424 Fail Drug Exams in Mexican Law Enforcement

Latin America: Figure represents 3% of federal personnel
screened. Many in nation are shocked.

By MARK FINEMAN, MARY BETH SHERIDAN, Times
Staff Writers

MEXICO CITYNew mandatory drug tests for Mexico's
federal law enforcement agencies turned up 424 police,
prosecutors and administrative personnel who tested
positivenearly half of them for cocaine useduring the past
six weeks, the attorney general's office disclosed here
Tuesday.
Announcing the results of tests that are among the latest
efforts by President Ernesto Zedillo's government to purge
corruption and drug abuse from the federal agencies charged
with combating Mexico's multibilliondollar drug trade,
prosecutors said disciplinary action has been taken against all
the public servants who tested positive. A spokeswoman said
those actions ranged from reprimands to dismissals.
According to the results, 204 people tested positive for
using cocaine and the rest showed signs of using
amphetamines, marijuana or other drugs.
An attorney general's office spokeswoman said 15,000
personnel had been tested nationwide. But in a nation where
illegal drug consumption is remarkably lowespecially
compared with consumption in the U.S.even a 3% positive
drugtest rate among Mexico's federal law enforcement
agencies was considered shocking.
Calling the findings "surprising," Teresa Jardi, a former
federal prosecutor, said the federal police force "is rotten from
floor to ceiling."
Specifically targeted this month has been the National
Institute to Combat Drugs, Mexico's equivalent of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration. Gen. Jose de Jesus
Gutierrez Rebollo, who was the institute's commissioner, was
arrested on drug corruption charges Feb. 18, and his
replacement was forced to undergo a battery of
testsincluding a drug testbefore his appointment was
announced last week.
The drug tests are part of a struggle by Mexican Atty. Gen.
Jorge Madrazo Cuellar to reshape a federal law enforcement
institution in crisis. And the tests, whose results can be used at
dismissal hearings, appear to be a recognition by authorities
that past attempts to purge its ranks of corruption have failed.
Last summer, for example, thenAtty. Gen. Antonio Lozano
Gracia made international headlines when he fired more than
800 federal police suspected of corruption from the
4,400member force. Due to a lack of evidence, though,
Lozano eventually backtracked quietly, rehiring about 150 of
those officers, according to Eduardo Ibarrola, deputy
prosecutor in charge of judicial affairs.
Hundreds more of those officers appealed their firings. Of
the 10 cases heard so far, the government has lost every one,
Ibarrola said.
The positive drugtest disclosures came a day after the
attorney general's office announced the arrest of the second
Mexican army general in a month on drug charges.
Brig. Gen. Alfredo Navarro Lara, who was jailed Monday
after allegedly trying to bribe the new top law enforcement
official in Tijuana and threatening his family, had ties to Javier
Arellano Felix, one of the brothers who reportedly control the
Tijuana drug cartel, the announcement said.
In his own court declaration, published here Tuesday,
Navarro reportedly confessed, saying that he had to offer the
bribe or his own wife and daughter would have been killed by
the cartel.
Meanwhile, an army colonel and a former police
commander were formally charged Tuesday with allowing
Humberto Garcia Abrego, the brother of convicted drug lord
Juan Garcia Abrego, to walk out of Mexico's antinarcotics
agency Feb. 25. At the time, he was wanted for questioning
about suspected money laundering.
A judge ordered the two officials held while the case
against them continues, Associated Press reported.