eyes, – after she was abducted, tortured and raped for exposing the exclusive brotherhood of rapists he headed, after Succar Kuri had called her to tell her he would kill her, after knowing Succar Kuri had hired hitmen, – at least twice, – to have her killed. – On May 3, 2007, – finally, – the day had come.

Lydia Cacho: “I had only seen (Succar Kuri) in photographs and video footage. Like millions of others, I had watched the video in which Succar Kuri, with a sadist’s cruelty, describes how much he enjoys seeing five-year-old girls bleed when he penetrates them.”

 

Federal Police patrol the perimeter of the Altiplano Maximum-Security Prison

“I arrived at the Altiplano Maximum-Security Prison…There is no cell-phone coverage for a two-kilometer radius surrounding the prison and the initial sensation upon entering the isolated area is strange. The most dangerous prisoners in the country are held there.”

Lydia Cacho was brought into a small hearing room where Succar Kuri sat behind bars. Lydia Cacho: “Through (the bars), I glimpsed a gaunt, pallid face… I was wearing my shirt that read, ‘No More Pedophiles. No More Corruption. No More Impunity.’ I stepped forward and stood in front of Succar Kuri where he sat, and the expression on his face became distorted; he eyed my shirt carefully, then immediately gestured for his attorneys.” Lydia Cacho’s shirt was deemed ‘offensive to the prisoner;’ the Judge ordered her to cover it.

 

Lydia Cacho: “Succar Kuri spent his time during the session glaring at me with intense rancor. From time to time, he would screw up his face so tightly that his pale lips all but disappeared from sight. We were seated a mere six feet from one another, face-to-face.” Lydia Cacho was kept in this claustrophobic room with Succar Kuri, six feet in front of her, face-to-face, with no food or drink, for over twelve hours.

Lydia Cacho: “It was clear to me that his lawyers lacked a coordinated strategy. In reality, Succar Kuri is indefensible… The pedophile and his lawyers were doing their utmost to skirt the main issue under consideration at the trial: namely, the children who had been raped and used by this man to produce child pornography… (Succar Kuri) had my book brought out again and again for all to see; since he was not able to touch it through the bars, his lawyers would hold it up for him and he would point at something written on the pages and pose questions to me about whatever it happened to be… From one moment to the next, my appearance, which I was ostensibly making in the capacity of a witness, had morphed completely – now it was almost as if I was the one on trial… There was one particularly critical moment when I even found myself asking the Judge if I was making this appearance as a witness who knew the raped girls or, rather, if this was a trial being held against me for having published The Demons of Eden… At other times, as when his lawyer insisted that I am not a journalist because I don’t hold any sort of professional credential, Succar Kuri would raise up his arms and pound them against the (bars) before bringing them down to beat his own chest, like a gorilla marking its territory…”

“I did manage, despite all this, to tell the (girls’) stories… (And also testify) that the pedophile’s lawyers had offered some of the victim’s mothers (money) in exchange for their silence – offers which were accompanied by threats…”

Lydia Cacho: “Finally, after more than 11½ hours, his face contorted and his eyes wild with rage in an expression reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter, Succar Kuri let it be known he was going to end me.” Unfortunately, the Judge had momentarily stepped out of the room and did not witness Succar Kuri openly making death threats. With blood-red rage, Succar Kuri told Lydia Cacho he would kill her. With blood-red with rage, Succar Kuri told Lydia Cacho he would kill her whether he was sentenced or not. With blood-red rage, Succar Kuri told Lydia Cacho he would kill her if it was the last thing he did.

The session was finally adjourned. Lydia Cacho walked over to Succar Kuri as he stood behind bars in the country’s highest-security prison. “I stood directly in front of him,” Lydia Cacho said. “He is a small man – at full height he comes up to my chin, just like Kamel Nacif.” [For the record, Governor Marin is also small].

*

As Lydia Cacho started the long walk back to the prison parking lot, a security van pulled up alongside her. ‘Are you the reporter?’ the prison guard asked. Lydia Cacho: “With a greater sense of pride in my heart than I had felt at any previous moment, I replied that I was indeed. Behind me, several feet under the ground, sat the man who had possessed, like some amoral demon, the souls and bodies of who knows how many girls… Ahead of me was the fresh, free air…” The guard offered to give Lydia Cacho a lift to the parking lot. As she got in, he remarked, ‘Those guys over there are the devil’s lawyers. They can walk.’

*

The girl victims had already testified face-to-face against Succar Kuri, – a terrifying tribunal. Lydia Cacho: “Back in the SUV, for the almost two hours it took to drive back to the Mexico City [Airport], I sat next to my bodyguard with my face turned towards the window and cried inconsolably. Nobody but those young souls who had lived under this cruel man’s yoke could know what it was like to submit to his psychological tortures. I was acutely moved by these young girls and their bravery… Even in their darkest hours, after the nightmares and the mood swings, the girls insisted they would tell me the entire story on one condition: that I would try my best to make sure Succar Kuri and his accomplices would not rape or sell another girl as long as they were alive… And I promised… If they’re not giving up, I thought, nobody else has the right to give up either.”

*

Five days after Lydia Cacho faced Succar Kuri, she was at the Mexico City Airport with three fellow journalists, having just returned from a reporting trip to Juarez, covering the atrocities there against women and girls. Before heading to her Mexico City destination, Lydia Cacho offered to drop her colleagues off. Her bodyguards loaded everyone into the armored SUV. Lydia Cacho: “Just as we were picking up speed and preparing to pull onto the freeway, the SUV began to fishtail, and the driver, who was one of the agents assigned to protect me, instantly slammed on the breaks, swerving to the curb in order to bring the vehicle to a stop.” One of the agents got out; shocked, she held the wheel’s lug nuts in her hands. They seemed to have been sawed with a hacksaw.

 

 

 

Lydia Cacho filed attempted murder charges with the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Journalists. “(Three months later), as I arrived home, my bodyguards spotted a car parked outside my building with someone sitting at the wheel,” Lydia Cacho recounted. “My bodyguards approached the individual, who said he’d been sent to deliver a summons for me. Ten o’clock on a Friday night and (the Prosecutor’s Office is) delivering a summons? we marveled. I took receipt of the document and to my amazement that pursuant to my having filed charges of attempted murder, (the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Journalists was) convening me for the very next day – a Saturday, and without the presence of my lawyers – to undergo a psychological evaluation in order to provide further explanations of the attack against me. They did not request to see the vehicle’s lug nuts, nor did they ask to interrogate my security team or the other material witnesses, (or request that we) immediately hand over the SUV for analysis in order to verify whether or not it had been tampered with. (They) only wanted to determine whether I was in my right mind and telling the truth.” By 2016, Lydia Cacho said, nine years later, “the Prosecutor’s Office has still not analyzed the vehicle we were traveling in, which remains to this date parked (outside their office building).” No one was interested in hearing that five days earlier, Succar Kuri stood in a maximum-security prison promising to kill Lydia Cacho.

Puebla Attorney General Blanca Laura Villeda Martinez, who had arranged for Lydia Cacho to be tortured and raped in jail, told reporters that she sawed off the lug nuts. Whether this was caustic sarcasm or a confession was unclear. In any case, it wasn’t investigated.

After Lydia Cacho’s vehicle was sabotaged, many of her friends distanced themselves: “I lost a lot of friends and I respected that – they said they didn’t want to be seen with me in public. My social life changed dramatically.”

Lydia Cacho, no longer sure who she could trust, fired her bodyguards.

*

In August 2007, a Cancun Judge sentenced Succar Kuri to a mere 13 years in prison for child pornography and corruption of minors, and fined the multi-millionaire the ridiculous sum of 85,837 pesos. Emboldened, Succar Kuri appealed the case, – demanding he be set free. At the same time, the pro-bono lawyers representing the abused girls also appealed the case, – demanding Succar Kuri receive a harsher sentence. But all parties would now have to wait: An Appeals Judge would decide.

*

In late 2008/early 2009, Lydia Cacho was diagnosed with cancer. Her uterus and ovaries were removed.

Lydia Cacho’s doctors warned her that the stress she was under was killing her. Her liver and one remaining kidney were severely damaged. Her organs in general weren’t functioning properly, none of her blood values were normal, and her cortisol level was off the charts. If her cortisol level didn’t come down, her doctors told her that she could die. Lydia Cacho: “I underwent the requisite medical treatments and followed all my doctor’s recommendations, save one. – I was not willing to give up the case. Not until Succar Kuri was convicted for child pornography. Otherwise, his vengeance against the girls who had spoken out against him would be brutal, merciless.”

While in bed recuperating from cancer and the hysterectomy, Lydia Cacho, by late 2009, wrote and published Not With My Child: A Manual to Prevent, Detect, and Heal Child Sexual Abuse. The book was a best seller. And despite Lydia Cacho’s money problems, she asked her publisher to put out a cheap edition at almost no cost, “so teachers throughout Latin America could have easy access to it…”

*

In May, 2010, a group of military men carrying exclusive military assault rifles attacked the shelter. Leading the attack was a Cancun cop – whose wife and son were at the shelter. Lydia Cacho: “He claimed that we had kidnapped the two of them and were holding them against their will… His wife was indeed at the shelter – he had tried to shoot her… He had made use of police equipment to track the woman, with the help of the (Quintana Roo) Attorney General’s Office. As always, (the shelter) was up to the challenge. We made video recordings of everything: the unit member’s badge numbers, the attack on the gate, and the arrival of additional armed hooded officers to assist in the task of trying to kick down the doors. Eventually, the abusive husband yelled at the guard on the other side of the door. ‘Tell Lydia Cacho that I’m going to report her for kidnapping and that her days are numbered.’ We were able to get the federal police to come to our aid. But to our surprise, the commander merely showed up, took a look around and left, explaining to his superiors that the men had hoods and assault weapons and that although some of them were wearing police uniforms, he thought they might be members of the Zetas or some drug cartel.” The shelter was under siege for several hours, before the Quintana Roo Attorney General ordered them to fall back. The cop who led the attack got a one-week suspension.

The Quintana Roo State Attorney General later admitted that 70 percent of Cancun’s police force had now been infiltrated by the drug cartels. Blood-soaked cartel wars were spreading across Mexico. The cartels had become too powerful to have to pay off the politicians anymore, and vied for power themselves. In these killing times, thousands and thousands of women and girls disappeared across Mexico. The women’s shelters of Mexico were needed now more than ever, but under these conditions, many found it impossible to continue to operate. Lydia Cacho: “Victims of domestic abuse in a majority of areas in the country were no longer able to find help… So it was that our shelter, almost overnight, became one of the few safe places left in the country… Like the rest of the country we found ourselves besieged, surrounded by unprecedented levels of violence…”

*

Several months later, Lydia Cacho collapsed on an airplane as it was landing. Emergency room doctors diagnosed her with an autoimmune disease, – the same autoimmune disease which had killed her mother. “(A)ll the tests indicated that my body wasn’t going to hold out much longer,” Lydia Cacho said. “Ghostly visions of the suffering my mother had endured for the three agonizing years before her passing away haunted my dreams and my waking thoughts. For whole wretched weeks at a time, I lay in bed unable to move as the days went by and the doctors went after my disease with experimental treatments that left me completely spent. I felt a fear that was unfamiliar to me. Fear of waking up one day to find my body paralyzed, unresponsive to my strength of will. Fear at the weakness of cloudy eyes no longer able to read. Fear at discovering my memory reduced… I cried myself to sleep on many of those nights, curled up with a pain that was tearing at my veins…”

Yet somehow, – curled up with pain on her sickbed, – Lydia Cacho wrote anti-trafficking material for schools, developing an educational program on how traffickers can be identified, how traffickers ensnare victims, and how to escape traffickers. Young women and girls would initially be taught this material, then teach it to other females, and so on. Lydia Cacho pulled herself out of her sickbed for the initial workshop, teaching 500 young women and girls this material. A year later, 10,000 young women and girls had learned how to identify and avoid traffickers, and were teaching it on.

