[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 29 (Monday, March 10, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2035-S2048]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATE DEPARTMENT EXPLANATION OF MEXICO'S CERTIFICATION
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, Senator Coverdell may well come to the
floor during this period. I hope he does. I will be happy to defer, and
yield parts of my time to him as well.
Mr. President, 1 week ago I joined with Senator Coverdell and Senator
Helms to introduce resolutions of disapproval, to overturn the
President's decision to certify Mexico for antidrug cooperation.
Last week I went home and I read the State Department's Statement of
Explanation, which is just 1\1/2\ pages.
I must say, I read this document with disbelief. At best, this
document--which purports to make the case for Mexico's certification--
is a fairy tale. At worst, it is a complete whitewash. Today, I would
like to take some time and go over parts of it, and indicate my
thoughts on some of the subjects mentioned and refute some of the
claims.
Let me begin by saying that section 490 of the Foreign Assistance Act
requires the President to certify that Mexico has ``cooperated fully
with the United States, or taken adequate steps on its own'' to combat
drug trafficking. Despite the best intentions of President Zedillo and
the best efforts of the State Department to put a pretty face on the
situation, the Department's Statement of Explanation, I believe, defies
credibility.
The State Department claims that ``The Government of Mexico's 1996
counterdrug effort produced encouraging results and notable progress in
bilateral cooperation.'' The facts tell a different story.
Let me begin with drug seizures:
The State Department's Statement of Explanation indicates that ``Drug
seizures and arrests increased in 1996.''
[[Page S2036]]
While this is technically true--yes, there was a slight increase in
1996 in both drug seizures and arrests of drug traffickers--that is
only because the 1995 levels were so dismal. A larger look of Mexico's
record of drug seizures, going back just a few years to 1992, gives a
very different perspective.
The 23.6 metric tons of cocaine seized by Mexico, while slightly
higher than in 1995, is just about half of what was seized in 1993. So,
you see, in 1993 they seized 46.2 metric tons of cocaine. Look how it
has dropped off and leveled off since then.
Second, drug arrests did increase modestly in 1996 over 1995. But
look back a few years and it tells a more compelling picture. In 1992
you had 27,369 drug arrests. In 1996 you had 11,038. That is not a
stepped-up effort, it is a stepped-down effort. So, after a precipitous
drop, by more than 50 percent, a barely discernible 5- or 10-percent
increase, in my view, is not improvement. They are not encouraging
results and there is not notable progress.
Today, Mexico is the transit station for 70 percent of the cocaine, a
quarter of the heroin, 80 percent of the marijuana, and 90 percent of
the ephedrine used to make methamphetamine, entering the United States.
These statistics reflect, I believe, more drugs flowing into our
cities and our communities. How do we know this now? Just look at some
of the street prices.
According to the California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, in 1993,
when Mexican cocaine seizures were near their peak, a kilo of cocaine
sold on the streets of Los Angeles for $21,000. Today, that same kilo
of cocaine averages $16,500, and I am told that in places you can get
it for $14,000 a kilo.
You can see how these prices have dropped. The drop is even more
dramatic if you look at black tar heroin, which the DEA says is nearly
the exclusive province of Mexican family-operated cartels, based in
Michoacan. The price per ounce has dropped from $1,200 in 1993 to $400
today.
So today, the street price of black tar heroin has dropped to one-
third of its price 4 years ago.
Unfortunately, demand remains high, so when the prices drop, the
obvious conclusion is that you have more supply. The falling price can
be attributed to increases in the amounts of cocaine and heroin flowing
across our southern border. I hardly consider this to be evidence of
``encouraging results and notable progress.''
When the street prices begin to climb, then I, for one, will begin to
believe that the supply is being cut.
So street prices are dropping despite the fact that stepped up
enforcement on the U.S. side of the border has resulted in increased
seizures.
U.S. border agents at the McAllen, TX, border station seized 176,000
pounds of marijuana in 1996, 20 percent more than in 1993. But the
burden of combating the increased drug shipments falls
disproportionately on United States border agents because Mexico does
little to enforce the border.
