Pubdate: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Contact: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: Tracey Eaton, Knight Ridder News Service NAFTA BRINGS DIRTY MONEY WITH THE CLEAN Drug Traffic And Corruption Spell Violence Along The Border SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Mexico -- San Luis, sprinkled with opulent mansions and wobbly cardboard shacks, is a place of good tidings and bad, of prosperity and plentiful jobs, of gangland hits and tragic deaths. The economy along the U.S.-Mexico border is booming as the North American Free Trade Agreement approaches its five-year anniversary. But business is also good for crooks, hit men and drug traffickers in many Mexican communities here. Leaders of this windswept town south of Yuma, Ariz., face tough choices. They can stand up to the local drug barons and try to turn San Luis into a free-trade haven. Or they can surrender to organized crime's corrupting powers. Or they can do a little of both. ``Life is more difficult and complicated than ever,'' said Petra Santos, a leader of the left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution in San Luis. ``Corruption's a problem, but you can't go around saying some guy's a criminal. That will cost you your life. So people keep quiet.'' Crime is rising despite an unprecedented police and military buildup. Traffickers are shelling out millions of dollars to buy off local politicians, U.S. drug agents say. And they're also snapping up legitimate companies to shield their sprawling smuggling operations, according to a recent report by Operation Alliance, a task force of experts from the U.S. Customs Bureau and other agencies. According to the confidential report: ``Opportunities for traffickers are significantly greater with NAFTA.'' Before long, some U.S. agents fear, legitimate businesses will become hopelessly intertwined with illegal enterprises. Sorting out the clean money from the dirty and the honest citizens from the thugs will be next to impossible, they say. ``I hate to say it, but traffickers have become bigger and more sophisticated than anyone town can deal with,'' said Richard Gorman, special agent-in-charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Phoenix. ``Tremendous amounts of money are being dumped into a lot of border towns. ``Vast amounts of wealth and money are involved,'' he said. ``This isn't some street-corner trade we're dealing with. Drug-trafficking organizations today are made up of the best people money can buy.'' Town boosters in San Luis, with a population of 198,780, wince at that kind of talk. But what few deny is that narcotics traffickers are vying for power and influence all along the border. And to further their cause, they hand out tens of millions of dollars in bribes every year, swaying police and politicians in San Luis, Ciudad Juarez, Agua Prieta and other towns, U.S. agents say. In one case, the late drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes is suspected of having given $4 million to the mayor of a Mexican town along the Texas border, a 1997 U.S. intelligence report said. Carrillo, known as ``Lord of the Heavens'' for his pioneering use of aircraft in smuggling, died unexpectedly in July 1997 after extensive plastic surgery at a Mexico City clinic. His death triggered a flurry of gangland-style hits in Ciudad Juarez and other towns as rivals battled for his turf. Drug-related violence has increased along the border. In San Luis alone, dozens of people, including a prominent journalist, have been slain during the past two years. Alarmed, some residents are calling for a strict curfew and federal intervention. The town's curse -- and blessing with NAFTA -- has always been its location on the flatlands of Sonora state. It's a natural gateway for northbound trade. And for traffickers looking for a discreet spot to land a plane, the possibilities are endless. ``We have the largest airport in the world: the desert,'' grumbled Carlos Guzman, head of the San Luis branch of the National Chamber of Manufacturing Industries. Corruption is also a problem. Kent Alexander discovered that last summer when he went to San Luis to train drug-sniffing dogs. Hours after he arrived, his Belgian sheep dog found two tons of marijuana in a truck at a highway checkpoint at 2:33 a.m. After that, he said, authorities steered him and the dog away from busy trafficking routes so they wouldn't stumble across any more shipments. On Aug. 14, 1997, Alexander said, he fled the country, fearing he'd be killed for speaking up about corruption. Before leaving Mexico, he met with Benjamin Flores, then editor of La Prensa newspaper in San Luis. Someone had just stolen nearly half a ton of confiscated cocaine from the federal attorney general's office in San Luis. Alexander said informants told him soldiers were responsible. Flores said poking into such affairs was dangerous, but it was the editor who was in peril. Gunmen killed him the next day outside the newspaper's offices. The 29-year-old journalist's friends say he had many enemies and was once sued over a story alleging that a top city politician built airstrips for traffickers. Flores' murder triggered much soul-searching. Townspeople named a street after him. Children organized anti-violence marches. And journalists began saying a prayer before hitting the streets, asking God to ``allow my words to defend the noble causes of the people.'' But before long, residents say, it was business as usual. The killings continued. One night, someone fired a shotgun blast into a 31-year-old, then stabbed him with an ice pick. His body was found in a pickup truck parked along the very street named for Flores. In the case of the stolen cocaine, authorities eventually arrested more than a dozen people, mostly anti-drug agents and soldiers. It was a glaring corruption case: Honest soldiers had seized the coke only to have it snatched back by crooked agents. Despite such episodes, authorities are undeterred, and the United States is helping fund the fight with a record $16 billion in the fiscal year starting in October. ``The future of San Luis Rio Colorado is promising,'' said Gustavo Montalvo, the state economic development director. As for crime, Montalvo said the clamor for safe streets isn't just in San Luis or Mexico. ``If you were to go to the United States, you'd see there are crime problems there, too.'' ``Officially, drug trafficking doesn't exist in San Luis,'' Santos countered. ``But you can't deny it's here. You see all these people with three new cars every year and a nice modern house; you can't say they bought all that legitimately. ``It just isn't possible.'' - --- Checked-by: Patrick Henry