Dead Drug Lord’s Smuggling Was on Rise, U.S. Agents Say

During the last months of his life, as Mexican drug baron Amado Carrillo Fuentes jetted to Cuba, Russia and other nations in search of a haven, his multibillion-dollar operation smuggling Colombian cocaine into the United States was growing exponentially, U.S. counter-narcotics agents say.

Despite Carrillo’s status as a hunted fugitive, U.S. federal investigators in New York City turned up evidence in recent months that his powerful cartel, based in the Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez on the Texas border, was sending multi-ton shipments of cocaine directly into Manhattan, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Thomas A. Constantine. Most of the smuggling organizations enlist U.S. distribution networks to carry their drugs from the border into American cities.

During those same months, U.S. Customs Service agents discovered more than $5 million in cash stowed in secret compartments of a tractor-trailer in El Paso, opposite Ciudad Juarez.

“There’s no doubt that was Carrillo Fuentes’ money,” Constantine said in a phone interview. “And it was a clear indication of just how big he has become in recent months.” U.S. customs officials say it was one of the largest finds of cash headed for Mexico. With Constantine’s agency now confirming that Carrillo is dead--apparently of heart failure after extensive plastic surgery in Mexico City--those shipments helped illustrate how, even without Carrillo, Mexico’s Juarez cartel is likely to remain a major supplier of cocaine to the U.S. And it will be the prize in an expected bloody battle among Mexico’s dozens of drug traffickers seeking to expand their own turf, say Constantine and Mexican drug enforcement agents.

They expect the Juarez cartel’s fiercest challenger to be the rival Tijuana cartel, allegedly led by the Arellano Felix brothers.

A DEA document published in May that identified Carrillo as the most powerful of Mexico’s drug traffickers indicated that his brother Vicente could well be the cartel’s heir apparent. The 34-year-old brother, it stated, “has overseen operations of the organization in Ciudad Juarez.”

“Vicente allegedly has been involved in receiving cocaine-laden aircraft from Colombia, overseeing stash sites and arranging transportation to the distribution sites,” the document stated, adding that Vicente was indicted on drug-trafficking charges along with his elder brother by a federal grand jury in Dallas in 1993.

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Anti-drug agents have credited Amado Carrillo with being the most sophisticated, low-key and diplomatic of Mexico’s cartel chiefs--a once seemingly irreplaceable “don” who used his various skills to forge what amounted to joint operating agreements with rival trafficking groups.

Since Carrillo’s organization has grown rapidly this year while other smuggling cartels--such as that of convicted drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego, now serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison--were fading, drug enforcement agents on both sides of the border say they harbor little hope that Carrillo’s organization will die as suddenly as he did.