SUSPECTED TIE-INS OF POLICE WITH TRAFFICKERS ROIL MEXICO

Drugs: Media Speculate About A Link Between Arrest Of Federal
Official In Chihuahua And Effort To Kill Governor.

MEXICO CITY--Even by Mexican standards of corruption, the case was
jolting: In an apparent sting operation, police nabbed as a suspect
the top federal law enforcement official overseeing the border
drug-trafficking hub of Ciudad Juarez.

Norberto Suarez Gomez, the Mexican attorney general's chief
representative in the state of Chihuahua, was arrested Dec. 30 on
suspicion of trying to sell a law enforcement job for nearly half a
million dollars.

The case unleashed a far-reaching investigation of narcotics-related
corruption among national police in the state. It has seized the
spotlight again after Chihuahua's governor was shot Wednesday,
allegedly by a former state police officer, in an apparent
assassination attempt.

The governor, Patricio Martinez, suffered a moderately serious wound
when a bullet grazed him but is expected to make a full recovery.
Investigators said his assailant, who reportedly has a history of
violence, most likely acted alone. But the Mexican media afterward
were buzzing with speculation that the shooting had something to do
with Suarez's arrest.

Martinez recently had been critical of alleged federal foot-dragging
on the case, and only a few days earlier, Mexican Atty. Gen. Rafael
Macedo de la Concha had flown to Chihuahua to discuss the
investigation with Martinez.

For the new national government, the Suarez case offers a chance to
demonstrate resolve in the battle against graft. After the attempt on
the governor's life, President Vicente Fox and Interior Minister
Santiago Creel reaffirmed their zeal to pursue wrongdoing in
Chihuahua, wherever the trail might lead.

So far, the arrests of Suarez, who also worked with U.S. officials on
border issues, and of his second in command, Jose Manuel Diaz Perez,
the deputy director of the federal judicial police in Chihuahua, have
been followed by the removal of 15 officers beneath them, Macedo's
office reported.

The large sum of money involved and the high-level position that
Suarez occupied suggest that drug-related corruption has permeated
the federal police in Chihuahua "as far as its highest officials,"
Macedo said.

The case also presents some of the strongest evidence since the early
1990s that a traditional form of corruption in Mexico--the sale of
government jobs--still occurs, said Stanley Pimentel, a former Mexico
legal attache for the FBI.

Representatives of the U.S. attorney in El Paso did not return phone
calls regarding the case, and Drug Enforcement Administration
officials in Washington declined to comment. Mexican officials have
offered scant information beyond what they presented in a brief
statement.

The case indicates that Mexican drug-trafficking proceeds have
reached such sums that organized-crime bosses can offer single bribes
equaling many times the annual salaries of officials. Despite recent
efforts to curb corruption, the temptation of this lucre remains a
constant menace to clean government.

Mexican officials were presented with yet another vivid example of
this phenomenon Friday, when, in an apparently unrelated case,
reputed drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera escaped from a
maximum security prison, reportedly by hiding in a laundry truck.

Prison authorities are suspected of aiding in Guzman's escape,
prompting one high-level Mexican official to tell the newspaper
Reforma that the power of narco-traffic has now rendered vulnerable
"our institutions, and all of our society."

To some, this isn't news. Suarez's arrest, in particular, "wasn't so
surprising. What's surprising is that there are not more cases coming
out," said Jorge Chabat, an international relations professor at the
Center for Research and Teaching on Economics in Mexico City.

"Narco-traffic is not a traditional crime. It is not gangs. It is not
Bonnie and Clyde. It is not the Chicago mafia," he added. "The
governments don't understand this. They think it is Al Capone all
over again. It is much more powerful. . . . There is no system to
combat this."

Moreover, the practice of selling government jobs is a tradition with
a long history in Mexico, said Pimentel, the former FBI legal attache.

"Basically, it goes back to colonial times," he said. "Before about
1994, the sale of top posts in Tijuana or [Ciudad] Juarez could
command $3 million for a one-time fee, or a rental or monthly fee of
up to $1 million."

The Suarez case broke Dec. 29, when the top military prosecutor
informed civilian authorities of a tip from Diaz Perez, Suarez's
deputy, authorities said. The following day, in an apparent sting,
federal investigators caught Suarez "red-handed," as the statement
put it, with Diaz Perez on the street behind the federal police
agency. Suarez was allegedly in the process of selling Diaz Perez a
position different from the one he held. It was not made clear what
job Suarez was allegedly selling or why. The investigators reportedly
seized $497,200.

Diaz Perez then asked that he be granted witness-protection status
for having tipped off officials. But that request was denied on the
grounds that he allegedly had not provided complete information. Both
men, according to the statement from the office of Macedo, the
federal attorney general, are under house arrest.

Besides holding a high-level post, Suarez also worked with U.S.
counterparts as an ex officio member of the Border Liaison Mechanism
in Ciudad Juarez/El Paso, according to Nida Emmons, a spokeswoman for
the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez.

That group is a committee that includes officials and volunteers from
both sides of the border who meet periodically to try to resolve such
mutual concerns as law enforcement problems. Suarez attended a
committee meeting as recently as October, Emmons said. Other State
Department officials did not return phone calls.

Prior to Wednesday's attempt on his life, Gov. Martinez was quoted by
Mexican news media as criticizing the previous federal attorney
general, Jorge Madrazo Cuellar, and former President Ernesto Zedillo
for not responding earlier to concerns raised by state officials
about the federal police. He told the daily Reforma that federal
authorities even grew annoyed with him for his constant questions
about the quality of appointees in Chihuahua. But after meeting with
Macedo, he said he was optimistic.

Pimentel said he believes that new efforts by the Mexican government
to root out such corruption will prove successful.

"[But] they are trying to correct something that has gone on for a
number of years," he said, "and you can't do it overnight."

Macedo said that the main drug operation in the vicinity of Ciudad
Juarez is the Carrillo Fuentes cartel but that there are other
organized-crime groups struggling for control of the drug routes in
the region, including Tijuana and Gulf Coast mafias. That explains
the high level of violence locally, he said, noting that cooperation
with U.S. authorities would be key to combating the problem.