VIDEO OFFERS BRUTAL GLIMPSE OF DRUG CARTEL

Execution Raises Questions About Tangle Of Corruption

MEXICO CITY - The four men sit bruised, bloody and bound on the floor
before a curtain of black garbage bags. Prodded by an unseen interrogator,
they coolly describe how they enforce the rule of Mexico's Gulf cartel:
Enemies are kidnapped, tortured and shot in the head, their bodies burned
to ashes. Among those killed, the men say in a video sent to The Dallas
Morning News, were a radio reporter who "didn't want to work anymore" for
their cartel and a chamber of commerce leader who called too loudly for
federal help against the drug gangs. "Break him because he is causing
controversy," was the order from his cartel boss, says one of the men.
After six minutes of such confessions, a 9 mm pistol held by a black-gloved
hand enters the picture and fires a bullet into the head of one of the
self-proclaimed killers.

Authorities don't doubt the authenticity of the video, but its source is
unknown. Authorities on both sides of the border said the interrogation
video appears genuine, offering a rare and extraordinary look into the Gulf
cartel's inner workings and its well-armed allies, known as the Zetas. They
also said the crude home movie raises unsettling questions about the
cartels' possible reach into Mexico's government, military and media -
though a government spokesman said that impression could be misleading. For
instance, the suspected Zeta members said on the video that they are
collaborating with some Mexican law-enforcement officials.

Two of the captives say they are former soldiers, trying to recruit
military colleagues, federal agents and others to work for the cartel. The
video never reveals the interrogators or the identity of the gunman.

But experts who reviewed the video say they believe some of them were with
the military, perhaps hired by a vengeful private citizen whose relatives
were harmed by the Gulf cartel. DallasNews.com/extra Exclusive: Video
offers brutal glimpse of cartel En espanol Taped killing a 'way to bloody
waters' Transcript of interrogation DMN archive: The mystery of Lupita
Garcia Excerpts of interrogation WFAA-TV report"All four guys appeared to
work for the Zetas. All were executioners whose duties involved recruiting
from the military, AFI [Mexico's version of the FBI] and gangs for the
Zetas," said a law enforcement investigator who has seen the video. "This
is probably the most graphic and telling look into how these guys operate.

They are ruthless, cold-blooded and sinister." A senior official in
Mexico's intelligence service, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the
video "essentially confirmed some of our worst concerns. Corruption is
endemic, as is the collusion between organized crime and regular
residents." Asked how credible the video is, another law enforcement
investigator said: "Credible 100 percent.

A guy gets his brains blown.

You can't make that [expletive] up." Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, head
of the anti-organized crime division of the Mexican attorney general's
office, said the video is being investigated, but he disputed the captive
men's allegations that high-ranking law enforcement officials were
cooperating with drug gang leaders.

After unseen interrogators question the men, the video ends when a pistol
enters the frame and shoots this man in the head. He said he believes their
statements were coerced. "When you look at the video, the men, after
answering a question, constantly look to someone for approval.

They were tortured, we believe, precisely so they could make certain
statements," he said. He called it a "counterintelligence strategy" by a
rival cartel "aimed at turning the federal government against the Zetas in
even greater ways since we're already going after them." Mexican officials
say that more than half of the original Zetas - mostly former military
commandos - have been arrested or killed, but the gang still has cells
scattered around the country, engaged in a savage war for supremacy in the
drug trade. Source unknown Though investigators expressed no doubts about
the authenticity of the video, none claimed to know its source or how the
men were captured. Investigators say it may have been made by rivals of the
Zetas to intimidate them. Mexican authorities said they received a DVD
containing the video in June. U.S. officials declined to discuss the disc
in any detail.

Some said they didn't even want to see the video because it could force
their agencies to confront awkward questions of governmental corruption.
Sometime after federal authorities got a copy of the DVD, The Kitsap Sun in
Bremerton, Wash., received a disc in the mail, with no explanation and no
return address.

