CARTEL'S POWER CORRUPTS EFFORTS TO CONTROL DRUGS

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico -- Astrid Gonzalez, a social worker here who helps
victims of violent crime and their families, had her worst fears confirmed
last year when Mexican authorities replaced a task force that was in the
middle of investigating mysterious disappearances of hundreds of people in
the Juarez-El Paso region.

The elite task force assigned by Mexico's attorney general had been
infiltrated by agents of the Juarez cartel, the same drug enterprise
suspected of orchestrating many of the disappearances and of burying
enemies, informants and innocent people in mass graves now being dug up by
U.S. and Mexican authorities at four ranches outside of Juarez.

``I was angry, but I realized that I was not surprised. It seemed easy for
the drug people to corrupt the investigators and anyone else they want,''
said Gonzalez, whose father's 1993 murder remains unsolved.

It's not the kind of run-of-the-mill corruption Americans see when they pay
$20 to avoid a ticket for running red lights in Mexico. The buying of cops,
described to the Mercury News by officials and experts on both sides of the
border, paints a grim portrait of a region so saturated by easy drug money
that youngsters can score $500 just for driving a drug-laden car from
Juarez to El Paso. There is so much money tossed around that high-ranking
police officers -- on both sides of the border -- can net as much as
$50,000 for helping just one large shipment make it into the United States.
This is big-dollar drug corruption that leaves U.S. and Mexican
investigators certain that drug dealers have used a few bad cops as deadly
tools.

Bodies appeared tortured

Mexican federal agents and U.S. FBI agents found no more bodies in their
digging around this dusty border city this weekend, but they did reveal new
evidence that some of the six people unearthed at one ranch were tortured
before they died.

Drug dealers are thought to have used the ranches to get rid of some
informants and rival gang members in a turf war over one of the richest
drug shipping networks in Latin America. An ex-police officer who once
worked in the Juarez area is believed to be the informant who led
authorities to the suspected grave sites.

Citing the sensitivity of cross-border politics, police corruption by drug
dealers in Juarez ``is something we cannot publicly condemn and go after,''
said a veteran U.S. drug official in Texas, who asked to remain anonymous.
``That is the real crime.''

The way into a police officer's heart is with intimidation and quick cash,
say Juarez drug-trade experts and former government officials. A Juarez cop
working the streets makes about $300 a month, but he can more than double
that by simply ignoring drug dealers. Even more is paid to officers who
ride shotgun on drug shipments. And a few are recruited, after tests of
loyalty, into kidnapping and hit squads that can pay tens of thousands of
dollars, the officials and analysts say.

The corruption is a complex deal with its own protocol.

For example, Silvano Corral, a Juarez doctor now sought by Mexican
authorities who want to question him about his business practices, kept a
list in his office with Juarez-area police officers who paid weekly visits
to his clinic. According to published reports in Juarez, the officers would
each walk out with about $100 in cash from drug dealers -- their pay to
stay out of the way of drug deals.

More expensive relationships, costing traffickers as much as $40,000 a
month for official cooperation, are negotiated between police commanders
and drug dealers of similar rank. A watch commander, for example, is
approached by a local lieutenant in charge of distributing drugs among
small-time runners -- often American students from El Paso recruited in
bars. While the police commander makes a bundle to make sure the drivers
get to the border, the runner gets around $600 for a night's work.

But that's small change for a cartel whose former chief -- the late Amado
Carrillo Fuentes -- was said to have controlled a $15 billion empire. ``If
one of 10 of the drivers is inspected and caught at the border, so what? It
means another nine are likely to make it through the border and begin
putting drugs on U.S. streets,'' said a Mexican drug expert who has
observed the Juarez cartel for years.

To combat corruption, federal prosecutors, investigators and police are
routinely cycled out of Juarez after six months of work to keep them from
falling prey to drug lords.

But that strategy has not worked.

Hector Mario Varela, a former Mexican federal police officer murdered in
January 1998, was later found to have maintained ties to drug traffickers,
even as he helped investigate disappearances of people along the Juarez-El
Paso border. Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo was forced to replace
the special prosecutor's entire team.

Dirty money has also soiled American officials. In the United States, the
number of active drug-related corruption cases against federal agents
jumped from 79 in 1997 to 157 last year. In some instances, Customs agents
were charged with using cell phones to tell drug traffickers which lanes at
border crossings were safe from inspections. Agents were collecting as much
as $50,000 for a single transaction, according to government reports.

Targeting Americans

Retired and current U.S. agents say drug dealers are always on the prowl
for vulnerable American cops upset with long hours and low pay. They'll try
to befriend an agent on his off-hours. Agents are often invited by Mexican
police to free drinks at bars south of the border -- owned by drug lords.
They're given free tickets to sports events or weekend stays in Mexican
resorts. And women are often used to lure American agents into closer ties
with traffickers.

``It can all be overwhelming to a kid fresh in from Iowa, or to a
disgruntled veteran who's not happy making $40,000 a year,'' said a former
U.S. drug agent.

Gonzalez, the social worker, has received threats over her years of work in
Juarez, yet she continues to speak out against drug dealers. For years drug
lords have threatened the innocent and honest cops by simply uttering two
words, ``silver or lead,'' Gonzalez said. The message: ``Take the bribe or
we'll kill you.''

``And when they see a ranch they want to use for their operations,''
Gonzalez added, ``they'll say, very nicely but frankly to the owner, `We'll
buy it from you, or we'll buy it from your widow.' ''