Latin America Flames of Anger

By William R. Doerner

The fate of Enrique ("Kiki") Camarena Salazar still infuriates his colleagues in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. At 37, Camarena was an aggressive and resourceful U.S. drug agent, deftly juggling a network of contacts in his native Mexico and setting the stage for major busts. Three years ago, the muscular ex-Marine was kidnaped near the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara, savagely beaten and interrogated by nearly 50 inquisitors. A Mexican pilot employed by Camarena was kidnaped and beaten as well. A month later the bodies of the two men were discovered by the side of the road near a ranch some 65 miles away, bound, gagged and stuffed into plastic bags.

Camarena's horrible death deeply strained relations between Washington and Mexico City. Though Mexican officials eventually arrested more than 60 people in connection with the case, no one has ever been convicted of the murder. Last week the U.S. moved to advance the probe as a federal grand jury in Los Angeles handed up indictments against nine defendants. (The U.S. claims jurisdiction because the murder of an American official anywhere in the world is a crime under federal law.)

Among the nine were Drug Barons Rafael Caro Quintero, 35, and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, 56, reputed leaders of Mexico's largest marijuana smuggling family and the principal targets of Camarena's investigations. Also charged, in what has become a familiar pattern of complicity between drug operators and those charged with stamping out their trade, were three former Mexican police officials. "In what we do for a living we depend on the integrity of our law enforcement counterparts," said DEA Chief John Lawn. "In the case of Kiki Camarena, that mutual trust failed."

The indictments came at a time when the U.S. campaign against the Latin drug trade is being sorely tested. Four of the region's countries -- Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia -- are on the U.S. Government's list of seven "big producer" states targeted for maximum surveillance (the other three: Pakistan, Burma, Thailand). Latin America produces all the cocaine and nearly all the marijuana consumed in the U.S., dominating the illicit $130 billion-a- year market.

Washington's drug war received a stunning setback two weeks ago when Colombian Billionaire Jorge Ochoa Vasquez, 38, a reputed drug baron, strolled out of Bogota's La Picota prison armed with a writ for his release signed by a Colombian judge. Ochoa's ruthlessness is legendary; after the coke magnate was arrested in 1984 in Spain at the DEA'S request, threats made against the lives of Americans residing in Bogota became so widespread that U.S. embassy children were evacuated. Extradited to Colombia in 1986 on a bull-smuggling charge, Ochoa was improperly released in August and eluded authorities until last November, when highway patrolmen stopped him at a routine roadblock in southern Colombia. Washington, elated, immediately sought his extradition. Thus when Ochoa slipped away two weeks ago, a State Department spokesman resorted to distinctly undiplomatic language, describing Ochoa's release as "disgusting."

Last week Colombian officials moved to repair the damage. Justice Minister Enrique Low Murtra announced that arrest warrants had been issued not only for Ochoa but also for four other leading members of the notorious Medellin Cartel, which supplies 75% of the cocaine consumed in the U.S. Once detained, Low vowed, all five would be extradited to the U.S. to stand trial on drug- related charges. Low also fired two top officials of La Picota.

Although U.S. officials still view the Bogota government as one of the more cooperative in the narcotics war, Ochoa's release and the Mexican government's continued foot dragging on the Camarena case illustrate the formidable difficulties of the campaign against Latin drug lords. Says DEA Chief Lawn: "Unless Colombia and Mexico can address their problems, there's no way we can deal with the supply of drugs within our own borders."

Despite last week's indictments in the Camarena case, U.S. law enforcement officials believe that many of the culprits have not yet even been touched. These U.S. authorities charge that the Mexican government, by withholding evidence and refusing to share knowledge of the case, has engaged in a cover- up aimed at protecting officials far more highly placed than any so far indicted. "It's like pulling teeth," says a top DEA official. "We're making progress, but it's slow."