The Sun forwarded a copy to The Dallas Morning News because the men on the
video referred to the killing of a Mexican journalist written about by The
News. Guadalupe "Lupita" Garcia Escamilla was gunned down April 5 in Nuevo
Laredo. On the video, one of the captives says she had been on the Gulf
cartel's payroll, apparently to keep a lid on news unfavorable to the cartels.

Lupita Garcia Escamilla "She didn't want to work anymore, and to make sure
she didn't talk, the order was given to kill her," says one of the
handcuffed men. In October, The News profiled Ms. Garcia and quoted law
enforcement officials saying they suspected that the radio reporter was
helping drug traffickers, was responsible for managing cartel-related news
to keep stories from gaining national attention, and had been executed by
one of the cartels. The senior Mexican intelligence official said the DVD
"gives you a sense of the sophistication of how these guys work, how
sensitive they are to publicity, and how they want to control the news."
Ms. Garcia's mother, Beatriz Escamilla, who had insisted her daughter was
not tainted, reacted with shock and dismay when told about the DVD. She
said she would like to watch it. "You hear so much from outsiders about my
daughter's alleged involvement that now, with this video, I'm beginning to
have doubts," she said. "We hear it, but we don't want to believe it." In
the video, which is time-stamped May 16, the suspected Zetas also discuss a
killing that hadn't happened yet - the June 8 assassination of Nuevo
Laredo's chamber of commerce president. At the time, Alejandro Dominguez
was head of Nuevo Laredo's CANACO, or chamber of commerce, and was calling
for a strong federal presence in the city. Mexican law enforcement
officials say the Pena referred to on the video is Zeferino Pena Cuellar, a
ranking Gulf cartel member. "Pena is going to put us on the CANACO guy to
break him because he is causing controversy and calling for the presence of
the army, the AFI and other institutions," says a man calling himself
Fernando Cruz Martinez. The man, whose identity could not be verified, says
he had been in the Mexican army eight years. Mr. Dominguez became Nuevo
Laredo's police chief June 8 and served just hours in the job before being
ambushed outside a business office and killed by gunmen who fired three
dozen times.

Later that week, the administration of President Vicente Fox launched
Operation Safe Mexico, sending in troops and federal police to take over
law enforcement in the city.

Alejandro Dominguez The federal officials removed all of the city's more
than 700 police officers on suspicion of corruption. Fewer than half were
reinstated. Brutal business As the Gulf cartel has battled the Sinaloa
cartel for control of the gateway into the $30 billion U.S. drug market,
the violence has spilled across the border. On the Mexican side, in Nuevo
Laredo, more than 150 people - including some Americans - have died in
drug-related violence this year. The four captives on the DVD indicated
that violent death was a routine means of doing business for the cartels'
enforcers. Questioned by an unidentified person off camera, the men
casually refer to brutal acts carried out at a "guiso"- a culinary term
meaning "stew" or "barbecue" - that has been appropriated for cartel
savagery. One of the men, who identifies himself as Sergio Alberto Ramon
Escamilla of Nuevo Laredo, animatedly - almost enthusiastically - describes
the process: "The guiso is when they grab somebody, extract information
from him or drugs or money from him, something like that, they take away
from him whatever they wanted, whatever he carried that was an offense.

After having him tortured he is executed or sent to a ranch or to those
places, and there they give him the last shot and throw him into a barrel
and burn him with different fuels, like diesel and gasoline." The News
could not verify the man's identity. Another on the video says he was hired
"to pick up people and to kill people because the place [Nuevo Laredo]
belongs to the Zetas." According to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, the
talkative Mr. Escamilla, who appears to be the youngest of the four, was
reported missing May 14 by his parents.

They told authorities he was arrested by AFI agents and turned over to a
drug trafficker called La Barbie, or Edgar Valdes Villareal, said by
authorities to be the right-hand man of Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, reputed
head of the Sinaloa cartel. AFI denied any involvement in the
disappearance, according to the paper.

