Day 1 - Part 1: South Texas Trafficking - Anatomy Of A Pipeline

PIPELINE PUMPS IN DRUGS

Majority Of Border Seizures Occur In S. Texas

KINGSVILLE - The 53-year-old grandmother and her co-worker pulled up to the
Border Patrol checkpoint as they had done several times before, carrying
the Bible they hoped would protect the 73 pounds of marijuana sitting in a
hidden compartment of their sedan.

Their boss had told his stable of drug runners - and they believed it -
that carrying the Bible and vials of holy water, and playing gospel music
on the tape deck, would protect them from a search by the stern- faced
agents and the drug dogs waiting for them at the checkpoint.

But about 150 miles away in McAllen, their boss - a 39-year-old evangelical
minister named Gabriel Rolando Rodriguez - had no idea his carefully
constructed drug empire was about to collapse.

With a crew of about 20 drug runners making regular trips to Houston,
well-established sources in Mexico and buyers as far away as St. Louis,
Mo., Rodriguez ran a solid, if unspectacular, drug operation. Since 1992 he
had been moving 100 to 150 pounds of marijuana a week, never loading up his
runners with much more than 75 pounds because he didn't want to risk losing
more than that much if the cargo was seized.

Through numerous other organizations like Rodriguez's, officials estimate
millions of pounds of drugs are smuggled north on South Texas highways each
year. Fighting drugs is a job that employs thousands, both directly and
indirectly. Because of South Texas' geographic location, an entire
apparatus has been set up to deal with drugs, from the checkpoints, to
burgeoning prosecutors' offices to narcotics divisions in almost every law
enforcement agency.

And because of the region's location on one of the world's largest drug
pipelines - estimates are that more than 62 percent of the drugs seized
along the Mexican border flow through South Texas - drugs are likely more
prevalent here than in other parts of the country.

Rodriguez's drugs were moved north on U.S. Highways 281 and 77, passing
through the Falfurrias and Sarita Border Patrol checkpoints.

"The whole thing about running dope is getting through the checkpoints,"
said Jaime Garza, commander of the South Texas Specialized Crimes and
Narcotics Task Force.

Cmdr. Brian Uhler, of the Corpus Christi Police Department's special
services division, said the city sees a greater influx of drugs just
because of its proximity to the border and drug highways.

"The accessibility of drugs is there, but also, the price is significantly
lower in our region," he said.

Once through the checkpoint, the value of the drugs balloons.

"When you consider the low cost of marijuana in the Valley, the cost goes
up in fairly significant increments as you pass the Sarita and Falfurrias
checkpoints," said assistant U.S. attorney Eric Reed.

Classic Valley Conspiracy

Rodriguez, who left school after the 10th grade, was one of many
independent drug lords working out of the Rio Grande Valley, each carving
out a chunk of the drug trade. With demand for their cocaine, marijuana,
methamphetamine and heroin so high, the field was wide open, drug agents say.

"(The Rodriguez organization) is kind of the classic Valley pipeline
marijuana conspiracy," Reed said. "It was kind of low-tech, they moved
relatively smaller quantities in increments."

Like many organizations, it was sewn together with family ties. His brother
Jose owned a used refrigerator store in Houston, used to help launder the
group's money. His wife, Norma Alicia Rodriguez, has pleaded guilty to
drug-smuggling charges, as has his 23-year-old son, Gabriel Alejandro Mejia.

The Rodriguez organization often used middle-aged women in ordinary looking
cars to smuggle their dope. While using unlikely suspects - senior
citizens, families with young children - is nothing new for smugglers, the
Rodriguez group added a twist.

"A lot of trafficking organizations have different theories on how to
penetrate the Border Patrol checkpoints," Reed said. "Some have all kinds
of elaborate compartments. In this case, they didn't have that. They had
down-and-out drivers, and some were instructed to play religious music and
have a Bible on the front seat."

But on this trip, on April 7, 1998, the grandmother and her male
companion's luck and superstition failed them. One of the checkpoint's
famous drug-sniffing dogs began barking at the Nissan's backside, and the
couple was pulled over for a more detailed inspection. After removing the
sedan's rear quarter panel, agents found the marijuana bundles.

Same Old, Same Old

As the duty officer on April 7, 1998, Cris G. Pendleton was at the South
Texas Narcotics Taskforce headquarters, a mysterious, computer- filled
warren of offices, located in a fake "house" once used by the Central
Intelligence Agency.

When the call came from the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint south of Sarita,
Pendleton drove down U.S. Highway 77 thinking, "same old, same old." Such
busts were daily, sometimes hourly occurrences at South Texas checkpoints.

Although officials say it's hard to pinpoint what percentage of illegal
drugs comes up U.S. Highways 77 and 281, the Drug Enforcement
Administration reported in 1999 that 64 percent of the drugs seized within
the country came from South Texas.

The Border Patrol checkpoints along those highways dwarf the nation's other
checkpoints in terms of drug seizures.

In 2000, agents at the Falfurrias checkpoint on U.S. Highway 281 seized
more cocaine and marijuana than all the checkpoints in Arizona and
California combined. In the past year, the Sarita and Falfurrias
checkpoints have seized more than 150,000 pounds of marijuana and more than
8,000 pounds of cocaine, worth more than $375 million.

Want To Talk?

