Are more generals in Mexico a focus of drug probe?

by Andres Oppenheimer
KnightRidder Newspapers

MIAMI In an indication that drug corruption within the Mexican military
may go much deeper than previously admitted, a Mexican news magazine
reported yesterday that 10 Mexican generals and 22 other military officers
are under investigation for alleged ties to drug traffickers.

The weekly Proceso also reported that Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who headed
the Juarez drug cartel until his recent death, had written a private letter
to President Ernesto Zedillo on Jan. 14, offering a deal in which he would
relinquish 50 percent of his wealth and keep drugs out of Mexico if the
government stopped pursuing him.

Carrillo Fuentes died July 4 in a Mexico City hospital, during what
officials described as an eighthour cosmetic surgery and liposuction
operation to change his appearance.

If confirmed, the revelations would indicate the possibility of
behindthescenes government negotiations with Carrillo Fuentes.

Other questions

Such negotiations would also raise new questions about the circumstances of
the Feb. 6 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, until then head of
Mexico's antinarcotics police, who has been charged with being on Carrillo
Fuentes' payroll. Gutierrez Rebollo says he was arrested after he began
investigating alleged connections of members of Zedillo's family to drug
traffickers.

According to Proceso, documents from the military's secret files show that
Gen. Juan Felix Tapia Garcia, former head of the military zone based in
Jalisco state, was suspected of protecting and receiving presents from
reputed drug lord Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo.

"Nine investigations showed the criminal responsibilities of 10 generals,
15 military chiefs, seven officers and two soldiers, whose crimes went from
very serious ones, such as conspiracy . . . to minor ones, such as breaking
military rules or issuing false testimony," the magazine said.

Two military trials

Two officers, Col. Pablo Castellanos Garcia and Capt. Miguel Angel
Hernandez Torres, are being tried by a military court on charges of having
copied the classified military documents on the internal drug investigations
from the military's computers, it said.

The magazine said drug lord Carrillo Fuentes did not offer in his letter to
turn himself in, but to help crack down on independent cocaine barons,
abstain from selling drugs inside Mexico and to bring more dollars into the
country to help revive its economy.

In return, he allegedly requested to be allowed to keep half his wealth,
immunity for his family and permission to continue trafficking drugs to the
United States and Europe. If the government rejected his offer, he would
submit it "and its benefits" to another country, his letter reportedly said.