*

Also in 2010, this same year, Lydia Cacho published Slavery, Inc.: The Untold Story of Human Trafficking (in Spanish, Esclavas del Poder). In the previous five years of court battles, every time Lydia Cacho had to leave Mexico because of a death threat, she used the days or weeks away from home to investigate female-trafficking around the world. She carried a GPS locator on her person so in case she was killed the people who love her could find her remains. Lydia Cacho: “If you follow the stories of the victims, you can draw the trafficking routes… Alone with my camera, my tape recorder, a notebook, and my NGO contacts as my only provisions, I traveled to London, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and the Afghan border with China. From there, I flew to Thailand, where I traced the routes along which young girls are traded, venturing through the interior of the country to Burma (Myanmar). I then traveled through the villages of Vietnam… I headed to Japan to investigate the Yakuza [Japanese Mafia] in Tokyo and Osaka. And from there I flew to Los Angeles in order to document the Tokyo-Hawai’i-California route for the transportation of drugs and Asian women to the United States. I had investigated human trafficking in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, as well as Latin America, on earlier trips…”

While enduring 3+ stress-killing trials for which she had to gather evidence, secure witnesses, and persevere through government-ordered gas-lighting, while standing alone against the unified Pedo Elites and their pedo-bros and handmaidens embedded in the government and justice system who consistently worked to derail her, while preparing to come face-to-face with the multi-millionaire Pedo Elites who had plotted and continued to plot her death, while recovering from several feminist-punishing rape attacks which had impacted her musculoskeletal system, while trying to heal from being abducted and tortured and almost cast into the ocean, while providing emotionally-exhausting trauma-care to the girl victims to return them to some semblance of normalcy, while operating a high-security battered women’s shelter which regularly came under siege from groups of armed men and was taking in more and more women as men turned Mexico into a blood bath, and while working to pay her bills, mostly her lawyer’s bills – Lydia Cacho “used the time between different trials” – her fleeing men’s death threats time – to travel to 141 countries around the world to chase down the Uber-Patriarchy and map their female-trafficking operations world-wide.

Lydia Cacho wrote Slavery, Inc.: The Untold Story of Human Trafficking, – an 800-page book, – while enduring this and more over the preceding five years. However, because the publishers who had financed her worried the book was depressing, they severely cut the book. The English edition of Slavery Inc., for example, was cut from 800-pages to 256-pages, with more than two-thirds of the book slashed. Still, Lydia Cacho’s book was translated into Turkish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Dutch, Swedish and English. Slavery, Inc. was published while Lydia Cacho was still recovering from cancer and the hysterectomy, and still fighting her autoimmune disease with experimental treatments. Too sick to go on the global book tour, Lydia Cacho had to bow out of scheduled appearances in Italy, France, Germany, Sweden and the US. She did make it to a few countries, – Australia, for example – though that was physically difficult.

*

From Lydia Cacho’s work, we can see two markets exist for the rape of girl-children – one for Pedo Elites and the other for men in general. Both markets are sponsored by syndicates of organized crime.

For the market for Pedo Elites, where men from society’s highest echelons rape, trade, gift, and/or sell children to men of like-rank, the syndicates provide stealth communications and computer-networking technology, as was used, for example, by Succar Kuri’s wife to send endless pedo-pornography to Las Vegas. Details of the terms between the Pedo Elites and the syndicates beyond these arrangements, however, remain obscured. Pedo Elites may in fact be members of the syndicates, which makes it hard to know if their primary interest is raping children, uber-male class-bonding through the “butchering” of a penniless female child, who, as Succar Kuri said, “has no chance,” or if, as in Cancun’s network, it is always also a business, always a franchise of organized crime. In Cancun’s network, all of the above were in play. But are all Pedo Elite networks like this one? How many Pedo Elite networks are there? Are they concentrated in countries with corrupt justice systems, or are they wherever the uber-brotherhood wants them to be? Are they closed and exclusive? How, exactly, are these networks linked? What, exactly, are their terms with the syndicates? Are the Pedo Elite networks operated independently, or are they run by the syndicates top-down? How is this blood-money divided? Who pays who? Clearly these men are protected and veiled. Their veiling is institutionalized and paid-for, often paid-for by the children themselves, who are handed out like gold coins, offered up for rape to politicians, immigration officials, Interpol agents, hoteliers, reporters, bankers, judges, cops, etc. To lift the veil to try to answer these questions, is, – as Lydia Cacho discovered, – life-threatening. But because men’s behavior is everywhere the same, everywhere predictable, it can be extrapolated from this one uncovered, yet still covered, Pedo Elite network, that the Pedo Elite networks must look alike, that the other networks must look like this one. As Mexico’s Special Prosecutor confirmed, the Pedo Elite networks are inter-linked and exist within the structure of organized crime.

For the market for men in general, the syndicates run girl-trafficking and female-trafficking as intertwined operations around the globe, – from which they make a killing. They also run multiple support-sectors. Support-sectors include the establishment of slave routes, the protection of slave routes, the continual provisioning of “fresh product” for market, and the money-laundering of billions of dollars in annual profits. Support-sectors are themselves major global enterprises. For example, money-laundering billions of dollars year after year is a massive global undertaking with scores of actors and props – suits, mules, pilots, seafarers, storefronts, fake accounts, phantom clients, fraudulent bank documents, furtive electronic transfers, countless collaborators in a vast eclipsed matrix. Money-laundering colossal sums of money is big business. In fact, according to Lydia Cacho, money-laundering is the third-biggest business in the world. [Besides the well-worn offshore options, it is also logical to suspect international businessmen are involved in syndicate money-laundering, as legitimate businesses are needed to rinse the money clean. To surmise, Russian syndicate profits could be laundered as cash loans, – to international businessmen for new and legal business ventures. International businessmen, “global players,” might even compete for these “loans,” especially those with sub-par credit-ratings, bypassing the standard scrutiny of a bank, with their legal and regulatory restrictions and their credit-rating-based interest rates. Interest rates on a Russian laundry loan might be quite low. Syndicates might even pay the laundromat, and pay quite well]. Succar Kuri was initially arrested because Interpol found $20 million of his transactions suspicious. – Just one Pedo Elite ringleader – at least $20 million…

*

Lydia Cacho believes the syndicates which traffic females work together, and are supported by all the governments of the world. Lydia Cacho: “The point of the book was to understand how the international markets are connected. As a reporter, I was really frustrated, because every time I interviewed an expert, everyone kept telling me they’re not linked, that this isn’t an international business. But it is… (It may be) an international mafia also involving Las Vegas… All governments in the world are lying to us about what’s going on with sex-trafficking. The governments are protecting the mafias. We are much more powerful than the mafias… Their greatest power lies in our fear.”

Feminists, Lydia Cacho believes, can end female-trafficking. “I’ve cried a lot,” she said. “But we have to do this work.”

*

Lydia Cacho eventually got so sick, she almost died. Her precarious health and the global recession which had dried up funding for non-profits forced her and shelter staff to permanently close their women’s shelter. – Transforming it instead into a training center for the prevention of violence against women and girls, a place where, among other things, women are now being trained to open and run their own women’s shelters.

Meanwhile, Succar Kuri reportedly had become fearful of the other inmates in Mexico’s highest-security prison.

*

On August 31, 2011, Lydia Cacho got an urgent call from her lawyer: ‘You have to go to the Federal Courthouse in Cancun,’ he said, – ‘right now.‘ The Appeals Judge deciding whether to free Succar Kuri on appeal or not had asked to see her.

Lydia Cacho:

“I identified myself at the entrance to the building, and several minutes went by before the Judge’s assistant arrived to show me in. I walked into his office, he greeted me with scrupulous formality, and I took a seat across from him at his desk… I scarcely breathed as I listened to what he had to say. [It will later be learned that this Judge, while deliberating this case, was both offered cash and threatened].

‘I can tell you now,’ Judge Mata Oliva said, ‘because Succar Kuri and his lawyers heard the sentence a few hours ago and they know all about it.’

‘Tell me your honor,’ I asked in a barely audible voice, fearing the worst – an exoneration.

‘I should tell you that I have reviewed each and every piece of evidence carefully. You are familiar with the evidence, are you not?’

I nodded silently.

‘Not once in my career as a Judge have I ever seen anything as horrifying as the videos Succar Kuri and his wife made of themselves preparing those girls, less than 8-years-old, to be raped. It’s inhuman.’

‘Yes, I know,’ I said.

‘The sentence, which the victims as well as the perpetrator will have formal access to as of now, is 112 years in prison. (Succar Kuri will pay) a fine of 527,174 pesos, and will also be required to pay 320,000 pesos in damages per victim, a figure designed to allow to cover the costs of their therapy, future studies, and any health problems resulting from their trauma. In other words, he will be required to pay 2.5 million pesos. I made the decision to sentence him for each individual case because the law allows me to do so, and because of the seriousness of the crimes… I wanted these girls…to understand that this Court recognizes their bravery and that these crimes have been substantiated beyond all doubt.’”

Never before had a sentence like this been handed down in Latin America. – Not before feminist Lydia Cacho.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

Because of one feminist’s extraordinary courage, the following changes have occurred in Mexico: Beating a woman is now against the law. Child rape and child porn have been re-framed in a feminist context, and it is now better understood that these are crimes men commit. Being a rape victim has also been re-framed in a feminist context, and it is now better understood that rape victims have a right to privacy, should not be publicly identified, and also not blamed. Child rape is now a much more serious crime. Making child pornography is now a much more serious crime. (This was to be called ‘The Lydia Cacho Law,’ but she declined). Sharing child pornography is now against the law. Trafficking women and girls is now a much more serious crime. Bringing criminal defamation charges against a journalist is now against the law. Mothers and teachers are now educating themselves on how to identify pedophiles and recognize signs of sexual abuse in children. Young women and girls are now educating themselves on how to identify traffickers and recognize the entrapment tactics traffickers use. And the international Uberpatriarchs who think they can live lavishly off their industrialized rape now know feminists can track them down. – And make them die in prison.

*

In a red-blood rage, Succar Kuri had sworn to Lydia Cacho in the middle of a maximum-security prison that he would kill her – if it was the last thing he did. Shortly after Succar Kuri was sentenced to 112 years in prison, an agent with US Immigration Enforcement contacted Lydia Cacho to tell her Succar’ Kuri’s wife and five sons were back in Cancun and living at the Solymar Villa.

The pedophile’s wife and lawyers

Succar Kuri’s wife, the US immigration agent warned, was looking for a hitman among corrupt police in Cancun ‘for a little job.’ One week later, Lydia Cacho was forced to leave her home, escorted by the organized crime unit of the federal police because a contract killer was shown to be within a two meter distance of her home, – striking distance.

The death threats have not stopped. The death threats, in fact, have only become more harrowing. In one recent incident, Lydia Cacho’s no-access satellite phone turned on by itself, while a man, through a voice scrambler, said: ‘We’ve already warned you, bitch, don’t mess with us. What’s coming next is you’ll be in pieces. That’s how we’ll send you home.’

*

 “My life is in danger today,” Lydia Cacho explains. She tapes all phone calls.  She videotapes her surroundings at all times. She keeps a packed bag and her passport ready. Arrangements are in place for the care of her Rottweilers. Lydia Cacho: “I take the death threats seriously. I intend to stay alive; yet if that were not the case, if the mafias end up killing me…it is important to document the entire story of the powers that protect traffickers…”

“This is not martyrdom,” Lydia Cacho wants it to be known. “This is a fight for dignity.”

