Pubdate: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2003 San Jose Mercury News Contact: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390 Author: Susana Hayward, Mercury News Mexico City Bureau MEXICO SHUTS DOWN ITS ANTI-DRUG OFFICES Agency Accused Of Collusion With Traffickers MEXICO CITY - Soldiers and police in battle gear Thursday raided anti-narcotics offices in 11 Mexican states where narcotics agents are suspected of colluding with drug traffickers. Ordered by Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha, the operation to disband Mexico's top drug-fighting agency -- the Federal Prosecutors Office for Drug Crimes, or FEADS -- was the largest anti-corruption strike in recent Mexican history. Justice officials said Friday that they had confiscated documents from the agency's offices in the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Nayarit, Chiapas, Guerrero, Baja California, Oaxaca, Tabasco, Yucat=E1n and Jalisco. There were no arrests, but hundreds of federal police officers and employees were placed under military control while they are investigated for possible offenses ranging from bribery to abuse of authority. ``FEADS is going to disappear,'' Macedo de la Concha said Friday. ``We're going to get rid of these people. They're going to the street or to jail.'' The coordinated action to dismantle networks of officials who collude with drug cartels is a new tactic in Mexico's battle with organized crime: mounting dragnets instead of small busts. President Vicente Fox, Mexico's first president from an opposition party in 71 years, praised the attorney general, who oversees all police agencies, and the secretary of defense, saying they were key players in his administration's vow to combat official corruption. ``We will continue to clean up the Attorney General's Office to its deepest core,'' Fox said in Tijuana. ``This won't be the only case; there are others. If we go after each and every member of any police force . . . we will ensure that there's no collusion with organized crime, that there's no corruption or dishonesty.'' Fox's crackdown on drug lords and corrupt police has been considered one of the major successes of his administration. Cooperation with U.S. law enforcement authorities on drug issues also has improved, as trust has grown that Mexican officials will not betray U.S. agents or their intelligence sources. The United States has hailed Mexico's efforts against cartels, which have grown more powerful as drug traffickers began working with Colombian cocaine barons. Half the cocaine that enters the United States comes through Mexico. FEADS, with 700 members, was created in 1997 under the administration of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Le=F3n. It replaced the National Institute to Combat Drugs after the institute's director, Gen. Jes=FAs Guti=E9rrez Rebollo, was charged with protecting the drug cartel of Ciudad Ju=E1rez, south of El Paso. A new agency will be created in about 180 days, as mandated in a law that passed Dec. 27. Some 500 soldiers and dozens of police agents conducted the raids Thursday after seven FEADS agents were arrested last weekend in Tijuana. They were charged with holding two drug traffickers and offering their freedom for $2 million. They were arrested after soldiers reportedly found them with four tons of marijuana that had not been reported to the government. Macedo de la Concha said Thursday's operation was not related to the arrests in Tijuana. The former army general said the employees of the new special prosecutors' office would be subject to reviews and screening. ``I've ordered this action as an ongoing strategy to clean up the institution of public servants who don't understand that they must serve citizens, that they must serve Mexico,'' he said. On Dec. 4, 2000, three days after Fox took office, he issued a presidential decree that created the Intersecretarial Commission for Transparency and Combat Against Corruption. He also created the Federal Agency of Investigation, which is in charge of overhauling the notoriously corrupt federal judicial police. =C1ngel Buendia, a top Justice Department inspector, said 1,180 officials in the Attorney General's Office had been arrested on drug-related charges and that more than 2,000 from various police agencies were under investigation. Fox said that since he took office corrupt police officers had been replaced by more than 3,000 new agents and by the end of the year there would be 5,000 federal investigators. ``They are career professionals,'' Fox said. ``Forty percent have university degrees, and a large part have postgraduate degrees.'' - --- MAP posted-by: Derek