DRUG WARRIORS - DEA, FBI, Customs & U.S./Mexico Police

CHUCK LABELLA

If the drug war were run like a business, how would you describe your role?

The role, theoretically, was to stop the commodity from coming into the
United States, and to stop the money from going south to form the operation
further. That's the role; that's the mission. Do we have the resources to
do that on the southwest border? No, of course not. We don't have the
commitment from the agencies to do that. There are not enough people to do
that. Objectively, I think we perform the function of keeping the status
quo. We prevent a significant amount of dope coming into the United States,
and prevent a significant amount of money going south to fund further the
operation. To become a cost of doing business to the drug
traffickers--obviously that's a part of it.

Is the net effect to stop them or to raise the price? In the short term,
it's probably to raise the price. Ultimately you try to dismantle the
organization, like we did with organized crime. You try to hit them where
it hurts--their economics. The seizures, and those sorts of things, and
that's happened from time to time. We've had spikes, and we've had valleys.
The bottom line is that it's very difficult to do those things. And when
you impose upon that the fact that there is systemic corruption in Mexico
at the law enforcement level, you're dealing with situations that's almost
impossible in some instances, almost impossible to be effective. But that
doesn't mean you throw up your hands and you say, "We can't do anything.
Let's give up. Let's just let the dope come in." . . . .

Can you describe the problem that the border poses?

The benefit of the drug traffickers is protection of this umbrella that we
call the border. What we need to do with Mexico, you can't do it
unilaterally. . . . You have to take this protection away from the drug
traffickers. We have to preserve the sovereignty of both countries, but
take this protective ring that is around the drug traffickers--we have to
take that away from them. The violence doesn't stop at the border. I mean,
the border is a very fickle thing. The drug traffickers use it as
protection, but they use it as a sword too. They use it affirmatively to
help themselves.

They can operate on both sides free, because they have no agreement. They
don't have to check with drug traffickers in the United States and say,
"Hey, I'm coming over to your territory to do some dirty work." They have
free hand. We don't have that. We've got one hand tied behind our backs,
because we've got to go through all these hoops before we can do something
in Mexico and vice versa, before Mexico can do something here. There really
has to be a change in the protocol so it's workable. . . .

There used to be hot pursuit on both sides of the border, but there's no
longer hot pursuit. There used to be this understanding that so many
kilometers on either side was a border region. One of the things that I
kept harping on is that Mexico and the United States should create this
zone, this border region, within which certain rules and
regulations--different rules and regulations may apply. It may be that,
within this region, certain undercover operations could take place with
only very limited people knowing. Maybe you could have hot pursuit even
within this border region whether it's ten kilometers or fifteen kilometers
on either side of the border.

Unless we start thinking a little bit outside the box, we're not going to
get anywhere on this. The border isn't changing. The line is the line is
the line. We have to think creatively how we deal with that line. The drug
dealers have used the line as a shield and a sword. We have used it as
handcuffs for both the Mexican and the US law enforcement, and that's the
problem. The border is a third country. The border region is a special
area. . . .

There have been rumored sightings of the Arellanos. What would it take for
us to capture them?

We know that the Arellanos are in Mexico. We know that. We have people who
have told us that they are, they've been seen at discotheques, they've been
seen at fights, they've been seen there, they've been seen shopping,
they've been seen all around. Even discounting half of those spottings,
assuming that only half of them are accurate, these people are around.
They're living from time to time open and notoriously in Mexico, in various
sections of Mexico, no question about it. I think if you ask US law
enforcement, and if you candidly ask Mexican law enforcement, they'll say,
"Yes, they're around." There's a way to find them.

So how could we capture them?

The cornerstone of my idea was to use the intelligence agencies, Mexican
and the US to simply to do one thing--to locate them. Not to develop
evidence on them. Not to tap their phone conversations. Not to do anything
but to establish an ethical wall between law enforcement and the
intelligence agencies.