“I hope that I can continue to dodge any and all bullets meant for me, but should that prove not to be the case, at least I know with certainty that I am proud of my life…”

*

Each morning, when she rises, Lydia Cacho says: For myself, for my mother, for all women.

*

Many many men want Lydia Cacho dead. – But Lydia Cacho is alive today. – LYDIA CACHO IS ALIVE!

 

 

Additional Info:

• Segments of undercover recording of Succar Kuri by “Emma:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2AO47dUo1M&feature=youtu.be

• “Arrest” of Lydia Cacho, as taped by shelter cameras: https://youtu.be/tBX_-1iCESY

• The Demons of Eden in Spanish: LOS-DEMONIOS-DEL-EDEN-DE-LYDIA-CACHO-.pdf – Google Drive

• Lydia Cacho’s Website in English translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.lydiacacho.com/&prev=search

• Lydia Cacho on Twitter in English translation: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=https://twitter.com/lydiacachosi%3Flang%3Den&prev=search

• Interview with Lydia Cacho in English https://youtu.be/DocFqoShWlM

References Include:

Books:

• Cacho, Lydia. Infamy: How One Woman Brought an International Sex Trafficking Ring to Justice. Translated into English by Cecilia Ross. Soft Skull Press. 2016.
• Cacho, Lydia. Slavery Inc.: The Untold Story of International Sex Trafficking. Translated into English by Elizabeth Boburg. Soft Skull Press. 2014.

Theses:

• Pearsall, Jill. Corruption, Pedophilia, and Accountability in Mexico: The Case of Lydia Cacho Ribeiro. Ohio State University. May 2008.
• Jones, Gareth and Thomas de Benitez, Sarah. Lost Opportunity: The Lydia Cacho Case and Child Rights in Mexico. The London School of Economics and Political Science. 2014.

Radio:

• Mexico’s Lydia Cacho on Bravery and Journalism. Latino USA. NPR. 2017.

Documentaries:

• Los Demonios del Edén: La Cruzada de Lydia Cacho
• Lydia Cacho : #ImpunidadMata || EP
• Juarez: The City Where Women are Disposable

Articles:

• McGeough, Paul. The Defiant One. The Sydney Morning Herald. August 23, 2014.
• Walker, S. Lynn. Mexican Writer’s Book on Pedophiles Exposes Abuses, and Puts Her in Peril. Copley News/Banderas News. April 2006.
• Mexican Journalist Lydia Cacho: “I don’t scare easily.” The Guardian. April 31, 2012.
• de Valencia, Norrie. Refugees, Human Rights Defenders and the Incredible Story of Lydia Cacho. UNESCO 2008 Freedom of Speech Award Speech. Mozambique. May 3, 2008.
• Imison, Paul. Independent. The New Suffragettes: Lydia Cacho: Justice for Women Means the Right to Live in Safety. May 30, 2013.
• Dangerous Women Project: Lydia Cacho.
• Murphy, Zoeann, Global Threats to Free Press, What Dangers Have You Faced While Reporting in Your Country, Lydia Cacho. The Washington Post.
• Martinez, Chivis. Lydia Cacho: Most Killings of Journalists are Ordered by Government, Military, Political Parties. Borderland Beat. March 24, 2013.
• International Women’s Media Foundation, 2007 Courage in Journalism Award.
• Méndez, Alfredo and Petric, Blanche. Lydia Cacho: “Edith ya sufrió demasiado; no daré yo la última estocada.” La Jornada.
• Mendez, Alfredo, Herrera, Claudia. Familiares de Succar Kuri anuncian que demandarán a Cacho Ribeiro. La Jornada.
• Barajas, Michael. Mexican Journalist Who Braved Death Threats and Torture Will Speak at OLLU for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. San Antonio. October 4, 2016.
• Cacho, Lydia. Challenging the Merchants of Human Slavery. 50.50 Inclusive Democracy. November 30, 2012.
• Campbell, Monica. Battling the Demons of Eden. Amnesty International Magazine. September 9, 2008.
• Scott, Cameron. Mexico’s Most Wanted Journalist. Mother Jones. May 1, 2007.
• Watts Kennedy, Victoria. Interview with Lydia Cacho. 2014.
• Páez Martes, Samantha. Ventila Lydia Cacho ante ONU impunidad en SCJN y Puebla. In e-consulta. October 14, 2014.
• Lydia Cacho Ribeiro, journalist threatened. AmnestyUSA.org.
• Allan, Nicole. Lydia Cacho Ribeiro. The Atlantic. November 2011.
• Roig-Franzia, Manuel. Horror Story. The Washington Post. September 1, 2007.
• “Supreme Court Judges were bribed,” says Cacho. Mexico Reporter. February 8, 2008.
• Cevallos, Diego. Mexico: Ties Between Elites and Child Sex Rings “Beyond Imagination.” InterPress Service. September 13, 2006.
• Cevallos, Diego. Mexico: Key Evidence Blocked in Child Sex Ring Trial. InterPress Service. September 5, 2007.

Speeches:

• Lydia Cacho, Wallenberg Lecture. 2009.
• Lydia Cacho, Global Forum on Freedom of Expression. 2009.

Interviews and clips:

• Frontline Club. Insight with Lydia Cacho: Slavery, Inc.
• Slavery, Inc: Lydia Cacho in conversation with Damien Carrick (Melbourne Writers Festival 2014).
• Hrant Dink Award to Lydia Cacho, Vimeo.
• Lydia Cacho, Mexican journalist risks life to take on sex traffickers, Vimeo.
• Lydia Cacho Goes Undercover in the Global Sex Trade, Fora TV.
• Interview with Lydia Cacho on sex trafficking, prostitution, feminism.
• SEMBLANZA LYDIA CACHO.
• Lydia Cacho on Slave Trade Enablers.
• Lydia Cacho on the dangers for journalists in Mexico.
• CNN Heroes: Lydia Cacho Ribeiro.
• Lydia Cacho: Slavery is Big Business, Festival of Dangerous Ideas. 2014.
• why women count | Lydia Cacho | Mexico.
• How the Sex Trafficking Industry Is Evolving – Lydia Cacho, complete video
• Lydia Cacho.
• Mexican journalist and human rights activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro chooses “not to fear the monsters.”
• Shame to Mexico: Mexican Supreme Court Rules Against Lydia Cacho.
• Entrevista a Succar Kury respecto a la pederastía.
• Female Freedom of Expression in Mexico (Lydia Cacho Ribeiro).

Other: UN Report on the World Conference on the International Women’s Year, Mexico City, 1975. Published 1976.  http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/otherconferences/Mexico/Mexico%20conference%20report%20optimized.pdf

One Woman Cracks the Pedo Elite. Chapter 3.

Preface & Chapter 1 here. Chapter 2 here. Chapter 4 here.

“I was living with countless death threats,” Lydia Cacho said, “guarded day and night like a criminal by federal agents, and (the pedophiles) whom the authorities knew every last detail went about their business in the world with absolute impunity, smiling free and easy…” Despite the substantial evidence authorities now had, despite Kamel Nacif’s recorded phone calls, and despite public outrage, – Kamel Nacif, Governor Marin, and other known members of Succar Kuri’s international child rape and child porn network weren’t arrested. Not one of these men was investigated. Not one of these men was even questioned. – Lydia Cacho, on the other hand, would now be subjected to three high-stakes court battles: 1). Kamel Nacif’s charge that Lydia Cacho “defamed” him in her book on the child rape and child porn network. 2). Lydia Cacho’s historic charges against Governor Marin and Kamel Nacif for violating her human rights by having her abducted and tortured, and 3). Succar Kuri’s trial for child pornography, in which Lydia Cacho is to appear as a witness. For Lydia Cacho, all these trials took place simultaneously. – Here they’ll be chronicled one at a time.

Trial 1: Kamel Nacif’s charge that Lydia Cacho“defamed” him in her book on the child rape and child porn network.

Mexico does not have freedom of the press. Journalists can be charged with defamation – which is not a civil charge, as it is elsewhere in the world, but a criminal charge complete with jail time. If Lydia Cacho is found guilty of having defamed Kamel Nacif, she will be sent to prison. Even if what she wrote is determined to be true, absolutely true, – if her words are found to have caused Kamel Nacif “harm,” – Lydia Cacho will be sent to prison. In one of the recorded phone conversations between Kamel Nacif and Governor Marin, the Pedo Elites debate whether to lock up Lydia Cacho for one decade, – or two.

Also, police in Mexico don’t generally carry out investigations. Investigations, if they are carried out at all, are carried out by the State Attorney General’s Office at their discretion. (Or rather, at the discretion of the Governor who appointed the State Attorney General. Mexico’s patronage system also may or may not direct Special Prosecutors to investigate high-profile cases should they have political ramifications). But even if a State Attorney General agrees to investigate a particular crime, it is still the victim who must do the investigative work. In Mexico, in general, the onus is on the victim of a crime to investigate the crime committed against them. The victim is responsible for compiling evidence. The victim is responsible for securing witnesses. And the victim must bear all costs. Lydia Cacho must compile her own evidence, secure her own witnesses and bear all costs. For example, she must chase down the camera footage from the toll booths in Merida showing the two female agents weren’t with her, and if the footage is available, and if somebody is willing to find it, and if somebody is allowed to make a copy, and if somebody is willing to make a copy, Lydia Cacho must pay, most likely several “fees.” Lydia Cacho must also hire an attorney to represent her, to navigate the paperwork maze of her case.

The first attorney willing to work with Lydia Cacho failed to submit briefs to the Court as required. Lydia Cacho: “…(A)fter learning that the (new) Judge would not be allowing further evidence because my side had not submitted in time, I had a clear vision of my lawyer seated with Kamel Nacif and Governor Marin’s people…handing over my documents…” The second attorney willing to work with Lydia Cacho asked for obscene sums of money: “They calculated they would need four lawyers working on my case full-time in order to deal with the avalanche of legal requirements. That meant purchasing four round-trip tickets once a week for the eight or nine months they estimated the trial would last. In addition to their fees, we would have to cover the cost of their meals and lodging. I rented an apartment in downtown Cancun for them…” The obscene sums of money procured by this second attorney was the price Lydia Cacho would have to pay for her legal team to not be bought-off.

“I was beginning to understand,” Lydia Cacho said, “that the concerted strategic effort being employed by Kamel Nacif, Governor Marin, and Succar Kuri’s lawyers – a total of half a dozen law firms working against me – consisted of wearing me down physically and financially. Each one of them individually threw the entirety of his legal resources into multiplying the number of summons, (testimonies, verification of information, presentation of witnesses), submissions of additional evidence…and psychological and medical evaluations…I had to juggle. They were so good at it that in one particular week, I was under obligation to appear in courts in Cancun, Mexico City, and Puebla – all on the same day.”

“On top of all this,” Lydia Cacho continued, “the Special Prosecutors for Crimes Against Women and for Crimes Against Journalists were asking me to appear practically every third day [in Mexico City]. The litany was never ending, and so were the costs.” Legal fees paid by Lydia Cacho, Lydia Cacho’s family and numerous feminist friends approached 300 million pesos. “Kamel Nacif had said it on one of the recordings: ‘I’m going to (take Lydia Cacho to court) over and over again, – until she begs for forgiveness.’”

