Pubdate: Mon, 09 Apr 2001
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Amparo Trejo, Associated Press
Note: Associated Press writer Niko Price in Mexico City contributed to this 
report.

MEXICAN DRUG LORDS SEEKING NEW CARTEL

Sources Detail Meeting Of 5 Major Groups

APODACA, Mexico -- Wearing business suits and cowboy boots, they flew in on 
private jets, landed at several airports and took a short drive to this 
northern Mexican town in a fleet of brand-new SUVs.

They were Mexico's drug lords, who control most of the drugs smuggled 
across the border to the United States. Along with them came their 
bodyguards, various associates and their contacts in government. Sixty men 
in all, they gathered in a restaurant, drawing the notice of local people 
as well as police in nearby Monterrey.

A participant in the three-day meeting, as well as associates of the 
smugglers, government officials and others familiar with the drug trade, 
gave independent accounts of the summit, speaking on condition of 
anonymity. Their descriptions differed slightly in detail but agreed on the 
central purpose of the meeting: to join forces after 12 years of bloody 
turf wars and form a new cartel that would unite operations and cut costs.

The alliance has been in the works for three years, but was made urgent by 
a tough line from Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox; by a court decision 
making it easier to extradite drug smugglers to the United States; and by a 
proposed U.S.-Mexico crackdown on money laundering, according to government 
insiders as well as associates of the smugglers.

Although nobody has a good estimate of how much money flows to Mexico from 
drug smuggling, the White House estimates that about half of the $65 
billion worth of illegal drugs that Americans buy each year comes through 
Mexico. By any estimate, drug trafficking is one of Mexico's top sources of 
income, rivaling the top legal industries of oil, tourism and assembly for 
export.

The industry is so pervasive that it has corrupted law enforcement from top 
to bottom. Police assigned to drug duty are routinely arrested for 
collaborating with the smugglers. In 1997, Mexico's newly appointed drug 
chief, Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was jailed after investigators 
discovered he was on the payroll of a drug trafficker.

The last major drug cartel in Mexico collapsed in 1989 when its longtime 
boss, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, was arrested. The new alliance would end 
the war of succession that has killed hundreds of people. It would mean a 
major shift in the drug trade in the Western Hemisphere, creating a 
syndicate better equipped to evade law enforcement.

Rafael Macedo de la Concha, Fox's new attorney general, said his agents 
investigated tips about such a meeting and found no evidence that it had 
occurred. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration declined to comment.

But the sources said the meeting took place Jan. 26-28 around a long wooden 
table in a restaurant's back room, with a picture window offering a garden 
view. Screened off from the main dining area, participants talked as 
waiters in tuxedos served steaks, roast goat and dried beef soup, a 
regional specialty.

According to the accounts, the guest list read like a who's who of Mexican 
drug smugglers:

• Juan Esparragosa Moreno, who Mexican authorities say is a veteran drug 
boss known as El Azul for his dark, almost blue-toned skin, and other heirs 
of the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, aka the Lord of the Skies, including 
Ramon Alcides Magana, a former policeman known as El Metro, who authorities 
say saved the life of Carrillo Fuentes's son and became a close confidant. 
They represented the Juarez drug-smuggling organization, which operates 
along Mexico's Caribbean coast, central Mexico and the West Texas border.

• Humberto Garcia Abrego, accused by Mexican authorities of running the 
Gulf drug gang of his brother Juan, who is serving 11 life sentences in a 
U.S. prison for drug smuggling. The Gulf gang operates along Mexico's Gulf 
of Mexico coast.

• Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, reputed leader of the Colima gang, which 
operates in the Pacific coast state of Colima and along the far eastern 
border with Texas.

• Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, wanted by Mexican authorities, and 
representatives of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who recently escaped from a 
Mexican maximum-security prison in a laundry bin. The two men reputedly 
work in a semi-independent but coordinated manner along Mexico's Pacific 
coast and north to the Arizona border.

• Gilberto Valdes, a businessman who sources said represents smugglers in 
the southern state of Chiapas.

• Two men in military uniforms with generals' stars, to whom the others 
referred as "representatives of the attorney general's office," the 
participant and associates said. Also present, they said, was a group of 
Colombians acting as consultants.

These five major drug-smuggling groups make up a new cartel, not yet named, 
which encompasses many smaller gangs, the sources said. The only major 
group to decline the invitation to the meeting was that of the 
Tijuana-based Arellano Felix brothers, who run the bloodiest organization, 
all the sources said.

Analysts who study the drug trade confirmed an apparent alliance, although 
they did not know about the meeting. Macedo, the attorney general, said his 
office asked nearby residents about any unusual movements at the time but 
was told nobody had seen anything strange. "It's all speculation," he said.

However, Eduardo Valle, a former drug official at the attorney general's 
office, said colleagues told him there was "a lot of movement" in the 
agency's office in Monterrey, just a few miles from Apodaca, at the time of 
the meeting. He said he did not know why, but added: "Certainly something 
major was happening."

The associates said the smugglers opened their books to one another, 
discussed how much each paid in bribes and shared contacts, informants and 
the names of corrupt officials. According to the insiders, the participants 
agreed that members of the new cartel would -- for now at least -- respect 
one another's territory and devise a joint strategy for selling drugs 
within Mexico and exporting them to the United States.

They decided to pool their bribes in one larger payment to each corrupt 
official and the generals agreed to accept the new form of payment, the 
sources said. Also, they said, the traffickers agreed to more meetings to 
strengthen their new cartel.

Associated Press writer Niko Price in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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