Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers (49 page)

Genaro García Luna, the head of the Secretariat of Public Security (SSP), has since 2002, first in the AFI and later in the PFP, I know received money from me, from drug trafficking and from organized crime, along with a select group of corrupt policemen that includes
Armando Espinosa de Benito who worked for the DEA and passed information on to me, Luis Cárdenas Palomino, Edgar Eusebio Millán, Francisco Garza Palacios (Colombian Federal Police), Igor Labastida Calderón, Facundo Rosas Rosas, Ramón Eduardo Pequeño García and Gerardo Garay Cadena, who were also part of this and received money from organized crime and from me.

Among other things they were given the task of “arresting me in some operation,” although in fact they had orders to kill me, so that when I was arrested in the house that was mentioned in the media, where I was alone, they say that no shots were reported, but in fact there was shooting. A federal police officer who brought me to the place where I am now, tried to get me to run away so he could shoot me. Then they could say I had been killed resisting arrest, as they did with Arón Gines Becerril who they killed near the Perisur shopping mall. He was shot in the back on the same day I was arrested. But it was all covered up by the PF.

It is worth mentioning that in spite of Genaro García’s record, which is contained in various case files, of which the American government is well aware, and which even came up in the Merida Initiative,
²
and which I have had access to, most recently in the testimony of the witness known as Mateo (Sergio Villarreal), still President Felipe Calderón keeps him in his post and no legal action is taken against him.

Another fact worth noting is that however many arrests the Federal Police make, they do not confiscate anything, everything gets lost (money, watches, vehicles, drugs, etc.). On the other hand it should be pointed out that both the Mexican Army and the Navy are more honest, they arrest people and hand them over with all their posssessions.

I may have done whatever I have done, but the public servants I mention, they too are part of the criminal structure in this country.

EDGAR VALDEZ VILLARREAL

The truth will out, as they say, even if via an unexpected path. The drug trafficker’s account is the same as the one I heard directly from General X, in 2010. And it so happens that General X, whose identity
I carefully concealed for two years, is none other than Mario Arturo Acosta, named by La Barbie in his letter.

The general was silenced by a lone gunman in Mexico City, in April 2012, months before Calderón’s government came to an end. He would have been one of the chief witnesses to the now ex-president’s shameful agreements, were Calderón ever to be brought to trial, in Mexico or abroad. But his testimony died with him.

Notes

1. A POOR DEVIL

1.
Jorge Carrillo Olea agreed to give the author an extensive interview for this book on October 16, 2009, at his home in Cuernavaca. The conversation was recorded. The general stated that Mexico has the fourth biggest army in the world with the largest number of generals, after the United States, China, and Russia.

2.
José Alfredo Andrade Bojorges is the author of
Historia secreta del narco. Desde Navolato vengo
(Mexico City: Océano, 1999). It is an investigation into Amado Carrillo Fuentes and his network of associates in the drugs business, as well as his protectors in the sphere of politics, the police, and the judiciary. For this study I obtained a copy of the original draft of his book, before it was edited and published.

3.
Several years after leading the National Anti-Drugs Institute (INCD), Gutiérrez Rebollo was arrested and convicted for his links with Carrillo Fuentes.

4.
On September 29, 1999,
Reforma
newspaper published an account of Andrade Bojorges’s book launch. According to some of those interviewed, he had disappeared on July 20 of that year.

5.
In May 2011, the author interviewed the lawyer for the Guadalajara archdiocese, José Antonio Ortega, who gave her a copy of Benjamín Arellano Félix’s statement.

2. LIFE OR DEATH

1.
Proceso
magazine, no. 166, January 1980.

2.
In Vallarta’s former Sheraton Bugambilias Hotel, they still remember how the drug trafficker used to rent an entire floor for his stay. That is where he created the scandals that so annoyed his boss, Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

3.
National Action Party, the party of former presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón.

4.
Milenio
magazine, July 8, 2002.

5.
The author lodged a complaint with the IFAI (Freedom of Information Institute) over Sedena’s reponse. In June 2010, IFAI ordered the Secretariat to look again for the document. But the commissioner, a former security adviser to President Calderón, Sigrid Artz, refused to sign the order for three and a half months, holding up the search. In October 2010, the author lodged a complaint against Artz in the IFAI’s internal affairs office.

6.
Both the governor of Baja California, Ernesto Ruffo Appel, and his brother Claudio, had been linked with the Arellano Félix gang by El Chapo in his original statement.

3. A PERVERSE PACT

1.
This section is a reconstruction of the kidnapping and murder of Enrique Camarena, based on the sworn statements of Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero, which were obtained by the author.

2.
Information taken from
justice.gov/dea/pubs/history/1985-1990.pdf
.

3.
Henry Weinstein, “Witness Who Tied CIA to Traffickers Must Testify Anew,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 6, 1990.

4.
The author has a copy of the complete document.

5.
Information taken from the “Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters,” better known as the Walsh Commission Report,
archives.gov
.

6.
From an article published in the electronic magazine,
Salon.com
, on 25 October 2004 by journalist Robert Parry, who was responsible for many reports in the 1980s on the Iran-Contra affair for outlets like Associated Press and
Newsweek
. Kerry Report consulted on
whatreallyhappened.com
, January 14, 2013.

7.
Manuel Buendía was killed on May 30, 1984, in Mexico City. The only person imprisoned for his murder was the then head of the DFS, José Antonio Zorrilla.

