INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
FOIA Records Link U.S. Officials to Mass Murder in Mexico |
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by Bill Conroy The Narco News Bulletin Entered into the database on Monday, September 12th, 2005 @ 13:53:32 MST |
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A dozen people were tortured and murdered between August 2003 and mid-January
2004 in a house in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, just across the border from El
Paso, Texas. The murders were carried out as part of a criminal enterprise overseen by Heriberto
Santillan-Tabares, who U.S. prosecutors claim was a top lieutenant in Vicente
Carrillo Fuentes’ (VCF’s) Juárez drug organization. The reason we know this is because federal agents with the U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in El Paso had an informant inside
of Santillan’s criminal syndicate. The federal agents, along with a U.S.
prosecutor in El Paso, were using the informant to snare Santillan. The other reason we know this is that a high-ranking DEA agent, Sandalio
Gonzalez, who served as the head of that agency’s field office in El Paso
when the murders took place, blew the whistle on an alleged criminal cover-up
in the ICE operation. Gonzalez exposed the fact that the ICE agents and a U.S.
prosecutor knew their informant was participating in the homicides, yet allowed
the murder spree to continue to assure the informant was not exposed –
so they could continue to use him to make their case against Santillan. Narco News has been reporting on this story
since April 2004. For those of you who have been following this ugly saga of
the pretense called the war on drugs, the details of the alleged corruption
are well known to you by now. However, some startling revelations have recently
surfaced that indicate the cover-up in the House of Death mass murder case extends
much further up the food chain in the Department of Justice than previously
reported. Gonzalez first spoke out against the corruption in the House of Death investigation
in early 2004, within weeks of a DEA agent and his family being confronted by
Santillan’s death squad, who had mistaken the agent for a competing smuggler. In the wake of that confrontation, and after discovering that the ICE informant
was a participant in the House of Death murders, Gonzalez sent an internal letter
on Feb. 24, 2004, to the top ICE official in El Paso and to Johnny Sutton, the
U.S. Attorney in San Antonio, Texas. In that letter, Gonzalez dropped the dime
on the whole sordid tale. But rather than investigate the charges, officials within the Department of
Justice (DOJ) went after Gonzalez, seeing to it that he was reprimanded and
his career tarnished with a negative job-performance review. Gonzalez also was
ordered to remain silent on the whole matter. According to Gonzalez, the retaliation
he experienced after writing the whistleblower letter was initiated at the
behest of Sutton, who wanted to bury the letter to avoid compromising a career-boosting
death-sentence case against a major narco-trafficker. That means, according
to Gonzalez, that a U.S. Attorney is now implicated in the cover-up of a U.S.
government informant’s participation in mass murder. When contacted by Narco News, Sutton’s office declined to comment on
the allegations or the House of Death case. However, Narco News recently obtained documents through a Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) request (see
links at end of story) that pull the dark shroud over the House of Death
back even further. The documents were released by the U.S.
Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), an administrative body that adjudicates
cases brought by federal employees who claim they have been retaliated against
for whistleblowing activity. Gonzalez currently has a case pending before the
MSPB that focuses on the House of Death cover-up. Documents released as a result of Narco News’ FOIA request include internal
Department of Justice e-mails concerning the House of Death case. In general,
the FOIA documents are heavily redacted, based in part on alleged privacy-protection
exemptions. However, Narco News has access to sources who were able to fill
in some of the critical missing words. As it turns out, among the items redacted in the e-mails are the names of the
high-ranking DOJ officials who drafted or received the e-mails as part of performing
their public duties – on the taxpayers’ dime. That has led some
law enforcers to speculate that the cover-up may now extend into the MSPB itself. Narco News has filed a FOIA appeal seeking the release of all the documents
in Gonzalez’ MSPB case and has asked that all the names of public officials
in those documents be “un-redacted.” Well-placed law enforcement sources familiar with the House of Death case tell
Narco News that the individuals who either wrote the e-mails or received copies
of the e-mails included the following: Karen Tandy, Administrator of the DEA;
Catherine M. O’Neil,
Associate Deputy Attorney General; and the number two person at DOJ, Deputy
Attorney General James B. Comey – who earlier this summer took a job as
general counsel for defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. The First E-mail Following are two emails, drafted in early March 2004, shortly after Gonzalez
sent his whistleblower letter to U.S. Attorney Sutton exposing the alleged complicity
of ICE agents in the murders of more than a dozen people in Juárez. Again,
although some information in the first e-mail and other document excerpts below
is redacted in the FOIA records, most of the missing information has been obtained
from Narco News’ very reliable sources (in the excerpts below, text that
had been redacted is inside text brackets). Drafted March 4, 2004 From: Catherine M. O’Neil, Associate Deputy Attorney General
and Director of the Organized
Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) To: Jeff
Taylor, Counsel to the Attorney General for Criminal and National
Security Matters; David
Ayers, Chief of Staff to the Attorney General; and James
B. Comey, Deputy Attorney General CC: Karen
Tandy, Administrator of DEA Subject: Possible press involving the DEA (Juárez)-ICE informant
issue We just heard from Johnny Sutton that the DEA SAC in El Paso [Special
Agent in Charge Gonzalez] wrote a rather lengthy and inflammatory letter to
the ICE SAC regarding the “mishandling of the [Santillan] investigation
that has resulted in unnecessary loss of human life in the Republic of Mexico
and endangered the lives of (DEA agents).” [REDACTED] and I are getting
a copy of the letter, as well as an ICE response. I am also speaking with [Sutton]
at 8 pm (CST) tonight on this matter. (He was driving and could not talk at
length.) Please be aware that, according to [Sutton], [REDACTED] has reached
out to get a copy of certain reports of interview of the CI [confidiential informant]
in the investigation. The [REDACTED] Times apparently had enough information
to ask for the report which states that the CI [known as “Lalo”]
“supervised the murders” of certain individuals. (Sutton) was not
sure who was talking, but we are certainly concerned that there may be press
and there may be inquiries here in DC as well. I have been unable to reach [Mike
Furgason, chief of operations at DEA] to find out whether DEA HQ
knew anything about the SAC’s [Gonzalez’] letter. I’d be surprised
if HQ saw it, since, in our meeting on [Tuesday, Furgason] did not mention any
letter and, in fact, said they were finalizing the reports of interview from
the team that was looking into the matter. I will keep following up. [REDACTED]: once I talk with [Sutton] and get a better handle on what’s
going on in (El Paso), I’d be happy to try to get you up to speed on whatever
you may need, in case you need to have a statement prepared to respond to any
inquiries. My sense is, we don’t want to be saying much, since we don’t
have all the facts yet. However, these are serious allegations between the agencies,
including a Justice agency, so we may need to be ready to say something. Catherine O’Neil The Second E-mail The next day, March 5, 2004, DEA Administrator Tandy sent off an e-mail to
O’Neil, Comey, Ayers and Taylor. Others within DOJ who received a copy of Tandy’s e-mail included: Michele
Leonhart, Deputy Administrator of DEA; Stuart
Levey, former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General who is now Under
Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial and Intelligence; Chuck
Rosenberg, former Chief of Staff for the Deputy Attorney General, who is
now U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas in Houston; and Mark
Corallo, Director of Public Affairs for the Justice Department. Strangely, the version of the e-mail provided to Narco News through the FOIA
request was heavily redacted, including, as in the first e-mail sent by O’Neil,
all of the names of both the senders and the receivers. However, Narco News recently obtained an unredacted copy of Tandy’s e-mail.
