They had the wrong man.

COHA should likewise be red-faced in the wake of its “press release” hatchet job on the Zapatistas, but then their falsehoods aren’t susceptible to DNA tests. Still, Giordano’s analysis exposing COHA’s smear tactics is just as effective as a DNA test in this case.

In any event, COHA and Mexican authorities now have at least one thing in common: neither of them have credibility in terms of their recent "press releases."

From a story in this week's San Antonio Express News:

LAREDO — DNA results revealed Thursday in Mexico City show a man first believed to be drug lord Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, who has a $5 million reward on his head, in fact is not the wanted man, officials said.

"At this time, we have no doubt he is not Vicente Carrillo," José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico's top federal prosecutor of organized crime, said in Mexico City.

The announcement was an about-face after the highly publicized capture of the man over the weekend in Mexico City.

The man, who says he's Joaquin Romero Aparicio, an architect, was in an armored BMW when he was arrested.

He was mistaken for Carrillo, 42, the leader of the Juárez drug cartel, based in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso.

… Vasconcelos said Romero Aparicio would continue to be held because two witnesses said they did a drug deal with him and he was introduced as Vicente Carrillo. A companion also is being held.

The witnesses were informants for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

And we all know that informants are extremely reliable when it comes to telling the truth about drug deals. That’s right, they’re right up there with COHA on the truth barometer.

Wait ... turns out the informants were fibbing to us.

From an AP story in today's San Diego Union-Tribune:

MEXICO CITY – Mexican prosecutors on Sunday announced the release of an architect who was mistaken for one of Mexico's top drug traffickers.

Bad information from two informants cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department led Mexico to arrest the wrong man on July 2 in search of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the reputed leader of the Juarez drug cartel, the Mexican attorney general's office said.

Joaquin Romero Aparicio was released after DNA tests confirmed a relation to family members that had protested his arrest, the attorney general's office said in a new release.

So the Mexican government has fessed up and swallowed a bit of crow for its goof up by issuing yet another press release.

Can we expect the same from COHA?

Not likely, but then they are choosing to take a nosedive into their own credibility gap.