Besides the Pedo Elite effort to break her, the Mexican criminal justice system also tried to break her, as it was designed to do: What in other countries might be considered the illegal treatment of a terrorist suspect is in Mexico the normal course of events for the victims of crime. Lydia Cacho was required to undergo countless invasive and cruel psychological and medical evaluations, but not told when and where these evaluations would take place. Unpredictably, state workers came calling, – at which point Lydia Cacho had to stop whatever she was doing and for the next 10 or 12 hours, talk about the trauma of being tortured. The state workers weren’t there to listen, though. They were there to gaslight the torture survivor.

Lydia Cacho: “The country’s criminal justice system is organized on the assumption that all victims lie… The first evaluation to which the Attorney General’s Office subjected me was carried out by a young inexperienced (woman, who)…showed up in Cancun one day with no warning… I was taken to an office where I was kept from 10 o’clock in the morning until after 9 o’clock at night with no access to either food or drink…”

“At each of these sessions I was asked to describe in ever greater detail not only the facts of what had happened to me, but also the emotions I had experienced, [ostensibly] in order to evaluate the extent of emotional damage caused,” Lydia Cacho said. “The criminologist was questioning me with pointed insistence about every humiliating detail of my torture – Why do you say that you were tortured? How are you going to prove it?…What are you so afraid of – tell me, what is it? Are you aware that there are even crueler tortures…?…Why are you crying?…”

“The authorities use all means necessary to make sure victims fear and distrust the (evaluator),” she explained, “so the (evaluator) can then report that ‘the victim was uncooperative, because he or she was unable to establish a relationship of trust with the examining psychologist…’”

“(Talking later to my own therapist), I couldn’t stop crying, no longer able to tell which was more traumatizing for me – what the agents had done to me, or the systematic abuse on the part of the authorities who were trying to prove no crime had in fact been committed…while stacks of overwhelming evidence were lying patiently on desks of bureaucrats for whom the mere mention of the name Kamel Nacif was enough to set them quaking in their boots.”

*

Lydia Cacho’s attorney called to inform her she would have to take the stand against Kamel Nacif in two sessions, – each session six to nine hours, – the first taking place the next day. Lydia Cacho: “I set the telephone down, paced around my apartment, sat down in the living room and lit a white candle. How do I feel? I asked myself, searching in my breath for an honest answer. What I found were mixed feelings… Part of me wished never to be near them, but another part of me was experiencing a feeling of solid certainty that the only way I had to exorcise the fear I had of my tormentors was to face them head on, with the truth acting as my shield… I wanted to look Kamel Nacif in the eyes, and in this way say: ‘Here I am, you have not destroyed me.’ I’m ready, I told myself. This will be a chance to show them that a woman can stand up to them without fear, to remind them that they are not the masters of the world.”

*

One of the girls at the shelter who was sexually assaulted by Succar Kuri told Lydia Cacho that if she could say something to the man protecting Succar Kuri, she would say, ‘No more corruption.’ Inspired by this, Lydia Cacho and shelter staff had T-shirts printed which read: “No More Pedophiles. No More Corruption. No More Impunity.”

“(The morning I was to face Kamel Nacif),” Lydia Cacho said, “I donned the shirt. When I looked in the mirror before heading out the door, I felt armored by these three simple demands shared by tens of thousands of people. I felt as if the 40,000 people who had taken to the Puebla streets to march in protest and all the other people following the news of my case day in and day out were with me, somehow, in those three phrases. I felt prepared.”

*

Now for the first time Lydia Cacho was in the presence of Kamel Nacif. “(T)he look on Kamel Nacif’s face was one of a man wild with rage,” Lydia Cacho said, “and struggling to keep his cool. I glanced at him calmly, head on. I turned my torso so he could see my shirt. His eyes fixed on the words, and a bright red flush burst across his face.”

The Judge, who it will later be learned was threatened by Kamel Nacif and his lawyers, trembled and sweat. The Judge would not accept the child victims’ transcripted testimonies which Lydia Cacho tried to submit to the Court. Lydia Cacho: “(T)he Judge, avoiding my eyes, stated no connection existed between (this case in which I was charged with defaming Kamel Nacif) and the Succar Kuri case.” The Judge forbade Lydia Cacho from speaking Succar Kuri’s name. Kamel Nacif’s lawyers grinned. – It would now be impossible for Lydia Cacho to defend herself. How could she defend what she had written about Kamel Nacif if she could not submit the evidence – the testimonies of the girls implicating Kamel Nacif? And if she could not mention pedo leader Succar Kuri, how could she explain why she had identified Kamel Nacif as Succar Kuri’s protector?

Succar Kuri had given a television interview in which he’d said, with uber-hubris, so confident of his impunity that he could boast to a television camera in a prison cell, that Kamel Nacif had given him US$300,000 towards his legal defense. Evidence was everywhere that Kamel Nacif was protecting Succar Kuri, even on national television, – yet Lydia Cacho had been forbidden by the Judge deciding her case from even saying Succar Kuri’s name.

To tell the truth about child-rapist Kamel Nacif who would never be charged for his crimes, to be taken to court for “defaming” him, for which you will be imprisoned if found guilty, yet to be prohibited from submitting proof that what you wrote is true – this was completely insane.

*

Eventually, Lydia Cacho’s turn came to cross-examine Kamel Nacif. Lydia Cacho: “I asked him calmly, watching as his eyes darted away from mine every time I attempted to hold his gaze, why he was funding the defense of the pedophile Succar Kuri. And though the Judge would not allow the question to stand, the businessman’s lawyers could not stop their client from leaning forward towards me in his seat, like a panicky bull readying himself for the charge, snarling, ‘Goddamn you fucking lady.’” (Effectively admitting being patron to the pedo).

Kamel Nacif’s sweatshop-owing associate who was taped suggesting to Kamel Nacif that Lydia Cacho be raped in jail by women prisoners, only to have Kamel Nacif reply that that had already been arranged, was presented as a character witness for Kamel Nacif. ‘Kamel Nacif is an upstanding man,’ the associate testified, ‘incapable of committing the disgusting acts (Lydia Cacho accused him of in her book).’ Lydia Cacho: “Staring at him straight in the eye, I…ask(ed) him if he considered it an example of upstanding behavior to have ordered the prisoners at the jail to rape me and beat me. To the utter shock of all present, his white skin turned crimson as he spat despotically, and replied, ‘That rape was never carried out in the end.’ His lawyers gaped in horror, but his words had already been taken down by the stenographer. I felt like a soccer player who’d just managed to slip the ball past the unbelieving eyes of the goalie, right straight to the back of the net, in a single, clean, glorious shot.” (Effectively admitting criminal collusion).

*

Several months later, on September 29, 2006, Lydia Cacho had her second and final session with Kamel Nacif. “When I entered the room,” Lydia Cacho said, “while the Public Ministry official was finalizing preparations and everyone was getting settled in their seats, I walked straight over to Kamel Nacif, who was leaning up against one of the walls. I positioned myself directly in front of him, standing very close, and informed him quietly, ‘Kamel, every time you look in my eyes, all those abused girls will be looking back out at you.’ I retired quickly, and he fixed me with a look of disbelief and hatred that was captured perfectly by the several video and still cameras in the room.”

Lydia Cacho and her attorney, seated right. Kamel Nacif, seated center, with his attorneys all standing

 

Kamel Nacif said Lydia Cacho’s public statements that he raped children and that over 100 female workers in his sweatshops filed sexual harassment claims against him had caused him to lose export orders, – though he did not bother documenting said lost orders. Lydia Cacho: “As the session was drawing to a close, when it became clear Kamel Nacif couldn’t prove the ‘millions in losses’ his textile factories had, according to him, suffered as a result of the words I had written, Kamel Nacif flew into a rage. His lawyers, frantically chewing their gum, could do nothing to calm his furor… The Judge whispered to me, ‘Step over there. You don’t want to get yourself beaten up.’”

This trembling sweating Judge who was too afraid to call for order at this hearing he presided over, would now deliberate on whether or not Lydia Cacho would be locked up. Lydia Cacho does not know if these are her last days of freedom until this Judge rules.

*

When this second and final session with Kamel Nacif was over, Lydia Cacho went to the shelter to be with the girl survivors. “For years, these girls and women believed their rapists to be untouchable, all-powerful beings,” Lydia Cacho said. “Now their tormentors were human, plain and simple, and standing up to them was a woman just like them.”

‘We are all Lydia Cacho,’ the mother of one of the girls said to Lydia, lovingly. Lovingly, Lydia replied: ‘And Lydia Cacho is all women. We are in this together.’

*

On January 2, 2007, Lydia Cacho, Kamel Nacif, and their lawyers came to Court to hear the Judge’s ruling. To the astonishment of everyone present, the Judge threw out the case. Kamel Nacif does not win his case against Lydia Cacho. He cannot say she defamed him. Lydia Cacho is absolved. Lydia Cacho will not go to prison.

*

Kamel Nacif followed up this stinging loss by suing Lydia Cacho in 2008. Having lost his criminal suit against her, he was now pursuing a civil suit for damages, – and had signed on Emma as co-plaintiff.

Emma, now 24, wrote Lydia Cacho to say Kamel Nacif’s attorneys had her sign an agreement in English which she didn’t understand, in exchange for money. Yet Emma did show up to personally testify against Lydia Cacho, no doubt under duress, clearly still Stockholmed, – though she told the media she now felt all parties involved had betrayed her. Kamel Nacif’s and Emma’s civil suit alleged Lydia Cacho had exposed their “private affairs, and therefore, Lydia Cacho and her publishers owed them millions of pesos for making their “private information” public in her book. The suit also alleged Lydia Cacho was not a journalist because she did not hold a professional credential. “A group of the country’s most renowned journalists had to testify before the Court,” Lydia Cacho remarked of the absurdity, “that I am indeed a journalist.” In the suit, Kamel Nacif offered Lydia Cacho and her publishers the option of paying damages or letting him rewrite her book.

By 2013, the suit had ricocheted its way all the way up to the Mexican Supreme Court, – where Kamel Nacif, et al, lost. Lydia Cacho and her publisher were cleared of any wrongdoing. The contents of The Demons of Eden were determined to have appropriately placed the general public’s interest first. This was a first in Mexico. – A step towards democracy. – To rule that it was appropriate to place the general public’s interest first.

*

In response to Lydia Cacho’s case, a federal law was passed making defamation not a criminal charge with jail time, but, as elsewhere in the world, a civil charge. However, the laws of Mexican States supersede Mexican federal law, and so it remains to be seen if the 31 Mexican States will adopt this legal precedent. Nevertheless, along with the Supreme Court decision that it is appropriate to place the general public’s interest first, decriminalizing defamation for journalists is a startling legal precedent for Mexico, sweetening Lydia Cacho’s victory. – Not only did she set a new bar for freedom of the press, she beat back a multi-millionaire Pedo Elite in a justice system devised explicitly for him and explicitly against her, – and did it twice.

*

Trial 2: Lydia Cacho’s historic charges against Governor Marin and Kamel Nacif for violating her human rights by having her abducted and tortured.

When the taped calls between Governor Marin and Kamel Nacif went public, Lydia Cacho charged Governor Marin and Kamel Nacif with violating her human rights for ordering her torture in the car and in jail. No one had ever done this in Mexico before; human rights violations were common, but they weren’t recognized in Mexican Courts, and it seemed unlikely the case would be heard. “My lawyer was clear in his forewarning that I had no chance whatsoever of winning the case,” Lydia Cacho said, “or even having it investigated properly.” Nevertheless, Lydia Cacho brought federal corruption charges against Governor Marin, Kamel Nacif, Puebla Judge Rosa Celia Perez Gonzalez, who had authorized Lydia Cacho’s abduction and detention, and Puebla Attorney General Blanca Laura Villeda Martinez, who had arranged Lydia Cacho’s jail torture and assault. She charged them with abuse of power, influence peddling, criminal collusion, abduction, torture and rape in retaliation for having exposed Governor Marin’s and Kamel Nacif’s links to the international pedophile network. Lydia Cacho filed these charges despite of the fact no charges of any kind can be brought against a Mexican Governor; Mexican Governors are immune from prosecution by law. (Kamel Nacif, though not a Governor, financed Mexican Governors’ political campaigns, including Governor Marin’s, and so would also in effect be immune from prosecution, as would Governor Marin’s two appointed handmaidens – all of them likely viewed as logical extensions of a Mexican Governor’s unfettered power).