8.
Given his close relations with the then president, Miguel de la Madrid, it was thought that del Mazo had a good chance of being nominated as PRI candidate for the 1988 presidential election. In the end, to his surprise and disappointment, the ruling-party candidate was Carlos Salinas. Today, del Mazo backs the former governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, who won the disputed presidential election of July 2012. Ironically and not by chance, Salinas also backs Peña Nieto.

9.
Javier Juárez Vásquez, another Veracruz journalist, was also killed around that time; some have wrongly identified him with Velasco.

10.
Edén Pastora, or El Comandante Cero, was one of the leaders of the armed movement against the Somoza regime at the end of the 1970s. After the revolution won, Pastora split from the FSLN and turned against the Sandinista government, becoming a Contra leader.

11.
For this investigation the author was in touch with many sources linked to different drug organizations.

12.
The author obtained a copy of Rafael Caro Quintero’s written statement, which has not been published before.

13.
Information published in the
Los Angeles Times
, June 8, 1990, by journalist Henry Weinstein, who covered the Camarena murder trial.

14.
Los Angeles Times
, August 1, 1990.

15.
William R. Doerner
et al
., “Latin America Flames of Anger,”
Time
, January 18, 1988.

16.
“Crime of the Century: CIA – Cocaine International Agency,”
USA Today
, June 1999.

17.
Jefferson Morley, “LITEMPO: The CIA’s Eyes on Tlatelolco,”
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book, no. 204
, October 18, 2006.

18.
Information obtained by Leslie Cockburn and Andrew Cockburn, “Guns, Drugs, and the CIA,”
Frontline
, PBS, May 17, 1988; see also John Kerry’s report, published in 1989.

4. RAISING CROWS

1.
The Mexican army divides the country into military regions and zones. The first are commanded by Major Generals, the highest rank, and the second by Brigadier Generals.

2.
Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall,
Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America
, Berkeley and Los Angelos: University of California Press, 1991.

3.
Ibid.

4.
Diego Enrique Osorno, “Memorias de un capo,”
Gatopardo
, Mexico City, May 2009.

5.
Seal’s story is so fascinating that in 1991 HBO made a TV film out of it called
Doublecrossed
.

6.
The author has a copy of a CIA document which mentions Seal’s existence and his activities.

7.
Daniel Hopsicker,
Barry and
“
the Boys
,” Oregon: TrineDay, 2001.

8.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard,
The Secret Life of Bill Clinton
, Washington: Regnery Publishing, 1997.

9.
“Report of Investigation, Volume I: The California Story,”
cia.gov/library
.

10.
Evans-Pritchard,
The Secret Life of Bill Clinton
.

11.
 “DEA History Book,” 1985-1990,
justice.gov/dea/pubs/history/1985-1990.html

12.
Villa Coca was the name given to the case of the Peruvian drug baron Reynaldo Rodríguez López, El Padrino, after his cocaine laboratory exploded in a residential area of Lima on July 24, 1985.

13.
“DEA History Book,” 1985–1990,
justice.gov/dea
.

14.
“El fin de El Mexicano,”
Semana
, Colombia, June 8, 1992.

5. EL CHAPO’S PROTECTORS

1.
Marc Lacey, “Mexican Leader to Visit U.S. as Woes Mount,”
New York Times
, May 17, 2010.

2.
Details taken from a copy of the police report dated September 5, 1992.

3.
The author has a copy of Cristina Sánchez’s statement.

4.
“News Release,” DEA, December 20, 2004.

5.
Wall Street Journal
, June 13, 2009.

6.
“El contador de El Chapo,”
Milenio Semanal
, January 31, 2010.

7.
Details from a copy, in the author’s possession, of the police report dated September 22 and October 2, 1992.

8.
Information from the initial inquiry into the Iguala murders.

9.
Thomas A. Constantine, DEA Congressional Testimony, “Drug Trafficking in Mexico,” March 28, 1996,
justice.gov/dea
.

10.
Information borne out by the police report and, verbally, by people directly involved in the operation, including former Attorney General Morales. Aero Abastos still operates, benefitting from some fuel privileges, as was confirmed to us by the Transport Secretariat for this investigation, though they said they could not find the original documents.

11.
Morales said as much in several interviews he gave in 1998, talking about his hopes of standing for governor of Veracruz state for an opposition party.

12.
Sam Dillon, “A Fugitive Lawman Speaks,”
New York Times
, December 23, 1996.

13.
“Drug Wars,” Part 2,
Frontline
, aired October 10, 2000,
pbs.org
.

6. THE LORD OF PUENTE GRANDE

1.
Reforma
, December 5, 2000.

2.
The information on the state in which El Chapo’s cell was found after his escape is contained in the Visual Inspection Report of January 21, 2001, part of penal case 16/2001-III carried out by the federal public prosecutors attached to the Specialized Unit against Organized Crime (UEDO).

3.
“Congressional Testimony Statement by Donnie Marshall,” DEA, March 19, 1998. In 1993 the Customs Service confiscated from Eduardo González two cargos of cocaine weighing 2.9 tons (El
Norte
, September 10, 1997). This information must have been communicated to the relevant authorities, so it cannot have been a surprise to anyone that the wealthy Jalisco businessmen were in fact drug traffickers.

4.
Formal statement by Division General Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, December 29, 1997.