The U.S. Government publicly identified the main operator behind a cartel propaganda network that benefited one of Mexico’s most violent terrorist organizations. The man claimed to be a human rights activist. Numerous international news outlets routinely quote that individual, further pushing his pro-cartel propaganda.
The move by the U.S. government confirms a series of stories by Breitbart Texas that previously unmasked this individual and his connection to the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas.
According to new information released by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Jesus Raymundo Ramos Vasquez, who claimed to lead a local human rights group, but in reality led the “CDN disinformation campaign against Mexican authorities”.
Treasury officials claimed that Ramos would solely advocate for terrorist cartel members by filing false human rights violations complaints on behalf of the cartel. Ramos would also pay individuals to attend protests against authorities and create false narratives defending the reputation of cartel members who had been killed or arrested. For over a decade, Ramos had been working to boost the public opinion of the CDN-Los Zetas while discrediting Mexican law enforcement actions against the cartels.
In 2019, Breitbart Texas began reporting on Ramos’ organization, the Nuevo Laredo Human Rights Commission, which had started a cartel narrative claiming that Tamaulipas State Police officers were kidnapping innocent factory workers, murdering them, dressing them up as cartel gunmen, and then staging crime scenes. In reality, the state cops had hunted down and killed a cartel strike team. That version of events was widely reported on by Mexican and international news outlets. Due to the widespread media pressure, Mexico’s federal government forced the state cops to back off from their cartel crackdown and tried to prosecute the state cops under claims of extra-judicial killings.
As Breitbart Texas reported, Raymundo Ramos has been named in Mexican court documents as having been a cartel associate who was paid to push their propaganda and protect their interests.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.