IT'S TREVINO IN TODAY'S RUNOFF FOR CAMERON COUNTY JUDGE: GUERRA CAMPAIGN'S TACTICS DENOUNCED

Special to El Rrun-Rrun
Various Sources

In a race that has been notable for skullduggery and vicious anonymous social media posts by the Steve Guerra campaign against Eddie Treviño, the choice by any serious voter who cares about the future of our county families would have to be the incumbent.

Treviño has been the target of various social media platforms whose idea of fair play is to superimpose his face on a rat's body and broadly insinuate that he – alone – is responsible for the acts of boards from the City of Brownsville, the Public Utility Board, SpaceX, and with, ironically, lacking transparency and accountability, while his opponent is the beneficiary of the cowardly attacks made on his behalf. 

Guerra, meanwhile, has painted himself as a solid family man who would never think of besmirching his opponent, but stops short of denouncing the odious tactics and the smearing of Treviño's character. In other words, he wants to have his cake and eat it, too.

But it doesn't work that way. Politics, it has been said, is a two-edged sword. A sword can swing both ways. 

Guerra's tactics – playing the victim (good cop) while his proxies and confederates play the bad cop – are too obvious to ignore.

Guerra's self-serving ads claiming he would endure his opponent's "smear tactics" and remain on the high road despite the sticks and stones against him by those mean Treviño supporters are nothing short of disingenuous.

While he hides his hand, his supporters – through anonymous social media accounts (like Brownsville and Valley News) – attack and ridicule Treviño and accuse him of personal enrichment and of single-handedly giving away Boca Chica Beach to Elon Musk's SpaceX.

But despite his hand wringing and protestations, honesty and transparency aren't Guerra's forte. No martyr is he.

He forgets to mention that Treviño's vote is but one of three needed to have a majority to approve any county vote. Treviño's single vote cannot pass anything without the support of a majority of the commissioners' court. But Guerra knows that going after majority would backfire, so his anonymous supporters are content to demonize the incumbent in social media and accuse him – without providing proof – of allegations of criminality and wrongdoing.

Trevino has never been charged or indicted for any offense - misdemeanor, much less felony -at any level.

This fact has not been lost on the other members of the county commission and other elected officials, who came to Treviño's defense in the face of the Guerra onslaught. 

"It seems his opponents are acting like spoiled kids who think dirty politics and shady social media posts are a magic wand that will somehow get them elected," said Pct. 1 commissioner Sofia Benavides. "Instead of doing the hard work – showing up, learning the job, and offering real solutions – they hide behind the fake outrage and dumb, false narrative pushed online. Leadership isn't learned through smear pages or cheap tricks. In this race, Eddie Treviño Jr. is clearly the adult in the room."

Likewise, Cameron County Sheriff Manny Treviño came to the county judge's defense against Guerra's campaign scurrilous attacks.

"I am angry and disgusted by the tactics being used against Eddie in this campaign," he said. "Anyone who believes this kind of behavior is acceptable leadership should be ashamed. It is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. Hiding behind social media accounts to attack others is an act of cowardice. That's not what a real man does."

And yet, when facts are used against him, Guerra claims he is the innocent victim of defamation and wrings his hands in desperation that he is being bullied by mean little Eddie.

Even since former St. Joseph grads with family and commercial ties to Matamoros and northern Tamaulipas decided to enter Brownsville and Cameron County politics, they have been regarded with distrust by local pundits and residents who fear that the type of political governance in cartel-controlled  northern Tamaulipas will be brought to local government entities.

Derisively referring to them as "Los Juniors," locals have watched warily as some of the members of the group have been elected to public office in the city, the school district, the Port of Brownsville, and other local political entities.

A local blogger, as far back as a 2019, identified some of the principals as Arturo Trevino, Steve Guerra and Carlos Elizondo. Elizondo is a former city fire department chief who is now a trustee with the Brownsville Independent School District. "Turi" Treviño has served on the board of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation and other downtown promoting entities.

The blogger openly critical of the "juniors" and " fresas" said then that with their roots in Matamoros, they bring an entitled attitude to Brownsville's politics.

He wrote in January 2019 that "Los Juniors" are crossing from Matamoros to take over Brownsville. They are inspired by their leader, Generalissimo Carlos Marin. Just like they treat their poor brothers and sisters in Mexico with disdain, they exhibit the same arrogance towards Brownsville's masses. Money is their god and they want the power in order to rule the universe that is Brownsville. 

"As privileged Mexicans, they have been raised with the attitude that the rich stay rich and the poor remain poor. And the rich become even richer by exploiting the poor. We know that Matamoros, Tamaulipas and Mexico are a mess. Rampant violence and blood running in the streets are shared by the city, state and nation. Perhaps that is the reason 'Los Juniors' see Brownsville as the perfect opportunity to expand Mexico's boundaries to just south of Los Fresnos."