On April 18, 2006, the Mexican Congress stunned the country by requesting that the Mexican Supreme Court hear Lydia Cacho’s case. Unbelievably, the Mexican Supreme Court agreed to hear Lydia Cacho’s case.

Not only would Lydia Cacho be the first to bring federal corruption charges against a Governor (and Judge and Attorney General), Lydia Cacho would also be the first woman ever to bring a case before Mexico’s Supreme Court, the first woman ever to testify before the Supreme Court’s ten Justices, and the first woman ever to have a human rights and women’s rights case heard by Mexico’s highest Court.

*

Four months later, Lydia Cacho’s case file was stolen. The file contained irreplaceable evidence against Governor Marin and Kamel Nacif. “It was the most complete, extensive dossier regarding my case in existence,” Lydia Cacho said, “and if it were to fall into Governor Marin’s hands, he would have access to the names of my key witnesses.” The Mexican Human Rights Commission erroneously told the press that the theft of Lydia Cacho’s case file was unrelated to Lydia Cacho’s case.

One month later, Mexico’s Supreme Court declared insufficient evidence had been presented for the Court to hear Lydia Cacho’s case. But the Court then made an unprecedented announcement. Lydia Cacho: “(T)o my complete surprise and that of my lawyers, the Supreme Court ruled 7-3 in favor of widening the scope of the inquest.” A subset of Supreme Court Justices headed by Justice Silva Meza would form a Special Investigative Commission to investigate the criminal conspiracy against Lydia Cacho themselves. An ecstatic Lydia Cacho told the press: “This is historic. This is monumental. The Mexican Supreme Court is saying it will dare to investigate public servants who collude with organized crime to shut journalists up.” Unbeknownst to the parties involved, the Special Investigative Commission ordered 21 wiretaps, – eavesdropping on Governor Marin, Governor Marin’s wife, Kamel Nacif, Kamel Nacif’s ex-wife, the Puebla Judge, the Puebla State Attorney General and other public officeholders. The Commission also heard the testimonies of the child victims. (Of those who stepped forward, many dropped out after receiving death threats from Succar Kuri and his wife, or after accepting his money and signing retractions. One girl was moved to another state by her uncle, who took the pedophile’s money in exchange for her silence. Many others, of course, never came forward – fearing for their lives. Twenty-three victims of the Pedo Elites, however, stood together to give the Commission their testimonies). All parties named in the lawsuit were called to testify, as was Lydia Cacho.

On June 26, 2007, the Special Investigative Commission assembled to announce its findings. Lydia Cacho and her attorney were present as the session was called to order, as was the press. Lydia Cacho: ‘What a surprise was in store for us!’ For the very first time in Mexican history, a full and thorough investigation of human rights and women’s rights had been conducted by the highest court of the land…’

Justice Silva Meza read aloud: The Special Investigative Commission has determined that the Governor and his associates ‘conspired to apprehend and torture Lydia Cacho, whose journalistic work uncovered a network of political and financial forces supporting and protecting child pornography and pedophilia rings.’ Lydia Cacho fought back tears. Speaking on the Commission’s behalf, Justice Silva Meza revealed that 30 high-ranking government officials had been involved in the criminal conspiracy against Lydia Cacho, – far more than even she realized.

A court clerk suddenly interrupted. He said he must now read a statement on behalf of another Supreme Court Justice who had ‘lost his voice’ and could not read the statement himself. The statement requested the Court withhold its ruling on the Lydia Cacho case ‘until such time as the rules for reaching a determination have been decided upon.’ Justice Silva Meza was visibly taken aback. After the session was adjourned, Governor Marin’s lawyers brazenly told the press the Justices had heeded their warning to protect the Governor. Lydia Cacho was devastated. It was unclear what this rift between the Justices meant for her case, – except it would now be stalled.

 

*

Lydia Cacho, meanwhile, was being tailed. A woman with the Governor’s office forwarded her documents faxed to the Governor by two investigators, reporting her movements and transcribing her calls. “As I went through these documents,” Lydia Cacho said, “I was astonished to find accounts about people with whom I had gone to lunch or dinner at one point or another…” The two investigators, the woman said, worked for Kamel Nacif. The ‘two investigators’ – Montano and Perez – had been living in Cancun for the past two months at Succar Kuri’s Solymar Villa.

A week later, Lydia Cacho met with her therapist to discuss the sudden onset of nightmares.

Arrest warrants were issued for Montano and Perez for the torture of Lydia Cacho. A federal police agent who was in the end not picked for either the abduction or jail job had reported that he and others received direct orders from the Puebla Attorney General’s Office to ‘fuck Lydia Cacho up, you know, – beat her up or kill her,’ – which had resulted in the arrest warrants for Montano and Perez.

The men who had tortured and raped Lydia Cacho began calling her, again and again – detailing how she would die. A dead Lydia Cacho wouldn’t take the stand against them, and so Montano and Perez were now personally motivated to kill her.

Yet despite the arrest warrants, Montano and Perez weren’t picked up. No one knew, the authorities told Lydia Cacho and her attorney, where these two men were. Eventually, the matter was dropped. Lydia Cacho would later learn Quintana Roo’s Governor had had the matter dropped, – and that Governor Marin had called him afterwards – just to say thanks.

*

Thirty days after the Special Investigative Commission’s findings were abruptly stalled, they were just as abruptly officialized and made public in a 1,205-page document. Lydia Cacho: “(T)he Supreme Court’s Investigative Commission unraveled and laid out, step by step…the criminal conspiracy against me.” On behalf of the Investigative Commission, Justice Silva Meza wrote: “Journalist Lydia Cacho did not go far enough in her book. The journalist’s book does not begin to tell it all.”

The full Mexican Supreme Court would now convene to deliberate on Lydia Cacho’s case. They would now consider whether Governor Marin, Kamel Nacif, the Puebla Judge and Attorney General were guilty of federal corruption, abuse of power, influence peddling, criminal collusion, abduction, torture and rape. They would would rule whether Lydia Cacho’s human rights were indeed violated.

*

Puebla Governor Mario Marin, the man who gave the two goons orders to terminate  Lydia Cacho, the man who gave the two handmaidens orders to crush her, could, if Lydia Cacho wins this case, be impeached. (Not imprisoned; just impeached). Yet the threat of impeachment had never before presented itself to a Mexican Governor. To combat this threat, Governor Marin spent 500 million pesos of taxpayer money on a scrub campaign to sanitize his image. Additionally, the lawyers defending him, their fine meals, their luxury hotel stays and transport in private plush “air limousines” were also paid for by taxpayer money – a staggering 3.5 billion pesos.

International and national investigative agencies will later inform Lydia Cacho that Governor Marin’s criminal activities were extensive. The Mexican Special Investigations on Organized Crime (SEIDO), the Mexican Bureau of Investigation and National Security (CISEN), the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and the Merida Initiative (an intelligence collaboration between the US, Mexico and Central America to fight organized crime, money laundering and drug-trafficking) were all aware of Governor Marin’s criminal activities.

Lydia Cacho: (T)he DEA uncovered the existence of a company owned by Governor Marin called Millennium Air Service… The company was created with the illegal allocation of US$66.4 million of public funds for the purchase of a fleet of helicopters and airplanes (made) by Marin’s son…” The Governor’s son acted as front man in these acquisitions. The Govenor’s son now lived in Wels, Austria, ‘one of the most exclusive regions of the world,’ according to a Mexican reporter who tracked him down, ‘renowned as a refuge for princes, kings, magnates, and the Hollywood elite…’ Intelligence officials determined Governor Marin’s son had not held any job which might have afforded him this lifestyle.

According to Interpol, Governor Marin owned seven 407-model Bell helicopters worth US$21 million, two 206 Bell helicopters and two Augusta helicopters worth US$16 million, two Cessna 2008 XA-TWT aircraft worth US$600,000, a Dassault Falcon 20 plane worth US$350,000 a Sabre Cinergo plane worth US$300,000 and four Learjet 45s, worth about US$8 million each, or about US$32 million for all four Learjets. The Governor of one small Mexican State, in other words, owned nineteen aircraft.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) found illicit transportation of undeclared cash in Marin’s aircraft, with probable links to organized crime. Large sums of money were moved from Mexico to Texas and Florida. Because heads of drug cartels had also flown on the Governor’s aircraft, in one case to successfully evade an arrest-in-progress, ICE used diplomatic channels to request special attention be paid to all aircraft registered in the Marin name.

Lydia Cacho: “One of the young Mexican girls who had fallen victim to the Cancun sex trafficking network affirmed in a statement in 2004 that three American girls from Florida were brought over on a large private plane which they said belonged to a Governor…” According to Interpol: ‘(Governor Marin) is known to have a penchant for underage women (sic).’ A General on the Merida Initiative’s Intelligence Team told Lydia Cacho that Governor Marin had ‘a history of protecting pedophiles,’ but, he said, the President of Mexico, when given this intelligence, did nothing. Intelligence agencies knew Governor Marin was protecting Succar Kuri. Lydia Cacho: “Marin was under close scrutiny [by intelligence agencies]…for protecting a criminal network involved in the sex trafficking of minors, and yet his businesses and ties to dangerous friends were allowed to continue…”

*

On November 29, 2007, Lydia Cacho was about to present her new book, Infamy, at a book launch, – a book launch the Pedo Elites had tried but failed to stop, – when the Supreme Court announced it would now make its final ruling on the Lydia Cacho case. Due to widespread public interest, the Supreme Court’s final ruling was about to be broadcast live on national television, – something which had never happened before in Mexico, a country where the Supreme Court has not even had to make its rulings public.

Lydia Cacho, with family, friends and journalists, found a bar, where they could watch the Supreme Court’s proceedings on television. Lydia Cacho: “My lawyer was there in the chamber along with the Governor’s seven and the human trafficker’s [Kamel Nacif’s] five. The solemnity and tension in the room were palpable even on screen. The court crier announced the order in which the Justices would speak and then proceeded to explain that this was one of the most closely followed Supreme Court cases in the country’s history.”

Of the ten Justices on Mexico’s Supreme Court, Justice Silva Meza spoke first: ‘The violation of the human rights of the journalist Lydia Cacho as a result of the concerted actions of the Governor of the State of Puebla and the authorities of the State Attorney General’s Office and the Court of Justice of the same has been irrefutably established.’ Justice Silva Meza then read out the names of the accused. Justice Silva Meza and the three male Justices who spoke after him ruled in favor of Lydia Cacho. The four remaining male Justices ruled against Lydia Cacho. Justice Aguirre, one of the four male Justices ruling against, said: ‘(T)housands of people are tortured in this country – what is this woman complaining about? What makes her so different or so much more important that the Court should trouble itself with one individual case?’

