ALL IN THE FAMILIA

Skip Ensley Was Never Happy About the Way His Police Career Ended. Then He
Got Married and Saw a Chance for Personal and Professional Redemption. His
New Wife Had Quite a Family, Including a Brother Who Was One of Mexico's
Leading Drug Lords. Skip Couldn't Wait to Tell the FBI, and for Most of the
Next 11 Years, He Tried to Bring His Brother-In-Law to Justice. but Things
Didn't Go According to Plan. Today, Skip Ensley Lives in Hiding and His
Brother-In-Law Seems to Be Doing Just Fine.

One Man's Dogged Pursuit Of His Drug Cartel In-laws

SKIP ENSLEY COULD NOT HAVE LOOKED MORE conspicuous standing outside a small
stone church on the outskirts of Culiacan in central Mexico one August
afternoon in 1987. Ruddy-faced behind a full, wiry beard, the beefy
6-foot-4 Ensley dwarfed the mourners who crowded around him, there to bury
Raul Valenzuela, slain at the age of 23, another casualty of the drug war.

He watched with a mixture of fear and fascination as the casket passed by,
borne by Raul's brothers and cousins, each with revolvers stuffed in their
belts. Ensley had come as a friend of the family - a brother-in-law, in
fact - but the Valenzuela clan could not guarantee his safety at the
cemetery, where the funeral procession would present an easy target for
rival traffickers. Ensley and his wife, Karen, chose to stay behind.

Still, Ensley felt a growing excitement, even a sense of mission, as the
smugglers' caravan made its way onto the rutted dirt road that led past the
church. Several years before, he'd been forced out of his first job, as a
police officer in Oregon, and had reluctantly left behind the ambitions of
a lifetime. Now, in the rugged highlands of Sinaloa, the coastal state that
is home to the most enterprising and ruthless smugglers in the Mexican drug
trade, Ensley had stumbled onto a case that could resurrect his career.

For the next 11 years, Ensley built his life around the pursuit of Luis
Valenzuela, the head of the family trafficking business and a ranking
lieutenant in the notorious Arellano-Felix drug cartel. Working primarily
with the FBI but also with the DEA and local authorities, Ensley socialized
with Valenzuela at family functions and enticed him into partnership
schemes, serving as a steady conduit for information on Valenzuela's
movements as he imported and distributed thousands of kilos of cocaine.
Over the course of his collaboration with the Southwest Border Task Force,
the FBI paid Ensley more than $30,000 in fees and expenses.

It was a bargain for the government. Tracking Valenzuela opened a window on
the single largest cartel moving drugs across America's border with Mexico.
In 1997, a decade after the funeral for Raul Valenzuela, the investigation
moved into high gear. The task force monitored Luis and his organization
through extensive wiretaps, a phone bank of interpreters, and a team of
more than 10 officers and agents. Over the next 18 months, agents
confiscated nearly 4 tons of cocaine and more than $15 million in cash. As
the totals mounted, Ensley looked forward to a personal windfall, based on
government assurances that he would collect a bounty of 10 percent of all
the seized currency.

Operation Rio Blanco culminated in June 1998 with the arrest of Jorge
Castro, a Valenzuela associate identified by the U.S. Attorney's Office as
"one of the highest-level narcotraffickers ever arrested in the United
States." But just as Ensley prepared to celebrate, he found himself
abandoned. Luis Valenzuela and most of his associates escaped the
government dragnet, and Ensley's cover as an informant was blown.

Rather than collect the $1 million-plus he figured should be his reward,
Ensley was advised by the FBI to lease a recreational vehicle and go into
hiding. The government initially sent him monthly checks of $5,000, but the
funds soon dwindled, to $2,000, then to zero. Ensley has been on the lam
ever since. The agents he worked with stopped returning his phone calls,
and his wife's family shunned him. Most galling to Ensley, Luis Valenzuela
himself continued to ply his trade.

This summer, Ensley filed a lawsuit against the FBI, claiming the
government bilked him out of his just rewards. His work for the task force
is documented in sworn statements made by federal agents to support wiretap
applications, but the lawsuit stands on shaky ground, as federal agencies
enjoy extensive legal privileges. Still, Ensley said he sued as a means to
express his umbrage, at how he was treated personally, and over the
government's failure to arrest Luis Valenzuela. "Not only did they not do
what they said they would do for us, but they didn't work hard enough on
this case," Ensley said during one of several interviews with the Weekly.

