Mexico - Mexican drug cartel infiltrates attorney general's office [MX]

[chillinwill]

MEXICO CITY–A major drug cartel has infiltrated the Mexican attorney general's office and may have paid a U.S. Embassy insider for DEA operations details, Mexican prosecutors said today.

The Drug Enforcement Administration's intelligence chief expressed concern about the alleged spy's claims, but said he couldn't confirm that the Embassy had been infiltrated, and that it was too early to pull out undercover agents for fear their identities may be compromised.


Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said five officials of his Organized Crime Unit were arrested on allegations they served as informants for the Beltran-Leyva cartel. He said there are indications other spies still work inside his agency.

The Embassy insider, who at one time also worked for Interpol at the Mexico City airport, is now a protected witness after telling Mexican officials in Washington that he leaked details of DEA operations to the cartel, an attorney general's official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The official said he was not authorized to speak on the record.

"We are not planning on changing anyone at the embassy at this point," DEA intelligence chief Anthony Placido said at a Washington news conference called to announce Mexico's capture of Eduardo Arellano Felix, a leading member of a violent Tijuana-based cartel.

"Law enforcement work anywhere in the world, and certainly in Mexico, can be perilous," Placido said in response to a question about whether the infiltration endangered undercover agents. "Is it dangerous? Absolutely."

U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza congratulated Mexico for Arellano Felix's arrest in a statement late today.

He said the DEA and the U.S. Marshals provided information on Arellano Felix's whereabouts to Mexican authorities, which helped locate him.

"This is another example of the positive results when U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agencies share information," Garza said.

The revelations of corruption inside the control centers of the U.S.-Mexican anti-drug effort were a major blow to President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug campaign, in which he has sent tens of thousands of troops and federal police across Mexico to combat violent cartels.

Calderon himself has long acknowledged corruption is widespread in police forces, and Placido said that with billions of dollars flowing to the cartels from U.S. consumers of illegal drugs, some corruption is inevitable on both sides of the border.

Today's case represents the most serious known infiltration of anti-crime agencies since the 1997 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, then head of Mexico's anti-drug agency. Gutierrez Rebollo was later convicted of aiding drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

Despite the corruption, Mexico continues to arrest top smugglers. The latest came after a shootout with police and soldiers in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, where Arellano Felix had allegedly been running the cartel with his sister and a nephew since several of their brothers were arrested or killed.

In Mexico City, Assistant Attorney General Marisela Morales said two top employees of her organized-crime unit and at least three federal police agents assigned to it may have been passing information on surveillance targets and potential raids for at least four years.

One was an assistant intelligence director and the other served as a liaison in requesting searches and assigning officers to carry them out. The agents and officials each received payments of between $150,000 and $450,000 per month for the information, Morales said. All but one were arrested weeks ago.

The prosecutors' official said separately that the Embassy employee became a protected witness after giving details of his involvement to Mexican officials in Washington. It wasn't clear whether he is under the protection of Mexico or the U.S. The official did not divulge what details the infiltrator allegedly passed on to the cartel.

The newspaper El Universal reported today that the man had worked as a "criminal investigator" at the embassy, had received at least $30,000 and may have revealed details about the DEA hunt for American drug suspect Craig Petties, who was later captured here. It cited unnamed sources.

The Beltran-Leyva brothers lead a cartel that once belonged to northern Mexico's Sinaloa confederation, the country's largest drug-trafficking group.

Oct 27, 2008 09:17 PM
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Source: http://www.thestar.com/article/525629