A Taste of Baja Pleasures That Drug Suspect Once Enjoyed

My escort, Jose Luis, barreled down Paseo Alvaro Obregon along the La Paz waterfront in his yellow Volkswagen dune buggy. The shocks were long since spent and every rut and chuckhole of that Baja California road sent vibrations of earthquake quality through the vehicle.

All the way to the prison, Jose Luis dabbed his thinning pate with cactus juice, a home remedy for baldness. He talked incessantly about his family, machismo and the man he was taking me to see, a man he was proud to run errands for.

“Dan is a fine man, a very fine man,” he said over the high-pitched whine of the VW’s aging transmission. “I hope he gets out soon.”

Dan is Daniel James Fowlie, and the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office in Santa Ana have a considerably different view of him. They say Fowlie, 57, was the patriarch of a massive drug-smuggling operation based on a secluded ranch in east Orange County--the one President Bush turned into a huge prop for an anti-drug speech in 1989.

I was in La Paz to interview Fowlie earlier this year and to get a glimpse of how one of the most wanted men in Orange County’s war on drugs lived south of the border while fighting his extradition to the United States.

Although scenic Mexican coastal towns can have the effect of a sedative, I never felt at ease there. After all, it was Fowlie’s turf, and some of his friends and associates lived in Cabo San Lucas and La Paz. Perhaps more important, I was there to try to confirm rumors about Fowlie’s existence, something he might not want known.

The word was that Mexican authorities occasionally released Fowlie from prison to do what he wanted although he was supposed to remain in custody until his 3-year-old extradition fight with the United States was decided.

To be sure, Fowlie had a cell at Centro de Readaptacion Social on the dusty outskirts of La Paz. But I also learned that he had a rock beach house at Rancho de las Margueritas, 15 miles north of Cabo San Lucas, and a silver Jeep Cherokee for the commute from prison to the subtropical roost where migrating whales passed in front of his patio. By his own admission he had been let out on what he called “work furloughs.”

For the first day and a half, I interviewed Fowlie in the prison yard, which had the atmosphere of a city park. He acted as though I had come to do him a favor and he relished the possibility of a newspaper article detailing what he considered his long fight for freedom against an unjust American court system.

Through me, it seemed, he wanted to administer a parting shot to Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates, the FBI, and Customs and IRS agents who had seized his ranch, triggered his arrest in Mexico and convicted six followers, including his two sons.

Although talkative and articulate, Fowlie was a difficult interview. He demanded that many things be off the record except those statements that seemed to fit his purpose. In addition, he also wanted the story to be published after his release, saying that he was on the verge of winning his extradition case and that the publicity would not do him any good.

Then on the second afternoon, I got what I came for. Fowlie called me at my hotel and said authorities were letting him out for four days to go to Cabo San Lucas. I ended up going sportfishing with someone believed to be the mastermind of what once was the largest marijuana smuggling operation in the United States.

For the next two days, Fowlie was hospitable, cooking fish dinners for a group of us.

He repeatedly offered me things, including paintings he had done of fish and marine fowl that inhabited the waters of Cabo. The most valuable offer was help in renting a plot of beachfront land in the same area where he lived. I politely declined both.

But Fowlie did give me a substantial look at the relatively comfortable existence he had carved out for himself while supposedly in prison. It was information valuable to American authorities seeking his return and information that could embarrass the Mexican government.

Once I returned, we held off on the story for a few weeks to see if Fowlie would win his extradition case. But our patience wore thin, and U.S. Embassy officials were disputing his claims of eventual victory.

Fowlie’s vow never came true. After our story about his conditions of confinement appeared in March, U.S. authorities protested to Mexican officials and public attention was focused again on the Fowlie case.

In a strange doublespeak, Mexico said there were no improper releases, but they would keep Fowlie in prison until his extradition was decided. That happened three months later, when he was returned to the United States in shackles to face upwards of 26 drug-smuggling counts in federal court. His trial is scheduled to begin in March in Santa Ana.

I saw Fowlie a few days after his return. He was not wearing his baseball cap with fishing emblems and marlin pins. Dressed in U.S. prison blues, he was sitting on a bench outside Magistrate Ronald Rose’s courtroom awaiting arraignment. FBI Special Agent Stan Fullerton, who has investigated the Fowlie case since the mid-1980s, stood in front of him.

“There’s the guy who caused me all this trouble,” Fowlie told Fullerton. “I hope I can repay him some day.”

At first I thought I’d make a crack, like “Is that for the record, Mr. Fowlie?” Nah. I just let the remark slide off me. He had caused all this himself. He didn’t need any help from me.