|
Newsbrief:
Mexican
Soldiers
Bust
Narcs
1/17/03
Mexican soldiers arrested
seven members of that country's equivalent of the DEA in Tijuana on January
10 after finding them with five tons of unreported marijuana in their building.
In addition to the stash of contraband, the Mexican narcs were holding
two civilians, presumably the owners of the marijuana, who had been seized
three days earlier. According to a press release from the Mexican
Attorney General's office, the agents never reported the drug seizure as
required, raising speculation that they were in the pay of drug traffickers.
The agents were members of
FEADS, the Special Prosecutor's Office for Attention to Crimes Against
Health, an agency formed in 1997 after a predecessor agency was disbanded
when its agents were found to be in the pay of Mexican drug trafficking
organizations. Mexican trafficking organization, the so-called cartels,
have historically bought protection from the various law enforcement agencies
created to suppress them. The offer typically comes in the form of
"plata o plomo," silver or lead, the bribe or the bullet. A Mexican
law enforcement source told the San Diego Tribune that among the seven
FEADS agents arrested in the 15-man Tijuana office was the post's commander,
Miguel Angel Uribe.
There has been other evidence
that FEADS has followed the corrupt path of the many agencies before it.
American journalist Charles Bowden, in his new book, "Down By the River:
Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family," quotes one DEA agent as complaining
soon after FEADS' inception that DEA agents had to bribe FEADS agents to
obtain information on drug trafficking investigations. And just days
before the arrests in Tijuana, the Mexican Attorney General's Office had
pointedly issued a memo reminding FEADS agents that they must report their
activities to the attorney general's representatives in each state.
The FEADS agents are being
investigated by two rival Mexican law enforcement agencies, the Federal
Preventive Police, an intelligence-gathering agency, and the API, Federal
Agency of Investigation, the rough equivalent of the US FBI. "I don't
know why they keep on creating more groups rather than create one that
has less corruption," Victor Clark, a Tijuana-based human-rights activist,
told the Tribune. "They haven't been able to eradicate drug trafficking,
and now the police are divided into many groups and that gives the drug
traffickers more options to work with."
-- END --
|
Issue #272, 1/17/03
The Road to Mérida: Interviews with Participants in the "Out from the Shadows" Campaign | The Road to Mérida: Interview with Dr. Francisco Fernandez, Anthropologist and Former Rector of Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán | The Road to Mérida: Interview with Al Giordano, publisher of Narco News | Bolivian Government Represses Coca Protests, Four Dead... So Far | Ed Rosenthal Medical Marijuana Trial Underway -- Judge Blocks Mention of Prop. 215, Has Trouble Seating Jury | Canadian Prime Minister Promises Motion on Decriminalization as Courts Continue to Chip Away at Marijuana Laws | Latin American Anti-Prohibition Conference, Feb. 12-15, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico | Cumbre Internacional Sobre Legalización, 15-Dec Febrero, Mérida, México | Newsbrief: Souder Pushes Partial HEA Reform, Frank to Reintroduce Drug Provision Repeal Bill | Newsbrief: Racine Caves Before the Ravers | Newsbrief: MPP "War on Drug Czar" Continues -- State Reacts to Allegations | Newsbrief: 12 Dead in Brazil as Drug Police Raid Shantytowns | Newsbrief: Mexican Soldiers Bust Narcs | Newsbrief: Colombian President Seeks Iraq-Like Mobilization Against Traffickers | Newsbrief: Some Colombian Terrorists May Be More Equal Than Others | Newsbrief: Alaska Lieutenant Governor Disqualifies Marijuana Legalization Petition Signatures, Proponents Vow Fight | Newsbrief: Return of the RAVE Act | Newsbrief: Ecstasy Rarely Kills, British Study Finds | Alan Shoemaker Ayahuasca Legal Defense Fund Needs Support | Media Scan: Washington on Forchion, Cockburn on Rosenthal, Forbes on Walters, Szasz on Drug Medicalization, Bruce McKinney, GAO on DARE | DC Job Opportunity at DRCNet -- Campus Coordinator | The Reformer's Calendar
|
This issue -- main page
This issue -- single-file printer version
Drug War Chronicle -- main page
Chronicle archives
|
PERMISSION to reprint or
redistribute any or all of the contents of Drug War Chronicle (formerly The Week Online with DRCNet is hereby
granted. We ask that any use of these materials include proper credit and,
where appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If your
publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet requests checks
payable to the organization. If your publication does not pay for
materials, you are free to use the materials gratis. In all cases, we
request notification for our records, including physical copies where
material has appeared in print. Contact: StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network,
P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 293-8340 (voice), (202)
293-8344 (fax), e-mail [email protected]. Thank
you.
Articles of a purely
educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of the DRCNet
Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
|