Two AFI agents declined to respond to questions in telephone calls from The
News. Alleged corruption On the video, the captive Mr. Martinez appears to
suggest that there was an understanding between the cartel and the
country's attorney general's office, which is known by the initials PGR. He
makes the reference while talking about a government move against a deputy
of reputed Gulf cartel boss Osiel Cardenas. Law-enforcement officials on
both sides of the border say the Lazcano and Goyo referred to on the video
are high-ranking Zetas. "Lazcano and Goyo are angry with the attorney
general because when there was the operation against Fat Man Mata they were
not alerted, and they're thinking about breaking him because they are given
a fee, see? And they didn't comply with that," Mr. Martinez says. "Fat Man
Mata," also known as Jose Guadalupe Rivera Hernandez or Eugenio Guadalupe
Herrera Mata, was arrested April 27 by authorities with the attorney
general's office and the Federal Preventative Police, according to the
Public Security Ministry. The ministry said the suspect obtained arms for
the Zetas and controlled drug retailers in Reynosa and Nuevo Laredo. The
senior intelligence official, commenting on the DVD statement, said the
cartel members apparently "felt they had paid enough money to the PGR to at
least be tipped off, and that didn't happen." No one in the office is
mentioned by name. The attorney general at the time was Rafael Macedo de la
Concha, who resigned April 27 and is now a military attache in the Mexican
Embassy in Italy. Mr. Macedo could not be reached for comment, but Mr.
Vasconcelos of the PGR rejected that allegation. "We can say without a
doubt that Macedo de la Concha is completely clean.

I can affirm that with total and absolute vehemently. He's not involved at
all in any act of corruption, as is mentioned on the tape." "Macedo de la
Concha saw the Zetas as traitors, deserters who undermined the prestige of
Mexican military.

That was one of the main reasons he went after them with so much
determination." Behind the camera For some Mexican experts, one of the most
significant aspects of the video is not what the suspected Zetas say, but
who is asking the questions. Two law enforcement officials, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said they believe the DVD was made - and the four
men killed - by current or former members of the Mexican military hired by
a prominent member of the Nuevo Laredo community bent on avenging the
killing of a close relative by cartel elements. "The most important factor
here is that a civilian hired members of the military to do his dirty
work," said a senior Mexican intelligence official. "That's chilling news
for the government." On the disc, the men show signs of being beaten, with
bruised and bloodied faces. They are on the floor, apparently beaten and
forced to sit in front of the plastic bags, in what looks like the living
room of a house. Authorities said the setup is typical of execution sites,
with the bags used to contain gore and to transport the men after they have
been killed. The video ends after one of the four captives is executed, but
officials said all four men almost certainly were killed.

One official said he concluded that military personnel captured and killed
the men because of the way they were handcuffed. Two of the four, who
identified themselves as civilians, had their hands bound behind their backs.

Two who said they were ex-military had their hands bound in front of them.
That would be a standard courtesy that military officers would extend to
fellow soldiers, the official said. For now, the DVD is being investigated
by authorities on both sides of the border. Mr. Vasconcelos said he
believes the interrogation was carried out by a cartel competitor whose
brother was killed by the Zetas. "We have several operations under way" to
learn more about the video, he said. "We want to know the truth."

HOW THE DVD WAS OBTAINED The DVD arrived by mail in mid-October at the
offices of the Kitsap Sun, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 30,000
in Bremerton, Wash. The first three letters of the postmark on the envelope
were 782; the remaining letters were blurred.

Inside the envelope, addressed to editor Scott Ware with a machine label,
were two identical copies of the video of the interrogation and killing.
"We still have no idea why the package was sent to him, and by whom," said
Jeff Brody, managing editor of the Kitsap Sun. "One of our employees, a
native of Mexico, translated the interrogation. We Googled the name of the
murdered radio reporter, found The Dallas Morning News stories and sent a
copy of the DVD to reporter Lennox Samuels. We made the original DVDs
available to the FBI office in Seattle."