The ruling was now 4-4, with two female Justices remaining, – one a conservative, and one pro-feminist. The conservative female Justice voted against Lydia Cacho, – bringing it to 5-4 against. The pro-feminist Justice, Justice Olga Sanchez Cordero, a blond-haired woman, adjusted her glasses repeatedly as she read her statement. She then began to stutter. ‘Crimes had indeed been committed,’ she said. ‘But said crimes were not very serious in nature.’ The pro-feminist Justice ruled against Lydia Cacho, deciding her human rights had not been violated by being abducted, tortured and raped, with a final ruling of 6-4 against Lydia Cacho. “To the utter astonishment of those watching,” Lydia Cacho said, “(the pro-feminist Justice) exonerated the Governor and his accomplices.”

“Silence filled the bar and I realized every person there was staring at the television screen [in shock],” Lydia Cacho said. “Then, here and there, people hung their heads, buried their faces in their hands, and more than one journalist began to offer insults [at the television].” The mafias have gained control of the Supreme Court, Lydia Cacho thought to herself. She knocked back her tequila and set down her shot glass. Lydia Cacho went up to her hotel room and cried. She wished her mother was alive.

*

Lydia Cacho later alleged some of the Supreme Court Justices – who 48 hours earlier looked as if they would rule in her favor, – were paid off by the Governor’s attorneys. Lydia Cacho heard this from a person close to those attorneys, but could not substantiate it. “Pro-feminist” Justice Olga Sanchez Cordero, however, did later admit she ruled against Lydia Cacho after coming under ‘extreme political pressure.’

*

In January 2010, the four Supreme Court Justices who ruled in Lydia Cacho’s favor published a book in her defense. This was startling, – the first book Supreme Court Justices ever published about a case – and to condemn its verdict. The Justices said they took this unprecedented step because they found the mafia’s influence on the Supreme Court’s ruling deeply unsettling. In The Ways of Power: The Lydia Cacho Case, the Justices declared: “(T)he journalist’s fundamental rights were seriously violated… (T)he authorities under indictment are protecting and promoting pedophilia and child pornography networks.” By 2016, this book had inspired 16 law school theses in Mexico, and become required reading for the degree in human rights and jurisprudence.

*

Also in 2016, a decade after the abduction, Montano and Perez were finally arrested. Montano and Perez have been charged with the torture of Lydia Cacho. That outcome is pending.

 

 

 

 

One Woman Cracks the Pedo Elite. Preface & Chapter 1.

Chapter 2 here. Chapter 3 here. Chapter 4 here.

LYDIA CACHO IS ALIVE TODAY. But tomorrow, Lydia Cacho could be killed. – Because Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho cracked her local Pedo Elite – a brotherhood of rich men who rape girl-children. Tomorrow Lydia Cacho could be killed because she is now pushing further yet – following the trail from her local Pedo Elite to top-level networks trafficking girls, the global suppliers – the Russian, Albanian, Italian, Japanese and Chinese mafias, the Latin American drug cartels, – the international Uber-Patriarchy itself, that is – owners and operators of the international recreational assault market, reaping billion dollar profits in what has increasingly become the global sex-trafficking of girl-children.

Men around the world want to recreationally assault girl-children. Men’s demand in the female assault market (ie, “prostitution/forced prostitution/sex-trafficking”) has pivoted from young women to girl-children. For example, from her investigative work, Lydia Cacho has learned the Russian Mafia has saturated the Internet with girl-child porn, “infomercials” in effect, to drive the demand for their product. As men’s global demand has shifted to girl-children, supply has had to keep pace. Girls ages 4-17 are now being enslaved by these multi-national rape-dealers to be continuously sold. The Uber-Patriarchy has found their girl-child enterprise far more lucrative than their other business ventures, because – unlike cocaine, a girl-child can be sold again and again.

As more younger and younger girls are brought into the global market, the total number of all females of all ages ensnared by these assault-suppliers is staggering: According to Lydia Cacho, the total number of females world-wide now enslaved for captive rape now exceeds the total number of Africans enslaved in the Americas over the entire duration of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

In the male rank system – Uber-Patriarchy, Alpha-Patriarchy, Beta-Patriarchy, – males of the highest rank, – international Uber-Patriarchy males, – are conferred impunity – freedom from scrutiny, freedom from accountability, freedom to commit crimes as they wish. Because Lydia Cacho is determined to tell the world their crimes, – tomorrow Lydia Cacho could be killed.

Powerful men have told her to stop or she will be raped and bludgeoned to death, – that her corpse will be hacked into pieces, – that those who love her won’t find those pieces. Hired goons constantly tail her. Already she has survived their torture. But none of these men and none of their goons have stopped Lydia Cacho. No they have not… In fact, every time they commit atrocities against her to make her stop her feminist work, Lydia Cacho undertakes even more courageous feminist work.

This is the story of how one woman cracked her local Pedo Elite. This is the story of Lydia Cacho. – A story which starts at the beginning.

 

Chapter 1

A feminist gave birth to Lydia Cacho. Feminist Paulette Ribeiro Monteiro birthed six children, including daughter Lydia. Lydia Cacho’s mother founded a women’s development organization in Mexico City’s slums. Fighting for women’s rights and against poverty, she often brought Lydia along: “I can’t imagine my mother could have any idea just what effect seeing those little girls in the slums…would have on my soul,” Lydia Cacho said. “While she and her colleagues gave talks, I would attempt to play with my peers, only to discover with alarm how girls my age were physically unable to hold a pencil [due to malnutrition]… At that age, somewhere between 7 and 10, a child has no idea what to do with the strange feeling brewing inside her that some omnipotent force is lying to us and controlling our reality… I later learned patriarchy was (its) name…” When Lydia Cacho was12-years-old, the first World Conference on Women’s Rights, – the 1975 UN Conference for Women, – convened in Mexico City. There, the world’s feminists declared: ‘Women of the entire world, whatever differences exist between them, share the painful experience of receiving or having received unequal treatment, and that as their awareness of this phenomenon increases, they will become natural allies in the struggle against any form of oppression, such as is practiced under colonialism, neo-colonialism, Zionism, racial discrimination and apartheid, thereby constituting an enormous revolutionary potential…’

 

 

 

 

 

Lydia Cacho: “(Because) my mom was a feminist, I saw everything through that lens, that lens you can never take off… In a Mexico where nothing good comes to women who dare speak a word of protest, I learned to rebel.” At 16, Lydia Cacho led workshops on women’s rights. At 23, after nearly dying from the loss of a kidney, Lydia Cacho established herself in Cancun as a journalist for Mexico’s first major feminist magazine. Lydia Cacho and her mother founded a women’s rights organization in Cancun together, and organized women’s conferences there. Lydia Cacho landed an editorial column in Cancun’s newspaper, La Cronica, and used it to write on women’s issues. She founded an organization for feminist journalists, which grew from 12 to 600 members across the Spanish-speaking world. Soon Lydia Cacho was appearing before the United Nations General Assembly to report on the status of women in Mexico.

Amazingly, Lydia Cacho then launched a feminist radio-talk-show called These Women. “On the show, we called upon women to defend their rights,” Lydia Cacho explained. “These women spoke invariably about the violence they suffered as being an obstacle that limited their ability to work, to be free, to be happy. They spoke about their father’s sexual abuse, their husband’s rape, their boss’ sexual harassment…” Lydia Cacho’s feminist radio-talk-show was so popular it branched out into Lydia Cacho’s feminist newspaper, This Mouth is Mine. Lydia Cacho’s feminist newspaper was so popular it branched out into Lydia Cacho’s feminist TV show, also called This Mouth is Mine. “We were breaking down paradigms,” Lydia Cacho said. “Feminist programming on Televisa? Yes. A complete success.”

Battered women started to show up at the radio and television stations, asking Lydia Cacho for help. In 1990s Mexico, beating a woman was not a crime if her injuries healed within 15 days. Lydia Cacho organized these women to push for a law to make beating a woman a crime. [It took over 10 years, but in 2007, these women got their law: The General Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free from Violence now makes beating a woman in Mexico a crime]. The number of battered women showing up at the radio and television stations asking Lydia Cacho for help, however, only continued to grow. About the same time Lydia Cacho decided she would open a battered women’s shelter, her feminist television program, on a successful five-year run, was abruptly canceled. It was ‘obscene,’ she was told, to discuss birth control on TV. Still, Lydia Cacho continued as a feminist journalist both in print and on television.

This is when the first warning came. In 1999, coming back from a reporting trip in the south of Mexico, Lydia Cacho stopped at a truck stop to use the restroom. Lydia Cacho: “A slim but muscular blond man had apparently followed me into the restroom. When I came out of the stall to wash my hands, he sprang at me, immobilizing me. He then attacked me, raped me, and left me for dead. When I eventually dared to move again, I telephoned my mother.” The rapist had dislocated Lydia Cacho’s arm and hip. He had broken several of her bones and ribs during the rape. Lydia Cacho: “I was completely unable to explain to the doctor how I had managed, given my injuries, to stand up and walk out of the restroom under my own strength.” Lydia Cacho later will learn a Mexican Governor who two years later would be in US prison for ties to organized crime, had objected to her work and had ordered the rape.

For most women, – this, – understandably, – would be the end of the story. But for Lydia Cacho, it is just the beginning.

*

Once her arm was out of the sling, once her broken bones and ribs had healed, Lydia Cacho focused on opening a high-security women’s shelter for battered and trafficked women. After the right building was found and the work needed to open it underway, Lydia Cacho’s feminist partners in the project pulled out. They feared for their lives, they said, once they realized that, because this was Cancun, many of the women who had been asking for help were running from powerful dangerous men. Lydia Cacho’s mother told her not to give up, that the right women will come to help her make this happen. Lydia Cacho did not give up, and the right women did come.

The shelter was based on the battered women’s shelters feminists of the Second Wave had opened in the US, – but specially-enhanced for the corruption and lawlessness of Mexico. This was a super high-security refuge where women could stay three to six months. “(W)e had digital video cameras installed to record the perimeter of the center 24-hours-a-day, in order to capture evidence of any attacks or threats, as well as recording the faces of the aggressors themselves,” Lydia Cacho said. The surveillance video was sent off-site in case men set the building on fire or detonated a bomb. Lydia Cacho: “Following the first occasion on which death threats were received at the shelter (from an arms dealer with ties to government officials), we purchased a specialized telephone device to record such threats…” The shelter offered women free personal security, free legal help, and free counseling, with a focus on overcoming PTSD.

Lydia Cacho also began quietly investigating the men these women were running from, the men her former feminist partners had feared – mafiosos, drug lords, politicians, cops. Lydia Cacho’s man-investigations became part of the shelter’s strategy to stay one step ahead of the perps. “(W)e investigated every story of violence that the women we were protecting brought to us,” Lydia Cacho said. “Our team was now juggling 70 cases a month involving women whose lives were in danger, most of them due to human trafficking, forced prostitution and domestic violence.” Eventually the shelter would come to serve 30,000 women a year. Lydia Cacho took no salary as Director, man-investigator, and general shelter-worker.

Running a women’s shelter in Mexico is dangerous. There were only three other women’s shelters in Mexico at this time, – all under siege. Lydia Cacho: “We knew what was being done in Torreon, in Aguascalientes, and in Mexico City, places where shelters for victims of abuse had been opened but were struggling because armed husbands or pimps would simply show up at the shelters and threaten the teams’ lives. (These shelters) were essentially defenseless – abandoned by the state, mistrustful of corrupt local police, and threatened by a variety of aggressors.” For support, Lydia Cacho and the other first shelter founders joined to form a national shelter network.