It was filed earlier this month by a U.S. prosecutor as an exhibit in an employment
discrimination case
Gonzalez has pending in U.S. District Court in Miami against the Department
of Justice. Why government censors decided to redact the FOIA version of the e-mail, but
failed to do the same for the court-exhibit version is not clear. You can be
the judge of this bit of bureaucratic bumbling. The unredacted text of the email follows; the El Paso SAC is Gonzalez: Subject: Re: Possible press involving the DEA Juárez /ICE informant
issue DEA HQ officials were not aware of our el paso SAC’s inexcusable
letter until last evening – although a copy of the letter first landed
in the foreign operations section sometime the day before. The SAC did not tell
anyone at HQ that he was contemplating such a letter, and did not discuss it
or share it with HQ until we received the copy as noted above, well after it
was sent. I apologized to Johnny Sutton last night and he and I agreed on a no
comment to the press. Mike Furgason, Chief of Operations, notified the El Paso SAC last night
that he is not to speak to the press other than a no comment, that he is to
desist writing anything regarding the Juárez matter and related case
and defer to the joint management and threat assessment teams out of HQ –
and he is to relay these directions to the rest of his El Paso Division. The SAC, who reports to Michele, will be brought in next week for performance
discussions to further address this officially. It is important to note that to this day no one in the e-mail chain above, including
Sutton, has announced any investigation into Gonzalez’ charges that ICE
agents and an Assistant U.S. Attorney in El Paso are complicit in the House
of Death murders. Instead, DOJ’s energies appear to have been wholly focused
on concealing Gonzalez’ allegations from the public and in retaliating
against the whistleblower. Also keep in mind that even though the e-mails and resulting scurry to deep-six
Gonzalez’ whistleblower letter occurred under the reign of then-Attorney
General John Ashcroft, current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently promoted
Sutton to a policy-making post within DOJ. From a prior Narco News story: Despite the allegations about a cover-up in the House of Death case, Attorney
General Gonzales recently appointed Sutton to the post of vice chairman of his
Advisory Committee of U.S. Attorneys, which plays a key role in determining
DOJ policies and programs. Inside a Drug War Murder So what exactly are these government officials trying to keep under wraps?
The raw statistic – a dozen people murdered – doesn’t get
beneath the skin like the truth. So we need to meet the devil in the details. For that, we turn to an account provided by the informant known as “Lalo.”
Immediately after the murder of Mexican attorney Fernando Reyes at the House
of Death, Lalo returned to El Paso to be debriefed by ICE agents. An ICE report
based on that debriefing was generated on Aug. 25, 2003. Following, from that report – obtained through the FOIA –
is Lalo’s version of the first murder he “supervised”: Date: [Aug. 25, 2003] The participants in the murder were [REDACTED] and [two Juárez
Judicial Police officers]. [Lalo, the informant] supervised the murder and had
minimal participation in the act.…. [Lalo] told [Santillan] that he would take his own vehicle because
he was going to buy some lime and duct tape, and that he would meet the two
Police officers at the residence [the House of Death in Juárez]. …At approximately 11:15 a.m. [on Aug. 5, 2003, Lalo] arrived
at the house…. …[Lalo, now inside the house] walked towards the front door,
at which time he observed [REDACTED] vehicle parked in front of the residence. [Lalo] observed [REDACTED] walking toward the residence. [Lalo] stated that at that time he felt a big wave of tranquility and
calmness. [Lalo] stated he now knew that he was not going to be killed, and
that it was [Mexican attorney Fernando Reyes] they were going to kill. … As [Reyes] is sitting on the chair [in the living room], [REDACTED]
pulls out his weapon and places it up against the right side of [Reyes’]
face. [Reyes] sees the weapon and begins to scream, “Why, please don’t
kill me, don’t kill me.” The first Police officer came out from behind [REDACTED] and ran to
[REDACTED]. The Police officer, already with the tape in his hand began to unwind
it and forced a portion of the tape into [Reyes’] mouth. The Police officer
began to wrap the tape around [Reyes’] head, and [Reyes] responded by
trying to fight his way out. The second Police officer appeared and began to assist [REDACTED] and
the other Police officer. The first Police officer continued to wrap the tape
around [Reyes’] head in an attempt to smother him with it. [Reyes] continued
to fight, at which time the two Police officers and [REDACTED] push [Reyes]
to the ground and began to tape his hands. [Reyes] begins to kick his legs at which time [REDACTED] looked at
[Lalo]. The look made [Lalo] feel uncomfortable. Based on the look, [Lalo] felt
forced to assist in the restraining of [Reyes] by the legs. The Police officers began to tape his feet together. One of the Police officers then grabbed an extension cord and wrapped
it around [Reyes’] neck. The Police officer then began to violently pull on the cord in an attempt
to choke out [Reyes]. During this time, the cord broke and part of the cord remained around
[Reyes’] neck at which time one of the Police officer asked, “Now
what?” [REDACTED] then pointed to a plastic bag. One of the police officers grabbed the plastic bag and placed it over
[Reyes’] head. [REDACTED] then began to wrap the duct tape around the bag, therefore,
suffocating “Fernando” [Reyes]. They all stood around and watched [Reyes’] body as his movement
became less and less. One of the police officers then went and grabbed a shovel and began
to strike [Reyes] in the back of the neck area. [Lalo] stated that he believed the violent striking of the neck caused
it to break. …[Santillan] praised [Lalo] for his participation in the murder
and that his participation could lead to his meeting with [Vicente Carrillo
Fuentes]. They proceeded to a residence in the area …. The residence is
considered to be a “safe-house.” The residence is for high-ranking
[VCF] organizational members only. [Santillan] introduced [Lalo] to certain people in the residence and
told them that (Lalo) has permission to come to the residence, and for the people
to be hospitable towards him. [Lalo] stated that the house is where all the high-ranking organization
members stay when in [Juárez] Mexico. They have everything they could
need, stemming from groceries to women. Cover-Up Hatched In pleadings filed with the MSPB, Gonzalez, who retired from the DEA earlier
this year, states that yet another ICE debriefing memorandum prepared on Aug.
6, 2003, “indicates the informant may have known ahead of time that [Reyes]
would be killed on Aug. 5, 2003, because in a memorandum to the informant’s
file authored by the ICE SAC [special agent in charge], it was reported that
before going to the house where the victim would be killed, the informant ‘went
to purchase duct tape and lime (a powder used to conceal odor).’” “Following his meeting with ICE officials on Aug. 5, 2003, the informant
was allowed to return to the house in [Juárez] to check the grave site
and pay $2,000 to other co-conspirators for their role in the murder of [Reyes],”
Gonzalez’ pleadings assert. After Lalo was debriefed about his participation in the murder of Reyes, ICE
officials notified the DEA Assistant Regional Director in Mexico City that the
informant had “witnessed” a murder, failing to note that Lalo had
actually supervised the murder. DEA’s Mexican operations were not under
Gonzalez’ chain of command, so he was not privy to the information at
that time. ICE officials also told Mexican officials, via the Customs Attaché in
Mexico, about the murder, but also misled them about the true facts by failing
to reflect in that communication that Lalo actually “participated”
in the murder. The Mexican authorities also were led to believe that the informant
did not know where Reyes was buried, even though Lalo had gone to inspect the
gravesite in the backyard of the House of Death. Following, obtained through the FOIA and translated into English, is
the text of the letter sent to Mexican officials (emphasis added): Aug. 15, 2003 Lic. Jorge Rosa Garcia Dear Lic. Rosas: By way of this letter we would like to inform you that a source of
information of the Department of Homeland Security of the United States traveled
to the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, on [REDACTED] to meet with members of the
[VCF] smuggling organization to discuss the transportation of a load of marijuana.
