Pubdate: Mon, 23 Apr 2012
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times

MEXICAN DRUG LORD-TURNED-INFORMANT GIVES GLIMPSE INTO BRUTAL WORLD

Mexican Cartel Chieftain Arrested Near Denver Told of Mass Slayings, 
Former Colleagues

Police and federal agents pulled the car over in a suburb north of 
Denver. An FBI agent showed his badge. The driver appeared not 
startled at all. "My friend," he said, "I have been waiting for you."

And with that, Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela stepped out into the 
arms of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Over the next several days at his ranch in Colorado and an FBI "safe 
house" in Albuquerque, the Mexican cartel chieftain was transformed 
into one of the FBI's top informants on the Southwest border.

Around a dining room table in August 2010, an FBI camera humming 
above, the 34-year-old Miramontes-Varela confessed his leadership in 
the Juarez cartel, according to 75 pages of confidential FBI 
interview reports obtained by The Times/Tribune Washington Bureau.

He told about marijuana and cocaine routes to California, New York 
and the Great Lakes. He described the shooting deaths of 30 people at 
a horse track in Mexico and a hidden mass grave with 20 bodies, 
including two U.S. residents.

He told them he had seen plenty of "violence and suffering." He told 
agents he was desperate to trade his knowledge for government 
protection. He wanted a new life for himself and for his wife and 
three daughters.

A week later, Miramontes-Varela pleaded guilty in federal court in 
New Mexico to a minor felony as an undocumented illegal immigrant in 
possession of a firearm. Then he disappeared, almost certainly into 
the federal witness protection program.

FBI officials in Arizona and Washington declined to comment about 
Miramontes-Varela, citing bureau policy against discussing 
informants. But the documents tell plenty.

In the interview sessions, Miramontes-Varela "provided significant 
information about drug trafficking activity," the documents said, 
leading to several successful unnamed law enforcement operations in 
the U.S. and Mexico.

Interrogation begins

After Miramontes-Varela was stopped in Brighton, agents took him back 
to his ranch. They advised him and his wife, Mari, that he was "the 
subject of an FBI investigation for his involvement in drug 
trafficking, firearms trafficking, money laundering and the 
interstate transportation of stolen property."

In Spanish, they read him his Miranda rights. He called an attorney. 
Miramontes-Varela hung up and told the agents, "Yes. He told me to do 
as much as I can for you."

Miramontes-Varela signed the Miranda waiver and asked, "Where do you 
want to start?"

First, they said, any guns?

Miramontes-Varela mentioned a black 9-millimeter semiautomatic Glock 
pistol he said he bought after being shot at in El Paso. The agents 
asked to see it. "Yes, yes, no problem," he said. He walked to a 
floor safe in a far corner of the living room, unlocked it and handed 
the weapon over.

Agents drove the couple to the FBI safe house in Albuquerque. Inside, 
they pointed to two cameras. One was in the master bedroom, where 
Miramontes-Varela and his wife would stay. Agents showed that it was 
unplugged and that they had covered it with a white plastic bag. 
"Very nice," Miramontes-Varela said.

Miramontes-Varela talked to them around the dining room table. That 
is where the other camera was. It stayed on.

Joining the cartel

His story poured out. He was born the third of 10 children in 
Terrero, Mexico, and grew up in Namiquipa, northern Mexico. He 
married when he was 18, his bride 15. They sneaked though Nogales, 
Ariz., coming to the U.S., he said, "to make money."

They settled in Denver. Miramontes-Varela installed drywall. But in 
the late 1990s, a brother, Yovany, lost an arm in a tractor mishap, 
and Miramontes-Varela returned home. He grew apples and traded in cattle.

In early 2002, he said, the Juarez cartel came to Namiquipa. Pedro 
Sanchez, known as El Tigre, offered Miramontes-Varela a job 
collecting a monthly $35,000 "tax" from marijuana growers.

Every 15 days, growers carted 20 tons to a local warehouse. It was 
shipped north through El Paso, the proceeds funneled back to the 
cartel and the growers.

One day, the military arrived, and gunfire ensued. "The mayor and 
town treasurer were killed," Miramontes-Varela said. El Tigre was arrested.

In 2008, Miramontes-Varela said, he fled with his family to El Paso. 
He was done with the violence, he said.

FBI doubts

That part, according to the FBI, was not true. Miramontes-Varela 
shuffled between ranches in New Mexico and Colorado, they said, often 
in an armored car with bodyguards, and set up his own operation 
smuggling drugs and guns.

When a courier was arrested with 18 kilos of cocaine, 
Miramontes-Varela offered the man's family the choice of one of his 
16 homes in Mexico, including his "big house," according to telephone 
wiretaps outlined in the documents.

In March 2010, the FBI listed him as head of the "Miramontes-Varela 
Drug Trafficking Organization," tied to the Juarez, Sinaloa and Los 
Zetas cartels. From two confidential sources and two wiretaps, agents 
learned that his organization had stolen tractors in the U.S. and 
driven them to Mexico as payment for lost loads. One debt alone 
reached $670,000. They learned that one of Miramontes-Varela's bosses 
in Mexico, "Temoc," was tortured and killed by the Sinaloans.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also 
wanted him arrested. It had tracked $250,000 in illegal gun purchases 
to Miramontes-Varela and his brother through its ill-fated Fast and 
Furious gun-smuggling surveillance operation in Arizona.

FBI agents rigged a 24-hour pole camera outside his ranch near the 
border town of Santa Teresa, N.M. But Miramontes-Varela figured it 
out. Five of his men in two vehicles followed a surveillance agent 
for 90 minutes, then slashed one of his tires.

More ominously, the FBI learned Miramontes-Varela and his 
organization had bribed U.S. officials in El Paso and New Mexico. 
They decided it was time to bring him in.

On Aug. 18, 2010, they followed him from his Colorado farm. He 
briefly visited a Walgreens, then the State Patrol pulled him over. 
The time was 11:20 a.m. They had him.

Valuable information

In the safe house dining room, agents brought out maps, and 
Miramontes-Varela sketched in smuggling routes. He said weapons were 
easily acquired in the United States, including .50-caliber rifles. 
"Good for long-range sniper fire," he said.

He filled in the cartel hierarchies too. One chieftain had arm and 
shoulder scars from bullet wounds. At the horse-track murders, the 
chieftain wore a mask. Some switched sides; others died when loads 
went missing.

And he told them about that mass grave in Palomas, Mexico. 
Authorities dug up 20 decaying corpses. Miramontes-Varela, the FBI's 
new informant, was right.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom