In July 2019, two figures from the Israeli underworld sat with Vanessa Ballar Fallas at a restaurant in Mexico City. At one point during the meeting, Ballar Fallas received a call and, moments later, two attackers approached the table and killed the two men at close range. Ballar Fallas then got up calmly, left the restaurant and disappeared – until now.
According to reports from Mexico, Ballar Fallas was arrested on Thursday for allegedly mentoring the murder of the two men. The duo, Alon Azulay and Benjamin Yeshurun Sutchi, were reportedly in Mexico City to collect a $ 14.5 million money laundering debt she owed them. But the shady deal was tangled with Mexico City’s brutal cartels, and the men knew they were in danger before the meeting.
Cell phone messages retrieved at the scene – a restaurant at the upscale Plaza Arts Mall – revealed that the victims would only agree to meet in person if everything happened in a busy public place. Ballar Fallas reserved the table where Azulay and Sutchi were shot and was there to receive them before hell exploded in the building. The cell phone video of the incident showed panicked customers hiding under the shooting tables.
Investigators believe Ballar Fallas, known by the nickname “La Güera”, attracted Sutchi and Azulay to the restaurant with the promise of giving them millions of dollars in laundered money. In a statement on Friday, Mexico City’s Attorney General described her as a “trusted partner” of the leadership of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which was accused of organizing the murders.
The newspaper El Universal reported that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel tried to use the two Israelis to launder the millions, but came to believe that the two would not give them their share, so supposedly arranged the murder job using Ballar Fallas and hired weapons.
At the time of the murders, the snipers were called Esperanza Gutierrez, a 33-year-old woman, and Mauricio Hiram, 23. Both are believed to have belonged to the Tláhuac Cartel, which is allegedly allied with the largest New Generation Cartel in Jalisco. Gutierrez was arrested moments after the July 2019 coup, while Hiram was not located and arrested until September of that year.
The Israeli embassy in Mexico said the two dead had a criminal record in both Israel and Mexico, and Mexican police noted that the evidence suggested the shooting was linked to a financial dispute between criminal groups with connections to the Israeli mafia.
“Yesterday’s event leads us to relate the facts to a reckoning between criminal groups and / or organized crime groups,” said Ulíses Lara López, spokesman for the city’s Public Prosecutor’s Office, in 2019. “It may be an adjustment of accounts in the Israeli mafia, which is why a complete identification [of the victims] it was possible, along with your criminal records. “
In August 2019, Mexico asked Interpol for help in finding Ballar Fallas. On Thursday, a year and eight months after supposedly planning mortal work, she was finally located in Mexico City.
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