3,500 Fugitives Seized in 2-Nation Border Roundup

U.S. and Mexican authorities, federal marshals and officers representing 34 border law enforcement agencies from Texas to California have captured more than 3,500 suspected felons over the last eight weeks, Stanley E. Morris, director of the U.S. Marshals Service, announced Wednesday.

The sweep represented a first, if faltering, step toward bilateral cooperation in apprehending fugitives. American officers went into Mexico with Mexican federal police to arrest fugitives who had fled south across the border, and Mexican police worked alongside their U.S. counterparts to locate fugitives who had fled Mexico for the United States.

Fugitives arrested during the sweep included some who had been at large for as long as 15 years. Among those seized were 45 murder suspects, 25 alleged kidnapers, 82 suspected rapists and 734 fugitives charged with major narcotics violations.

Many were lured from hiding by a combination of what Morris termed “old-fashioned police work” and inventive ruses, in which investigators posed as letter carriers and pretended to give away tax refunds or trips to Las Vegas.

“This shows that fugitives can run, but they can’t hide from justice when law enforcement agencies work together,” Morris said at a press conference, flanked by officials from police agencies and prosecutors’ offices in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The operation--known as F.I.S.T., for Fugitive Investigative Strike Team--was the second largest of nine such roundups conducted by the Marshal’s Service since 1981. Only an 11-week sweep last year that netted more than 3,800 fugitives in Florida and the Caribbean eclipsed the border operation, according to Marshal’s Service spokesman Stephen Boyle.

Morris acknowledged that the number of fugitives snared through cross-border teamwork was unimpressive, but he stopped short of expressing disappointment with the level of Mexican cooperation in the roundup.

Mexican authorities, who loaned eight officers of the Federal Judicial Police to the operation, deported three American fugitives who had fled to Mexico, and the United States expelled two suspected murderers who were wanted in Mexico, Morris said. Investigators located about 60 additional fugitives in Mexico.

Stronger Ties

In a statement released Wednesday from Mexico City, Mexican Atty. Gen. Sergio Garcia Ramirez said Mexico is committed to “strengthening ties” with the United States to further “the capture of fugitives from justice on both sides of the border.”

The attempt at international teamwork came at a time when law officials in both countries have been trying to mend relationships strained by conflicts over the assault on drug trafficking and the investigation of the killing in Mexico last year of U.S. drug agent Enrique S. Camarena. Camarena, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, was kidnaped in Guadalajara in 1985 and later found dead there. Two Mexican drug traffickers, several of their deputies and three Mexican police officers are now in jail in Mexico on charges related to the slaying.

During the course of the recent fugitive sweep, a state prosecutor in Baja California filed kidnaping charges against four Mexican police officers who had carried a material witness in the Camarena case across the border into the hands of U.S. marshals. And just last week, U.S. and Mexican drug agencies were feuding over who should get credit for a record 2,455-pound cocaine bust in Tijuana.

Privately, U.S. officials said this week they were frustrated by the international arrest totals in the roundup, noting that the border states had been chosen as the focus of the sweep partly in anticipation of Mexican cooperation. But local U.S. police who deal regularly with their counterparts in Mexico said the results should not have come as much of a surprise to U.S. officials.

Congenial, Friendly

“They cooperate with us when it’s in their interest to do so, which isn’t very often. But they’re always congenial and friendly,” said Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, Ariz., which includes the greater Tucson area.

Morris noted that Garcia had pledged, after meetings this week in Cancun, Mexico, with U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, to step up collaboration along the border. A Mexican deputy attorney general also told Morris he was “optimistic” that Mexican federal authorities could see to it that suspects located in the sweep and arrested on state charges in Mexico are prosecuted.

As in previous roundups, a large percentage of those arrested in the $1.6-million border sweep--27%--won release from local jails after an initial court appearance; an even larger number were released from jail by the time the roundup was announced. Morris and other law enforcement officials Wednesday again called for tougher bail laws and increased spending on jails and prisons.

Back Onto the Street

“We’re just turning people back onto the street, which is very frustrating,” complained Assistant Police Chief Robert Burgreen of San Diego, where 40% of the arrested fugitives were freed from an overcrowded county jail after their first court appearances.

Investigators devised elaborate ruses to trick some of the fugitives. But the most successful was a simple scam that team members in San Diego called “Mr. Zip.”

“Mr. Zip” was Joseph Bruer Jr., a 33-year-old deputy marshal from Roanoke, Va. On Friday, he slipped a short-sleeved blue Postal Service shirt over his bulletproof vest and drove into Southeast San Diego, followed closely by fellow marshals, Joe Sprecco of the San Diego County marshal’s office and Charles Blandford of the Marshals Service in Washington.

Their quarry was Charles E. Brooks, 26, a narcotics offender wanted on two felony charges and six misdemeanors.

Bruer, a mailbag over his shoulder and a small package in his hand, walked up to the door of Brooks’ ranch-style house on a cul-de-sac. Blandford and Sprecco stayed out of sight.

As Bruer later recalled, a woman who answered the door said, “You’re early, aren’t you?”

Uses a Ruse

He told her he had an insured package for Brooks worth $100, but that Brooks would have to sign for it.

“She said, ‘Oh, my, $100!’ ” Bruer said. “That usually draws their curiosity out.”

Bruer tipped his postman’s blue cap--the agreed-upon signal--and Sprecco and Blandford rushed the house.

Brooks dashed out a side door, and then denied his identity after he was caught. Once handcuffed, though, Brooks admitted his name.

About 45 fugitives succumbed to the postal gambit. “One guy told me, ‘You can’t even trust the mailman,’ ” Bruer said.