Pubdate: Sun, 05 Dec 1999 Source: Chicago Tribune (IL) Copyright: 1999 Chicago Tribune Company Contact: 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611-4066 Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/ Forum: http://www.chicagotribune.com/interact/board Author: Teresa Puente and Paul de la Garza Chicago Tribune Staff Writers FEAR, LOATHING AND DRUGS IN MEXICO A Search For Bodies Brings Unwanted Attention To A Notorious Cartel CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Since authorities began dismantling the notorious Cali and Medellin drug cartels of Colombia in the late 1980s, drug barons have learned to shun the spotlight, law-enforcement officials say. Last week, however, one of the most powerful drug-running organizations in Mexico, the so-called Juarez cartel, grabbed headlines around the world, as Mexican and U.S. investigators excavated at least four clandestine graves believed to contain the remains of scores of people who apparently died at the hands of the ruthless organization. While nobody expected the publicity and the legion of Mexican and American federal agents who descended on the city to affect the flow of drugs into the U.S., analysts said it would force the drug lords to re-evaluate their tactics. "The media attention from outsiders will make life for the traffickers like living in a fish bowl," said Luis Plascencia, associate director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. "The key actors will say, `We need to slow down.' " Investigators said they have unearthed at least six bodies since Monday in a desert ranch outside the city. According to an FBI informant, the number of victims could total more than 100, including several Americans. As the story unfolded, it helped shed light on the international drug trade--a world of greed, corruption, betrayal and murder. As early as the mid-1970s, U.S. law-enforcement officials, who were accustomed to nabbing marijuana smugglers, began confiscating small amounts of cocaine along the Texas-Mexican border. Over the years, the loads got larger, and by the early 1980s, after American drug agents began to crack down on Caribbean smuggling routes from Colombia to south Florida, investigators discovered that the Colombians had teamed up with Mexicans to get their cocaine to the lucrative U.S. market. Ciudad Juarez, a gritty city of 1.2 million people across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, has long been a den of vice and smuggling and offered Colombian dealers established smuggling routes into the U.S. It also offered a notoriously corrupt federal police commander, Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, who worked for the Mexican equivalent of the FBI. According to American law-enforcement officials and local authorities familiar with the Juarez organization, Aguilar would shake down drug traffickers operating in the city. That was before the traffickers became more powerful than the police. In the mid-1980s, with America's taste for cocaine growing, Aguilar resigned his post and consolidated various factions of Mexican drug traffickers, including his brother-in-law, businessman Rafael Munoz Talavera. Together, they created the Juarez cartel, which today uses Chicago as one of its main cocaine distribution points. Within years, Aguilar and Munoz bribed and killed their way to the top. In 1989, in a Los Angeles warehouse, authorities confiscated 21 tons of cocaine, the largest seizure ever. The shipment was linked to Munoz. A former U.S. government official with knowledge of the organization said the group grew like any successful enterprise. "Like a regular business, business grows, the number of employees increases, and your influence increases," he said. "Instead of being a mom and pop store, you have become a corporation." While the Mexican government jailed Munoz in connection with the Los Angeles seizure, another trafficker, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, became the cartel's undisputed leader. He got the job by ordering the assassination of Aguilar in 1993. Under Carrillo Fuentes, the Juarez cartel flourished like never before, raking in an estimated $200 million each week. Carrillo Fuentes came to be known as "The Lord of the Skies," for his use of large aircraft to move tons of cocaine from Colombia to the U.S.-Mexico border. Robert Castillo, the Drug Enforcement Administration agent in charge of the El Paso office, said the Colombians then began paying the Mexicans with drugs, instead of cash, to smuggle drugs into the U.S. The Mexicans, he said, can set their own price. With his billion-dollar empire, Carrillo Fuentes' influence reached the highest levels of the Mexican government. In February 1997, the nation's drug czar, Army Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was arrested on charges of providing protection for the Juarez cartel in exchange for money, houses and expensive cars. He is serving a lengthy prison term. In 1996, after Munoz was cleared of the charges against him, he launched a gang war against Carrillo Fuentes for control of the organization, according to Travis Kuykendall, a former DEA agent in El Paso. Then in July 1997, Carrillo Fuentes died during plastic surgery in a clinic in Mexico City while reportedly trying to change his appearance. Afterward, a bloody power struggle for control of the cartel ensued, leaving dozens dead in Juarez. Cartel hitmen often entered restaurants in search of rivals, shooting indiscriminately and often killing innocent people. Last year, as he was beginning to consolidate his power, Munoz was shot to death. According to the DEA, Carrillo Fuentes' brother Vicente is