Stingers May Have Been Stung in U. S. Drug Bust of Mexicans

The U. S. drug investigation designed to expose corruption among top Mexican officials ended in a La Jolla supermarket parking lot.

The undercover agents posing as drug dealers had turned over half a million dollars in cash. The group of Mexicans and Bolivians had offered their government connections; one of them even dressed in the uniform of a Mexican army colonel.

The trade was supposed to be money for drug protection.

Instead, the federal agents revealed their true identities and made the arrests. Officials with the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration and U. S. Customs announced the big bust, warning that the “corruption of Mexican officials facilitates the flow of drugs” into the United States.

True Identity Questioned

But now, a year later and three weeks into a lengthy and complex trial in U. S. District Court, a key question emerging out of the case is whether any of the defendants were indeed Mexican officials at all.

And, if they were not, then the U. S. drug agents almost became victims of their own ruse because the bogus Mexican officials were trying to rip off the drug agents they thought were drug dealers.

The man with the answers may be Charles J. Pilliod, U. S. ambassador to Mexico.

In comments after last year’s arrests, Pilliod said Mexican authorities assured him that none of the defendants was a current Mexican government or military official. He even went further, and described the drug agents’ undercover operation by saying: “We stung a sting.”

On Monday afternoon, defense attorneys and an assistant U. S. attorney will argue over whether Pilliod should be compelled to appear in court here under subpoena to, the defense hopes, clear up once and for all whether:

- Jorge Carranza Peniche was or is a retired Mexican army colonel.

- Pablo Giron Ortiz was or is a commandant in the Mexican Federal Judicial Police.

- Hector Manuel Brumel Alvarez ever served as a Mexican government official with ties to the country’s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Cynthia Aaron, an attorney representing Carranza who is requesting Pilliod’s testimony, said Friday that the defendants posed as Mexican officials to dupe the drug agents posing as drug dealers out of $500,000.

Reverse Sting?

“It’s a reverse sting,” she said. “That’s exactly what we have here.”

But Stephen Nelson, the assistant U. S. attorney prosecuting the case, is not so sure.

He said Friday he told the jury in his opening statement that several of the defendants did, in fact, travel in government and military circles in Mexico City.

“They were playing themselves,” he said. “They had the connections. And they produced exactly what they said they could produce.”

One thing is clear: The U. S. government investigation had a dual purpose. The DEA wanted to explore the extent of corruption involving illegal drugs within the Mexican government. And the agency also wanted to penetrate high-level drug cartels in South America.

“It was kind of a two-prong approach,” Nelson said.

Aaron agreed. “The case initiation file from the DEA said the goal was to expose corrupt Mexican and South American officials involved in the cultivation, distribution and manufacturing of controlled substances,” she said.

To set up their sting in the late summer of 1987, U. S. agents posed as representatives of an American drug-smuggling ring. They met with reported Bolivian drug dealers, who agreed to sell 5 tons of cocaine for $27 million in cash.

Mexican Connection

To get the cache from Bolivia to the United States, an airplane would have to land and refuel somewhere in Mexico, which would take cooperation from the Mexican government.

To secure that cooperation, the U. S. agents turned to David Wheeler, an unsentenced prisoner in an unrelated federal drug case in Oklahoma. Court testimony has shown that Wheeler, in an attempt to receive some “favorable consideration” in his own case, agreed to introduce the federal agents-cum-drug dealers to some of his old contacts in Mexico.

According to the indictments, one of those contacts was Giron, who identified himself to U. S. agents as a former Mexican Federal Judicial Police commandant.

In the weeks that followed, the other Mexican “contacts” were brought in. A series of meetings was held, including sessions in the Panamanian jungle and hotel rooms in Mexico City.

According to the government, the Mexican “officials” assured the undercover agents that they could provide protection from the Mexican authorities when the plane landed in that country. But their influence would cost $1 million, with half of it up front.

The government said the first $500,000 payment was scheduled for January, 1988. That is when they met again, this time in La Jolla, and this time the seven Mexicans and Bolivians were arrested.

Also charged in the case were Rolando Antonio Ayala Justiniano, Mario Vargas Bruun, Efren Mendez Duenas, and Jorge Roman Salas.

Twenty criminal counts have been filed, and the defendants remain in custody in the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Defense Strategy

Aaron, one of the defense attorneys, said she hopes to show that none of the three key Mexican defendants was a high-ranking government or military official.

She said her client, Carranza, was never a colonel in the Mexican army, only a major, and that he retired at least 17 years ago. She said he brought his old uniform to the La Jolla meeting, along with his old general staff book and a diploma from a military school, only to perpetuate the ruse.

“How ridiculous!” she said. “You wouldn’t have a Mexican army official parading around in uniform in the United States.”

However, she said that what is even more astonishing is that the U. S. government never asked the U. S. Embassy in Mexico City to verify that any of the defendants had been or were Mexican officials. That is one point she wants to clear up with Ambassador Pilliod.

‘Stung a Sting’

The ambassador was quoted last February as saying that, as the criminal indictments were handed down, he checked with official Mexican sources to try to verify the backgrounds of some of the defendants.

Pilliod said the Mexican government was able to tell him “in 15 minutes” that Carranza was discharged from the army in 1970. He said he was also informed that Giron “was no comandante “ and that Brumel wasn’t even a member of the PRI.

“Nobody knew him,” the ambassador said then. “So we stung a sting.”

Pilliod could not be reached for comment Friday. But William Graves, a press officer in the American embassy in Mexico City, said in a telephone interview that there has been no change in what Pilliod learned about the backgrounds of Carranza, Giron and Brumel.

“They were representing themselves in a sting operation as currently employed people and they were not,” Graves said. “It is our understanding that they were only in the past employed by the government, and in the case of the military, it was years ago.

“These were rather small fries, as it turned out.”

Still, Nelson, the prosecutor, said it really does not matter for his purposes whether the defendants were high-ranking leaders. He said he told the jury that the bottom line was that, “whoever they are,” they were involved in a criminal drug conspiracy.

“I told the jury in my opening statement that we will put on witnesses to show that he (Carranza) attended meetings, told people he was a colonel and advised people of his exploits,” Nelson said.

“He maintained all of the perks and benefits that flow from that status. And, through his contacts, he told people that he could secure for a million-dollar fee that a plane loaded with dope could land and refuel in Mexico.”

On the sidelines are the attorneys for the Bolivians, who are waiting to see just how the resumes of the Mexican “officials” shake out.

“We don’t know for sure who they are,” said Robert Carriedo, who represents Bruun. “Who knows?”