Pubdate: Thu, 01 Dec 2005
Page: 1
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2005 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Authors: Alfredo Corchado, and LENNOX SAMUELS / The Dallas Morning News
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)

VIDEO OFFERS BRUTAL GLIMPSE OF DRUG CARTEL

Execution Raises Questions About Tangle Of Corruption

MEXICO CITY - The four men sit bruised, bloody and bound on the floor 
before a curtain of black garbage bags. Prodded by an unseen interrogator, 
they coolly describe how they enforce the rule of Mexico's Gulf cartel: 
Enemies are kidnapped, tortured and shot in the head, their bodies burned 
to ashes. Among those killed, the men say in a video sent to The Dallas 
Morning News, were a radio reporter who "didn't want to work anymore" for 
their cartel and a chamber of commerce leader who called too loudly for 
federal help against the drug gangs. "Break him because he is causing 
controversy," was the order from his cartel boss, says one of the men. 
After six minutes of such confessions, a 9 mm pistol held by a black-gloved 
hand enters the picture and fires a bullet into the head of one of the 
self-proclaimed killers.

Authorities don't doubt the authenticity of the video, but its source is 
unknown. Authorities on both sides of the border said the interrogation 
video appears genuine, offering a rare and extraordinary look into the Gulf 
cartel's inner workings and its well-armed allies, known as the Zetas. They 
also said the crude home movie raises unsettling questions about the 
cartels' possible reach into Mexico's government, military and media - 
though a government spokesman said that impression could be misleading. For 
instance, the suspected Zeta members said on the video that they are 
collaborating with some Mexican law-enforcement officials.

Two of the captives say they are former soldiers, trying to recruit 
military colleagues, federal agents and others to work for the cartel. The 
video never reveals the interrogators or the identity of the gunman.

But experts who reviewed the video say they believe some of them were with 
the military, perhaps hired by a vengeful private citizen whose relatives 
were harmed by the Gulf cartel. DallasNews.com/extra Exclusive: Video 
offers brutal glimpse of cartel En espanol Taped killing a 'way to bloody 
waters' Transcript of interrogation DMN archive: The mystery of Lupita 
Garcia Excerpts of interrogation WFAA-TV report"All four guys appeared to 
work for the Zetas. All were executioners whose duties involved recruiting 
from the military, AFI [Mexico's version of the FBI] and gangs for the 
Zetas," said a law enforcement investigator who has seen the video. "This 
is probably the most graphic and telling look into how these guys operate.

They are ruthless, cold-blooded and sinister." A senior official in 
Mexico's intelligence service, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 
video "essentially confirmed some of our worst concerns. Corruption is 
endemic, as is the collusion between organized crime and regular 
residents." Asked how credible the video is, another law enforcement 
investigator said: "Credible 100 percent.

A guy gets his brains blown.

You can't make that [expletive] up." Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, head 
of the anti-organized crime division of the Mexican attorney general's 
office, said the video is being investigated, but he disputed the captive 
men's allegations that high-ranking law enforcement officials were 
cooperating with drug gang leaders.

After unseen interrogators question the men, the video ends when a pistol 
enters the frame and shoots this man in the head. He said he believes their 
statements were coerced. "When you look at the video, the men, after 
answering a question, constantly look to someone for approval.

They were tortured, we believe, precisely so they could make certain 
statements," he said. He called it a "counterintelligence strategy" by a 
rival cartel "aimed at turning the federal government against the Zetas in 
even greater ways since we're already going after them." Mexican officials 
say that more than half of the original Zetas - mostly former military 
commandos - have been arrested or killed, but the gang still has cells 
scattered around the country, engaged in a savage war for supremacy in the 
drug trade. Source unknown Though investigators expressed no doubts about 
the authenticity of the video, none claimed to know its source or how the 
men were captured. Investigators say it may have been made by rivals of the 
Zetas to intimidate them. Mexican authorities said they received a DVD 
containing the video in June. U.S. officials declined to discuss the disc 
in any detail.

Some said they didn't even want to see the video because it could force 
their agencies to confront awkward questions of governmental corruption. 
Sometime after federal authorities got a copy of the DVD, The Kitsap Sun in 
Bremerton, Wash., received a disc in the mail, with no explanation and no 
return address.

