Mexican Marines Kill Leader of Knights Templar Drug Cartel

Gulf News

Mexican marines killed a leader of the Knights Templar drug cartel on Monday, three weeks after the cult-like gang’s top chief was gunned down, officials said.

Enrique “Kike” Plancarte was killed in the state of Queretaro in central Mexico, two government officials said on condition of anonymity.

“It was in a navy operation,” one of the officials told AFP, declining to give more details because the interior ministry will make an official announcement on Tuesday.

Plancarte, 43, was considered one of the top four leaders of the Knights Templar gang, which is based in the western state of Michoacan and has been under pressure from government and vigilante forces for several months.

Mexican media reported that Plancarte was killed by marines after resisting arrest near a football field in the town of Colon following an operation that involved around 150-200 troops.

The interior ministry said on Twitter that authorities were verifying Plancarte’s identity and that more information would be given on Tuesday.

Officials said this was standard procedure. The national daily Reforma said navy sources confirmed Plancarte was killed.

His death comes after Knights Templar founder Nazario Moreno, alias “El Chayo,” was killed by troops in Michoacan on March 9.

Moreno had been mistakenly reported killed in December 2010, leaving fellow leader Servando “La Tuta” Gomez as the public face of the cartel.

Gomez, a former school teacher, remains at large.

Plancarte’s uncle Dionicio, who was also a key leader of the gang, was detained in January.

Vigilante militias that formed a year ago to kick the cartel out of Michoacan towns had named Plancarte as one of the top Knights Templar leaders that they wanted to see taken down.

Mexican authorities had offered a $750,000 (Dh2.7 million) reward for information leading to his capture, with prosecutors accusing him of being one of the main traffickers of drugs to the United States. He was also on a US Treasury list of drug lords under sanctions.

The Knights Templar are considered major smugglers of crystal meth to the United States, but their business has expanded to include illegal mining of iron ore for export to China.

The gang held sway across Michoacan’s agricultural Tierra Caliente (Hot Country) region, but farmers began to take up arms in February 2013, fed up with the police’s inability or unwillingness to curb the cartel.

The vigilantes kicked the cartel out of some 20 towns and allied themselves with federal forces in January, but the so-called “self-defence” militias have faced trouble with the law.

Earlier on Monday, authorities accused a vigilante leader of ordering the murder of a mayor who opposed the self-defence forces.

Enrique Hernandez Salcedo was among 19 people detained in connection with the murder of Tanhuato Mayor Gustavo Garibay Garcia.

It was the second arrest of a vigilante leader in recent weeks.

Earlier in March, authorities arrested one of the most high-profile self-defence leaders, Hipolito Mora, on charges of being behind the March 8 double murder of two fellow vigilantes.

Mora, a lime grower from the town of La Ruana, has declared his innocence.

Conmen and CoIntelpro Part IV

Knights in White Satin

“The brotherhood's strong Catholic roots made the modern knights fervently anti-communist. The order has been largely responsible for the construction of the CIA, and many of its global covert operations.  The founding fathers of the CIA William "Wild Bill" Donovan and Allen Dulles were knights, as were most other heads of the CIA including Ronald Reagan's director William Casey.  Casey gave Pope John Paul II unprecedented access to CIA intelligence including spy satellites and agents.”  

In January 2005, things were to come to a head for Christine Dolan by making the mistake of claiming associations with other genuine organizations who had made no such formal agreements.  When plaintiffs contacted International Justice Mission (IJM) a charity based in Washington, DC. They disclaimed any relationship with Dolan and all contact information for the Global Coalition to End Human Trafficking NOW was removed from the website. The tsunami charity push remained however.

    

 Most interesting of all was a connection with the supportive presence of Knightsbridge Inc., which according to its website was: “Founded in August 1995 by several members of a self-styled US Priory of the Knights of Malta and OSMTH TEMPLAR Knights for the specific purpose of providing an independent vehicle through which focused international and domestic humanitarian assistance and medical relief programs could be organized.”1 Plaintiffs asked for clarification regarding the relationship between the organizations with no response forthcoming. 

Some of the articles and descriptions of Sir Edward Artis Chairman of Knightsbridge International describe his exploits in almost saintly terms including what he terms his penchant for “high Adventure.” Clearly, he enjoys the attention and limelight his chivalrous exploits provide and to which, it seems, he is at pains to cultivate. 

“This modern-day knight has no house but an airplane seat, no shield but his bravado, no sword but his spirit” says one broadcaster or according to another journalist breathlessly singing Artis’s praises, he is: “…a modern-day knight. His valiant steed is an airplane or truck, his armour a bullet-proof vest and his sword a cellular telephone. The hospital, the orphanage and the refugee camp are his field of battle.” Still more gushings exhort him to mythical status: “He's a knighted West Hills philanthropist who has brought antibiotics to Sri Lanka, delivered nets to fishermen, helped plan a Westlake Village church's house-building mission, and told stories the whole time.” 2  The latter end of this quote is particularly true.

