Repost: CNN Talks to Puello -- more evidence & denials come....

Feb 15 --

Kudos to CNN for getting wanted trafficker Jorge Puello on the phone today - and talking to his mother, Soledad Puello, to find out more....

Now we know there's at least a reason and some hard evidence for why Puello was helping jailed Baptist missionary Laura Silsby and her group in Haiti.... The answer to both is MONEY-- at least some money - that exchanged hands after Silsby's arrest.


(Whether any changed hands before her arrest remains a question to pursue, despite Puello's denials below. He claims he never met the Idaho group before the earthquake. He said he was a realtor. But we alrady know that least two other Dominican realtors had been working with Silsby for many months as she set up her orphanage project and bought land there, and they are from the same northern coastal community in Sosua, DR. It's not a stretch to wonder if Puello was working with Silsby before her arrest. Read on...)

For his part, Puello told CNN the reason he stepped up: "When I read about their case, I just decided to help them."

My thoughts: Why is it this just doesn't ring true?

One new reason is because we now have proof Puello - who's not even a lawyer - got paid an advance of $10,000 (and maybe more, maybe $40,000) in legal fees from relatives of Silsby who hired him. The money was for the legal team he helped assemble, including three Haitian lawyers, so the money was likely to be shared. Maybe Puello has kept most or all of it? A take-the-money-and-run scheme?

And yet the family and relatives DENIED paying Puello any money just days ago (see end of article, below). They are naturally hoping to distance the Baptist group from a wanted trafficker. But the proof of a receipt shows someone's not telling the truth. In this case, it could be both parties - Puello and the Baptist relatives.

Legal adviser for Americans in Haiti facing his own charges
From Karl Penhaul, CNN

February 15, 2010 1:57 a.m. EST


Jorge Torres Puello acting as legal adviser to 10 Americans charged with kidnapping
He faces allegations of human trafficking in El Salvador, human smuggling charges in U.S.

An international arrest warrant was issued Saturday for the legal adviser
Torres Puello acknowledges he's wanted by Salvadoran authorities, denies the charges

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (CNN) -- A Dominican man who is acting as a legal adviser to 10 Americans arrested on child kidnapping charges in Haiti is himself facing allegations of human trafficking in El Salvador and human smuggling charges in the United States.

An international arrest warrant was issued Saturday for the legal adviser on sex-trafficking charges.

Salvadoran police raided a home in May that turned up passports and an ID card in the names of both Jorge Torres Puello and his alias, Jorge Torres Orellana. Each of the documents bore photos of the same man. His wife was arrested in that raid and charged with sex trafficking, and her trial is pending.

In a phone interview with CNN on Sunday, Jorge Torres Puello acknowledged he is the same man wanted by Salvadoran authorities. He denied the charges against him.

According to the warrant, Torres Puello is accused of running an international sex trafficking ring that lured women and girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution with offers of modeling jobs.

"I never did anything," Torres Puello said Sunday. "I started helping a Dominican pastor helping a lot of people who were stranded to get back to their home countries. We once gave some Nicaraguan and Costa Rican women some money to return home and instead they went to the authorities and put in a complaint against us. I never had anybody against their will."

Torres Puello also denied Salvadoran allegations that he ran a brothel out of his home with wife Ana Josefa Ramirez Orellana, who remains jailed pending trial, according to Salvadoran police.

Full coverage of the earthquake aftermath in Haiti

"I want to clear the Salvador matter up, and I am hiring a lawyer to do that," he said. "I know I am innocent, and I want to clear my past."

His mother, Soledad Puello, told CNN Sunday that she first heard of the Salvadoran accusations when her son called to tell her of his wife's arrest. She said her son told her he had known about the sex ring but wasn't involved in it.

Soledad Puello led CNN to believe that her son remained in the Dominican Republic, but she would not say where.

Torres Puello, who said he was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1977 to a Dominican mother and a Puerto Rican father, also said he is wanted in the United States on charges of smuggling people between Canada and the United States, which he also denied.

He said he spent 18 months in a Canadian jail pending what he called an unsuccessful extradition request by U.S. authorities.

He has served jail time in the United States before, he said -- one year in 1998 for handling funds related to a drug-trafficking operation, and he was jailed again briefly between late 2001 and January 2002 for violating parole. He denied the drug charge.

Both his mother and Torres Puello say he served briefly in the U.S. Army in a military intelligence unit, and Torres Puello said he also worked undercover with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

A family photo shows Torres Puello in a military uniform alongside a truck with the words "U.S. Military" printed across the bumper.

CNN was unable to reach government officials to confirm his claims of working with the military, the DEA and Homeland Security.

Torres Puello's statements regarding the charges against him could not be immediately verified. But on Sunday, four men showed up at his mother's home while CNN reporters were present. The men said they were from the U.S. Embassy and looking for Torres Puello.

One of the men told Soledad Puello that her son has three outstanding arrest warrants -- two in the United States and one in El Salvador. He did not specify the charges. One of the men was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "U.S. Marshals Service, Fugitive Task Force."

Torres Puello offered to provide legal assistance to the American missionaries shortly after they were jailed in January after trying to cross the Dominican border carrying 33 children without proper documentation. At the start of last week, he was seen at court in Haiti organizing a new defense team for the group after their previous lawyer, Edwin Coq, resigned.

Torres Puello said he read about the case and decided to offer his services for free. However, Torres Puello's stepfather, Franco Ceminara, said the arrested Americans' families had already wired more than $40,000 to his stepson. A receipt provided by Torres Puello's family to CNN showed the Haitian lawyers are charging $40,000 to represent the Americans. The receipt, for an advance payment of $10,000, was signed by Aviol Fleurant, one of the Americans' three-person defense team.

Family and church representatives in Idaho, where most of the 10 Americans are from, told CNN earlier in the week that they had not paid money to the man they know as Jorge Puello.

Regarding the American missionaries Torres Puello said: "Prior to this earthquake I never knew those people (the Americans). When I read about their case, I just decided to help them. I'm in the real estate business and was working with a team of lawyers."

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So now we have a clear motive.

But the question remains: When did Puello and Silsby meet? What was the original connection between the two? Did Puello help Silsby prior to her arrest - to set up her orphanage in the DR and navigate the bureaucracy? Did Puello help 'arrange' some Dominican help and papers to bring Haitian children she picked up into the Dominican Republic? Judging from Puello's past, he's had plenty of experience with illegal border crossing....

Stay tuned....