Pubdate: Sun, 11 Jun 2000
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  PO Box 120191, San Diego, CA, 92112-0191
Fax: (619) 293-1440
Website: http://www.uniontrib.com/
Forum: http://www.uniontrib.com/cgi-bin/WebX
Author: Marisa Taylor, Union-Tribune Staff Writer

U.S. GAINS INSIGHT INTO CARTEL RANKS

Lower-Level Arrests Offer Access Into Operation's Inner Workings

Fidel Chan Amador was bound to cross paths with a drug cartel, officials said.

Manuel Espinoza once turned down a job smuggling tons of cocaine across the 
U.S.-Mexico border. Espinoza was a specialist: He smuggled only marijuana, 
according to an account filed in federal court.

But when Espinoza was approached about the same job again, he couldn't 
refuse. This time, the offer came from Ismael Higuera Guerrero, a reputed 
top lieutenant in the Arellano Felix drug cartel. And the Arellanos' 
approach to business was well known in drug smuggling circles: If you 
didn't work with them, you could end up dead.

Last month, federal prosecutors in San Diego unsealed drug trafficking 
charges against brothers Ramon and Benjamn Arellano Felix after a five-year 
investigation. The cartel the brothers are accused of leading for the past 
10 years is believed to be one of the most violent in Mexico, responsible 
for sending tons of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin into the 
United States.

But even if American and Mexican anti-drug agents succeed in capturing the 
Arellanos, they know that people like Espinoza -- the rank and file who 
fetch, carry and kill for the cartel leaders -- could shift their 
allegiance to someone new.

"The flow will continue as long as demand for narcotics exists in this 
country," said William Gore, special agent in charge of the FBI in San 
Diego. "Another cartel would try to step in."

To try to keep the cartel off balance, U.S. agents have spent the past five 
years arresting and prosecuting a string of people they accuse of serving 
as hitmen, smugglers and corrupt officials for the Arellanos.

Prosecutors say these less-publicized investigations help them gather 
evidence about the cartel's inner workings. Perhaps equally important, each 
arrest disrupts the cartel's regular business of transporting drugs deep 
into the United States.

Some of the accused smugglers end up cooperating with authorities. 
Espinoza, for example, began talking to U.S. agents about his role in the 
Arellano cartel after he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiracy 
to distribute cocaine.

Other smugglers refuse to cooperate, because they fear cartel members will 
hurt them or their families. And those who do talk may not always tell the 
truth.

Still, the government persists.

"At times, it may seem daunting," said Gonzalo Curiel, an assistant U.S. 
attorney in San Diego who has devoted the past several years to pursuing 
drug smugglers. "You realize that other traffickers may be waiting in the 
wings. But you have to keep attacking the problem before it seeps into 
every part of society."

The following three cases reflect the difficulties federal officials have 
faced as they try to infiltrate the Arellano cartel, an organization 
described as being built on greed, alliances and territorial control. The 
account is based on documents filed in federal court and interviews with 
federal agents, prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The Police Officer

According to a U.S. undercover agent, Sergio Rubalcava Sandoval understood 
what it meant to make a pact with reputed Arellano lieutenant Ismael 
Higuera Guerrero, who Rubalcava described as "death personified."

"I was the most corrupt," the former Baja California state police commander 
told the agent in 1998. "I handed over my police career to this person."

Law-enforcement officials say Rubalcava's case reveals how drug cartels 
corrupt public officials who are eager to be bought or unwilling to be killed.

For nine years, Rubalcava worked in the low-paying, high-risk job of a 
state police officer in Baja California. At one point, he was shot while on 
duty and bears the scar on his forehead, his San Diego attorney, James 
Pasto, said.

When Rubalcava left the force, he initially supported his family by 
investing in local food distribution routes.

But drug smuggling was a strong temptation.

Rubalcava told the undercover agent he received as much as $15,000 a month 
to oversee the transportation of marijuana and cocaine across the border 
and into San Diego. Authorities believe he used the money to buy a 
five-bedroom house in Bonita and a boat.

Smuggling is easy, Rubalcava told the agent. All a smuggler needs is the 
right equipment such as horse trailers, he said. Helicopters work better, 
because they're difficult to track.

Soon, Rubalcava was confiding to the undercover agent that he not only 
worked for Higuera, but for the Arellanos.

Rubalcava told the agent his bosses in Mexico let smugglers use drug routes 
through Mexico for a percentage of the load. In exchange, the load was 
protected all the way from Mexico.

Believing the undercover agent was a Colombian drug trafficker, Rubalcava 
promised the agent he would try to arrange a meeting with the Arellano 
brothers.

When the undercover agent declined, citing concern about recent killings in 
Tijuana, Rubalcava tried to reassure the agent. There was no need to worry, 
he said, because his bosses were responsible for the murders.

By 1998, authorities said, Rubalcava was so deeply involved in the cartel 
that Higuera asked him to help pay $400,000 in hospital bills for the 
family of another Arellano brother, Eduardo. Eduardo Arellano and his 
family were severely burned in a fire triggered by a gas leak, and his wife 
and children were taken to a burn-treatment center in San Diego.

Rubalcava's boasts soon became more alarming. He claimed he had murdered 
people, then ground up the bodies and turned them into fertilizer or 
pozole,  a type of Mexican soup. The remains were then dumped into the gutter.

After the murders, Rubalcava said, the victims' wallets were thrown onto 
their families' lawns, as a message.

Rubalcava also confided to the agent that his bosses had ordered the 
September 1998 massacre near Ensenada, where 19 men, women and children 
were killed. Agents never determined whether this, or any of his other 
claims, were true.