In almost every op-ed photo you will find Artis with a stethoscope to the fore, pressed earnestly against a refugee or natural disaster victim. Although Sir - or Dr. Artis - certainly puts some of his money where his mouth is and travels incessantly to oversee his worthy projects there might be a problem with his fundraising and stethoscope roles. 

He is the recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and numerous other US Military medals for Valour, Bravery, and Courage under fire in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. As well as a medic in Vietnam in 1972 he claims to have been a Green Beret, a Navy SEAL, and an Airborne Paratrooper. Some have claimed that these were faked pointing to the federal felony law under USC Section 18 of the United States Code, and a felony to solicit donations for his aid organization wearing fake regalia. The PhD was legitimately bought online for $3,500 whereas the Knighthood is fake, as is the Vatican passport. One wonders why such a man so decorated would consider the latter as worthy of Chivalric principles.

We begin to get the idea that Artis either has delusions of grandeur or that he is using cover for something quite different. In response to further media outpourings of Artis walking on water the following report appeared in November 2004:

Without in any way denigrating whatever laudable humanitarian works it has undertaken, we only wish to place on record that Knightsbridge International and its chair have no official connection now or ever with the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and of Malta, more popularly known for more than 400 years as the Sovereign Order of Malta, whose headquarters or Grand Magistry is in Rome.

LEOCADIO DE ASIS, president, Grand Cross of Magistral Grace, Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Pius XII Catholic Center, United Nations Avenue, Manila. 3

In the US there has been indiscriminate use and abuse of the term: “Order of Knighthood.” Awards and decorations for valour and meritorious service are one thing, but there is no legal provision for orders of knighthood. Chivalric bodies like the Knights of Malta or the orders of St. John are treated as private associations and registered with the state in which the headquarters reside. It comes as no surprise, that in Artis’s case, a quick hop across to the Russian Knights of Malta priory in 1993 to obtain a Knighthood was a done deal. 

The Knights of Malta are chock full of the neo-conservative Catholic Elite with historical and modern day associations with Opus Dei which in turn have considerable links to neo-con agendas and the establishment of a ‘New Evangelization.’4 Malta knighthoods are awarded to a great deal of high flyers that are part of the military and intelligence community. For instance, the late CIA director William Casey was a Knight of Malta. Former NATO General and US Secretary of State Alexander Haig and former Deputy Director of the CIA General Vernon Walters were Malta Knights. Reinhard Gehlen, the former Nazi intelligence expert and Psyops guru, remains the most colourful if not the most ironic Knight of Malta. In summary, TKM are a occult-fascist organisation, a Jesuit military order of the Catholic Church and therefore with an allegiance to Roman Catholic, papal influence. Although this is a global affair, a particular interest lies in both Latin America and Africa with historic affiliations to freemasonry arising from ex-Nazis and P2 lodge fascists. Its bias is toward a distinctly European elite with strong ties to the unaccountable Bilderberg group. 

With a non-profit, tax-exempt charitable institution such status ignores whether or not a body is an authentic chivalrous order thus creating a false persona is easy, yet hardly fits into the criteria of true chivalric principles. The need for thrills and romanticism tends to endanger lives. According to Artis: “By example, act and deed each of us can make a difference.” Indeed. It starts from the basic precept of being transparent and truthful concerning our professed qualifications and experience which Artis seems at the very least, to have embellished. Questions also need to be asked about Artis and his Knightsbridge International and the solicitation of funds based on fraudulent credentials. His involvement with the Jack Idemas case is another indication Artis is not who he says he is. 

Artis met Idema in Afghanistan in late 2001 and later tried to warn the government and media organizations that Idema was up to some serious naughtiness. Artis having been cultivated by the neo-con Knights of Malta crew as the whiter than white Catholic crusader was directed to shop Idema and to put him out of action as a loose cannon, which he was  in one sense, but it was not to the fact that he was failing in his duties as a counter-terrorism operative in Iraq, but because he very likely tracked CIA assets that the US government wanted to keep in place to continue the “insurgent attacks.” That Osama was likely dead and much of the smokescreen of neo-con operations would be discovered by one of their own, could not be allowed to happen. 5  Artis, as Catholic Knight with a much vaunted mission, may have been served up to place Idema in a suitably bad light in order to deflect attention away from the US covert role. A nest of religious and political vipers could well be steering more than one of its brood around several strategies at once. Meanwhile, Idema remains conveniently out of sight in an Afghan jail.

Notes

1  www.kbi.org

2  ‘Adventurer returns with aid, stories’ By Tom Kisken, May 15, 2005, venturacountystar.com

3  ‘A modern-day Don Quixote triumphs’ The Philippine Daily Inquirer November 26, 2004.

4  See the The Battle for the Catholic Church by Phillip Berryman.

5  See the following articles for further details:‘ The Mysterious Case of Jack Idema: Was the Former Green Beret a Bounty Hunter for the US in Afghanistan?’ September 23rd, 2004.