AGENTS KNEW OF GRAVES IN '93

They Believed Mexican Police, Traffickers Had Control

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - American authorities knew in 1993 of the mass
graves now being uncovered here but didn't act because Mexican police and
drug traffickers were thought to control the secret cemeteries, former U.S.
agents said Wednesday.

"We knew the locations of the ranches, but we couldn't do anything about
it," said Phil Jordan, former head of the El Paso Intelligence Center. "You
can't turn to Mexico's federal police because they are the ones who buried
some of the people."

Mexican authorities had no immediate comment. Attorney General Jorge
Madrazo has long acknowledged that drug corruption is a serious problem,
but he has said the Mexican government has made great strides in cleaning
up its law enforcement agencies. U.S. officials did not return calls
Wednesday.

U.S. and Mexican agents began digging late Monday for as many as 100 bodies
thought to be buried at ranches outside Ciudad Juarez, a sprawling border
town and one of the main gateways for illicit drugs bound for the United
States.

The unprecedented binational effort - involving more than 600 Mexican
agents and soldiers and 65 of the FBI's top forensic experts - marked one
of the biggest U.S.-Mexico investigations ever undertaken on Mexican soil.

FBI and Mexican agents on Wednesday journeyed to two ranches - one called
La Campana, or The Bell, and the other La Esperanza, or Hope.

Agents were also investigating two other undisclosed Ciudad Juarez
locations, where some victims were tortured and murdered before being
buried on the ranches, said a law enforcement source who requested anonymity.

Five bodies had been recovered as of Wednesday evening, authorities said.

Mr. Jordan, a former Drug Enforcement Administration special agent, said at
least some graves near Ciudad Juarez were first dug under the supervision
of Rafael Aguilar Guajardo, former head of Mexico's Federal Security
Directorate, or DFS, by its Spanish initials.

The DFS, now disbanded, was linked to the 1985 torture and murder of DEA
special agent Enrique Camarena.

While at the DFS, Mr. Aguilar protected drug traffickers, DEA agents say.
He was gunned down in Cancun in 1993 over differences with his boss, Amado
Carrillo Fuentes, then head of the powerful Juarez cartel, a February 1994
DEA intelligence document said.

The growth of the Mexican cartels is a direct product of the rise of
cocaine smuggling and the marriage of Colombian drug lords and Mexican
smugglers in the early 1980s.

Initially, Colombian cocaine cartels contracted with Mexican organizations
for use of their smuggling networks, paying fees ranging from $1,500 to
$2,000 for each kilogram of cocaine they smuggled into the United States.

By the end of the decade, Mexican organizations had grown powerful enough
to dictate new terms to the Colombians. They demanded a larger share of the
proceeds, eventually working out an arrangement in which Mexican
traffickers received as much as 50 percent of the cocaine as payment.

Mr. Carrillo, nicknamed "Lord of the Skies" for his pioneering use of old
commercial aircraft in drug smuggling, died in July 1997 after plastic
surgery.

Exactly who heads the Juarez cartel now is not entirely clear. Prominent
players include Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, Amado's brother, and Juan Jose
Esparragosa Moreno, also known as El Azul.

Mexican authorities said the Juarez cartel was probably responsible for the
mass graves now being uncovered.

Some victims could be low-level workers from the rival Arellano-Felix gang
on Mexico's Pacific coast. Others are probably informants, witnesses and
drug mules. As one former U.S. agent put it, "It's a variety package of
victims."

Ciudad Juarez police almost certainly were involved in some of the murders,
said Hector Berrellez, a former DEA special agent who investigated Mexico's
drug mafia. "They probably killed the people."

His claim is supported by a Juarez group for relatives of the nearly 200
people - including as many as 22 Americans - reported missing in the border
town in recent years.

"We believe that the Mexican police have always had knowledge of where our
loved ones are," said Jaime Hervella, head of the Association for Relatives
and Friends of Missing Persons.

In virtually all the missing persons cases his group has documented, "the
victims were picked up by people in military, attorney general or municipal
police uniforms," he said.

Leandra Pfeiffer said her son, Ricardo, a real estate agent, was abducted
from his home in Ciudad Juarez in August 1996. The kidnappers asked for
$250,000.

A municipal police officer arrived to pick up the money, and her husband
tackled him. The suspect and an accomplice were arrested and jailed.

The captured officer told Mexican authorities where the victim was being
held - as it turns out, at a spot a few yards from the one of the mass
grave sites near Ciudad Juarez, Mrs. Pfeiffer said. But authorities didn't
act, and the victim was never found and is believed dead.

"My son was a victim not of the drug cartels, but of the Mexican police
themselves," said Mrs. Pfeiffer, who drove from her Albuquerque home to
watch the search operation.

Indeed, death can come quickly and quite unexpectedly in the violent world
of the Mexican mafia. Steal, cheat, lie. Lose a drug load. Land in jail. It
can all get you killed.

"It doesn't take much. The worst thing you could do is look at one of the
drug capo's girlfriends," Mr. Jordan said. "All you need is a rumor that
you're talking to the authorities or double-crossing the traffickers and
you're dead. These people are trigger-happy, just like those in the movie
Goodfellas."

Victims are often close to the drug organization, one DEA agent said.

"These are usually people who informed on their superiors, ripped them off
or stole from them," he said.

Once it comes down to killing, enforcers for the Mexican cartels are often
very nonchalant, former U.S. agents said. One DEA intelligence report
describes a hitman who always headed to his favorite restaurant after
shooting someone because he said killing made him hungry.

Juan Garcia Abrego, a former drug kingpin now in prison in the United
States, was said to have a penchant for killing people on the 17th of every
month - so people stayed out of his way that day.

"As the legend goes, he had a quota. He had to kill someone every month,"
said Cesar Romero, who writes about the drug trade for Mexico City's
Reforma newspaper. "It's probably not true, but it's a good story."

Traffickers often torture their victims before killing them to find out
what they know.

"You're not talking about a lot of sophistication," Mr. Jordan said. "They
like to use cattle prods on the most sensitive parts of your body. They
pour carbonated water up your nose, burn you with cigarettes. Typical
torture to make people talk."

Mr. Carrillo, a shrewd businessman who amassed a fortune smuggling drugs,
was considered a peacemaker among traffickers but didn't hesitate to use
violence when necessary, DEA agents say.

His death more than two years ago triggered an intense power struggle in
Ciudad Juarez and a flurry of killings, including brazen daylight
machine-gun murders. But by then, at least some of the graves now being
examined may not have been in use.

So other killing fields are likely to be out there, former U.S. agents said.

"Every trafficking organization has their favorite grave sites, and they
are often protected by the police," Mr. Jordan said. "This is not a new
thing."