On [Aug. 5, 2003] … the source of information [Lalo] was a witness to
the murder of the owner of the drugs [Reyes]. In accordance with our conversation with you on [REDACTED] we agreed
that the source would continue his work in [Juárez] Mexico, for the purpose
of obtaining more information about the [VCF] drug organization, as well as
to try to obtain information on the whereabouts of the body of the subject [Reyes]
that was supposedly murdered. At the time that the Department of Homeland Security
of the U.S. decides to discontinue this investigative work for security reasons
or any other motive, we’ll make the source of information available to
you so you can take his statements, along with intelligence regarding phone
numbers, names of the persons involved, etc. that may assist to continue this
investigation by Mexican authorities. With nothing else at the moment, I take this opportunity to send you
cordial greetings, and I remain at your service for any clarification in this
regard. Cordially, Luis Alvarez Traffic So, in effect, ICE officials and the U.S. prosecutor in El Paso sat on their
hands after the first murder, hoping to continue running their informant to
make that career-boosting case against Santillan. As a result, over the next
six months, another 11 murders were committed at the House of Death in Juárez,
with the informant present for at least five of them, according to FOIA records. The stench of the whole drug-war nightmare hit the open air on Jan. 14, 2004,
after Santillan’s thugs, including a Mexican state judicial police commander
named Miguel Loya Gallegos, mistakenly pulled over the car of a DEA agent and
his family, thinking the agent was a dope smuggler who had crossed Santillan’s
turf. From Gonzalez’ MSPB pleadings: The informant and the subjects under investigation by ICE were allowed
to continue their illicit activities in Mexico following the August 2003 murder
[of Reyes], and on January 14, 2004, DEA agents and their families stationed
in [Juárez] were evacuated from their residences because hired killers
that could and should have been taken into custody after the first murder in
August 2003, tried to identify, through the informant [Lalo], two DEA agents
under the ruse of a traffic stop. The informant had reportedly told his co-conspirators [Santillan and Loya]
that he knew corrupt U.S. officials that could provide this information. This
attempt at identifying the DEA agents occurred as a result of information received
by traffickers during the torture and killing of three individuals that took
place in Juárez earlier that same day [Jan. 14, 2004]. Following, obtained via the FOIA request, are several excerpts from a Timeline
of Events report prepared by the DEA following that errant traffic stop. CS [the informant Lalo, an ex-Mexican Highway Patrol Officer] is considered
a well-placed associated of significant targets within the VCFO [the Vicente
Carrillo Fuentes organization]. CS’ principal relationship is with [Santillan],
a high level cocaine and marijuana trafficker who operates within the Mexican
states of [Chihuahua, Durango and Torreon] and directly impacts trafficking
activity within the states of Texas, Illinois and elsewhere. [Santillan] also
participates in enforcement of VCFO territorial control of the [Juárez]/West
Texas corridor by coordinating drug rip-offs, kidnappings and executions of
traffickers unauthorized to transit loads within the corridor. These enforcement
activities are coordinated with or directed by [Loya], a nigh shift commander
for the Chihuahua State Judicial Police in [Juárez]. Investigation to date reflects that the referenced telephone calls and
traffic stop [of the DEA agent] were, in fact, overt acts within a conspiracy
between [Santillan and Loya] and others to identify and execute those responsible
for the unauthorized transit or loss of approximately 4,000 pounds of marijuana.
It is suspected that the conspiracy involved the kidnapping, torture and murder
of three individuals on Jan. 14 [at the House of Death], which resulted in the
subsequent identification and murder of a fourth subject occurring on January
16, 2004. … It is further suspected that the traffic stop of S/A [the
DEA agent] was a misdirected attempt by co-conspirators to identify and located
[another drug smuggler] and/or a related stash location. …Further details reflected that VCFO associated [REDACTED] was attempting
to identify a stash house in the vicinity of SA [the DEA agent’s] GLQ
[government-leased quarters] and had initiated surveillance in the area [leading
to the traffic stop]. Vanished After it was clear to the DEA and the Mexican government that ICE agents and
a U.S. prosecutor had allowed a dozen murders to occur, with their informant
participating in many of them, an effort was launched to snare Santillan and
Loya. With the informant’s help, Santillan was lured across the border
and arrested. Eventually, though, as part of an apparent attempt to keep a lid
on the scandal, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio cut a deal
with Santillan that involved dropping the murder charges against him –
and the threat of a death sentence. The stonewalling, deal-making and cover-up strategy allegedly employed by ICE
officials and the U.S. Attorney’s Office is all the more disturbing given
that DEA officials wanted to arrest Santillan immediately after the first murder
at the House of Death. However, ICE officials and the U.S. prosecutor overseeing
the case in El Paso refused to cooperate because it would have jeopardized their
drug-war prosecution against Santillan. “… Following the August 2003 murder [of Reyes], ICE personnel and
the prosecutor assigned to the case ignored, with no good reason, well-founded
recommendations made by DEA agents to arrest the principal suspect [Santillan]
and ‘take down’ the case, thereby allowing at least 13 other murders
to take place in Juárez, in what can only be described as a display of
total disregard for human life, and disrespect for the rule of law in Mexico,”
Gonzalez asserts in his MSPB pleadings. “This was reportedly done to protect,
what in comparison to murder, were relatively minor cases/prosecutions regarding
drugs and a cigarette smuggling case in which the informant was a witness.” After the dirty little secret of the murders at the House of Death had surfaced
within law enforcement circles, according to the FOIA records, ICE officials
and the Assistant U.S. Attorney in El Paso, Juanita Fielden, allegedly continued
to advance the cover-up by obstructing the DEA’s efforts to capture Mexican
state police commander Loya, the ringleader of the House of Death hit squad.
As a result, Loya and several of his goons vanished and remain at large –-
though they likely suffered the same bloody fate as their House of Death victims. More from Gonzalez’ MSPB pleadings: To make matters worse, ICE officials would not allow the informant to
call one of the suspects [Loya] and arrange a meeting so that Mexican federal
authorities could arrest him for his participation in the murders. Furthermore,
the U.S. prosecutor refused the repeated requests by DEA for direct access to
the informant so that at least attempts could be made to resolve the alleged
threat against the DEA personnel and their families stationed in [Juárez].
In fact the U.S. prosecutor stated that she had ordered ICE personnel to refuse
DEA access to tape recorded conversations of the informant, while expressing
concern that DEA personnel would share information with Mexican federal authorities. Blood on the Gate But before Loya vanished, he took care of one other loose end on behalf of
the VCF organization, FOIA records show. On Jan. 16, 2004, two days after the
last of the dozen murders were committed at the House of Death in Juárez,
Loya carried out yet another act of brazen brutality. From the DEA Timeline document: [Two individuals] in a white pickup truck were shot after being stopped
by two subjects reportedly acting as police officers. The targets were stopped
upon departing the gated residential subdivision identified as [REDACTED]. The
subjects were asked for identification by one of two alleged officers who approached
them. Immediately upon identifying the driver, one of the suspects fatally shot
the driver in the face and head with [a 9 millimeter handgun]. The CJRO [Juárez DEA field office’s] Chihuahua State Police
SOI [source of information] indicated that the subject was identified by their
reporting as [REDACTED]. Further, the SOI reported that [Loya] directed the
killing of [REDACTED] due to the loss of a 4,000-pound load of unspecified drugs.
The other occupant of the vehicle, identified as [REDACTED] was shot in the
mouth and neck. He remains in critical condition in a local hospital and has
not been able or willing to give a statement. Now that this whole misguided affair has been documented, by the government’s
own records, we are left to wonder what will happen next to assure that the
pretense of the war on drugs does not unravel in the eyes of the public. Regardless of how the cover-up now plays out, the revelations contained in
these new FOIA records are sure to raise even more questions, because the cobwebs
of this horror story have been spun intricately through the U.S. Justice System. But of all the questions that still remain unanswered, the biggest one, for
me, is where is the outrage from our political leaders? Have we really become
a nation that tolerates, maybe even condones, murder in the pursuit of career,
power and money? That is an ugly thought, but then there is really nothing pretty
about homicides. As for former DEA agent Gonzalez, he is only asking for the truth to be told. Maybe that’s a starting point; maybe it’s time someone starts listening
to him. “This is not about me,” Gonzalez says. “What happened to
me is minor compared to the enormity of what took place here, and the fact that
nobody is focused on it. “We need an independent investigation of this by someone outside the
Executive Branch. And then we can let the chips fall where they may.” The FOIA Documents Aug.
6, 2003, ICE memorandum regarding informant Aug.
25, 2003, ICE informant debriefing report Aug.
15, 2003, Customs Attaché’s letter to the Mexican government DEA
Timeline of Events Surrounding Evacuation of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Resident
Office March 4-5,
2004, Redacted Department of Justice e-mails March
5, 2004, Unredacted Version of Second Department of Justice e-mail (DEA
Administrator Tandy) July
7, 2005, Motion to Compel Discovery in U.S. Merit Systems Protection board case July
7, 2005, U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board case pleadings Other FOIA documents related to the House of Death can be found at this
link. |