Mexico Under Siege

MEXICO ACKNOWLEDGES DRUG GANG INFILTRATION OF POLICE

At Least 35 Officials and Agents From an Elite Unit Have Been Fired
or Arrested Following Tips From an Informant Involving the So-Called
Beltran Leyva Cartel.

Reporting from Mexico City -- In a damning blow to its fight against
drug traffickers, the Mexican government Monday acknowledged severe
penetration of a top law enforcement agency by a vicious gang that
may even have bought intelligence on U.S. operations from renegade employees.

At least 35 officials and agents from an elite unit within the
federal attorney general's office have been fired or arrested in an
investigation that began July 31 following tips from an informer.

The officials, including a senior intelligence director, are believed
to have been leaking sensitive information to the very traffickers
they were investigating for as long as four years, prosecutors said.

In exchange, prosecutors said, the corrupt government officials
received monthly payments of $150,000 to $450,000 each from the
so-called Beltran Leyva cartel, a drug gang based in the Pacific
state of Sinaloa that is engaged in a bloody fight with rivals for
domination of the region's lucrative trade.

The group has also been linked to crimes, including the May killing
of Edgar Millan Gomez, acting chief of a federal police agency, who
authorities believe was targeted in re-venge for the arrest of
alleged traffickers including top cartel operative Alfredo Beltran Leyva.

Good Reputation

The accused officials were members of the agency in charge of probing
drug and weapons smuggling as well as kidnapping and terrorism, known
by its initials in Spanish, SIEDO. Unlike many agencies within a
notoriously corrupt police system, the SIEDO has a generally good
reputation in U.S. government circles.

The case, which represents an unusually serious breach of Mexican
security, was launched after an informer with the code name Felipe
turned himself in at the Mexican Embassy in Washington. He revealed
the names of senior SIEDO officials on the cartel's payroll and was
quickly put into a U.S. witness protection program, sources in the
attorney general's office said Monday.

"Felipe" told Mexican investigators that he had worked for Interpol
and then for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, where he relayed information
to members of the Beltran Leyva gang, according to several Mexican
media reports.

The embassy declined to comment. And in Washington, senior Drug
Enforcement Administration officials said the investigation was
ongoing, and that it was premature to confirm details.

Whether or not those reports are true, it is certainly possible that
intelligence on activities by the DEA in Mexico could be gleaned from
within SIEDO, and the alleged spies could have had access to it.

"They handed over secret information and details of operations
against the Beltran Leyva criminal organization," Atty. Gen. Eduardo
Medina Mora said during a news conference -- including details on
raids of traffickers' hide-outs and the evidence seized.

Extent Unclear

The full extent to which counter-narcotics operations may have been
compromised is still not known.

"This investigation is not finished," Medina Mora said.

Although 35 people from SIEDO have been implicated, a spokesman for
the attorney general's office said, five officials are likely to face
the most serious charges, including illegal release of classified information.

They include Fernando Rivera Hernandez, a senior director of
intelligence, and Miguel Colorado Gonzalez, SIEDO's general technical
coordinator, both of whom have been in detention since August.

Colorado Gonzalez has also been named in a U.S. federal indictment
filed Friday in the District of Columbia. He is accused of criminal
association in the production and distribution of cocaine in the U.S.
The U.S. is seeking his extradition.

The three others are federal agents, one of whom is a fugitive,
prosecutors said. Medina Mora said SIEDO would be restructured and
purged of its corrupt members through tighter screening and tougher
punishment for lawbreakers. Reforming Mexico's underpaid and poorly
trained police forces is a central component in President Felipe
Calderon's two-year-long offensive against drug traffickers but one
that has yet to show abundant progress.

SIEDO's predecessor agency within the attorney general's office was
shut down in 2003 after half a dozen of its agents were arrested on
suspicion they were helping drug traffickers.

Nearly 4,000 people have been killed in Mexico this year in
drug-related violence as gangs fight Calderon's security forces and
one another. The U.S. has pledged an additional $400 million to
Mexico for help in training police and judicial agencies, but the
money has not arrived.

Calderon wins praise from U.S. officials for attacking traffickers
head on, but the mounting death toll and spread of violence to much
of the country could eventually erode public support for the campaign.

Cases such as this also leave American law enforcement officers wary
of sharing intelligence with Mexico.