This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIMEaware tools. Send mail to for more info. =_NextPart_000_01BC2FAF.A3C96B80 ContentType: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=usascii ContentID: The Houston 17132207171 9:39 PM 3/12/1997 Exbodyguard says he delivered drug money to Ruiz Massieu By DUDLEY ALTHAUS Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle In the first testimony directly linking Mexico's former deputy attorney general to drug money, a former Mexican police bodyguard testified Wednesday that he had delivered to the official suitcases of cash from a cocaine deal. Also testifying in the threedayold civil trial here to confiscate Mario Ruiz Massieu's Houston bank account was a U.S. Customs Service investigator who said informants connected the former prosecutor to payoffs from top drug traffickers. The U.S. government is suing in federal court to confiscate more than $9 million that Ruiz Massieu deposited in cash at the Texas Commerce Bank. Ruiz Massieu disputes that the money seized in March 1995 was paid by traffickers for protection, saying it was legally earned by him and members of his politically prominent family. The latest evidence in the drugprofits trial came as Congress debated whether to reverse President Clinton's Feb. 28 certification that the Mexican government was fully cooperating in the war on drugs. At least one government witness scheduled to appear in the Houston trial was expected to connect top Mexican officials to drug trafficking, but the government said it will rest its case today. No such witness has been called. The former Mexican agent who testified Wednesday, Raul Macias, worked as security for a federal police commander until 1996. He told the eightmember jury that he got a clear view of Ruiz Massieu in the front seat of the car to which he delivered the drug cash outside the attorney general's office in Mexico City in August 1994. "It's the second time I've seen him," Macias said as he identified Ruiz Massieu in the U.S. District Court room. Macias said he recognized Ruiz Massieu from a large photo of the former official that his boss had hanging in his office. As Macias spoke, Ruiz Massieu shook his head frequently and smiled as though disgusted. Macias testified that the cash was delivered to Ruiz Massieu several days after the disappearance of most of a 10metricton shipment of cocaine that federal police had captured on a remote northern Mexico runway Aug. 4,1994. Macias said he and federal agents under the command of Jesus David Grajeda Lara had helped unload the cocaine from a plane, weigh the shipment, and substitute wood and other things for the narcotics before the replacements were publicly burned. Following the switch of the cocaine, Grajeda Lara gave Macias two suitcases stuffed with cash for safekeeping, Macias said. Those suitcases, from which Macias said he pilfered about $100,000 while guarding them in a hotel, were the same ones delivered to Ruiz Massieu's car a few days later, Macias said. As he has done with earlier government witnesses, defense attorney Tony Canales sought to discredit Macias with the jury by showing that he was both dishonest and had been paid to testify. Although Macias originally identified himself as a former federal police agent, he admitted to Canales that he actually was privately employed by Grajeda Lara, the federal commander, for seven years. The use of such "off the books" police agents is common practice in Mexico. Macias acknowledged that he hoped to gain legal U.S. residence for himself and his family in exchange for his testimony. He said he feared for his safety because several federal police commanders had recently been killed or disappeared. But under oftentesty questioning by Canales, Macias did not waver from his assertions that he had seen Ruiz Massieu in the car to which he delivered the drug money. Earlier, U.S. customs agent Robert Rutt testified that confidential informants used by his agency reported that Ruiz Massieu indirectly received cash payments from Amado Carrillo Fuentes, now considered Mexico's most prominent drug trafficker. Carrillo Fuentes would pay money to Adrian Carrera Fuentes, the head of Mexico's federal police, who then would have it delivered to Ruiz Massieu's home, Rutt said. A Ruiz Massieu assistant, Jorge Stergios, would then take the money to a safe place, the Customs investigator said. Stergios, who has not been seen publicly since his former boss' arrest, has been identified as the person who actually delivered most of the cash deposits to the Houston bank. The lawsuit against Ruiz Massieu has drawn wide interest in Mexico, because pretrial documents leaked to the Mexico City media suggested that the government's case would link the family of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to drug payoffs. However, none of the testimony so far has implicated the Salinases or any other politician, apart from Ruiz Massieu. U.S. prosecutors won't comment on their remaining witnesses, but the government has said it plans to rest its case this morning. Witnesses have testified that the Ruiz Massieu millions were deposited as cash, mostly $20 and $50 bills wrapped in rubber bands, over an 11month period that roughly coincided with Ruiz Massieu's tour as a top official in Mexico's antinarcotics effort. He resigned from the position in 1994, saying that members of the nation's ruling party were hampering the probe into his brother's assassination in September of that year. Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a prominent leader in the ruling party, was shot to death on a Mexico City street several months after helping to orchestrate President Ernesto Zedillo's election victory. Raul Salinas de Gortari, the older brother of the former president, is in jail on charges of ordering the murder. =_NextPart_000_01BC2FAF.A3C96B80