Monday, Jan. 25 2010 @ 10:28AM
The roundup of alleged crime ring members we told you about on Thursday also snared Mario de la Fuente Manríquez, a Mexican media mogul who owns cable TV companies, a Nogales, Sonora TV station and newspaper.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, and police officials are scheduled to hold a 2 p.m. news conference today about the bust.
News of the busts has made headlines in Arizona and Mexico and is also causing a buzz in the hip-hop community. Music producer Swizz Beatz was a close associate of the suspects, and reportedly is the godfather to the son of suspects Nazreth Derboghossian and Jodi Upton.
As we reported, Manriquez's son, Mario de la Fuente Mix, was picked up in Nogales, Arizona and arrested last week with Derboghossian and Katie Marie Peters, who police nabbed at their Valley homes. The Latin American Herald Tribune reported over the weekend that Manriquez was also taken into custody in Nogales, Arizona, though we haven't confirmed that. The Herald Tribune cites another paper, the El Diaro in Mexico, which is said to be part of the De La Fuente family's holdings.
According to the newspaper:
The De la Fuente family has a history of doing business in Tucson and Phoenix. All of the charges are being investigated in Maricopa County, in Phoenix, where the businessmen are being interrogated," the newspaper said.
The De la Fuentes "are fully disposed to clear up any doubts the authorities" may have about their activities, El Diario de Sonora said.
De la Fuente Manríquez is president of Omni Cable, the umbrella corporation that owns Diario de Sonora newspaper and TV station, Canál 3, in Nogales, Sonora. The network spans the entire length of the Sonora-Arizona border, from San Luis Río Colorado, Puerto Peñasco, Caborca, Nogales, Magdalena de Kino, Santa Ana, Cananea and Agua Prieta.
The elder De La Fuente's brother, Lorenzo de la Fuente Manríquez, was mayor of Nogales, Sonora, between 2003 and 2006 under the Institutional Revolutionary Party.