Source: Houston Chronicle Pubdate: Monday, July 28, 1997, page 1A Contact:: Alleged drug ties of Mexican generals probed Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle News Services MIAMI In an indication that drug corruption within the Mexican military may go much deeper than previously admitted, a Mexican newsmagazine reported Sunday that 10 Mexican generals and 22 other military officers are under investigation for alleged ties to drug traffickers. The weekly Proceso also reported that Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who headed the Juarez drug cartel until his recent death, had written a private letter to President Ernesto Zedillo on Jan. 14, offering a deal in which he would relinquish 50 percent of his wealth and keep drugs out of Mexico if the government stopped pursuing him. Carrillo Fuentes died July 4 in a Mexico City hospital, in what officials described as an eighthour cosmetic surgery and liposuction operation to change his appearance. If confirmed, the revelations would indicate the possibility of behindthescenes government negotiations with Carrillo Fuentes. Such negotiations would also raise new questions about the circumstances of the Feb. 6 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, until then head of Mexico's antinarcotics police, who has been charged with being on Carrillo Fuentes' payroll. Gutierrez Rebollo says he was arrested after he began investigating alleged connections of members of Zedillo's family to drug traffickers. In a related development, the principal witness against Gutierrez Rebollo was ambushed and wounded. Mexican authorities said Sunday that the witness, Ricardo Cesareo Vazquez Tafolla, recognized the people who attacked him Friday in Guadalajara. The witness said that they were members of the Juarez drug cartel and that they had worked with Gutierrez Rebollo during the seven years he was in charge of the Fifth Military Region, with headquarters in Guadalajara. The attorney general's office Sunday identified Vazquez Tafolla as a former military officer and a partner or an investor in a private security company that allegedly provided bodyguard services to Carillo Fuentes and his principal lieutenants. One of the men linked to Gutierrez Rebollo and facing similar charges, Luis Octavio Lopez de Vega, was director of the security company in which Vazquez Tafolla was involved. According to the Proceso report Sunday, documents from the military's secret files show that Gen. Juan Felix Tapia Garcia, former head of the military zone based in Jalisco state, was suspected of protecting and receiving presents from reputed drug lord Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo. "Nine investigations showed the criminal responsibilities of 10 generals, 15 military chiefs, seven officers and two soldiers, whose crimes went from very serious ones, such as conspiracy to minor ones, such as breaking military rules or issuing false testimony," the magazine said. Two officers, Col. Pablo Castellanos Garcia and Capt. Miguel Angel Hernandez Torres, are being tried by a military court on charges of having copied the classified military documents on the internal drug investigations from the military's computers, it said. On drug lord Carrillo Fuentes, it said he did not offer in his letter to turn himself in, but to help crack down on independent cocaine barons, abstain from selling drugs inside Mexico and to bring more dollars into the country to help revive its economy. In return, the drug lord allegedly requested to be allowed to keep half his wealth, immunity for his family and permission to continue trafficking drugs to the United States and Europe. If the government rejected his offer, he would submit it "and its benefits" to another country, his letter reportedly said.