Yet despite Lydia Cacho’s careful planning, shelter fortification, and shelter networking, her shelter came under attack. Lydia Cacho: “One morning a powerful local drug dealer who raped his children and battered his wife came to the crisis center. He had a shotgun and was accompanied by two other gunmen armed as if they were going to war. (He) yelled at us from the outside, ‘Bring my wife or bring Lydia Cacho. I will kill you both for defying me.’” The local police responded to the shelter’s urgent call for help, took one look at the military-style weapons these men had – and left. Lydia Cacho called their commander, who advised her to give the man his wife back. The man shot and hit the crisis center. Lydia Cacho got hold of Mexico’s Anti-Drug Czar, whose drug agents, just by showing up, sent the men packing. There was no investigation or arrests. This is Mexico, after all, where, according to Lydia Cacho, 9 out of 10 crimes aren’t investigated.

After this first attack on the shelter (more would follow), Lydia Cacho brought in judo instructors to teach staff how to knock a gun out of a man’s hand. Other measures were also taken: “A friend of mine who used to belong to a SWAT team reviewed our protocols and instructed me for two hours every night for four months, until I knew how to handle everything from kidnappings to death threats, from a group crisis, to how to attend to gunshot wounds,” Lydia Cacho said. “Everyone on the team knew the rules: We were to always travel in pairs, and we all had satellite radios that back then were only used by criminals or specialized police forces.” They also had the shelter doors armored, and the windows replaced with bullet-proof glass.

*

In late 2003, a 19-year-old from Cancun, “Emma,” made headlines by accusing Cancun businessman Succar Kuri of operating a child rape and child porn ring. Emma told authorities she had been victimized by Succar Kuri since age 13, her cousin since age 9, and her sister since age 8. As the city of Cancun is in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office called a news conference. At the news conference, they distributed the girls’ photos, the girls’ mothers’ names, and the girls’ mothers’ cell phone numbers. News reports blamed the girls for ‘sexually provoking’ the businessman, and especially blamed the victims’ mothers. Newspapers published pictures of the girls’ homes. Lydia Cacho: “By also showing photographs of the exteriors of the victims’ homes, neighbors would be sure to figure out who the mothers of all the victims were, and to judge them for having – allegedly – handed their daughters over to a pedophile.” The girls were hounded out of their schools and into mental breakdowns.

As Lydia Cacho condemned this misogyny in print and on television, as she explained how these girl victims were now being re-victimized, Succar Kuri’s wife called the Cancun teenager – twice. Succar Kuri’s wife, – who as a child was herself a victim of Succar Kuri, who would later be seen on videos Succar Kuri made preparing small girls for her husband to rape, and who would later be found to have acted as a relay in the international child porn network, forwarding the pictures and videos to Las Vegas, – ordered the teenager to retract her statement. If Emma did not retract her statement, Succar Kuri’s wife said, videos of Succar Kuri ‘having sex with’ Emma would be made public. Both calls to Emma were recorded by a children’s advocacy attorney, a woman working pro-bono with the teenager. Succar Kuri’s wife also called Emma’s mother, – ordering her to make her daughter retract, or else mother and daughter would die.

*

On October 29, 2003, Succar Kuri fled Mexico – after being tipped-off by people inside the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office that Mexican authorities were working with Interpol, and planned to arrest him the following day. It’s unclear if Quintana Roo’s Governor ordered his Attorney General’s Office to tip Succar Kuri off, as each publicly blamed the other for facilitating the ringleader’s escape. Succar Kuri’s escape-flight to the United States was arranged by Kamel Nacif, a prominent member of the Pedo Elite and Succar Kuri’s main protector.

Succar Kuri and Kamel Nacif are both Lebanese-born international businessmen. Having met in “international business circles,” Kamel Nacif helped Succar Kuri establish himself in Mexico. Both men operated out of Mexico.

Succar Kuri owns hotels and property in resort meccas across Mexico. (Little girls from around the world are less likely to arouse suspicion in affluent tropical tourist destinations). Succar Kuri owns at least 59 luxury villas and units in Cancun alone. He also owns retail businesses at the Mexico City Airport (where employees said he held in-trafficked girls’ identification and travel documents, as well as out-trafficked girls themselves, before he put them on planes). He also owns retail businesses in eight Mexican tourist destinations, including restaurants, clothes shops and jewelry stores (through which he laundered money made off the girls, with laundering connections to organized crime). Succar Kuri owns three homes in Southern California and a home in Arizona. Succar Kuri is a multi-millionaire.

Kamel Nacif, a sweatshop magnate, is also a multi-millionaire. He is known as “The Blue Jean King” for owning an empire of clothing maquiladoras in the Mexican State of Puebla. (His factories are also known for having turned Puebla’s waters denim-blue). His jeans are sold world-wide as familiar brands in familiar stores – Levi’s, Tommy Hilfinger, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc., sold at the Gap, the Limited, Walmart, etc. Kamel Nacif also owns sweatshops in China, Korea, Thailand, New York and Los Angeles. Under the Obama administration, Kamel Nacif was denied entry to the US due to his links to organized crime, specifically, mob figures in Nevada, drug running, arms running, and money-laundering. Kamel Nacif was denied entry despite the fact that his umbrella company, Tarrant Apparel Group, is headquartered in Los Angeles. Some of Kamel Nacif’s sweatshops also produce Disney-sponsored children’s toys.

*

Three days after Emma and her mother received death threats from Succar Kuri’s wife, Emma filed a second report with local authorities. Emma told authorities Succar Kuri offered her and other girls up for rape to his ultra-wealthy businessmen and politician friends, that he traded girls across borders with other ultra-wealthy businessmen, that some of these girls were never seen again, and that he was fully protected by the many Mexican politicians who participated in these rapes, – rendering him untouchable. Male members of the Cancun press, long enjoying free-time in the local brothels courtesy of local brothel-owners, who were themselves recipients of cartel-trafficked females, continued to blame the girl victims and their mothers. Lydia Cacho overheard her male colleagues wonder out loud if a 12-year-old girl could enjoy sex, and laugh that “old Succar likes young meat.”

The next day, a second girl came forward, stating she had been raped by Succar Kuri since age 6. A third girl also came forward, saying she met Succar Kuri when she was in kindergarten, and that he started abusing her at age 5. A fourth girl, a fifth girl, and a sixth girl also offered similar testimonies. After making their reports, authorities forcibly took these girls from their mothers, and placed them in child protective services.

The girls, all of whom came from poor families, told Mexican authorities that it was in a posh section of Cancun, in Succar Kuri’s Villa #1 at Solymar Villas, that they were raped, photographed and videotaped. According to statements the girls made, they were brought to the oceanfront villa by other children, who told stories of money, extravagant gifts and the chance to slide down a big slide into Succar Kuri’s pool.

Three doors down from Villa #1, according to journalist S. Lynn Walker of Copley News: “Succar Kuri’s American neighbors were struck by the constant flow of young girls to his Cancun retreat. Tom and Jean Vickers, a retired couple from New Jersey, had bought a two-story villa at Solymar in 2000. When the Vickers arrived to spend their winters in the Caribbean, they often saw Succar Kuri and the girls splashing around in his pool. ‘We noticed it from Day One,’ said Jean Vickers, 73. ‘He had them in the swimming pool. We constantly saw young girls, children.’”

Succar Kuri’s other US neighbors called Cancun Police to ask if the pedophilia Succar Kuri practiced with female children was legal in Mexico. Other neighbors, EJ and RC, reported to local police that after Emma had made her statements to authorities, Succar Kuri’s “people” came and removed boxes from his residence. Cancun Police, these neighbors said, ignored their concerns.

A subsequent search warrant executed by federal agents at Succar Kuri’s residence uncovered an envelope with hundreds of pornographic photographs of girl-children from Mexico and around the world. Based on this one apparently overlooked envelope of photographs, Lydia Cacho estimates that at least 200 girl-children from around the world were sexually assaulted by Succar Kuri. Lydia Cacho: “Among the scores of pornographic photos recovered by the federal agents, there is one showing a small girl barely four years of age, with blond hair styled in a Prince Valiant cut, bound at the wrists and naked, and before her is the nude body of an older man with a large paunch, his erect penis positioned directly in front of the child’s frightened face… According to federal authorities, 20 compromising videos filmed by Succar Kuri himself were recovered in the search but later disappeared. A year later, Cancun Police agents were discovered putting them up for sale at US$40,000 a pop.”

Succar Kuri trafficked children across international borders. He ran girl-trafficking operations in the Mexican states of Quintana Roo, Baja California, Vera Cruz, Chiapas and Puebla, as well as Mexico City, the nation’s capital. He also may have been linked, directly or indirectly, to girl-trafficking operations in Juarez, where scores of girls and young women disappeared or were found sexually tortured and killed.

*

On the evening of November 4, 2003, Lydia Cacho was locking the shelter up for the night when she got a crisis call. A distraught woman begged her to please come now. “There’s a girl here,” the woman implored. “ – She needs your help.” Under the dark sky of hurricane season, in a block of identical government apartments, Lydia Cacho found the open apartment, ducked inside, and immediately realized this girl was Emma, – the Cancun teenager now in hiding. Lydia Cacho: “(Emma) collapsed in tears and told me she had reached her wit’s end, pleading with me to please help her.” She cried and shook uncontrollably. Lydia Cacho gently guided Emma to the couch and they sat down. The television hanging on the wall opposite them blared. Lydia Cacho reached to turn the TV off . ‘No!’ Emma yelled. ‘You have to leave it on!’

The evening news was about to broadcast an undercover recording Emma had made, an “interview” with the Pedo Elite Kingpin himself – two days before he fled Mexico. Emma had been wired by the children’s advocacy attorney, and sent out to lunch with Succar Kuri. While Emma’s wire recorded Succar Kuri talking casually about his crimes, the attorney was secretly filming the teenager and the pedophile with a high-zoom lens from across the street.

‘You’re a journalist!’ Emma shouted. ‘Please make it stop! Call the TV and tell them not to show the video!’ Panicking, Emma pushed the phone into Lydia Cacho’s hand. ‘Make it stop, make it stop!’ Emma wailed. Lydia Cacho truthfully said she probably couldn’t stop the news. ‘They’re going to kill me, they’re going to kill me!’ Emma shrieked. ‘They’re going to kill my mom, and my little sister, and me, and my cousins, because we did it, we reported them!’

Lydia Cacho called the TV station and was told the tape would roll any second. And there it was, on Mexican television – Succar Kuri boasting to Emma about raping four-year-old girls: “But I’m telling you that’s all allowed!” Succar Kuri openly declares in a leafy tropical restaurant as Emma twirls the straw in her drink nervously. “Because that’s the risk you take when you go to some lonely old fuck’s house, it’s all part of the risk… All that’s allowed. For instance, I say to Lesley, ‘Bring me a girl who’s four,’ and if she says, ‘She’s already been fucked,’ and I see if she’s been fucked already, then I see if I’m gonna stick my dick in her or not. You know this is my weakness, it’s my kink, and I know it’s a crime and it’s not allowed, but it’s so much easier this way because a tiny little girl like that doesn’t stand a chance because you can convince her really really easily, and then you fuck her. I’ve been doing it my whole life… They all bleed with me, my wife bled, a bunch of different housemaids I’ve fucked bled. Plus they don’t bleed because they’re virgins, they bleed because they’re really small.”

Emma’s phone rang. ‘You bitch!’ one of Succar Kuri’s five sons spat on the phone. ‘I’m watching the news, Emma, I saw what you did…and either you drop this whole thing or you’re dead.’ He hung up, and Emma started hyperventilating. She slumped against Lydia Cacho as if already dead. Lydia Cacho asked Emma why these men wanted to kill her. Emma said Succar Kuri had direct access to governors, to congressmen, even to the president of Mexico. ‘You don’t know who these people are!’ Emma screamed.

*

The next day Emma was admitted into Lydia Cacho’s shelter. Lydia Cacho also won the release of the child victims who had come forward and been forcibly removed from their mothers. These girls and their mothers were admitted into Lydia Cacho’s shelter, and, happily reunited, found safe harbor there. More and more girls came forward. Many took refuge at the shelter. All received protection and trauma care.

