AS 'DON CHUY,' BORDER PATROL AGENT RISKED LIFE, REPUTATION

He was called "Don Chuy," a narco-trafficker who swaggered in his
Stetson, flashy gold jewelry and expensive cowboy boots.

Don Chuy mastered obscenity-laced tough talk that stopped arguments,
a stare that could disarm men and the attitude of a big-time player
in border drug dealing.

He carried a .380-caliber handgun in a boot. A backup gun dangled
from a gold chain on his chest. It was a five-shot .22-caliber pistol
so small that a police officer once missed it during a pat-down search.

For more than a dozen years, Don Chuy was buying and selling
marijuana and cocaine in El Paso, New Mexico and as far away as Canada.

For all his flamboyance, Don Chuy was not real. Don Chuy was actually
the role of Jesus "Chuy" Carrillo, an undercover special agent with
the U.S. Border Patrol.

Carrillo, 66, has been retired for years. U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes,
D-Texas, honored him Friday with a proclamation. Reyes once was
Carrillo's boss on the Border Patrol.

Carrillo's career highlighted a competition among federal agencies.
It also brought the pain of unproven corruption allegations and the
dangers of the drug war.

In 1996, a Juarez drug cartel hit squad was arrested near Carrillo's
El Paso home with orders to kidnap him, take him to Juarez and skin him alive.

Carrillo described his experiences during a recent interview in his
living room, which is decorated with family photos, badges and
plaques. In 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno gave him an award for
excellence in law enforcement.

Carrillo was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States.
After volunteering for the U.S. Army and serving in the Vietnam War,
he joined the U.S. Border Patrol in 1971.

By the mid-1980s, Carrillo was working undercover, infiltrating
immigrant smuggling rings that also trafficked drugs. Many of the
investigations were with New Mexico State Police.

He would hang out in the cantinas of West Texas and Southern New
Mexico, rough bars where a man could get beaten just for wearing a
Border Patrol cap. He did not drink, so he would secretly flush his
beer in the restroom. Deals came slowly.

"We started buying 5 pounds here, 50 pounds there, 100 pounds there.
It started in little amounts and it went from there," he said.

Long hair and earrings were for penny street dealers, not Don Chuy.
Don Chuy, who did not speak English, was a Mexican high roller.

"I never dressed down," Carrillo said. "The way I saw it, if you are
all raggedy with a beard and long hair they are not going to sell you
$100,000 worth of drugs.

"Once they started saying 'Don Chuy,' they are already putting
themselves down to me," he said of his moniker. Don is a term of respect.

An actor in a dangerous play, Carrillo played Don Chuy, Fernando Rey,
Emilio Canales and other aliases -- each with his own wallet,
identification cards and back story.

"The minute he put that (cowboy) hat on he was a different person,"
said Jesusita Carrillo, his wife of 45 years.

It was stressful being the wife of an undercover agent. "After (DEA
agent Enrique) Kiki Camarena was killed, I would cry all day thinking
about him (her husband) being tortured," she said.

With a cell phone, the undercover deception got more elaborate. He
would call telephone numbers found in the wallets of arrested drug
suspects and hustle more deals and more busts.

Carrillo would alter his voice to become different people. He
mimicked the speech of an elderly man and a woman -- his wife.

"It was my dad but it was like different person," said son Carlos
Carrillo, a retired El Paso police detective. "Sometimes you would be
in a restaurant eating and he would be (answering a phone) 'Bueno!'
It was embarrassing."

According to lengthy files kept by his family, Chuy Carrillo
confiscated more than $57 million in drugs during his career.

"I was so used to working, going 100 miles per hour," Carrillo said.
"It got to the point informants would call me. 'I got a 50-pound
deal.' I didn't want that. I wanted the big ones."

The Carrillo family said his success spawned "professional jealousy"
from other federal agencies.

Bad feelings emerged, Jesus Carrillo said, after an encounter to
arrange a deal between Don Chuy and a banker. Don Chuy and two
bodyguards met with the banker and a woman, who would translate, in
the Jack in the Box restaurant at Fox Plaza.

Carrillo recalled that the banker was using vile language and
appeared overeager. He was suspicious.

"He was trying too hard. 'When are we going to do the operation?'
(the banker said). Those are words that bankers don't use. Those were
words used by law enforcement," Carrillo said.

Don Chuy, the border tough guy, told the woman to translate a line of
Spanish obscenities that could not run in a family newspaper.

The banker got nervous, especially when Don Chuy began checking for a
wire. There was no deal.

Don Chuy walked out, got into his truck, drove around the parking lot
until he saw two men sitting in a car. He stopped behind them and
wrote down their license plate. He circled them three times before
stopping his truck front-to-front with their vehicle and began
laughing before driving away. The agents were with the DEA.

Carrillo said rumors soon started circulating from DEA that he was a
dirty cop. He was never charged and the allegations never proven, but
the stain still haunts him.

"When I became a U.S. citizen, I knew I would never embarrass this
country. I would never embarrass the Border Patrol. It hurts so much
for them to talk bad about me," Carrillo said.

Things would turn for the worse in July 1996. Juarez drug cartel hit
men trailed Carrillo for two weeks, watching his home and following
him to the store.

One day, two men rang the doorbell to his home trying to sell his
wife a vacuum cleaner and asking if her husband was home.

The FBI had bugged the hit men's van while also doing an
investigation of corruption allegations against Carrillo. An FBI SWAT
team arrested the hit men at a park near the Carrillo home. All the
while Carrillo did not know about the threat.

Soon, a man called Carrillo's home phone, asked for Chuy and in
Spanish told Carrillo he had won the lottery. He gave him a pager
number in San Antonio to call. The caller told him that he owed the
cartel $800,000.

The caller said he knew Carrillo was a federal agent. Carrillo told
him any money or drugs the cartel had lost was because of a legitimate bust.

When Carrillo told his Border Patrol supervisors about the call, he
was ushered into a meeting room with FBI agents, Border Patrol
supervisors and DEA officials. They finally told him about the threat
on his life.

"It gets me. All these guys were doing surveillance but nobody told
me so I could protect my family," Carrillo said.

Jesus and Jesusita Carrillo were given a few hours to pack and leave
El Paso. Carrillo's supervisor at the Border Patrol provided
protection when they stayed in a motel. The family said Border Patrol
brass didn't do enough to protect one of their own. Members of the El
Paso police SWAT team guarded Carlos Carrillo's home.

After the attempted hit, Jesus Carrillo was transferred to a desk job
in Dallas. El Paso was too risky.

After retiring from the Border Patrol, he worked investigations with
a top security clearance for 18 months at the U.S. Embassy in South
Korea, he said.

Newspaper archives about the arrest of the hit men describe Carrillo
as "a Lower Valley man." There was no mention he was a federal agent.
The hit men -- who would have been paid $1,000 and apparently did not
know he was a U.S. agent -- were convicted in federal court and sent to prison.

The contract was allegedly placed by a reputed Juarez narco named
Gustavo Payan. His whereabouts are unknown.

The Carrillos returned to their El Paso home a few years ago. The
retired agent's career fills boxes of photos, documents and recordings.

"I'm still armed all the time," Carrillo said. "I have concerns about
the safety of my wife and family and I am constantly aware of my
surroundings. (But) I can't run anymore."

Jesusita Carrillo wipes tears from her cheeks when talking about the
accusations, fear and anger her family experienced. Jesus Carrillo,
whose mild-mannered appearance masks his undercover personage of Don
Chuy, has mixed feelings.

"I don't hate the Border Patrol but I think some people made
mistakes," he said. "I love the green uniform."