U.S. INFORMANT PLANNED CARTEL HITS, REPORT SAY

Customs Agency File Details Actions That
May Damage Trafficking Case

EL PASO - The man known as Lalo held the keys to
the house across the border where drug dealers were executed. He
assigned corrupt police officers their roles in the killings and even
recommended how best to dispatch victims, whether with a gun or by
suffocation with plastic bags to keep the noise down. He called in
gravediggers to bury bodies, paid the killers, and notified his cartel
contact and sometimes U.S. agents when the job was done. He acted as
go-between for the Juarez drug cartel and its intended targets. These
and other activities of Lalo, a paid informant for the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, are detailed in an
internal agency document obtained by The Dallas Morning News. ICE
officials declined to comment on the draft document. "Your questions
touch on an ongoing investigation," spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa
said. "And it's ICE long-standing policy not to comment on pending
criminal cases."

Not merely a spectator The informant's activities, former senior law
enforcement officials say, prove that he was in a position of power
and not merely a spectator, as previously described by ICE. And the
officials say the revelations could hamper the agency's case against
Heriberto Santillan Tabares, who faces murder and drug trafficking
charges in a January federal trial that will feature Lalo as star witness.

"ICE will have a huge hurdle to establish credibility," said Danny
Defenbaugh, a Dallas security consultant and former FBI senior agent.
"There are rules, procedures you follow. If you know the person is
involved in murder, the first thing you do is prosecute him
immediately. "You stop the activity and get him arrested. ... It
doesn't appear that ICE did that." The ICE document is explicit about
the informant's alleged involvement in the slaying and burial of 12
suspected drug traffickers in Juarez. "[The informant] primarily set
up the meeting with those who would be picked up [for murder]," the
document states. "[The informant] would arrive at the meeting with
those that would be picked up."

Advice to cartel The document says that the informant offered
unsolicited advice to top cartel members on ways to expand their
territory - even as he was relaying information to ICE. Lalo even
offered a souvenir of sorts to his ICE contact: a key chain with a
photo of a man and his family shortly after the man, nicknamed
"Chapo," was shot to death and buried behind the Juarez house. Dated
Jan. 29, 2004, the draft document was prepared by unidentified ICE
agents, addressed to Pete Gonzalez, assistant special-agent-in-charge,
and copied to several other officials, including U.S. prosecutor
Juanita Fielden and two ICE agents.

It details the informant's activities from August 2003 to January 2004
and offers a rare look at the inner workings of the Juarez cartel,
considered the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the
Americas and known as "The Office."

The report, along with an affidavit Lalo gave to authorities Feb. 12
at the Mexican Consulate in Dallas, reveals "The Office" as a business
enterprise in which no one is indispensable and in which dozens are
killed each year for disciplinary reasons.

One example was the slaying of a cartel operative who went too far,
killing a woman and her 4-year-old daughter. The woman had been
seeking financial help for her husband, who was being held in an El
Paso jail on drug trafficking charges. She was slain, and "when
[cartel boss] Vicente Carrillo Fuentes found out, he ordered the
killing of the man [responsible]," the ICE report states.

The report also says that some employees of Mexico's Federal
Investigative Agency, or AFI, were working with the Juarez cartel. The
report notes that in November 2003, two men notified AFI about the
existence of a Juarez warehouse where drugs were being stowed. Someone
from AFI, Mexico's elite federal police agency, allegedly told the
cartel about the tip. As a result, the report states, the two tipsters
were assaulted by a group including 10 state police officers and
cartel lieutenants nicknamed "Clinton" and "Saddam," and ultimately
beaten to death with a hammer. An AFI spokeswoman in Mexico City
declined to comment. Mexico's attorney general's office did not
respond to written questions. The life of Lalo The ICE report and the
affidavit delivered to the Mexican Consulate also offer biographical
details about Lalo.

A former Mexican federal highway police officer, Lalo, now in his
early 40s, lost that job in 1995 for reasons that are unclear. He
turned to the cartel for work and quickly rose through the ranks,
lauded for having imagination. That creativity was expressed early
when he came up with a plan to use a truck bearing the logo of the
Televisa TV network to smuggle 80 kilos of marijuana from Durango to
El Paso.

Durango was where Lalo is said to have met Mr. Santillan, the man who
later lured him to Juarez. Mr. Santillan, described as having a
penchant for fashionable clothes and Rolex watches, took such a liking
to Lalo that he tried coaxing him into forming a separate partnership,
according to the documents. Lalo shunned that idea because he believed
that eventually "Santillan would kill him and keep all the money."

By 2000, Lalo was working for ICE as an informant. The draft document
does not explain what made him turn against the cartel, but a senior
U.S. law enforcement official said, "Greed is usually a reason. Plus,
we offer them a degree of protection."

Lalo proved unpredictable, said U.S. law enforcement officials
familiar with the case. He had a drinking problem and once had to be
bailed out of jail by an ICE agent in connection with drunken driving.
And he "couldn't keep his mouth shut," one U.S. official said on
condition of anonymity. But he provided valuable information about the
cartel, led authorities to the grave containing the bodies of the 12
drug traffickers, helped U.S. authorities confiscate tons of marijuana
and cocaine, and turned in Mr. Santillan, the law enforcement
officials said.

Nevertheless, some officials privately questioned whether Lalo was
worth the trouble. Two weeks ago, he returned to El Paso with the help
of ICE agents and, on his own, arranged for an acquaintance to pick up
a package of money owed to him. While waiting in a Whataburger parking
lot, the man was gunned down as Lalo's girlfriend watched.

Put in protective custody ICE agents then jailed Lalo for his own
protection, but released him after he warned them about possible
retribution against them. He was placed in protective custody in an
undisclosed location.

"ICE no longer controls the informant," said Phil Jordan, former
regional director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. "The
informant controls them."