From: [C reuters] at [clari.net] (Reuter / Michael Stott)
Newsgroups: clari.world.americas.mexico,clari.news.alcohol+drugs,clari.world.americas.meso
Subject: Ex-agent attacks rampant corruption in Mexico drug war
Keywords: urgent
Organization: Copyright 1996 by Reuters
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 14:50:24 PDT
Expires: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 14:50:24 PDT
                                         
         MEXICO CITY (Reuter) - A former Mexican anti-drug official  
charged in a rare public outburst Tuesday that 
rampant corruption and collusion between traffickers and top law 
enforcers made Mexico's war on drugs a bad joke. 
         Ricardo Cordero Ontiveros, who quit his post at the  
Attorney-General's office in disgust last November, said 
Mexicans and Americans were being deceived by Mexican government 
claims of an all-out struggle against drug lords. 
         ``It's a joke for the people of Mexico and for the people of  
the United States who think Mexico is fighting drugs,'' Cordero 
told a news conference. ``The only thing they are fighting for 
is to make them disappear from the newspapers.'' 
         President Ernesto Zedillo declared after taking office in  
December 1994 that the war on drugs was a top security issue for 
Mexico, a country through which passes 70 percent of the illegal 
drugs reaching the United States. 
         Cordero said the truth was that Mexico funded anti-drug  
agents so badly they had to buy their own fuel for operations 
and if they managed to catch traffickers, their corrupt 
superiors often gave orders to release them. 
         Brandishing heaps of official memos and tape recordings  
which he said proved his points, Cordero told how Attorney 
General Antonio Lozano angrily cut him off when he tried to 
present evidence of serious irregularities. 
         ``Lozano told me that people would pay $3 million to have my  
job,'' Cordero said. ``He was so angry I thought he would hit 
me.'' 
         The Attorney General's office, in a statement issued as  
Cordero's news conference was beginning, said it had asked the 
Controller's Office to investigate his claims. 
         ``Mr. Cordero Ontiveros is obliged to prove the seriousness  
of his allegations not just to the news media but also to the 
competent authorities,'' it said. 
         Formerly head of the National Institute for Drug Combat's  
office in the border city of Tijuana, through which tons of 
cocaine pass each year on their way to California, Cordero said 
the working conditions he found were appalling. 
         ``I paid for the restaurants where my men ate out of my own  
pocket,'' Cordero said. ``I paid for agents' clothes to be 
washed, I paid for phone bills, even for pillows and soap for 
the house where we lived.'' 
         When he tried to catch drugs traffickers who were flying in  
huge cocaine shipments to the Baja California peninsula south of 
Tijuana, Cordero said his superiors reprimanded him. Shortly 
after he was pulled out of the area, a Caravelle jet carrying 15 
tons of cocaine landed there. 
         When he found five tons of cocaine protected by police in  
the town of San Luis Rio Colorado, near the border with Arizona, 
Cordero said his chiefs told him to leave the area quickly 
because there were ``strong commitments'' there. 
         Later in 1995, when he arrested a detachment of detectives  
who were protecting a drug shipment in Tijuana, he was ordered 
by his superiors in Mexico City to let the suspects free, 
telling him that ``dirty linen should not be aired in public''. 
         Finally, after receiving death threats from the men under  
his command and from his superiors, Cordero said he was demoted 
and put under the command of an agent who was a well-known 
friend of traffickers. 
         Asked why he had not presented his allegations to  
investigators, Cordero said: ``You expect the Attorney General's 
office to investigate themselves ? All that will happen will be 
that my documents disappear.''