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Tijuana Anti-Drug Office Shutdown
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20030112-9999_1m12...
By Anna Cearley
January 12, 2003
TIJUANA ? Members of a Mexican federal anti-narcotics squad were detained and their office abruptly closed Friday night after soldiers found almost
five tons of unreported marijuana in their building.
According to the Mexican Attorney General's Office, at least seven agents with the group known by its Spanish acronym FEADS were being questioned, as
well as two civilians who are believed to be linked to the 1,897 packets of drugs.
The civilians had apparently been held at the group's office for three days, a federal law enforcement source said.
The agents never notified the Mexican Attorney General's Office of the drug find as required, prompting speculation that they were working for a
drug-trafficking group.
The Fiscalia Especializada para la Atencion de Delitos Contra la Salud, the special prosecutor's office for attention to crimes against health. The
FEADS office is Mexico's equivalent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It was formed in 1997 to replace another federal drug-fighting squad
that was disbanded after its agents were found to be working for drug traffickers.
Cartels try to form alliances with law enforcement agents to streamline the passage of drugs into the United States. The Arellano F?lix drug cartel,
which has traditionally dominated the Baja California border, has been particularly adept at cultivating these ties. But since the arrest and death of
two of the Arellano brothers last year, other groups have attempted to muscle into the region and create their own police links.
The military found the marijuana when soldiers were doing a routine check of firearms and security measures at the FEADS' Tijuana headquarters,
according to a news release issued yesterday by the Mexican Attorney General's Office.
However, the federal law enforcement source said the military was tipped off about the drugs.
By Friday evening, dozens of soldiers had surrounded the group's Tijuana office, an inconspicuous gray building on Boulevard de las Bellas Artes, five
blocks west of the Otay Mesa border crossing. No injuries or shootings were reported.
Soldiers remained stationed around the building yesterday. A soldier said no one was inside and no one was permitted to enter.
The federal law enforcement source said about 15 agents operated out of the Tijuana office, including the commander, Miguel Angel Uribe, who is said
to be among the seven detained.
The five-year-old FEADS has had its martyrs. In 2000, three FEADS agents who were investigating the Arellano cartel were tortured and slain, their
deaths masked as a traffic accident. The agents' work had led to the detention of Jes?s Labra Aviles, one of the cartel's top lieutenants. Their
deaths drew attention on both sides of the border, because the agents were known and respected by U.S. authorities.
But the Mexican Attorney General's Office has apparently grown concerned that FEADS is becoming too insular. Just days ago the office made a point of
reminding its agents that they must report their activities to the federal attorney general's offices in each state.
Mexico has continued creating drug-fighting forces ? and disbanding others ? in an effort to keep its police force clean. President Vicente Fox, faced
with the same dilemma, has created two such agencies during his two-year-old administration.
The Polic?a Federal Preventiva, or Federal Preventive Police, is an intelligence-gathering group that reports to the Secretary of Public Security, a
cabinet post. The force's investigations contributed last year to the discovery of a tunnel used to move drugs into the United States.
The Agencia Federal de Investigacion, or AFI, stands for the Federal Agency of Investigation, and it's sometimes compared to the U.S. Federal Bureau
of Investigation. Like FEADS, it falls under the Mexican Attorney General's Office.
At least a dozen AFI agents were apparently flown in from Mexico City yesterday to investigate the FEADS case.
"I don't know why they keep on creating more groups rather than create one that has less corruption," said Victor Clark, a Tijuana-based human-rights
activist who follows the underworld.
"They haven't been able to eradicate drug trafficking, and now the police are divided into many groups and that gives the drug traffickers more
options to work with."
Though the military has been taking a greater role in combating drug trafficking, most notably in last year's arrest of Benjam?n Arellano in Puebla
state, it hasn't been immune from corruption.
Gen. Alfredo Navarro Lara, now imprisoned, was working on behalf of the Arellano cartel in 1997 when he offered a $1 million bribe to the head of the
federal Attorney General's Office in Baja California, who turned it down. Navarro said he had been threatened and pressured by the cartel.
That same year, Mexico's drug czar, Gen. Jes?s Gutierrez Rebollo, who headed the agency that FEADS later replaced, was arrested after officials said
he had received protection money from a drug trafficking group headed by Amado Carrillo. Carrillo, now deceased, was a bitter enemy of the Arellanos.
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Head of anti-drug office in custody
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20030113-9999_1m13d...
By Sandra Dibble
January 13, 2003
TIJUANA ? Two alleged traffickers have claimed that federal anti-drug agents solicited a $2 million bribe in exchange for their liberty and the return
of nearly 5 tons of marijuana, Mexican authorities said yesterday.
Miguel Uribe, the head of the federal anti-narcotics squad in Tijuana, known by its Spanish-language acronym, FEADS, is among the six agents in
custody. An administrative employee is also under arrest.
Soldiers from Tijuana's 28th Infantry Battalion remained in control yesterday of the agency's offices near the Otay Mesa border crossing, which were
seized Friday in a surprise raid.
Yesterday, soldiers also stood guard outside the offices of the Mexican Attorney General's Office, or PGR, in the city's Rio Zone, where the accused
FEADS agents were being held.
The military's presence "represents security, confidence, and coordination with the Attorney General's Office," said Jos? J. Campos Murillo, a deputy
attorney general. "We are making sure that public servants fully comply with their function as public servants."
The case is calling additional attention to corruption in Mexico's drug-fighting forces. The anti-drug agents were arrested Friday after a tip that
they had not reported the seizure of the marijuana and the arrest of the alleged traffickers, Othoniel D?az Garc?a and Jaime D?az Garc?a.
According to a statement released yesterday by the PGR and Mexico's Defense Secretariat, the agents face charges of extortion, drug trafficking and
illegal imprisonment. They will be automatically expelled from FEADS, Mexico's equivalent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, once charges
are filed.
FEADS stands for Fiscalia Especializada para la Atencion de Delitos Contra la Salud, or the special prosecutor's office for attention to crimes
against health. It was created in 1997 as a special drug-fighting unit within the Attorney General's Office.
But in Tijuana, one of Mexico's major drug-trafficking centers, FEADS defied an order by Mexico's attorney general that the agency submit to
supervision by the head of the Attorney General's Office in the city.
This is not the first time that the FEADS office in Tijuana has encountered controversy. A former FEADS commander in Tijuana, Cesar Jimenez Reyes, is
behind bars in Mexico's maximum security La Palma Penitentiary, accused of working with members of the Arellano Felix drug cartel.
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