US Embassy officials met with a 14-year-old boy accused of being a drug cartel assassin to check on his welfare and provide him with information on a lawyer in case it turns out he is American, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
Mexican officials and his family say the boy, who became a kind of urban legend in Mexico before his capture and claims he carried out at least four executions, was born in the US even though he spent much of his childhood in Mexico.
However, Embassy spokesman Alexander Featherstone said his citizenship has not been determined and US officials met with the teen on Monday to offer him consular assistance “in case he is a US citizen.”
The boy, who authorities only named publicly as Edgar, was arrested on Thursday with a 19-year-old sister, Elizabeth Jimenez Lugo, as they tried to board a plane to Tijuana in an airport near Cuernavaca south of Mexico City. The two planned to cross the border into San Diego to be with their mother, Jimenez Lugo told reporters when they were handed over to federal authorities on Friday.
Soldiers also detained their sister, Lina Erika Jimenez Lugo, 23, who had driven them to the airport.
No birth certificate for the boy is on file in San Diego County.
However, birth records show Elizabeth Jimenez Lugo was born in 1991 at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in San Diego and her sister, Lina Erika, is registered as having been born in Juitepec, Mexico. Both records show Carmen Solis, their paternal grandmother, was listed as their mother, but no father is shown on either birth certificate.
Mexico’s Organized Crime Unit said late on Monday it is holding the boy’s sisters for 30 days for investigation of possible kidnapping and organized crime charges.
Soldiers hunting for Mexico’s alleged child assassin barged into a baptism party for the 14-year-old suspect’s young cousin late last month to search every corner. They returned two days later, nearly breaking down the gate to the two-story concrete house in a suburb of Cuernavaca.
This time they even checked under the bed, but didn’t find the boy.
The boy told reporters that he was kidnapped and forced to work for the cartel at age 11 and participated in at least four executions, though he said he was drugged and under threat.
When he was still a baby, Edgar’s father brought the boy with five siblings from San Diego back to Jiutepec, an industrial suburb of Cuernavaca, to live with the father’s mother, who raised them until she died, a relative, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
Authorities say the boy worked for Julio Padilla, who has been fighting for control of the drug trade in Morelos.
The 19-year-old girl was allegedly Padilla’s girlfriend.
The boy was an errand boy, not an assassin, the relative said of the youth, who allegedly appears in several videos on the Internet showing teenagers claiming they were drug cartel assassins. Some said he was as young as 12.
“He is a sweet boy,” the relative said. “Maybe he appeared in the video just to show off.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of