CORRUPTION-BUSTER, FRIEND TO US KILLED IN CROSS-BORDER DRUG WAR

A drug-sniffing dog pulled the US Border Patrol agent to a rusty cargo
container in the storage yard just north of the Mexican border.
Peeking inside, he saw stacks of bundled marijuana and a man with a
gun tucked in his waistband.

The officer and the man locked eyes for a moment before the smuggler
scrambled down a hole and disappeared. By the time backup agents cast
their flashlights into the opening, he was long gone, through a
winding tunnel to Mexico.

US authorities called a trusted friend on the other side, Juan Jose
Soriano.

The deputy commander of the Tecate Police Department gathered the
entire shift of 30 officers at the decrepit police headquarters on
Avenida Benito Juarez. Soriano knew any of them might leak information
to the tunnel's gangster operators.

So he took their cellphones and sent them away on a ruse about a car
chase near the border.

The veteran officer told only a few trusted aides about the tunnel.
Later that day, the officers went into the United States and traversed
the length of the passageway to an empty building, where they found
computers, ledgers, and other key evidence.

For US authorities, it was an encouraging example of cross-border
cooperation in the drug war. For Mexico's crime bosses, it was a
police victory that could not go unpunished.

That night last December, while Soriano slept with his wife and baby
daughter, two heavily armed men broke into his house and shot him 45
times. The 35-year-old father of three young daughters died in his
bedroom. He had lasted two days as second in command of the department.

The death of a police officer is generally greeted in Mexico with a
knowing smirk. All too often it is assumed the officer in question was
playing for both sides in the drug war, which has claimed at least
2,000 lives in Mexico this year.

But all indications, from American and Mexican sources, suggest that
Soriano was among the good ones, poorly paid but somehow immune to the
lure of big money and the threat of deadly firepower from Mexico's
violent drug gangs.

An intense, soft-spoken man, Soriano struggled for years to clean up
the troubled department. But his corruption-busting ways earned him
only contempt from many on the force.

At the small shrine to fallen officers in the courtyard at police
headquarters, Soriano's image is conspicuously absent.

"It's a shame," said Donald McDermott, a former Border Patrol
assistant chief who worked with Soriano.

"He was one of the good guys. . . . His untimely demise was a blow to
border enforcement on both sides of the border."

A city of 120,000 tucked in the rugged mountains 40 miles east of
Tijuana, Tecate is best known for its tree-lined plaza and beer
brewery. But its tranquil veneer masks its reputation as a hub of
organized crime groups that use the surrounding area of boulder-strewn
peaks and remote valleys as a launching pad for smuggling drugs and
humans.

Soriano stood apart: an aggressive, disciplined lawman who aspired to
become police chief, law enforcement sources on both sides of the
border said.

Unlike most Mexican police officers, he had a degree in police
science. And he spent three years working for Grupo Beta, a federal
immigrant-safety force with whom he once saved 65 immigrants in a snowstorm.

In 2003, Soriano took charge of Tecate's SWAT-like special response
team. In a break from past practices, he reached out to US agencies
for training and cross-border crime fighting.

Soriano's officers arrested border bandits, disrupted smuggling
operations, and went where police hadn't gone in years, say American
and Mexican sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing
retaliation.

Soriano was a go-to source for the US Border Patrol and other agencies
and was a regular at binational meetings, where he shared
information.

"He wanted to do things the right way," said one Mexican law
enforcement source. "But that was a problem for many people."

Police brass reassigned Soriano to a desk job in 2005. "They took away
his wings. They weren't ready for where he was going," said one US law
enforcement source.

Late last year, Tecate's new mayor salvaged Soriano's career, asking
him to take the number two job at the department. Law enforcement
contacts across the border applauded the move and didn't wait long to
restore ties.

It was crucial to find the opening of the tunnel discovered that
December morning. US authorities didn't want the operators to have
time to clear out the drugs and other evidence. Soriano took immediate
action.

After confiscating the officers' cellphones, he and several trusted
people on the force started searching for the tunnel in buildings near
the border.

The search failed. Someone would have to traverse the passageway to
find the opening.

Soriano volunteered seven officers. They crossed into the United
States and descended into the tunnel while US and Mexican authorities
waited for them to surface in Mexico. About 45 minutes later, the
Mexican team climbed up the 80-foot-deep shaft into a vacant two-story
building a block south of the border.

Soriano, alerted by a radio call from his team, arrived at the
building just ahead of the crush of reporters and other police.
Mexican federal agents took over the crime scene.

At about 2 the next morning, a convoy of vehicles drove down the
deeply rutted road leading to Soriano's modest house, which was
decorated with a string of Christmas lights.

Two men armed with AK-47s broke in. Soriano jumped out of bed, but the
men stopped him before he could grab his weapons in the hallway.

Mexican authorities suspect police were involved in the slaying,
either as the triggermen or the lookouts for hit men. Nobody has been
arrested in the case.