The Sun forwarded a copy to The Dallas Morning News because the men on the 
video referred to the killing of a Mexican journalist written about by The 
News. Guadalupe "Lupita" Garcia Escamilla was gunned down April 5 in Nuevo 
Laredo. On the video, one of the captives says she had been on the Gulf 
cartel's payroll, apparently to keep a lid on news unfavorable to the cartels.

Lupita Garcia Escamilla "She didn't want to work anymore, and to make sure 
she didn't talk, the order was given to kill her," says one of the 
handcuffed men. In October, The News profiled Ms. Garcia and quoted law 
enforcement officials saying they suspected that the radio reporter was 
helping drug traffickers, was responsible for managing cartel-related news 
to keep stories from gaining national attention, and had been executed by 
one of the cartels. The senior Mexican intelligence official said the DVD 
"gives you a sense of the sophistication of how these guys work, how 
sensitive they are to publicity, and how they want to control the news." 
Ms. Garcia's mother, Beatriz Escamilla, who had insisted her daughter was 
not tainted, reacted with shock and dismay when told about the DVD. She 
said she would like to watch it. "You hear so much from outsiders about my 
daughter's alleged involvement that now, with this video, I'm beginning to 
have doubts," she said. "We hear it, but we don't want to believe it." In 
the video, which is time-stamped May 16, the suspected Zetas also discuss a 
killing that hadn't happened yet - the June 8 assassination of Nuevo 
Laredo's chamber of commerce president. At the time, Alejandro Dominguez 
was head of Nuevo Laredo's CANACO, or chamber of commerce, and was calling 
for a strong federal presence in the city. Mexican law enforcement 
officials say the Pena referred to on the video is Zeferino Pena Cuellar, a 
ranking Gulf cartel member. "Pena is going to put us on the CANACO guy to 
break him because he is causing controversy and calling for the presence of 
the army, the AFI and other institutions," says a man calling himself 
Fernando Cruz Martinez. The man, whose identity could not be verified, says 
he had been in the Mexican army eight years. Mr. Dominguez became Nuevo 
Laredo's police chief June 8 and served just hours in the job before being 
ambushed outside a business office and killed by gunmen who fired three 
dozen times.

Later that week, the administration of President Vicente Fox launched 
Operation Safe Mexico, sending in troops and federal police to take over 
law enforcement in the city.

Alejandro Dominguez The federal officials removed all of the city's more 
than 700 police officers on suspicion of corruption. Fewer than half were 
reinstated. Brutal business As the Gulf cartel has battled the Sinaloa 
cartel for control of the gateway into the $30 billion U.S. drug market, 
the violence has spilled across the border. On the Mexican side, in Nuevo 
Laredo, more than 150 people - including some Americans - have died in 
drug-related violence this year. The four captives on the DVD indicated 
that violent death was a routine means of doing business for the cartels' 
enforcers. Questioned by an unidentified person off camera, the men 
casually refer to brutal acts carried out at a "guiso"- a culinary term 
meaning "stew" or "barbecue" - that has been appropriated for cartel 
savagery. One of the men, who identifies himself as Sergio Alberto Ramon 
Escamilla of Nuevo Laredo, animatedly - almost enthusiastically - describes 
the process: "The guiso is when they grab somebody, extract information 
from him or drugs or money from him, something like that, they take away 
from him whatever they wanted, whatever he carried that was an offense.

After having him tortured he is executed or sent to a ranch or to those 
places, and there they give him the last shot and throw him into a barrel 
and burn him with different fuels, like diesel and gasoline." The News 
could not verify the man's identity. Another on the video says he was hired 
"to pick up people and to kill people because the place [Nuevo Laredo] 
belongs to the Zetas." According to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, the 
talkative Mr. Escamilla, who appears to be the youngest of the four, was 
reported missing May 14 by his parents.

They told authorities he was arrested by AFI agents and turned over to a 
drug trafficker called La Barbie, or Edgar Valdes Villareal, said by 
authorities to be the right-hand man of Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, reputed 
head of the Sinaloa cartel. AFI denied any involvement in the 
disappearance, according to the paper.