Ensley may also simply have trouble accepting defeat. Almost from the
moment he met him, Ensley considered Luis Valenzuela his ticket to personal
and professional redemption. Ensley invested his time, his standing within
his family, much of his energy and all of his aspirations into what he
terms the case of a lifetime. But the high-stakes world of the drug trade
proved a tough place to find salvation. Ensley tried to play the game by
his own rules, only to wind up frustrated, alienated and alone. Said a
close friend who watched the whole affair transpire, "If I was Skip, I'd go
find a hole and crawl into it."

SKIP ENSLEY KEEPS A PHOTO OF HIS father hanging on the wall in the jumbled
office in the suburban home he shares with his wife, Karen, three dogs and
a cat. The photo dates from the 1950s, when Ensley's dad was an officer
with the Corona, California, Police Department. Avery D. Ensley is pictured
in a drab olive uniform, slim and almost boyish, his hat cocked, his face
lit by a wry smile.

The photo is a timepiece, harking back to days when crooks were smalltime
and cops walked with an easy swagger. It says a lot about how the younger
Ensley likes to see the world, and something about how he fell out of sync
with the Southwest Border Task Force. Most cops are committed people who
identify with their work and believe in it, but Skip - he shares his
father's name, but he never uses it - seems to take it to an extreme, like
someone afraid you won't believe him.

He keeps the evidence in plain view. Aside from the photo of his dad, the
walls near his desk are crowded with snapshots of Skip in various uniforms
and Skip in undercover guise - on a motorcycle, by a pool table in a bar.
They share space with badges, framed certificates and ID cards. It would
pass for collected memorabilia, but it might also suggest a certain degree
of obsession, especially considering his dogged quest to arrest the
trafficker who now haunts him.

Outside the confines of his office, Ensley is always quick to make it clear
where he's coming from. "I felt he carried his badge on his shoulder all
the time," said Dick Volkman, a newspaper editor who got to know Ensley in
the middle 1990s. "He was very much into the culture of law enforcement."

His friends describe Ensley as "a very driven person," so driven that "I
don't know why his wife puts up with it." Skip himself has a ready
explanation for what goads him. Of his drive to land work as a police
officer, he said, "I had to do that for my own sense of who I was." Of his
pursuit of Luis Valenzuela: "I asked myself, how am I to honor my father's
memory?"

Skip Ensley started hanging around police stations before he started
shaving, tagging along with his dad, and with his stepmother, who he says
was the first female police officer ever sworn to duty in California. By
the time he was 14 years old, Skip was filling in weekend shifts as a
dispatch operator. He laughs as he recalls watching through a peephole
while detectives conducted interviews - "This was back before civil
rights." And he learned to admire his dad's ability to rationalize and
dissemble. "He could talk his way into or out of anything," Ensley said.

It's a trait that Ensley's father passed on to his son. "Skip is a real
talker," said one former cop who's kept in touch for more than 20 years.
"He calls, and he tells me his stories. I don't say a whole lot. I just
listen." Some regard Ensley's stories with skepticism. As Volkman put it,
"He always had some tall tale of what he had accomplished."

The wall of words, and the constant element of doubt, make Ensley hard to
pin down. He talks a lot about principles - "I thought people in law
enforcement were supposed to keep their word," he groused at one point -
but his own record includes a 1987 judgment against him for back child
support. And he complains about "all the times they put me in danger," but
freely admits prodding the FBI to authorize risky, solo trips to Mexico.

Still, the bluster and the easy self-assurance made Ensley a natural for
working undercover. He's changeable, brave to the point of reckless, and
relentless. "He just keeps on going," said his longtime friend, describing
Ensley's ability to ingratiate himself with potential targets. "He can take
a lot of abuse and a lot of rejection, and he doesn't even realize it's
rejection."

Ensley learned another lesson from his father that helped prepare him for
the treacherous business of befriending, and then betraying, the subjects
of criminal investigation. "My father always told me, there are no sacred
cows," Ensley said.

Skip demonstrated what that mantra meant to him during his first stint as a
police officer, in Brookings, Oregon, a small coastal town just north of
the California border. His father was up visiting and had driven out on his
own to find a bar. Late that evening, Skip got a call at home - a fellow
officer had stopped Ensley senior for driving under the influence; as a
favor, the officer called to let Skip handle the transgression. Skip donned
his uniform, headed out to the scene, took a look at his father and
promptly placed him under arrest. "No sacred cows," Ensley said as he
recounted the tale. "Dad taught me that, and it was good enough for me."

But if Ensley modeled himself after his father, his career in law
enforcement took a more tortuous path. Around 1982, after eight years on
the job, Ensley left Oregon under a cloud. "He was asked to leave or he
would have been terminated," said Ken Owens, a fellow patrol officer with
Ensley and now the county sheriff there. "There was an allegation that he
was romantically involved with a young dispatcher. It was one of those kind
of departures."

