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The Houston Chronicle
email:dwight.silverman@chron.com
mike.read@chron.com
fax: 17132207171
9:39 PM 3/12/1997

Exbodyguard says he delivered drug money to Ruiz Massieu

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS
Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle

In the first testimony directly linking Mexico's former deputy
attorney general to drug money, a former Mexican police
bodyguard testified Wednesday that he had delivered to the
official suitcases of cash from a cocaine deal.

Also testifying in the threedayold civil trial here to
confiscate Mario Ruiz Massieu's Houston bank account
was a U.S. Customs Service investigator who said
informants connected the former prosecutor to payoffs from
top drug traffickers.

The U.S. government is suing in federal court to confiscate
more than $9 million that Ruiz Massieu deposited in cash at
the Texas Commerce Bank. Ruiz Massieu disputes that the
money seized in March 1995 was paid by traffickers for
protection, saying it was legally earned by him and members
of his politically prominent family.

The latest evidence in the drugprofits trial came as
Congress debated whether to reverse President Clinton's
Feb. 28 certification that the Mexican government was fully
cooperating in the war on drugs.

At least one government witness scheduled to appear in the
Houston trial was expected to connect top Mexican officials
to drug trafficking, but the government said it will rest its
case today. No such witness has been called.

The former Mexican agent who testified Wednesday, Raul
Macias, worked as security for a federal police commander
until 1996. He told the eightmember jury that he got a clear
view of Ruiz Massieu in the front seat of the car to which he
delivered the drug cash outside the attorney general's office
in Mexico City in August 1994.

"It's the second time I've seen him," Macias said as he
identified Ruiz Massieu in the U.S. District Court room.
Macias said he recognized Ruiz Massieu from a large photo
of the former official that his boss had hanging in his office.

As Macias spoke, Ruiz Massieu shook his head frequently
and smiled as though disgusted.

Macias testified that the cash was delivered to Ruiz Massieu
several days after the disappearance of most of a
10metricton shipment of cocaine that federal police had
captured on a remote northern Mexico runway Aug. 4,1994.

Macias said he and federal agents under the command of
Jesus David Grajeda Lara had helped unload the cocaine
from a plane, weigh the shipment, and substitute wood and
other things for the narcotics before the replacements were
publicly burned.

Following the switch of the cocaine, Grajeda Lara gave
Macias two suitcases stuffed with cash for safekeeping,
Macias said.

Those suitcases, from which Macias said he pilfered about
$100,000 while guarding them in a hotel, were the same
ones delivered to Ruiz Massieu's car a few days later,
Macias said.

As he has done with earlier government witnesses, defense
attorney Tony Canales sought to discredit Macias with the
jury by showing that he was both dishonest and had been
paid to testify.

Although Macias originally identified himself as a former
federal police agent, he admitted to Canales that he actually
was privately employed by Grajeda Lara, the federal
commander, for seven years. The use of such "off the
books" police agents is common practice in Mexico.

Macias acknowledged that he hoped to gain legal U.S.
residence for himself and his family in exchange for his
testimony. He said he feared for his safety because several
federal police commanders had recently been killed or
disappeared.

But under oftentesty questioning by Canales, Macias did
not waver from his assertions that he had seen Ruiz Massieu
in the car to which he delivered the drug money.

Earlier, U.S. customs agent Robert Rutt testified that
confidential informants used by his agency reported that
Ruiz Massieu indirectly received cash payments from
Amado Carrillo Fuentes, now considered Mexico's most
prominent drug trafficker.

Carrillo Fuentes would pay money to Adrian Carrera
Fuentes, the head of Mexico's federal police, who then
would have it delivered to Ruiz Massieu's home, Rutt said.

A Ruiz Massieu assistant, Jorge Stergios, would then take
the money to a safe place, the Customs investigator said.

Stergios, who has not been seen publicly since his former
boss' arrest, has been identified as the person who actually
delivered most of the cash deposits to the Houston bank.

The lawsuit against Ruiz Massieu has drawn wide interest in
Mexico, because pretrial documents leaked to the Mexico
City media suggested that the government's case would link
the family of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari to
drug payoffs.

However, none of the testimony so far has implicated the
Salinases or any other politician, apart from Ruiz Massieu.
U.S. prosecutors won't comment on their remaining
witnesses, but the government has said it plans to rest its
case this morning.

Witnesses have testified that the Ruiz Massieu millions were
deposited as cash, mostly $20 and $50 bills wrapped in
rubber bands, over an 11month period that roughly
coincided with Ruiz Massieu's tour as a top official in
Mexico's antinarcotics effort. He resigned from the position
in 1994, saying that members of the nation's ruling party
were hampering the probe into his brother's assassination in
September of that year.

Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a prominent leader in the
ruling party, was shot to death on a Mexico City street
several months after helping to orchestrate President
Ernesto Zedillo's election victory. Raul Salinas de Gortari,
the older brother of the former president, is in jail on
charges of ordering the murder.

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