Two AFI agents declined to respond to questions in telephone calls from The 
News. Alleged corruption On the video, the captive Mr. Martinez appears to 
suggest that there was an understanding between the cartel and the 
country's attorney general's office, which is known by the initials PGR. He 
makes the reference while talking about a government move against a deputy 
of reputed Gulf cartel boss Osiel Cardenas. Law-enforcement officials on 
both sides of the border say the Lazcano and Goyo referred to on the video 
are high-ranking Zetas. "Lazcano and Goyo are angry with the attorney 
general because when there was the operation against Fat Man Mata they were 
not alerted, and they're thinking about breaking him because they are given 
a fee, see? And they didn't comply with that," Mr. Martinez says. "Fat Man 
Mata," also known as Jose Guadalupe Rivera Hernandez or Eugenio Guadalupe 
Herrera Mata, was arrested April 27 by authorities with the attorney 
general's office and the Federal Preventative Police, according to the 
Public Security Ministry. The ministry said the suspect obtained arms for 
the Zetas and controlled drug retailers in Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo. The 
senior intelligence official, commenting on the DVD statement, said the 
cartel members apparently "felt they had paid enough money to the PGR to at 
least be tipped off, and that didn't happen." No one in the office is 
mentioned by name. The attorney general at the time was Rafael Macedo de la 
Concha, who resigned April 27 and is now a military attache in the Mexican 
Embassy in Italy. Mr. Macedo could not be reached for comment, but Mr. 
Vasconcelos of the PGR rejected that allegation. "We can say without a 
doubt that Macedo de la Concha is completely clean.

I can affirm that with total and absolute vehemently. He's not involved at 
all in any act of corruption, as is mentioned on the tape." "Macedo de la 
Concha saw the Zetas as traitors, deserters who undermined the prestige of 
Mexican military.

That was one of the main reasons he went after them with so much 
determination." Behind the camera For some Mexican experts, one of the most 
significant aspects of the video is not what the suspected Zetas say, but 
who is asking the questions. Two law enforcement officials, speaking on 
condition of anonymity, said they believe the DVD was made - and the four 
men killed - by current or former members of the Mexican military hired by 
a prominent member of the Nuevo Laredo community bent on avenging the 
killing of a close relative by cartel elements. "The most important factor 
here is that a civilian hired members of the military to do his dirty 
work," said a senior Mexican intelligence official. "That's chilling news 
for the government." On the disc, the men show signs of being beaten, with 
bruised and bloodied faces. They are on the floor, apparently beaten and 
forced to sit in front of the plastic bags, in what looks like the living 
room of a house. Authorities said the setup is typical of execution sites, 
with the bags used to contain gore and to transport the men after they have 
been killed. The video ends after one of the four captives is executed, but 
officials said all four men almost certainly were killed.

One official said he concluded that military personnel captured and killed 
the men because of the way they were handcuffed. Two of the four, who 
identified themselves as civilians, had their hands bound behind their backs.

Two who said they were ex-military had their hands bound in front of them. 
That would be a standard courtesy that military officers would extend to 
fellow soldiers, the official said. For now, the DVD is being investigated 
by authorities on both sides of the border. Mr. Vasconcelos said he 
believes the interrogation was carried out by a cartel competitor whose 
brother was killed by the Zetas. "We have several operations under way" to 
learn more about the video, he said. "We want to know the truth."

HOW THE DVD WAS OBTAINED The DVD arrived by mail in mid-October at the 
offices of the Kitsap Sun, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 30,000 
in Bremerton, Wash. The first three letters of the postmark on the envelope 
were 782; the remaining letters were blurred.

Inside the envelope, addressed to editor Scott Ware with a machine label, 
were two identical copies of the video of the interrogation and killing. 
"We still have no idea why the package was sent to him, and by whom," said 
Jeff Brody, managing editor of the Kitsap Sun. "One of our employees, a 
native of Mexico, translated the interrogation. We Googled the name of the 
murdered radio reporter, found The Dallas Morning News stories and sent a 
copy of the DVD to reporter Lennox Samuels. We made the original DVDs 
available to the FBI office in Seattle."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom