Source: Sunday Times
Contact: editor@sundaytimes.co.uk

Mexican drug barons sign up renegades from Green Berets
by Christopher Goodwin Los Angeles

MEXICO'S ruthless cocaine barons are hiring former members of the American
special forces to help them spirit their cargo undetected across the
border, according to a senior former drug enforcement official.

Silvestre Reyes, a Texas congressman, said former members of the American
Green Berets and other elite units had been recruited by drug lords south
of the border to help them avoid capture. His claim, in an interview with a
local newspaper, has provoked uproar.

The American government has denied the claim. But few people know more than
Reyes about the war against drugs being fought on the Mexican border. For
years he was the top border patrol agent in El Paso, Texas, the main point
of entry for cocaine shipments from Mexico. His success in that post
carried him into Congress, where he now serves on the House national
security committee.

"When I was the chief [in El Paso], we had a number of instances where we
had intelligence and where we had actual verification that these types of
individuals were in the employ of some of the drug cartels, especially in
south Texas," said Reyes, who represents El Paso as a Democrat. "With the
large sums of money that drug cartels have, they are more and more able to
enlist the services of what we have traditionally considered soldiers of
fortune."

The wellpaid mercenaries, who allegedly include former members of the
Green Berets, have done immeasurable damage to the war on drugs, said Reyes.

He alleges former American military personnel have helped jam electronic
sensors that the American government operates along the border; they have
trained drug lords and their henchmen in the use of firearms and explosives
and shown them how to use nightvision goggles. They have even taught them
how to break secret, coded police and army communications. Former Israeli
army soldiers are also believed to be working for the drug barons.

His claims are certain to fuel despair in America over the growing power of
Mexican drug barons, who in recent years have supplanted the Colombian
cartels they once served. Mexican smugglers now control 75% of the cocaine
that enters America; and although their ability to buy off Mexican
officials has been welldocumented, this is the first time anyone has
suggested that the corrupting influence of the Mexican drug lords may have
spread over the border.

Reyes is demanding action. "It undermines the national security of this
country if we have that kind of information and we don't follow through and
investigate it," he said.

Reyes's accusations are just the latest embarrassment in the American
government's battle to halt the creeping influence of the Mexican drug
cartels. The government had been buoyed by the capture, extradition, trail
and conviction last year of Juan Garcia Abrego, former head of the Gulf
cartel of northeastern Mexico. It also welcomed the demise of Amado
Carrillo Fuentes, a drug lord who died while undergoing plastic surgery.

But there is bad news on the way. A trial in Mexico threatens to reveal the
full extent of America's inability to stop the flow of drugs.

General Jesus Gutierrez Rebello (pictured), once Mexico's top drug
enforcement official, is accused of being on the payroll of Carillo
Fuentes, known as the Lord of the Skies for his ability to move huge
quantities of cocaine by air. Gutierrez was arrested after it was
discovered that he lived in a flatowned by Carillo Fuentes.

Gutierrez, who claims he is being targeted by the government to protect
other corrupt officials, is threatening to name members of Mexico's
political, military and business elite who are in the pockets of the drug
lords.

Thomas Constantine, head of the American Drug Enforcement Agency, has no
illusions about the extent of the wreckage done to years of close
cooperation between the American and Mexican governments by Gutierrez: "My
sense is that Gutierrez knew everything that was going on, and he used
everything he knew."

Copyright 1997 The Times Newspapers Limited