Work for Drug Traffickers Suspected

By Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, Jan. 29 -- Thirteen Mexican state police officers are being questioned and four more are being sought in connection with the killings of 11 people found buried at a house used by drug traffickers in this border city, federal officials said Thursday.

The officers, including a state police commander, are suspected of conspiring with drug traffickers in what the federal government's top organized-crime prosecutor called an "extreme breakdown" of law enforcement in Chihuahua state.

"Instead of protecting and guaranteeing the safety of the population, they are openly working with organized crime," Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, the deputy attorney general, said of the police. "This is serious, and we are not going to tolerate it."

Human rights advocates and citizens groups have complained for years that violent drug cartels operate with virtual impunity here because of their illicit ties to police. But high-ranking officials have rarely acknowledged the problem so bluntly.

Attorney General Rafael Macedo de La Concha said Thursday that everyone questioned so far had implicated police officers in the killings. He promised a "full investigation" and said, "We will get to where we need to get to."

Three people were arrested Tuesday and charged with helping in the killing of the 11 men, who were found suffocated or shot in what police described as violence either within a drug gang or between rival gangs.

Alejandro Garcia Cardenas, whose wife reportedly rented the house where the bodies were found, was arrested with his wife and son as they tried to flee over the border into El Paso. Vasconcelos said Garcia Cardenas confessed that he had helped with numerous killings since January 2003, acting on orders from drug trafficker Humberto Santillan Tabares and a state police commander who was working with him.

Santillan was arrested earlier this month in El Paso on drug charges, Mexican officials said.

Vasconcelos said Garcia Cardenas told investigators there were more undiscovered bodies, prompting authorities to search at least six other houses here. Vasconcelos said Garcia Cardenas was cooperating with investigators "because he preferred going to jail than to the grave,"
indicating that he knew the drug gang was "looking to kill him."

The corruption allegations against the police are "not a surprise at all," said Lorenza Benavides, co-director of the Association of Relatives and Friends of Disappeared
People, a Juarez group that represents the families of nearly 200 men said to have disappeared since 1993. Benavides said most of the men were last seen with police,
who she suspects abducted and possibly killed them. She said the motives were unclear.

"We almost feel that it should not just be called corruption, it's actually protection of the criminals," she said. "We see local, state and federal police protecting these
people. And we have never, ever seen anything done to stop it."

Police corruption has been a key factor in the violence and lawlessness increasingly apparent in this city of 1.2 million people. In addition to being home to an infamous
drug cartel bearing its name, Juarez has gained international notoriety because of the violent deaths of more than 300 women in the past decade, about 100 of whom died
in rape-homicides that analysts say fit the pattern of a serial killer.

Rights groups from around the world, along with the families of the victims, have repeatedly charged that corrupt and inept police have botched investigations, destroyed
evidence and tried to pin the crimes on innocent scapegoats.

State officials, led by Chihuahua's governor, Patricio Martinez, have vigorously defended their performance, triggering further complaints and marches. Members of the
U.S. Congress have visited Juarez to protest, and Mexican news media reported this week that actresses Jane Fonda, Sally Field and Christine Lahti plan a visit next
month to add their voices.

Rights groups have demanded that President Vicente Fox order federal officials to take over the investigations. Although the case has been a major embarrassment for
Fox, he has resisted taking it over, noting that murder is a state crime under Mexican law. The federal government, looking for ways to prosecute, has now taken
jurisdiction in 25 cases that include violations of federal law.

Since Fox took office in 2000, federal officials have fired numerous federal customs agents, police officers and other law enforcement agents suspected of corruption.
Many federal agencies are now using new background checks and polygraph screenings. Elite anti-organized crime units have been created in the attorney general's
office, the police and the military.

But corruption continues to surface. Los Zetas, a military unit formed to combat drug traffickers, switched its allegiance and now provides guards and assassins for drug
cartels, according to prosecutors. Police are routinely found to be collaborating with organized criminals.

Mauro Conde, spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general's office, said about 300 Chihuahua state police officers have been fired in the past two years for
offenses ranging from general misconduct to kidnapping.

"In order to professionalize, we have to eliminate the elements that cause doubts about the police force and its work," Conde said. He said many officers are "blinded" by
the huge amounts of money they are offered to cooperate with drug traffickers. He said others are simply intimidated by drug dealers who offer them a choice:
Cooperate or be killed.

Sullivan reported from Mexico City.

                                               © 2004