In March 1999, U.S. agents persuaded Rubalcava to fly 50 kilos of sham 
cocaine in a helicopter on behalf of a fake Colombian drug cartel. Then 
they arrested him.

A year later, Rubalcava pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges. When 
he's sentenced later this month in San Diego federal court, he'll face 20 
years in prison.

Rubalcava now denies working for the Arellanos. His attorney recently said 
his client was "puffing himself up" when he talked about working with the 
cartel.

The "Hitman"

Emilio Valdez was raised by an upper-middle-class family who sent him to 
some of Mexico's best schools. For a time, he studied to be a lawyer, U.S. 
law-enforcement officials said.

But Valdez's upbringing didn't prepare him to resist the lure of drug 
traffickers like the Arellanos, who win over smugglers like Valdez by 
establishing personal ties with them, authorities said.

In 1991, Ramon Arellano Felix was a godfather to Valdez's son. Arturo Paez 
Martnez, now imprisoned in Mexico awaiting a U.S. extradition request on 
drug trafficking charges, was also a godfather to the little boy.

Valdez is believed to have vacationed with Ramon in the Mexican resort town 
of Acapulco. He also allowed the cartel leaders to hold meetings in his 
Tijuana home.

As Ramon's drug business grew, Valdez's role in the organization expanded, too.

At first, authorities said, he served as an occasional go-between in drug 
smuggling deals. Then he began leading a gang of hitmen who murdered 
Arellano rivals and law-enforcement officials, authorities said.

By the mid-1990s, Mexican and U.S. officials had linked Valdez to at least 
four slayings. One of the victims was a Mexican prosecutor, Jesus Romero 
Magana, who had been investigating Valdez's ties to the Arellanos.

At one point, Valdez is believed to have targeted Curiel, who supervises 
the San Diego prosecutions of cases related to the Arellano cartel. For 
several months, Curiel drove around San Diego in a bullet-proofed Suburban 
and lived in a safe house guarded by U.S. marshals.

"His solution to being investigated in Mexico was to kill a prosecutor," 
Curiel said. "He probably believed he could do the same in the United 
States and get away with it."

For years, Valdez eluded law-enforcement officials on both sides of the border.

Armed with a green card, he traveled freely between the United States and 
Mexico. He owned several houses in Mexico and was said to rent others in 
upper-class neighborhoods of Tijuana, Guadalajara and Mexico City.

When U.S. agents arrested him in 1996 on a Mexican extradition request, he 
was living in a Coronado condominium.

While waiting in a San Diego prison for the outcome of the extradition, 
Valdez met a Mexican attorney convicted of drug trafficking crimes. Valdez 
grew to trust the attorney and told him he knew smugglers outside of prison 
who could arrange the sale of cocaine and heroin, authorities said.

But the attorney was cooperating with U.S. agents, who were recording 
conversations in both men's cells and intercepting Valdez's letters.

In 1998, Valdez pleaded guilty to drug-trafficking charges in San Diego 
federal court and is serving a 30-year prison sentence in Cumberland, Md. 
He recently turned down a request to speak with The San Diego Union-Tribune.

The "Smuggler"

One way authorities believe the Arellanos control their drug-smuggling 
terrority or "plaza" in Baja California is by paying smugglers to transport 
their drugs. Smugglers who move drugs through the plaza without the 
cartel's direct supervision must pay a tax. Those who don't pay can end up 
tortured and dead.

As a free-lance drug smuggler, Fidel Chan Amador was almost certain to 
cross paths with the cartel, federal authorities said.

In 1992, Chan started a life on the run as a federal fugitive, after he 
walked away from a U.S. minimum security prison in Nevada where he was 
serving time for drug trafficking.

But U.S. agents caught up with Chan in 1996 and monitored the group for 
more than two years. Agents sent in a cooperating witness to win the trust 
of Chan and a group of people accused of working with him.

The witness, who had no known criminal record, concocted a story about a 
corrupt U.S. official willing to allow drug loads to cross the border 
unimpeded.

Reputed Arellano lieutenant Ismael Higuera Guerrero heard the story of the 
corrupt official and told Chan and his associates he would work with them. 
But first, they had to prove their reliability. If his organization wasn't 
protected, Higuera warned, someone would be killed.

In April of 1998, a group of men who identified themselves as Mexican 
police officers kidnapped Chan, threw a sack over his head and handcuffed 
him. They took Chan to a house and held a gun to his head. When the sack 
was removed, Chan recognized the men as Higuera's associates.

The men took Chan to a yacht anchored off the coast of Ensenada, where 
Higuera was waiting. Higuera apologized, saying he had been suspicious that 
the group was working with law-enforcement officials, the witness told agents.

Chan apparently had passed a test. He was told he would be allowed to 
transport marijuana and cocaine across the border and was given $100,000 in 
cash as payment.

But Chan's group was having internal problems.

Chan complained that an associate had stolen part of a drug load headed to 
San Ysidro. Higuera demanded the associate be killed, the witness told 
authorities, and group members began electronically monitoring phone calls 
to see if they could locate the man.

Chan also suspected that a driver had disappeared with some of the group's 
cash. Days later, the driver was found dead from a blow to his head and 
stuffed in a car trunk in Tijuana. To this day, authorities don't know who 
killed him.

In a raid last June, U.S. authorities arrested 13 people they believed were 
working with Chan out of San Diego. Eight have been convicted and five are 
awaiting trial.

As a result of that investigation, authorities seized 12,000 pounds of 
marijuana in the United States, 16,000 pounds of marijuana in Mexico and 
$288,000 in drug money.

Like the Arellanos, Chan and four other accused members of the group still 
are eluding authorities. As recently as a year ago, Chan was believed to be 
living in Tijuana and smuggling drugs into San Diego and on to other U.S. 
cities.
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