El Chapo's “compadre” is kidnapped in Nayarit

By Magali Tercero

Julián Venegas Guzmán, a former politician and businessman, was kidnapped in Nayarit on April 1, few days after the Mexican government authorized the extradition to the United States of his “compadre” Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, godfather of his daughter Grecia.

In an interview with EL UNIVERSAL, Grecia Venegas Oviedo said that the Prosecutor's Office of Nayarit has not responded to the reports about the disappearance of his father.

"My dad and the attorney [Edgar Veytia] were friends, and he received him in his office. Therefore it is all the more weird that he [Veytia] does not want to help us,” she said.

Venegas explained that authorities asked her and her family not to talk about her father's kidnapping, so she makes Veytia responsible for anything that happens to her or her family because they denounced her father's disappearance publicly.

In her book “Los Señores del Narco” (The Lords of Drug Cartels) Anabel Hernández quotes the following statement from El Chapo: "I met Antonio Mendoza Cruz (military lieutenant) through my compadre Julián Venegas, whom I have known for 10 years. I met (Venegas) in Tepic through Manuel López. Venegas raises cattle, he has a ranch in Compostela, Nayarit, and I talk to him on the phone number 70317. I met Julián because my friend Raúl (Guzmán Ruiz) and I bought some calves. The business did not go well, but I kept my friendship with Julián.”

In 2001 Venegas was sent to La Palma prison, in Almoloya de Juárez, for presumably hiding Guzmán after his first prison escape at his house in Compostela. However the case was dismissed due to “false accusations”.

Grecia fears that the government of Nayarit is involved in her father's kidnapping, because the girlfriend of Venegas says that masked armed men dressed with the uniform of Nayarit Police stopped them when they were on their way to Puerto Vallarta near Las Varas and dragged Venegas to a Suburban.

Grecia, 27, says that she has not seen her godfather, El Chapo, in twenty years.