http://www.sjmercury.com/news/world/docs/mexico28.htm

Mexico probes generals' drug ties

Report: Weekly newsmagazine says that 32 officers are under
investigation and that one drug
kingpin tried to strike a deal with President Zedillo.

BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
KnightRidder Newspapers

MIAMI In an indication that drug corruption within the Mexican
military may go much deeper than previously admitted, a Mexican
newsmagazine reported Sunday that 10 Mexican generals and 22 other
military officers are under investigation for alleged ties to drug
traffickers.

The weekly Proceso also reported that Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who headed
the Juárez drug cartel until his recent death, had written a private
letter to President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León on Jan. 14, offering a
deal in which he would relinquish 50 percent of his wealth and keep
drugs out of Mexico if the government stopped pursuing him.

Carrillo Fuentes died July 4 in a Mexico City hospital in what officials
described as an eighthour cosmetic surgery and liposuction operation to
change his appearance.

If confirmed, the revelations would indicate the possibility of
behindthescenes government negotiations with Carrillo Fuentes.

Such negotiations would also raise new questions about the circumstances
of the Feb. 6 arrest of Gen. Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo, until then head of
Mexico's antinarcotics police, who has been
charged with being on Carrillo Fuentes' payroll. Gutiérrez Rebollo says
he was arrested after he began investigating alleged connections of
members of Zedillo's family to drug traffickers.

According to Proceso, documents from the military's secret files show
that Gen. Juan Felix Tapia García, former head of the military zone
based in Jalisco state, was suspected of protecting and receiving
presents from reputed drug lord Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo.

``Nine investigations showed the criminal responsibilities of 10
generals, 15 military chiefs, seven officers and two soldiers, whose
crimes went from very serious ones, such as conspiracy . . . to minor
ones, such as breaking military rules or issuing false testimony,'' the
magazine said.

Two officers, Col. Pablo Castellanos García and Capt. Miguel Angel
Hernández Torres, are being tried by a military court on charges of
having copied the classified military documents on the internal drug
investigations from the military's computers, it said.

On drug lord Carrillo Fuentes, it said he did not offer in his letter to
turn himself in but to help crack down on independent cocaine barons,
abstain from selling drugs inside Mexico and bring more dollars into the
country to help revive its economy.

In return, the drug lord allegedly requested to be allowed to keep half
his wealth, immunity for his family and permission to continue
trafficking drugs to the United States and Europe. If the government
rejected his offer, he would submit it ``and its benefits'' to another
country, the letter reportedly said.

Published Monday, July 28, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News

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