now one of perhaps three leaders of the cartel. While still one of the most powerful drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico, officials believe the cartel has lost some of its influence. CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Since authorities began dismantling the notorious Cali and Medellin drug cartels of Colombia in the late 1980s, drug barons have learned to shun the spotlight, law-enforcement officials say. Last week, however, one of the most powerful drug-running organizations in Mexico, the so-called Juarez cartel, grabbed headlines around the world, as Mexican and U.S. investigators excavated at least four clandestine graves believed to contain the remains of scores of people who apparently died at the hands of the ruthless organization. While nobody expected the publicity and the legion of Mexican and American federal agents who descended on the city to affect the flow of drugs into the U.S., analysts said it would force the drug lords to re-evaluate their tactics. "The media attention from outsiders will make life for the traffickers like living in a fish bowl," said Luis Plascencia, associate director of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. "The key actors will say, `We need to slow down.' " Investigators said they have unearthed at least six bodies since Monday in a desert ranch outside the city. According to an FBI informant, the number of victims could total more than 100, including several Americans. As the story unfolded, it helped shed light on the international drug trade--a world of greed, corruption, betrayal and murder. As early as the mid-1970s, U.S. law-enforcement officials, who were accustomed to nabbing marijuana smugglers, began confiscating small amounts of cocaine along the Texas-Mexican border. Over the years, the loads got larger, and by the early 1980s, after American drug agents began to crack down on Caribbean smuggling routes from Colombia to south Florida, investigators discovered that the Colombians had teamed up with Mexicans to get their cocaine to the lucrative U.S. market. Ciudad Juarez, a gritty city of 1.2 million people across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, has long been a den of vice and smuggling and offered Colombian dealers established smuggling routes into the U.S. It also offered a notoriously corrupt federal police commander, Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, who worked for the Mexican equivalent of the FBI. According to American law-enforcement officials and local authorities familiar with the Juarez organization, Aguilar would shake down drug traffickers operating in the city. That was before the traffickers became more powerful than the police. In the mid-1980s, with America's taste for cocaine growing, Aguilar resigned his post and consolidated various factions of Mexican drug traffickers, including his brother-in-law, businessman Rafael Munoz Talavera. Together, they created the Juarez cartel, which today uses Chicago as one of its main cocaine distribution points. Within years, Aguilar and Munoz bribed and killed their way to the top. In 1989, in a Los Angeles warehouse, authorities confiscated 21 tons of cocaine, the largest seizure ever. The shipment was linked to Munoz. A former U.S. government official with knowledge of the organization said the group grew like any successful enterprise. "Like a regular business, business grows, the number of employees increases, and your influence increases," he said. "Instead of being a mom and pop store, you have become a corporation." While the Mexican government jailed Munoz in connection with the Los Angeles seizure, another trafficker, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, became the cartel's undisputed leader. He got the job by ordering the assassination of Aguilar in 1993. Under Carrillo Fuentes, the Juarez cartel flourished like never before, raking in an estimated $200 million each week. Carrillo Fuentes came to be known as "The Lord of the Skies," for his use of large aircraft to move tons of cocaine from Colombia to the U.S.-Mexico border. Robert Castillo, the Drug Enforcement Administration agent in charge of the El Paso office, said the Colombians then began paying the Mexicans with drugs, instead of cash, to smuggle drugs into the U.S. The Mexicans, he said, can set their own price. With his billion-dollar empire, Carrillo Fuentes' influence reached the highest levels of the Mexican government. In February 1997, the nation's drug czar, Army Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was arrested on charges of providing protection for the Juarez cartel in exchange for money, houses and expensive cars. He is serving a lengthy prison term. In 1996, after Munoz was cleared of the charges against him, he launched a gang war against Carrillo Fuentes for control of the organization, according to Travis Kuykendall, a former DEA agent in El Paso. Then in July 1997, Carrillo Fuentes died during plastic surgery in a clinic in Mexico City while reportedly trying to change his appearance. Afterward, a bloody power struggle for control of the cartel ensued, leaving dozens dead in Juarez. Cartel hitmen often entered restaurants in search of rivals, shooting indiscriminately and often killing innocent people. Last year, as he was beginning to consolidate his power, Munoz was shot to death. According to the DEA, Carrillo Fuentes' brother Vicente is now one of perhaps three leaders of the cartel. While still one of the most powerful drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico, officials believe the cartel has lost some of its influence. - --- MAP posted-by: allan wilkinson