Official who destroyed evidence in abduction of 43 Mexican students protected by Israel
Tomás Zerón de Lucio, former director of Mexico's "FBI"
Israel Refuses to Extradite Zerón de Lucio to Mexico - La Jornada
After dragging their feet for nearly three years, Israel now claims that the extradition of Tomás Zerón de Lucio, who is wanted for crimes related to the Ayotzinapa abductions, has been complicated due to its war in the occupied territories.
According to a report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) on the abduction of 43 teaching college students in Iguala, Guerrero, in 2014, Israeli authorities stated on August 21 that they had concluded their review of the information sent by Mexico and reiterated their willingness to cooperate. However, “being at war has made it difficult for them” to advance in the process.
Zerón de Lucio, former head of the Criminal Investigation Agency, fled to Israel on August 13, 2019, and is wanted by Mexico to answer for the crimes of torture, forced disappearance and conspiracy of public servants—crimes for which Mexico requested his extradition on December 20, 2021.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [who has been accused of sexually abusing children] stated in a July 3, 2023, letter to President López Obrador that his country “understands the need to bring those responsible for the heinous crime to justice,” and expressed his willingness to cooperate with Mexico.
Fourteen months later, Zerón de Lucio is still in Israel.
In the report, the president included six letters exchanged between his administration and Israel between 2021 and 2023, including one from Netanyahu, who assured him that the authorities of his country are working on the extradition request.
“The Ministry of Justice is working intensively on this case. We attach the utmost importance to cooperation between both parties so that a decision can be made as soon as possible on how to move forward,” Netanyahu’s letter states.
Disinformation campaigns on social media
Among his many other crimes, Zerón de Lucio used public funds to hire “Team Jorge”—an Israeli company owned by TAL HANAN (bottom left) that creates and programs robot social media accounts to influence public opinion—to portray himself in a positive light and to accuse President López Obrador of corruption. - Wikipedia
#StoryKillers: Investigating the disinformation machine
For several months, 20 different media outlets, including Le Monde, worked with the Forbidden Stories consortium to investigate companies that specialize in the manipulation of public opinion and the dissemination of fake news. Within the framework of this project called #StoryKillers, three journalists from the consortium posed as intermediaries for a potential French client in order to set up meetings with operatives selling "turnkey" influence tools.
This investigation revealed the existence of "Team Jorge", an extremely discreet Israeli company that claims to have interfered in dozens of elections around the world. It offers its clients an arsenal of illegal services, from hacking into e-mail accounts and private messaging systems to the massive dissemination of influence campaigns thanks to a gigantic network of fake accounts on social networks.