NATION : DEA Paid Deliverers of Alvarez
The Drug Enforcement Administration paid $20,000 to the people who brought a Mexican doctor to U.S. soil to face charges in the murder of an American drug agent, the DEA said today.
“We did make a payment of services of $20,000,” DEA spokesman Frank Shults said. The money, he said, was not a reward or a bounty for the delivery of Dr. Humberto Alvarez Machain.
Shults would not specify the services rendered for the $20,000. However, he said, it could have covered such things as the rental of the plane that flew the Guadalajara gynecologist to El Paso.
Alvarez was arrested April 3 to face charges in the 1985 kidnaping, torture and murder of DEA Agent Enrique (Kiki) Camarena. The alleged kidnaping of Alvarez has strained relations between the United States and Mexico.
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