Mexican antidrug unit arrested in smuggling

Washington Post

MEXICO CITY The entire staff of a special Mexican unit responsible for
intercepting drugrunning aircraft has been arrested after it allegedly
used one of its own planes to smuggle cocaine from the Guatemalan border to
a government hangar here in the capital, Mexican officials said.

The arrest of 18 pilots, navigators, mechanics and others assigned to the
airinterdiction branch of the Mexican attorney general's antidrug office
some of whom may have been trained in radar surveillance by the U.S.
Customs Service is the latest scandal involving Mexico's top law
enforcement agency, which has been plagued for months by almost continuous
allegations of drugrelated corruption.

According to the attorney general's office, members of the unit who were
based at Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border in Chiapas, Mexico's
southernmost state, used the Americanbuilt Grumman XCAA transport plane
to ferry at least 132 pounds of cocaine to the international airport in
Mexico City. The sparsely patrolled border area, marked by rugged mountain
terrain, is a major frontier crossing point
for transportation of illicit drugs from South and Central America into
Mexico by air, sea and land, authorities here say.

An attorney general's office official said the interdiction unit was
ending a 15day duty tour at the remote outpost and had returned the
aircraft to its hangar at the Mexico City airport Sept. 2, when
drugsniffing dogs discovered the cocaine stuffed in three suitcases
aboard the plane. Some of those arrested apparently had been trained in
drugsuppression techniques by the U.S. Customs Service; a Customs
Service official said the U.S. agency routinely instructs Mexican pilots
and technicians in reading radar and infrared sensors used in
airinterception operations.

Published Friday, September 12, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News