The US and Mexican intelligence agencies join at one point to locate the
Arellanos. Simple job. One job. That's all they have to do. That's the
extent of their cooperation. They locate them. Point A, point B, point C.
On an Air Force base in the United States, we have a group of 10, 20, 50,
vetted Mexican law enforcement, military, whatever it takes. Qualified
individuals to place people under arrest who are trained, vetted and ready
to go. They're incommunicado. They don't have cell phones, they don't have
pagers. They're ready to go. Their mission? To deploy and to arrest.

I think within six months the intelligence agencies should be able to
figure out where those people are. You take the people up in a helicopter
or a plane, depending on where in Mexico they are, and you deploy them. And
you arrest. And you let the Mexicans take them into custody. You've solved
the sovereignty problem. The Mexicans take them into their system and do
what they will with these people. They have cases against them.

Now, people say, "Well, they'll just going to let them out, they're going
bribe their way out, blah blah blah." If they do, so be it. We have at
least shown that law enforcement can work at a high level to put people
behind bars and to let the system take over. If the system is corrupt,
that's the next problem we have to deal with. But at least get them under
arrest. At least show them that we know where you are, and we're going to
place you under arrest. And we're going to make you use your chips to get
out of jail.

You were surveying an Arellano family member in San Diego, and then you
heard that he was lost at the border. How did you feel when you heard that?

Frustrated--frustrated. Disappointed. You know, it's a shame. But you move
on. Every slap in the face or every bump you trip over, you've got to pick
yourself up and you dust yourself off and you move on. Law enforcement is
full of frustrations. And I think the mistake you're making is this
frustration could happen in the United States. You can lose somebody in the
United States. And we do. We lose people all the time. . . .

And why didn't it work? You get five different reasons why it didn't work.
Well, this one misunderstood. They thought they had to wait for the car to
pass this point. They thought you were going to follow it to this point.
There are always several excuses, and you don't know which are legitimate
and which are not. What do you do, other than be frustrated, pound the
table, and move on? That's all you can do. That's the nature of being in
the border region.

But I've had several frank conversations and open conversations with
high-level Mexican officials about the problem of corruption. Most of them,
in candid moments, will acknowledge the systemic corruption problem that
they face, and the negative impact it has on their law enforcement efforts.
. . .

Do the Arellanos have immunity?

I don't know if they have immunity, but they certainly are in a position
where no one's snatching them up. The reports are that they're living, at
times, open and notoriously--some of them are open and notorious at various
times--they're spotted here and there. And there's never an arrest. So I
assume that there must be some sort of protective ring around them locally.
. . .

I'm told that their chief operating officer travels regularly from Mexicali
to Encinada, and that nobody stops him, because people are afraid to stop him.

. . . Well, wouldn't you be, if you were in Mexican law enforcement, based
on what's happened to Mexican law enforcement? I mean, there's got to be a
fear factor. . . . It's easy for us, in the safety of the United States, to
criticize people who are faced with something that we're not faced with in
law enforcement in the United States--that if you do your job, you may lose
your life. That's real there. It's not some Hollywood drama. Someone's not
going to yell "Cut!" and everybody gets up from the ground, dusts the fake
blood off and walks home to their family. These people really die. I think
that's one of the things that we don't fully appreciate.

We expect a lot from them, and I don't think that we should stop expecting
a lot from them. But I don't think we recognize the conditions that they
work under. It's difficult for some of those people to put a gun to their
head when they're about to engage in a law enforcement operation. A lot of
it is self-preservation. They just don't act like we do. But the situation
is different. When they engage in a law enforcement operation, they may be
imposing a death sentence on themselves, or their family. Not only
themselves, but their families. That's tough. . . .

PBS Frontline Series Follow Up by Tom O'Connell, Kevin Zeese, Doug McVay,
and Eric Sterling:
http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/2000/ds00.n170.html#sec1

Campaign for the Restoration & Regulation of Hemp's HempTV website has the
full, two part, total of almost 4 hours of video of the PBS Frontline "Drug
Wars" available on the web for free video streaming using the Real Player 8.

To watch Part one of Drug Wars, go here:

http://www.crrh.org/hemptv/docs_drugwars1.html

To see part 2, go here:

http://www.crrh.org/hemptv/docs_drugwars2.html

Click this link for an index to this series:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1551.a01.html