Here are the facts, not rumor, that has documentation on Guerra's background: Juan N. Guerra, for example, founded the Gulf Cartel and ran it for 50 years and was Steve Guerra's grandfather, who has publicly acknowledged his familial ties. Juan N. was also the uncle of Juan Garcia Abrego, the successor of Juan N. as head of the cartel and who expanded the bootlegger and contraband-smuggler beginnings and developed the organization into a drug cartel dedicated to the smuggling of cocaine and other drugs.

Juan N. died in 2001 and Garcia Abrego is currently serving 11 life sentences in a U.S. Supermax prison in Colorado for his drug trafficking. (In the photo, Juan N. is wearing the white hat and Abrego Garcia is standing holding a cup.)

Incidentally, Steve Guerra is also the cousin of Sandra Guerra, who was charged in a  federal indictment in the "Transmigrante" scandal at Los Indios Bridge with conspiracy to fix prices and allocate the market, conspiracy to monopolize, conspiracy to interfere with commerce by extortion, and international money laundering. Even Steve Guerra's father-in-law was convicted of moving large amounts of marijuana.

Recently, Guerra said during a candidates' forum that he has never made a dollar off the port. 

Yet, after months of denying any link between him and the illegal importation of petroleum products into Mexico, documentation from the Mexican government, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Texas secretary of State, and district court records have linked Brownsville Navigation District chairman Steve Guerra directly to shipments between his Warrior Fuel Traders Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) and Pyrodiesel Del Centro SA de CV, named by the Federal Criminal Intelligence Center of Mexico as a principal in the smuggling of fuel by the Mexican cartels.

Guerra was first elected to the BND board in 2018 and appointed chair in 2022. He was reappointed to the position in May 2024. He is currently a candidate for Cameron County Judge in the Democratic Party primary runoff.

These revelations outlined a debt of Guerra's LLC for non-payment to Key Performance Petroleum Company of Navasota, Texas. Lyndsey Clark was Key Performance's agent in Brownsville.

In that lawsuit, Key Performance president Mark Jackson filed an affidavit October 26, 2022 in support of his company's lawsuit demanding payment of an outstanding balance of $333,484.47 and attached copies of 24 invoices totaling shipments of diesel and other petroleum products they had shipped at Warrior Fuel Traders' request over a two-month period in 2020 that had not been paid. Guerra was served the next day, October 27. How much was handled during the two-year period that Warriors Fuel LLC was in existence before the debt was incurred and the Texas Secretary of State forfeited it we can only guess but it had to be in the millions. No business with the port? Hardly.

In Cause No: 2022-DCL-5154-I plaintiff Key Performance lists a systematic record of transactions that make up the outstanding balance of Warrior Fuel Traders, LLC.

Government investigations revealed that Warrior Fuel Traders/Steve Guerra was in direct business with Pyrodiesel Del Cento SA de CV. Pyrodiesel has been named as a principal in fuel smuggling activities (huachicol) of petroleum by the Federal Criminal Intelligence Center of Mexico. https://es-us.noticias.yahoo.com/huachicoleros-controlaban-puertos-pa%C3%ADs-060000638.html

Invoices to Warrior Fuel Traders from Key Performance indicate the diesel and petroleum products were shipped through Eagle Pass, Texas and delivered to Pyrodiesel. The Warrior Fuel Traders LLC was registered with the Texas Secretary Of State April 13, 2020 and its certification was forfeited June 24, 2022.

"The identification of the modus operandi: First modus operandi, the fuel is purchased in the United States and then imported into Mexico, where it is sold to various companies. These companies are responsible for distributing it through marketing and transportation companies, selling the fuel at a lower price than the one established in the national market.

"To this end, they use cloned gasoline and diesel import declarations to simulate the legal origin of the hydrocarbons, allowing them to legitimize the multiple sales they make," the Federal Center for Criminal Intelligence (FGR) analysis details.

A commenter to this blog said: 

Steve Guerra has all the Port of Brownsville. William Dietrich was married to Alejandra Rodriguez Guerra, and is related to Jose Luis Rodriguez Guerra. Grupo GRN, his cousin. Also, Arturo Gomez currently employed at the Port of Brownsville as “Deputy Port Director of Operations” was a formal PRI administrator who is friend of Jose de Jesus Tapia Fernandez former PRI representative indicted as a transmigrante price fixer and huachicol operative for the Gulf Cartel.

Guillermo Rico, also another PRI rat who continued communication with the "Grupo Mafre" and also Ernesto Gutierrez "el pajarito" is related to Oscar Luebbert. This (sic) are only a few that operate at the Port of Brownsville. Puros juniors!!

In a  recent mailout, Treviño warned of this tendency toward Tamaulipas-style governance.