Kingpin Caro Quintero, who is reportedly worth $500 million, came under suspicion immediately after Camarena's disappearance. Yet just two days later the federal police comandante in charge of the investigation, Armando Pavon Reyes, allowed the gangster to leave Guadalajara by private plane in the full view of three DEA agents. Records obtained by the DEA indicate that Pavon Reyes made a call from the hangar phone at Guadalajara to the office of Manuel Ibarra, then head of the federal police. Though the U.S. has no record of the conversation, DEA officials suspect that Ibarra was being asked to approve Caro Quintero's departure. Pavon Reyes, one of the officials indicted last week as an accessory, was convicted by Mexico in 1986 of taking a $261,000 bribe for turning Caro Quintero loose; he was released last May. Ibarra has never been charged with a crime but resigned amid scandal in 1985.

DEA officials are far from satisfied with Mexico's subsequent handling of the case. The bodies of the agent and his pilot were discovered by a peasant near the village of La Angostura in the neighboring state of Michoacan late on March 5. Both were so decomposed that DEA agents who saw the bodies the next day were unable to recognize them; not until March 8 did a pathologist confirm their identities. Without benefit of forensic assistance, however, the Mexican Attorney General's office announced the discovery of the missing men's bodies, identifying them by name, early on March 6. Moreover, dirt found on the bodies did not match local soil, which suggested that they had been buried somewhere else earlier. Mexican investigators have never provided a convincing account of how or why the remains were moved.

Not long after the bodies were found, the DEA discovered that Camarena's kidnapers had taped their attempts to interrogate him on drug cases. Mexican federal authorities first denied that the tapes existed, and they have told several different stories about the discovery of the recordings. But after a personal appeal by U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, his Mexican counterpart Sergio Garcia Ramirez handed over copies of some tapes to DEA investigators, who have sought to identify the recorded voices. One of them, they say, matches that of Rene Martin Verdugo Urquidez, a Caro Quintero crony who is currently awaiting trial on drug charges in San Diego. He was among the nine indicted last week.

U.S. investigators are especially eager to identify Camarena's chief questioner, a man who spoke in the practiced manner of a police interrogator. At one point Camarena was heard answering him, "Si, comandante." Partly on the basis of informants' claims, DEA officials believe the comandante was Sergio Espino Verdin, formerly chief in Guadalajara of a secret police unit run by the Interior Ministry. Espino Verdin, yet another of those indicted last week, was arrested by Mexican police last year and charged with Camarena's murder. But authorities have vetoed the agency's requests for extensive samples of his voice on tape so that they can be compared electronically with the interrogation recordings. Mexican officials also destroyed most of the physical evidence collected in the Guadalajara house owned by Caro Quintero where Camarena is believed to have been held.

Caro Quintero and Fonseca, imprisoned in 1985 for drug trafficking, are currently inmates of Mexico City's Reclusorio del Norte. But according to DEA agents who have visited the facility, their amenities there include private cooks, female companionship, liquor, access to a telephone and a Jacuzzi. Last summer the U.S. team that keeps an eye on the drug barons prevented them from getting the ultimate amenity: a private exit. The agents discovered a tunnel leading 800 ft. from two abandoned houses across from the prison toward their cellblock.

Besides accused Trafficker Verdugo Urquidez, two more of those indicted last week are already in U.S. custody for other offenses, and so will stand trial in American courts for their alleged roles in Camarena's murder. Of the remaining six, two are at large, probably in Mexico, and four are in Mexican custody. But under the extradition treaty between Mexico and the U.S., neither side is required to surrender its nationals to the other, and few observers expect Mexico to do so voluntarily. Most U.S. officials would be satisfied if Camarena's death were avenged by displays of rigorous prosecution on both sides of the border. Said U.S. Attorney Robert Bonner in Los Angeles: "Our first and foremost concern is that justice is done. If justice is done in Mexico, so be it." Unhappily, that is precisely what has not been done by Mexico for the past three years.

With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington, with other bureaus