Source: Toronto Star
Contact: LetterToEd@thestar.com

`No nation safe'

This ruthless drug lord found a refuge, exposing the grim reality of
trafficking: It is now a multinational enterprise

By Sebastian Rotella

Special to The Star

SANTIAGO, Chile PUDGY AND HAUNTED, he fled his pursuers in a haze of
cocaine, liquor and wellfounded paranoia. But the ``Lord of the
Skies'' was still thinking big.

Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as the boss of Mexico's Ciudad Juarez
cartel, had moved dope by the jetload, corrupted generals and
shouldered aside his former Colombian partners to become the cowboy
emperor of cocaine.

When he needed a place to hide, he made a typically audacious choice:
Chile, a continent away from the dusty Mexican border towns where he
fought his wars and made his billions.

Carrillo set himself up in highrolling style here, planning to run
his operation from afar, launder money and explore new smuggling
routes, according to Chilean and U.S. law enforcement officials.

Those plans died when he did, after extensive plastic surgery in
Mexico in July.

But the news of his move to Chile sheds light on a mysterious chapter
of his downfall.

Carrillo was a thug, family man and chief executive of a
multinational enterprise.

His plan to transfer his empire here shows how the drug underworld
ranges across borders into seemingly pristine strongholds of
freemarket modernization.

``Given the reality of drug trafficking, there is no nation that is
immune,'' says Pablo Lagos, an adviser to Chile's antidrug
commission.

``Organized crime today is by definition multinational. The concept of
the global village applies very well to drug trafficking.''

The thought of Mexican gangsters cruising the streets of this capital
in Porsches and Jaguars has stunned this nation, whose personality has
been shaped by German immigrants, robust economic growth and a 17year
dictatorship that lasted until 1990.

The military coup of 1973 ended a fledgling cocaine production
industry in Chile tied to Colombian middlemen.

Chile's remoteness and comparatively welldisciplined police have kept
drugs at bay.

This year, though, Supreme Court officials were accused of protecting
an accused kingpin who allegedly smuggled cocaine to Europe via
Bolivia and Brazil.

The Carrillo case briefly snared a politically connected Santiago
lawyer, the former ambassador to Britain, who allegedly counselled the
traffickers. The lawyer has been released without being charged, but
Lagos says police will keep investigating the local connection ``no
matter who falls.''

All this reinforces fear here mixed with a certain pride of
globetrotting gangsters looking for new markets.

``When you have a nation with an open economy, modern technology and
strong foreign investment, it offers conveniences to criminals like
Carrillo,'' Lagos says.

``And the isolation plays a role. Because he came to a nation that is
lost on the map, so far from his own.''

Carrillo had established alliances with Bolivian suppliers and
reportedly travelled to Russia and the Middle East.

But determined Mexican and U.S. investigators hunted him around the
globe and through a labyrinth of corrupt official allies, making his
life increasingly difficult.

A recent photo found among closets of designer suits and flashy
cowboy boots in one of 11 properties here hints at Carrillo's
decline.

In it the drug lord stands in front of a waterfall probably at
Iguazu on the ArgentineBrazilian border, police say. His belly
protrudes beneath a loosefitting shirt. His face is bloated and
pasty. His hair and moustache are scraggly.

Near him stands Ricardo Reyes, his physician, a youthful Colombian who
stayed close to Carrillo during the final months.

``Amado was doing a lot of coke, booze, messing around he was in bad
shape, healthwise,'' says a U.S. law enforcement official.

Carrillo's poor health contributed to his death after plastic surgery,
the U.S. official said, minimizing speculation that Carrillo was
killed with an injection.

A year ago, Carrillo dispatched emissaries to explore potential
refuges, police say. His scouts met with accountants and lawyers and
prepared reports on investment prospects and security risks in nations
including Argentina and Brazil.

Accused lieutenant Manuel Bitar and the cartel's ``director of
finances,'' Carlos Colin Padilla, worked on the Chilean beachhead
between August and February, says Mario Mallea, the chief of the
antidrug police.

After the arrest earlier this year of Mexico's drug czar allegedly
Carrillo's key official protector the drug lord made a threeday
reconnaissance trip to Chile and decided to move there, police say.

Law enforcement officials outside Chile suspect that Carrillo's wife
had family ties to Chile that influenced the decision. An entourage of
a dozen people arrived during March, travelling with authentic Mexican
passports that bore fake names.

They included a grown son from a first marriage, Carrillo's wife,
Sonia, their four small children and key aides: the doctor, a chief
bodyguard and the ``finance director.''

The drug lord bought a bulletproof blue BMW for himself and a
fourwheeldrive Ford for his wife and children. He rented mansions
and a ranch that reminded him of his native Sinaloa.

Guarded by a retinue of five gunmen, he visited the Pacific resort of
Vina del Mar and Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan, a town at the
bottom of the world, police say.

The drug lord's family were nice people, says a maid who worked for
them in a haciendastyle house in Santa Maria, a fashionable
neighborhood. They paid $10,000 monthly rent.

``They slept a lot,'' the maid says.

On Mother's Day, Carrillo threw a party for his wife featuring a
mariachi band. Despite the festivities, they never lost the mindset of
fugitives.

Servants told police about the Mexican group's reaction one night when
a power failure hit the mansion.

The family hit the floor. Bodyguards pulled guns and took up defensive
positions in the dark, fearing an imminent attack, Mallea says.

By April, Chilean police were investigating a tip from U.S. and
Mexican authorities about Carrillo's expansion into Chile, Mallea
says.

The lead came from the arrest of Miamibound Colombian smugglers who
were carrying 12 kilos of cocaine and Bitar's phone number in
Santiago.

Questions persist about the assertion by Chilean officials that they
were shadowing the traffickers and investigating Carrillo's suspected
presence.

How could they not have spotted Carrillo if they were indeed following
the gangsters, who set up front companies and made milliondollar
investments? But authorities said they learned that the drug lord
himself had been here only after the arrest in Mexico this month of
Bitar.

After learning of the kingpin's death, his family and most of the
aides left in a hurry. His wife's departure was ``a question of
seconds,'' the maid says. ``She just packed a bag and left.''

LOS ANGELES TIMES