Man Seized in Camarena Case Is Kin of Ex-Leader

The brother-in-law of former Mexican President Luis Echeverria has been arrested in Texas and is being brought to California for questioning in connection with the 1985 murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena, federal authorities disclosed Friday.

Ruben Zuno-Arce, 59, was arrested Wednesday night in San Antonio by agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, according to Gary Renick, deputy INS chief there. He is to be brought to Los Angeles by federal marshals today, and sources said he will be questioned next week before a federal grand jury about the Camarena murder.

Spotted by Customs Agent

Renick said that “an alert inspector” spotted Zuno-Arce as he passed through Customs in San Antonio after arriving on a commercial flight from Mexico on Wednesday afternoon. He said Zuno-Arce was on a special list of people believed to be drug traffickers.

INS officials said that at first they were unable to contact Drug Enforcement Administration officials in San Antonio. So they allowed Zuno-Arce to go to a home in San Antonio that he claimed he owned. When contacted soon thereafter, however, DEA officials said Zuno-Arce was wanted in connection with the Camarena case, according to Renick.

Zuno-Arce was put under surveillance and arrested at a San Antonio supermarket Wednesday night.

Friday morning, Federal Magistrate Robert O’Connor in San Antonio ordered Zuno-Arce held without bail as “a material witness” in the Camarena case and directed that he be immediately transferred to Los Angeles.

O’Connor acted in response to an arrest warrant signed by U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie, who presided over a trial in Los Angeles last year that resulted in convictions of three men on charges stemming from the February, 1985, murder of Camarena. Seven other men have been charged with murder and conspiracy in the case, including Mexican drug kingpins Rafael Caro-Quintero and Ernesto Fonseca-Carrillo, both of whom are behind bars in Mexico City awaiting charges in Camarena’s murder.

Signed Declaration

O’Connor also was presented with a signed declaration from DEA Special Agent Abel Reynoso explaining the government’s interest in Zuno-Arce, who is married to Echeverria’s sister. Echeverria was Mexico’s president from 1970 to 1976.

“Ruben Zuno-Arce has been identified by several informants, and in DEA investigative reports, as a major narcotics trafficker in the Guadalajara area,” Reynoso said. “According to the informants, Ruben Zuno-Arce has made statements that he has knowledge about the kidnaping and murder of a DEA agent.”

Additionally, Reynoso said it is believed that Zuno-Arce has “valuable information” regarding the sale to Caro-Quintero of his former Guadalajara home, where Camarena was tortured and murdered. Zuno-Arce sold the home to a Mexican physician on Jan. 11, 1985, according to Mexican land records cited in Reynoso’s declaration. The doctor was a partner in a Guadalajara real estate firm that sold the house to Caro-Quintero the same day.

Less than a month later, on Feb. 7, 1985, Camarena was kidnaped, tortured and murdered. His body was found about four weeks later in a rural area in the Mexican state of Michoacan.

Key Information

Reynoso’s declaration states that it is believed that Zuno-Arce has information regarding when Caro-Quintero moved into the house where Camarena was tortured.

“This information would be extremely valuable to the government’s case relative to forensic evidence, e.g. hairs and carpet fibers found at (the house), and that the hairs found (there) could not have been deposited prior to Rafael Caro-Quintero moving into the residence. Finally, it is further suspected that Ruben Zuno-Arce may have visited Caro-Quintero at (the house) and may have been a percipient witness to events surrounding the kidnaping and murder of Special Agent Camarena.”

Humberto Hernandez-Haddad, Mexico’s consul general in San Antonio, said he believes that Zuno-Arce will be brought before a federal grand jury in Los Angeles that is investigating the Camarena murder.

Hernandez-Haddad said he had had “a number of phone calls from Mexico City” about Zuno-Arce soon after he was arrested. He said he visited Zuno-Arce in jail Friday morning and found him to be in good condition.

“He insisted he has no connection with criminal activity and needs a Los Angeles lawyer,” Hernandez-Haddad said.

Prosecutors Move

Gary Feess, the U.S. attorney, and Jimmy Gurule, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, who prosecuted the three men in the Camarena case last year, asked Judge Rafeedie to issue the warrant for Zuno-Arce’s arrest, according to court documents.

Last February, at a memorial service commemorating Camarena’s death, Gurule said that further indictments were expected in the case. On July 27, DEA agents in Los Angeles arrested Juan Jose Bernabe-Ramirez, a former member of the Jalisco State Judicial Police. An affidavit from a DEA agent stated that Bernabe-Ramirez had been present when Camarena was tortured and murdered and that he had helped Caro-Quintero escape when he was about to be apprehended by Mexican authorities shortly after the murder.

On Aug. 9, a federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Bernabe-Ramirez on murder and conspiracy charges in connection with the case. He is scheduled to be arraigned before a federal magistrate on Monday morning.