The girls told Lydia Cacho that Succar Kuri constantly made them watch pornography. One girl told Lydia Cacho that when she was eight years old, ‘Uncle Johnny,’ before raping her, said all fathers did this to their children, but she didn’t have a father, so she didn’t know. After the assault, Succar Kuri held up a knife and told her he would cut her into pieces. He also told her if she told her mother, he would kill her mother. Since the assault, the girl wore four pair of underpants every day. ‘He is the devil,’ the girl told Lydia Cacho.

All of the girls and their families were required by authorities to undergo regular psychological evaluations. In Mexico, anyone reporting that they were the victim of a crime is subjected to psychological evaluations and medical tests, a “pre-condition” to determine whether or not “an investigation” should be opened.

*

On November 12, 2003, Mexico’s Attorney General held a press conference to announce Interpol had issued a warrant for the arrest of Succar Kuri for international money-laundering. Lydia Cacho contacted Interpol, then boarded a plane with Emma to Mexico City to meet with Interpol agents. Emma met with the agents privately, and told them everything she knew about Succar Kuri’s child rape and child porn network.

After four months at the shelter, Emma had stabilized. Lydia Cacho found Emma a job in news production in Mexico City, while Emma found herself an apartment there. Lydia Cacho also extended Emma’s protective services: “Whenever she moved around the city, she did so by car, with a chauffeur, to shield her from Succar Kuri’s threats.” Lydia Cacho, with funds she’d raised, financed Emma’s continued education.

On November 22, 2003, Succar Kuri called Lydia Cacho. He was going to kill her, he said, for meddling in his life. Two days later, on November 24, 2003, the US Marshall Service notified Mexican authorities that they had located Succar Kuri. The US Marshall Service asked Mexico to send the paperwork they needed to arrest Succar Kuri on the Interpol warrant. Mexico waited 2½ months before sending the US the paperwork they needed to make the arrest. After the Mexican government finally coughed up the authorizing documents, on February 4, 2004, the US Marshall Service arrested Succar Kuri in Chandler, Arizona. He was held in an Arizona prison, awaiting transfer to Los Angeles, from where he would then be extradited to Mexico. This extradition process, however, was interrupted by US Magistrate David K. Duncan who expressed ‘mistrust of Mexican authorities’ in the Succar Kuri case. The US Magistrate decided to hold Succar Kuri in US prison, delaying his extradition to Mexico until he felt Mexican authorities wouldn’t just release Succar Kuri.

On February 24, 2004, Lydia Cacho’s mother died. Paulette Ribeiro Monteiro, after three years of suffering, died in Lydia Cacho’s arms. Lydia Cacho: “Before she died, my mother made me promise that I would never open the door to spite or anger, that no matter how much suffering I faced, I would remember that my task…is to build.” Paulette Ribeiro Monteiro told her daughter that instead of spite or anger, which would only blind her and colonize her spirit, she must use hope and dignity to defeat the fear which men will inevitably try to create in her in their attempt to control her. Lydia laid her mother to rest.

In July 2004, Succar Kuri’s cellmate told Arizona prison authorities that Succar Kuri had hired two inmates to kill Lydia Cacho, Emma, and the children’s advocacy attorney who had recorded him boasting about raping four-year-old girls. The children’s advocacy attorney withdrew from Emma’s case.

*

At the end of 2004, a male journalist questioned Lydia Cacho about Succar Kuri’s child rape and child porn network. Random House had asked him to write a book about it. Lydia Cacho suggested they collaborate. “We met to go over the information I had: an index of the investigation that included hard data on money-laundering, international sex-trafficking, child pornography rings, several powerful politicians involved, and a couple of assassinated girls,” Lydia Cacho recounted. “Once he saw the details, (and) read aloud the names of the powerful men involved, (he) told me he was no longer interested in participating, that I would have to write (the book) on my own. It was too dangerous, he said, not worth the risk.”

Sample Pedo Elite Protector: Emilio Gamboa Patron, Parlimentary Coordinator in the Chamber of Deputies

Lydia Cacho wrote The Demons of Eden: The Powers Protecting Child Pornography in just a few short weeks. In her book, Lydia Cacho names billionaire Kamel Nacif as Succar Kuri’s main protector. She also names the politicians, government officials, and police who raped the girl-children. Included, for example, are state senators, congressional representatives, members of the Mexican prosecutor’s office, and the Federal Police Bureau Undersecretary. Succar Kuri, Lydia Cacho reported, headed an international sex-trafficking network of children, through which he made and sold child porn, the money from which he laundered, as evidenced by scores of unusual banking transactions through his company, Kanan Banana, of which $US20 million in suspicious transactions were subsequently frozen by authorities.

 

Pedo Elite: The Federal Police Bureau Undersecretary

As Lydia Cacho was finalizing her manuscript, a man walked into her Cancun news office with a suitcase stuffed with cash. “He said I could have $1 million if I would drop the book,” Lydia Cacho said. “The message and the money were from a corrupt Mexican senator.” Lydia Cacho told the man and his suitcase to go away. A few days before the book was to be launched, Lydia Cacho’s editors at Random House were summoned to the office of the newly-appointed Federal Police Bureau Undersecretary, a former Senator – who was named in the book because the children reported he raped them. The Federal Police Bureau Undersecretary told the editors to drop the book. After Lydia Cacho’s editors politely refused, the Federal Police Bureau Undersecretary told them he would kill them. [Making death threats is not illegal in Mexico. – Not even while pointing a gun. – Neither is hiring a hitman to kill someone. – Hiring a hitman to kill someone is legal in Mexico. (Death threats are also much more likely to result in death in Mexico, especially for Mexican journalists; Mexico has one of the highest rates of murdered journalists in the world)].

“By the time the book was ready,” Lydia Cacho recounted, “I had already survived several death threats, an assassination attempt, and a couple of car chases with gunmen trying to scare me to stop my investigations. And deep inside me, no matter the risk, I knew it was something I had to do.” As she would tell the newspaper El Tecolote, “I did this quite consciously knowing that I could be killed for this, – but there was no other way.” Lydia Cacho needed protection though, and asked Mexico’s Anti-Drug Czar if he could provide her with protection for her book launch. The shelter had developed a good relationship with him and his drug agents, who helped stop the first shelter attack. They also helped stop the second shelter attack, – in which hitmen clutching grenades surrounded the shelter and ordered Lydia Cacho to come out or they would rain down grenades on her safe-house, – not to mention the countless rescues of battered and trafficked women from armed men in homes and businesses, where Lydia Cacho and shelter staff, backed by a few of the Drug Czar’s agents, disarmed men and spirited their wives and girlfriends to safety.

Mexico’s Anti-Drug Czar tried to dissuade Lydia Cacho from going ahead with her book: ‘Your book has evidence that can make an important part of the federal government crumble,’ he warned. ‘This is an international human trafficking network, Ms. Cacho.’ She told him she had made a promise to the children, and would not back down. Mexico’s Anti-Drug Czar assigned four special agents as Lydia Cacho’s bodyguards. He also loaned her an armored vehicle. And he deployed an additional fifteen heavily-armed special agents for the book launch itself. On May 19, 2005, the book launch went forward as planned. Lydia Cacho: “I looked at my editors and they could not believe their eyes. For the first time in their life, they had to present a book while surrounded by special agents to protect them from the Federal Police… Half of the mafiosos I had investigated were sitting there at the book launch; amongst 200 people, they quietly took notes and had a man taking pictures.” Thereafter, the Drug Czar assigned three special agents to guard Lydia Cacho. The Drug Czar told her he would now be obliged to provide her bodyguards for life.

 

The publication of Lydia Cacho’s book encouraged more and more girls and young women to come forward. Meanwhile, Succar Kuri’s “people” were hanging around schoolyards looking for Succar Kuri’s victims, especially the youngest girls. They also went to the girls’ homes to find the girls’ mothers. They offered between $US10,000 – $US20,000 to any girl or her mother who would sign a retraction. Two mothers immediately accepted the money. Given the structural injustice of Mexico, they reasoned that once Succar Kuri was extradited, he was sure to be released. – Meaning, – they were sure to die.

Lydia Cacho working with girls and their families.

*

Emma called Lydia Cacho later that month, in May 2005, to say Succar Kuri had found her. From his Arizona prison, Succar Kuri had called Emma’s male relative. Emma’s male relative told Succar Kuri where Emma was. The male relative also called Emma to tell her she should heed Succar Kuri. Lydia Cacho: “Emma was now defending her rapist, alleging that things hadn’t really been so bad. I knew how difficult it is for victims of this sort of crime to break the paradoxical bonds linking them to their aggressors,…after all there’s a reason this type of abuser likes to get his claws into these girls…when they’re still young, during their formative pre-teen years…to link abuse and sex, love and fear, power and submission in their victim’s psyches, sometimes for the rest of their lives… (B)ut this was too much. The girls were finally free from Succar Kuri now, thanks in part to the pressure of various human rights organizations; he had been arrested on an Interpol warrant… Nevertheless, Emma insisted that I simply didn’t understand just how powerful Succar Kuri’s friends were. (She said:) ‘They’re going to kill us, Lydia. It’s better we negotiate.’”

By late summer, Emma disappeared. Lydia Cacho: “She canceled her cell phone account, she didn’t say good-bye to a single person, and she never returned to school. We searched (Mexico City) worriedly for her, but no one had any knowledge of her whereabouts.” A Salvadoran girl who had been pulled into the child rape ring by Succar Kuri also disappeared around this time. Lydia Cacho later learned that Kamel Nacif had paid Succar Kuri US$2,000 to rape this girl. One of Succar Kuri’s lawyers, who would step down from Succar Kuri’s case after watching one of the child porn videos, later told Lydia Cacho that Succar Kuri told him he killed the Salvadoran girl.

Ten months later, in May 2005, Emma sent Lydia Cacho an email. She was in Los Angeles, she said, with Succar Kuri’s lawyers, who had brought her there. Emma was afraid Succar Kuri was about to be extradited to Mexico, and would then be released. She was sure they would all be killed. Emma also apologized to Lydia Cacho for something that was about to happen, – without explaining what that was.

Ten days later, on a morning newscast, Emma appeared on TV. Lydia Cacho: “Emma appeared wearing a small crystal bead in the center of her forehead, Hindu-style, her hair permed and bleached a shade of blond identical to that of Succar Kuri’s wife. On national television, she recited a prepared speech, defending Succar Kuri and alleging that my book was full of lies.”

Recanting her charges against Succar Kuri and calling Lydia Cacho a liar on national television – Lydia Cacho wrongly believed it must be these devastating betrayals, – these hopelessly-trauma-bonded-female betrayals – that Emma, – in her email, – had apologized for in advance.

The shelter attorney holds a tabloid with Emma on the cover

Following Emma’s national television appearance, the other girl victims and their families at the shelter fell into despair. As did shelter staff. Lydia Cacho: “There we were, Succar Kuri’s threats still hanging over us, every one of us operating under a great deal of emotional strain resulting from the constant expenditure of effort required to listen to the abhorrent stories told to us by the girls Emma had brought in to us. And now this same young woman who had been given more opportunities than any of the other victims was siding with Succar Kuri.”

In September and October of 2005, Lydia Cacho got sick. For two weeks, she was hospitalized in critical condition due to acute renal complications. She only had one remaining kidney – and it was failing. While in the hospital, she picked up infectious pneumonia and bronchitis, – which extended her stay in the critical care unit for several more days. Once released, Lydia Cacho spent weeks at home recuperating.