Such numbers don't take into account the drugs seized by the police
departments, sheriff's departments, Department of Public Safety units and
narcotics taskforces along the highways.

Garza said drugs also flood north on the Intracoastal Waterway. "It's just
everywhere," he said. "We are inundated with this problem. It's so vast you
can't even imagine."

After the 73 pounds of marijuana were discovered, the man and woman were
taken to separate holding cells inside the checkpoint to await the arrival
of Pendleton.

When Pendleton arrived at the checkpoint, she sat down with the woman and,
as drug agents do with almost every suspect, gave her a chance to save her
neck. Give us names, tell us who you work for, and you won't do time. To
Pendleton's pleasant surprise and to Rodriguez's later chagrin, the woman
wanted to talk.

"We have a saying," Garza said. "There are no friends in drugs."

Sitting in her cell, the woman had thought this day might come. Despite the
vials of holy water, the Bible, the Christian music, she knew she couldn't
tempt fate forever.

So she had quietly prepared.

She kept a ledger of phone numbers, names, vehicle registrations.
Information that would be poisonous to her organization, but which would
keep her from the penitentiary.

Pendleton would spend the next two years corroborating the information the
woman gave her, as the case against Rodriguez and his organization
mushroomed to include the DEA, the Internal Revenue Service and the
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Taskforce.

The Blessed One

Through interviews, matching up phone records and vehicle registrations,
and general snooping, the structure of the organization began to emerge.

"It just so happened the light shined on a lot of things," said Pendleton,
who was awarded a citation by the DEA and the U.S. Attorney's Office for
her work on the case. "You put the puzzle together."

During the investigation, agents learned Rodriguez and his siblings ran the
tight-knit organization, in which the marijuana was moved from various
properties in the Valley to Houston, where it was stored and repackaged for
eventual redistribution. Rodriguez bought two homes with drug money, using
them to stash marijuana and money. Rodriguez and other family members also
used businesses in the Valley and Houston to launder money, including a
used car lot in Alamo, appropriately named "El Bendecido" or the Blessed One.

"He had it set up so well, that if he couldn't supply the demand his
brother would," Pendleton said. "It was so well planned, we don't know of
an instance of violence."

Turning Testimony

But it was not planned well enough.

Once the evidence was compiled, agents fanned out across McAllen and
Houston to make arrests. Pendleton said that when officers arrived at
Rodriguez's McAllen home in an upper middle-class neighborhood he was sound
asleep.

"He said, 'What marijuana? I don't know what you're talking about,' "
Pendleton said.

But in his bedroom, agents found a mountain of paperwork - receipts and
files linking him to the smuggling ring and to his money- laundering scheme
through his front company, the El Bendecido auto dealership, and his
brother's used refrigerator shop in Houston.

Agents also found a ledger listing the sizes of hidden compartments in
various vehicles and how many marijuana bundles could fit in each one.
Perhaps most damning, they found videotapes of Rodriguez giving religious
testimony and admitting his guilt, Pendleton said.

Within a year, Rodriguez and 12 other members of his organization,
including his two brothers, had pleaded guilty to drug and money laundering
conspiracies.

According to court records from Rodriguez's October 2000 pleading in
Houston, he struck a deal with prosecutors to testify and give information
in the government's continuing investigation.

Rodriguez's conviction also led agents to the arrest of his suppliers, who
are scheduled to go on trial at the end of this year in Houston. The four
Valley men were indicted in April on charges of smuggling more than 1,000
kilograms of marijuana and money laundering. They face up to life in prison
if they are convicted.

No sentencing date has yet been set for Rodriguez, who continues to be an
evangelical minister and is in jail in Houston. The informant in the
Rodriguez case is living in Houston, but is not in the witness protection
program because she willingly volunteered to testify against the
organization, Pendleton said.

Independents

Garza said the Rodriguez organization is indicative of the groups that are
smuggling drugs through South Texas. Unlike on the Mexican side of the
border, where well-organized cartels run the drug business, groups on the
U.S. side tend to be smaller and more fragmented, he said.

"It's not so much straight cartels, it's the cells. Individual groups
trying to go out 'andas nickleando,' trying to get a nickel," Garza said.
"We (in the Coastal Bend) are kind of sheltered from the violence in the
Valley and Mexico."

Once the traffickers get their drugs to the border, they often turn to
independent smugglers who specialize in methods of transporting drugs, be
it truck, train or boat.

"If a cartel loses its transportation chief, maybe they'll look for one of
these experts," said one local drug agent. "Some cartels have it all
integrated."

1 Percent Caught

Garza takes what he calls a realistic view of the effect of law enforcement
on South Texas drug smuggling.

"For every one load we get, 100 get through," he said. "That's being modest."

Agustin Olivarez, an agent with the South Texas Specialized Crimes and
Narcotics Task Force, regularly patrols the well-worn corridor of U.S.
Highway 77. He estimates that one out of every 10 vehicles cruising
northward is carrying drugs, a staggering number considering the 10,000
vehicles authorities say travel north on the highway daily.

Garza likened the drug war to a dog chasing a car.

"We would all want to seize all the drugs in the world. That's every
narcotics officer's dreams. We know it's impossible, but we'll seize
everything we can," he said. "In 20 years, things will be different.
Whether they'll be worse or better, I can't say."