Source: Washington Post Author: Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service Contact: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Pubdate: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 CORRUPT FROM THE TOP DRUG-RUNNING BY HIGH OFFICIALS JARS MEXICAN STATE CUERNAVACA, Mexico—"Are you Pedro?" shouted the voice from the bridge. "Are you Tono?" came the reply from the darkness below, using the arranged passwords for the ransom exchange. Seconds later, a knapsack filled with $39,000 in pesos dropped to the ground. The suspected kidnapper snatched it up, only to be surrounded by two undercover police officers. As the Guanajuato state police officers leveled their service revolvers at the man clutching the money bag, according to an account of the incident by the state's attorney general, they were stunned to discover he was the chief of the anti-kidnapping police unit from the neighboring state of Morelos. Almost instantly, eight men wearing ski masks and armed with AK-47 assault rifles cornered the two undercover agents while the police commander made his getaway. Weeks later, on Jan. 18, in a nearby state, police caught the same Morelos anti-kidnapping unit commander on an isolated stretch of highway. He and one of his officers were dumping the battered corpse of a kidnapping suspect who died of injuries suffered during police torture, according to charges filed by Mexican authorities. This time Armando Martinez Salgado, 50, founder of the Morelos anti-kidnapping squad, did not get away. That chance discovery by a Guerrero state highway patrol has exploded into a national scandal that has rallied a growing public and political intolerance of crooked officials and of the government that has long protected them. The scandal in Morelos, a central Mexican state that is a popular playground for wealthy Mexicans and foreigners, has not only brought down the top echelon of the state law-enforcement apparatus, it threatens to force the ruling party governor from office amid allegations that range from ignoring the villainous practices of his underlings to having ties to drug traffickers and organized-crime mafias. "We see corruption everywhere -- the governor, the attorney general, everywhere," said Carmen Genis Sanchez, president of Civic Cause, a citizens' activist organization. "And we've reached the point where we say, 'We're fed up!' " The extent of the corruption uncovered within the Morelos state police and attorney general's office has shocked even a country long callous to nefarious public officials. The federal attorney general's office, which has taken over the investigation, is examining charges that state law-enforcement officials not only protected kidnappers but also conducted as many as 60 percent of the kidnappings, rescued the victims, kept the ransom and often jailed innocent people to appear credible with the public. Since his arrest, former top law-enforcement officer Martinez has testified that he was a longtime friend of the former Juarez drug cartel chief Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who died last year and had owned several properties in Morelos, including a mansion two blocks from the governor's house in this capital city. New records have surfaced showing that Hugo Salgado Castaneda, whom Morelos Gov. Jorge Carrillo Olea recently selected as his top aide, was the attorney the cartel used for many of its real-estate transactions in Morelos. The governor, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has said he was unaware of the connection. Now, outraged but previously powerless citizens are finding a potent coalition of allies who are willing to take up their cry -- opposition politicians who are gaining control of an increasing number of government positions. And, as in the case of Morelos, where the national ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) does not control the state legislature, these opposition legislators have the authority to challenge the leaders of the PRI. Last weekend, 100,000 residents packed Cuernavaca's main plaza and voted in an unprecedented nonbinding referendum called by opposition political leaders; 94 percent called for the governor to step down. "Morelos offers a lesson for the entire country," said state legislative deputy Juan Ignacio Suarez Huape, a member of the left-of-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and one of the lawmakers threatening to launch impeachment proceedings against the governor. "We're seeing the transition to democracy." The acting state president of the ruling party, Victor Cinta Flores, tried to play down the referendum, calling it "a stupid trick." He added: "The entire state is at peace, everyone -- workers, students, peasants, housewives. The only ones who are not at peace are those 17 idiots [non-PRI legislators] who have been working on provoking scandal with the support of the national press." But even the Roman Catholic Church has joined the fray: The local bishop has excommunicated Martinez and two of his subordinates. The former anti-kidnapping squad chief -- who Mexican newspapers reported was wearing a diamond-encrusted Piaget watch stolen from a German kidnap victim when he was arrested -- is now in prison on charges that he participated in kidnappings in as many as four Mexican states. Neither he nor his attorney could be reached for comment. The state attorney general and chief of state police have been released from prison on bail, and virtually the entire anti-kidnapping squad has been placed under house arrest. Morelos, a state just south of Mexico City famous for its year-round springlike weather and dramatic mountain vistas, has been a weekend getaway for wealthy Mexicans and a retirement mecca for thousands of U.S. citizens for decades. In recent years, however, the state has become even better known for its ruthless kidnapping gangs and the new breed of rich Mexicans it has begun to attract -- the country's most powerful drug cartel leaders. For several years, victims of Morelos's growing kidnapping trade -- which numbers more than 200 abductions a year -- have accused state police of collusion with the kidnapping rings. But complaints usually met with the same response from state officials as that received by neighboring Guanajuato Attorney General Felipe Arturo Camarena Garcia when he called the Morelos attorney general after his undercover officers' encounter under the bridge with anti-kidnapping police chief Martinez. "He told me I was badly informed and he had confidence in his people," Camarena said in a telephone interview. "When I explained that there was no way for Martinez Salgado to know about the password and the exact place [of the ransom drop-off] he simply said, 'I trust my people.' " Camarena persuaded a magistrate to grant an arrest order against the police official. But before the warrant could be executed, Martinez was caught disposing of the badly beaten body of Jorge Nava Aviles, 24, on a deserted Guerrero highway. He told arresting officers that Nava had died of a heart attack while being transported by police. But a coroner's report and further investigation indicated Nava had died about eight hours earlier while being tortured at the state police offices. "To this day, nobody has had the decency to tell me why they killed my son," said Maria Magdelena Aviles, 42, who watched state police and military officers take him into custody without an arrest warrant and learned of his death two days later on the evening news. "My son had been kidnapped, tortured and murdered, and thrown away in the state of Guerrero." © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company