The Bolivian “Priest” Hijacker’s Crazy Past You Didn’t Know About

Guanabee has translated video of Jose Mar Flores Pereira, the so-called “Bolivian priest” who hijacked Aeromexico Flight 576, from Cancun to Mexico City, yesterday. As the video reveals, a more accurate description of Jose Mar Flores Pereira, (who goes by the name Josmar), would be born-again, drug-addict sharpshooter turned evangelical minister with a criminal record for armed robbery in Bolivia. (The criminal record is according to Mexican Public Safety Minister Genaro Garcia Luna.) In this video, Josmar, tells parishoners that his use of a gun “got him into some trouble in the past.” He then shows off his sharp shooting skills, shooting holes through a coin thrown in the air and using nunchaku. Then he throws his gun in a river for Jesus.

Forty four year-old Flores-Pereira has lived in Cancun for 17 years where he has a wife and three kids and leads a very large evangelical church called Exito Familar, or Family Success–a church some media outlets label a sect. He also owns a restaurant called Las Delicias de Josmar, or Josmar’s Delights–the scene of another criminal scandal when, in 2006, he was fingered by a teenage boy arrested for making harassing phone calls to Cancun police for their work busting drug cartels. According to the boy’s official police statement, he was a member of Exito Familiar and was paid 200 pesos for each threatening call he made to the police and he received the orders and the money from Josmar at Las Delicas de Josmar.

While the official story yesterday was that President Felipe Calderon’s soldiers handled everything peacefully and like clockwork, local Cancun paper Por Esto! has expressed great skepticism about the validity of the hijacking since the bomb ended up being fake. “It wasn’t a bomb,” a smiling Flores Pereira told reporters after his arrest. “It was three Jumex (juice) cans that I filled with sand and put some little colored lights on.” Por Esto!, thinks the exercise may have been a diversionary tactic to distract Mexicans from the new tax bill President Felipe Calderon is announcing today.

Josmar era conocido como un fanático religioso [La Razón]
Múltiples inconformidades [Por Esto!]
Image [Perupunto]