Asked about why he left his first job, Ensley offered a slightly different
version. "I took a job in California where I could make a little more
money," he said first. Told that Owens said he was forced out, Ensley said,
"It was my choice to leave." Then he added, "I didn't have a problem with
the department. I had a problem with a young lady at the time, but I didn't
have a problem with the department."

Ensley said the "problem" grew out of a "misunderstanding" - "The young
lady was attracted to me" - but said he'd proved his innocence. Still, the
incident cast a pall over Ensley's future in law enforcement. Even today,
Owens regards Ensley with mistrust. "You either have personal integrity or
you don't," Owens said. "I wouldn't hire him, and I wouldn't give him a
recommendation anywhere else."

THE INTERNAL STRIFE AT the Brookings P.D. knocked Ensley out of law
enforcement and all the way back to Southern California, where he took a
job in construction and set about rebuilding his life. By 1987, at 45 years
of age, he'd been promoted to foreman, married his boss's daughter and
settled down for a life of middle-class tranquillity.

Fate intervened in the most innocent garb. Karen Ensley had a younger
sister, and she had a husband, Casiano Valenzuela, a recent immigrant from
Mexico. When Casiano broke his leg in a traffic accident, he lost his job;
Skip lent a hand, hiring Casiano as a dispatcher despite his broken
English. Casiano was earnest and cheerful, and over the next six months the
two developed a close bond. It was all in the family.

Toward the end of July, Casiano approached his brother-in-law with a
problem. There'd been a shooting involving the Upland police and Casiano's
brother Raul. Perhaps Skip, as an ex-police officer, could look into it.

The Upland police told Ensley that a narcotics task force had arranged for
an undercover buy. The meeting took place just after midnight at a stash
house. Something went wrong and, according to officers, the dealer went for
his gun. The cop shot three times, and Raul Valenzuela was dead. He had
Mexican and American currency in his pocket. His blood showed traces of
cocaine.

Ensley relayed the details to Casiano, and helped the family arrange for
Raul's body to be shipped back to Mexico for burial. A week later, Ensley
made the trip with his wife, Karen, to Mexico. They flew to Puerto
Vallarta, where they were met by Casiano and his wife, Karen's sister
Kathleen. From there the Ensleys traveled overland, traversing the coastal
foothills of the Sierra Madre range to Culiacan. There Ensley learned what
most Mexicans already knew: Sinaloa is the seat of the Mexican drug world.

The roots of the trade go back to the late 1800s, when Sinaloan farmers
began cultivating opium poppies. When marijuana came into vogue in the
1960s, Sinaloan ranchers raised the stuff and shipped it. When cocaine
emerged as the drug of choice, Sinaloa became the favored staging area for
the Colombian cartels. In law-enforcement circles, Culiacan was dubbed
"little Medellin."

With its long tradition and clear economic interest, Sinaloa dispensed
early on with whatever moral dilemmas the trade might hold. The unofficial
patron saint of the region is Jesus Malverde, a bandit and smuggler killed
by the rural police in 1909. Regarded as a sort of Mexican Robin Hood,
Malverde is venerated by such titles as El Bandito Generoso, El Angel de
los Pobres and El Narcosante - the Big Drug Saint. A two-story chapel is
maintained in his memory near the rail yards in Culiacan, and statues of
Malverde are sold in the town square.

Before heading back to the States, Casiano took Ensley on a tour of the
family holdings. Along the way, Casiano pointed out an open-sided metal
building containing large tables with heat lamps hanging over them. To one
side, Casiano lifted the corner of a tarpaulin to show pallets stacked with
kilos of cocaine ready for shipping. As Ensley recalls, "He was letting me
know what a big man his brother was in the community there."

What Ensley realized then, and as federal agents were to document years
later, was that the Valenzuelas were a classic Sinaloan smuggling clan.
Each of the brothers was involved in the business, each with his own role.
Ramon was "dumb as a post," according to Ensley, so he stayed in Mexico and
arranged for shipments north. Tony provided muscle, Ensley said. And Luis
was the boss.

He wasn't the eldest of the Valenzuelas, but Luis had the will and the
smarts to push the family into the forefront of the trafficking scene.
Five-and-a-half-feet tall, afflicted with a limp due to a hip condition he
shared with his brothers, Luis could be charming and gracious in the
classic Mexican style, but he also had a sudden and volatile temper. One
story related in whispers around the family holds that, when Luis' wife,
Rocio, learned that Raul had been slain, she went to her husband and
implored him to leave the drug trade. As Ensley tells it, "Luis stood up,
made a fist and knocked out all her teeth." Valenzuela could be generous,
but he could also be fearsome.