CORRUPT FROM THE TOP

DRUG-RUNNING BY HIGH OFFICIALS JARS MEXICAN STATE

CUERNAVACA, Mexico—"Are you Pedro?" shouted the voice from the bridge. "Are
you Tono?" came the reply from the darkness below, using the arranged
passwords for the ransom exchange. Seconds later, a knapsack filled with
$39,000 in pesos dropped to the ground.

The suspected kidnapper snatched it up, only to be surrounded by two
undercover police officers.

As the Guanajuato state police officers leveled their service revolvers at
the man clutching the money bag, according to an account of the incident by
the state's attorney general, they were stunned to discover he was the
chief of the anti-kidnapping police unit from the neighboring state of
Morelos.

Almost instantly, eight men wearing ski masks and armed with AK-47 assault
rifles cornered the two undercover agents while the police commander made
his getaway.

Weeks later, on Jan. 18, in a nearby state, police caught the same Morelos
anti-kidnapping unit commander on an isolated stretch of highway. He and
one of his officers were dumping the battered corpse of a kidnapping
suspect who died of injuries suffered during police torture, according to
charges filed by Mexican authorities.

This time Armando Martinez Salgado, 50, founder of the Morelos
anti-kidnapping squad, did not get away.

That chance discovery by a Guerrero state highway patrol has exploded into
a national scandal that has rallied a growing public and political
intolerance of crooked officials and of the government that has long
protected them.

The scandal in Morelos, a central Mexican state that is a popular
playground for wealthy Mexicans and foreigners, has not only brought down
the top echelon of the state law-enforcement apparatus, it threatens to
force the ruling party governor from office amid allegations that range
from ignoring the villainous practices of his underlings to having ties to
drug traffickers and organized-crime mafias.

"We see corruption everywhere -- the governor, the attorney general,
everywhere," said Carmen Genis Sanchez, president of Civic Cause, a
citizens' activist organization. "And we've reached the point where we say,
'We're fed up!' "

The extent of the corruption uncovered within the Morelos state police and
attorney general's office has shocked even a country long callous to
nefarious public officials.

The federal attorney general's office, which has taken over the
investigation, is examining charges that state law-enforcement officials
not only protected kidnappers but also conducted as many as 60 percent of
the kidnappings, rescued the victims, kept the ransom and often jailed
innocent people to appear credible with the public.

Since his arrest, former top law-enforcement officer Martinez has testified
that he was a longtime friend of the former Juarez drug cartel chief Amado
Carrillo Fuentes, who died last year and had owned several properties in
Morelos, including a mansion two blocks from the governor's house in this
capital city.

New records have surfaced showing that Hugo Salgado Castaneda, whom Morelos
Gov. Jorge Carrillo Olea recently selected as his top aide, was the
attorney the cartel used for many of its real-estate transactions in Morelos.

The governor, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has said he
was unaware of the connection.

Now, outraged but previously powerless citizens are finding a potent
coalition of allies who are willing to take up their cry -- opposition
politicians who are gaining control of an increasing number of government
positions.

And, as in the case of Morelos, where the national ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) does not control the state legislature, these
opposition legislators have the authority to challenge the leaders of the PRI.

Last weekend, 100,000 residents packed Cuernavaca's main plaza and voted in
an unprecedented nonbinding referendum called by opposition political
leaders; 94 percent called for the governor to step down.

"Morelos offers a lesson for the entire country," said state legislative
deputy Juan Ignacio Suarez Huape, a member of the left-of-center Party of
the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and one of the lawmakers threatening to
launch impeachment proceedings against the governor. "We're seeing the
transition to democracy."

The acting state president of the ruling party, Victor Cinta Flores, tried
to play down the referendum, calling it "a stupid trick."

He added: "The entire state is at peace, everyone -- workers, students,
peasants, housewives. The only ones who are not at peace are those 17
idiots [non-PRI legislators] who have been working on provoking scandal
with the support of the national press."

But even the Roman Catholic Church has joined the fray: The local bishop
has excommunicated Martinez and two of his subordinates.

The former anti-kidnapping squad chief -- who Mexican newspapers reported
was wearing a diamond-encrusted Piaget watch stolen from a German kidnap
victim when he was arrested -- is now in prison on charges that he
participated in kidnappings in as many as four Mexican states.

Neither he nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

The state attorney general and chief of state police have been released
from prison on bail, and virtually the entire anti-kidnapping squad has
been placed under house arrest.

Morelos, a state just south of Mexico City famous for its year-round
springlike weather and dramatic mountain vistas, has been a weekend getaway
for wealthy Mexicans and a retirement mecca for thousands of U.S. citizens
for decades.

In recent years, however, the state has become even better known for its
ruthless kidnapping gangs and the new breed of rich Mexicans it has begun
to attract -- the country's most powerful drug cartel leaders.

For several years, victims of Morelos's growing kidnapping trade -- which
numbers more than 200 abductions a year -- have accused state police of
collusion with the kidnapping rings.

But complaints usually met with the same response from state officials as
that received by neighboring Guanajuato Attorney General Felipe Arturo
Camarena Garcia when he called the Morelos attorney general after his
undercover officers' encounter under the bridge with anti-kidnapping police
chief Martinez.

"He told me I was badly informed and he had confidence in his people,"
Camarena said in a telephone interview. "When I explained that there was no
way for Martinez Salgado to know about the password and the exact place [of
the ransom drop-off] he simply said, 'I trust my people.' "

Camarena persuaded a magistrate to grant an arrest order against the police
official. But before the warrant could be executed, Martinez was caught
disposing of the badly beaten body of Jorge Nava Aviles, 24, on a deserted
Guerrero highway.

He told arresting officers that Nava had died of a heart attack while being
transported by police.

But a coroner's report and further investigation indicated Nava had died
about eight hours earlier while being tortured at the state police offices.

"To this day, nobody has had the decency to tell me why they killed my
son," said Maria Magdelena Aviles, 42, who watched state police and
military officers take him into custody without an arrest warrant and
learned of his death two days later on the evening news. "My son had been
kidnapped, tortured and murdered, and thrown away in the state of Guerrero."

© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company