Mexico’s Ex-Drug Enforcer an Apparent Suicide

Mario Ruiz Massieu, a central figure in modern Mexico’s most explosive political drama, was found dead Wednesday of an apparent suicide. His death marked the final chapter of the remarkable story of a prominent law enforcement leader who became an accused money launderer facing trial in the United States.

Ruiz Massieu, Mexico’s former No. 2 lawman, was found about 11 a.m. PDT on the bedroom floor of his apartment in Palisades Park, N.J., only days before he was to be arraigned by a federal judge in Texas on charges of laundering more than $9 million in drug payoffs through Houston banks.

Ruiz Massieu, the highest-ranking Mexican official to face a U.S. trial on money-laundering charges, had been under house arrest in New Jersey since 1995. He died of a lethal overdose of antidepressants, a U.S. Department of Justice official said.

His wife and daughter, who lived with Ruiz Massieu, rushed with him in an ambulance to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead about half an hour later.

The 49-year-old, who wore an electronic surveillance bracelet on his ankle 24 hours a day to track his whereabouts, had fought an escalating series of charges for four years, beginning with his arrest at Newark International Airport on a minor customs violation.

Ruiz Massieu, who at one point investigated his own brother’s slaying and then was accused of helping to cover up the crime, was indicted by a Houston grand jury late last month on 25 counts of narcotics money laundering and racketeering.

The indictment capped years of investigation and frustrated attempts by U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities to bring him to trial.

The indictment charges that Ruiz Massieu used his position as Mexico’s top drug-enforcement official during 1993 and 1994 to obtain large bribes from traffickers. It accused him of having a top aide make 25 trips from Mexico City to Houston, ferrying a total of $9.9 million in cash for deposit in two Texas banks.

“The death today of Mario Ruiz Massieu ends the prosecution against him,” U.S. Customs Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a statement. “This investigation was the result of four years of painstaking work, and while Mr. Ruiz Massieu was the primary target of the investigation, the U.S. Customs Service will continue to pursue leads related to the case.”

Authorities are still seeking Ruiz Massieu’s former top aide, Jorge Stergios, who allegedly carried the cash deposits into the United States. Most of the deposits consisted of $20 bills bundled with rubber bands, stuffed into suitcases and delivered every few weeks--hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time.

The news of the Ruiz Massieu suicide was a bombshell in Mexico.

“It seems a tragic finale to a sad and painful matter for the country,” Diodoro Carrasco, Mexico’s interior minister, told reporters in the city of Guanajuato.

Javier Olea Pelaez, one of Ruiz Massieu’s lawyers in Mexico City, told a radio interviewer: “Mario Ruiz Massieu was innocent. But unfortunately, he was a person who suffered from depression and, sadly, he took this decision.”

Olea Pelaez said Ruiz Massieu apparently feared “that he was about to go to prison without bail, and furthermore he was without money to mount an adequate defense because all his money was frozen. He was fighting a civil action to get it returned.”

The U.S. government, in a 1997 civil proceeding, seized most of Ruiz Massieu’s fortune, charging that it was linked to drug trafficking.

He was a central figure in a long-running political drama that has riveted Mexicans and disgraced the administration of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, a close U.S. ally who left office in 1994.

Ruiz Massieu’s brother, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, was gunned down on a Mexico City street Sept. 28, 1994. That killing of a top official in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, came just six months after the slaying of the party’s presidential candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio.

Mario Ruiz Massieu, then deputy attorney general, was put in charge of the investigation into his brother’s death and vowed to solve the crime.

“For the first time in various decades, political blood has run in Mexico, taking the lives of young politicians who represented a great hope for our country,” he said at the time. “In light of their unjust sacrifice, we must dedicate ourselves to our task and not permit impunity to prevail.”

At first, Ruiz Massieu impressed Mexicans, issuing explosive charges that PRI hard-liners opposed to political reforms appeared to be behind the killing. But on Nov. 22, 1994, he resigned his prosecutorial position and abandoned the PRI, accusing the party of interfering with the probe.

In his resignation statement, he uttered what was to become one of the best-known phrases of modern Mexican political life, pointing the finger at “devils” in the heart of the political system.

“This past Sept. 28, a bullet killed two Ruiz Massieus,” he said. “One took away a life. The other took away the faith and hope that a PRI government could deliver justice. The devils are wandering loose, and they have triumphed.”

His accusations helped set off a wave of capital flight and rocked the Mexican stock market. Ruiz Massieu followed up on his charges by launching what he described as a reformist campaign, with a newspaper column and promises to pursue a political career with the opposition.

But Ruiz Massieu’s much-lauded heroism was soon called into question. In March 1995, he was arrested at the Newark airport on his way to Spain, with $45,000 of undeclared cash in his briefcase.

He had been interrogated earlier that day by a Mexican special prosecutor about the assassination of his brother.

Mexico immediately demanded Ruiz Massieu’s extradition, charging that he had covered up for one of the participants in his own brother’s killing. The suspect was none other than Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of the former president, who was convicted this year in the murder.

U.S. officials subsequently discovered Ruiz Massieu, a moderately paid civil servant, held millions of dollars in Texas bank accounts. He was later found to have stashed $3 million more in Mexican banks. Ruiz Massieu said the money was from a family fortune and multimillion-dollar bonuses, which he said President Salinas routinely gave senior Mexican officials.

U.S. prosecutors charged that the money had been paid to Ruiz Massieu as bribes by major Mexican drug traffickers when he oversaw anti-drug operations in the federal prosecutor’s office.

Ruiz Massieu beat four attempts by the Mexican government to extradite him.

Some Mexican commentators expressed concern that along with Ruiz Massieu died many secrets of political turmoil over recent years.

Carlos Navarrete, a leading official of the left-wing Democratic Revolution Party, said in a statement: “This death will cover up the network of interests woven around this ex-official,” and thus damage ongoing investigations into narco-politics.

Lorenzo Mayer, a leading historian, said the death was a natural conclusion to the saga involving two of Mexico’s leading political families.

“How can a distinguished member of the authoritarian, irresponsible, corrupt Mexican political class accept spending years in an American jail? The only thing that vindicates Ruiz Massieu is suicide. It’s almost an act of honor,” he said.

“The story is fantastic. It could certainly inspire Shakespeare,” he added. “In a nutshell, this speaks of all the evil in the Mexican political system.”

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Schrader reported from Washington, and Sheridan and Smith from Mexico City.