United States Customs and Border Patrol officials have said publicly
that Mexican traffickers are today going to extraordinary lengths to
move their products. They are constructing secret compartments in 18-
wheelers. They are saturating areas with hundreds of mules carrying
backpacks with 40 kilos of marijuana each, and even sacrificing large
loads of marijuana at the border to allow more valuable shipments of
cocaine and heroin to slip through behind them. And they have begun to
use sea lanes in much greater proportion.
For the State Department to state that there has been improved
performance by Mexico in intercepting drugs at the border is
incomprehensible to me. Low seizure figures, low arrest figures,
falling street prices in our cities--these are hardly indications of
full cooperation by Mexican authorities in combating drug trafficking.
Let me speak about the cartels in Mexico. The State Department's
Statement of Explanation touts the arrests of ``several major drug
traffickers,'' including Juan Garcia Abrego, leader of the Gulf cartel,
Jose Luis Pereira Salas, linked to the Juarez and Colombian Cali
cartel, and Manuel Rodriguez Lopez, linked to a minor operation called
the Castrillon maritime smuggling organization.
But who the Mexicans fail to capture tells a much more important
story. In fact, the State Department admits as much when it says, ``the
strongest groups, such as the Juarez and Tijuana cartels, have yet to
be effectively confronted.''
Let me repeat that: ``the strongest groups * * * have yet to be
effectively confronted.''
So here is the State Department explaining to us that Mexico has
fully cooperated with the United States, and yet telling us in the same
breath that Mexico has taken no serious action against the
organizations and individuals most responsible for the bulk of the drug
trafficking.
This is also not how United States drug enforcement officials
describe the efforts in Mexico. Let me share with my colleagues what
our own drug enforcement officials say about how fully Mexico is
cooperating in antidrug efforts.
DEA administrator, Thomas Constantine, has described the Mexican drug
cartels, in a statement he made to a House committee the week before
last, as ``the leading organized crime organizations in the Western
Hemisphere, and for some reason,'' he continues, ``they seem to be
operating with impunity.''
His testimony is a chilling account of the extensive operations of
the major Mexican drug cartels and how corruption within Mexican law
enforcement agencies has allowed the cartels to conduct their deadly
trade with virtual impunity. He also described how the Mexican drug
cartels are expanding their criminal reach into the United States.
As we debate whether or not to disapprove of Mexico's certification,
I hope all of my colleagues will take the time to read Mr.
Constantine's testimony. It makes the case better than anything I have
seen that Mexico's efforts have, in fact, not met the standard for
certification.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Constantine's
testimony be printed in the Record after my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I understand the Government Printing
Office estimates that it will cost $1,152 to print this testimony in
the Record. I also ask unanimous consent that the Government Printing
Office estimate be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my
remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 2.)
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I do this, Mr. President, because I think this is
testimony that is crucial to a decision that will shortly be before the
Senate. This is our No. 1 drug enforcement agency in the United States,
and I think it is important that the testimony of the head of that
agency be read by Members considering this issue.
Perhaps the most powerful of all cartels today is the Amado Carrillo-
Fuentes organization, also known as the Juarez cartel. This
organization operates out of Rancho Hacienda de la Natividad today,
near Cuernavaca, Morelos, outside of Mexico City. It runs multi-ton
quantities of Colombian cocaine toward Mexican distribution sites and
then into the United States.
The organization runs these drug trafficking operations in Chihuahua,
Mexico City, Mayarit, Nuevo Leon, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Sonora, Jalisco,
Baja, CA, Tamulipas, Veracruz, and Zacatecas, among others.
Despite the ``encouraging results and notable progress'' cited by the
State Department, the Juarez cartel is today as strong as it has ever
been. Worse, it is spreading its tentacles into the United States, and
this concerns me deeply. One law enforcement official told me it
controls a majority of the cocaine in Los Angeles.
Operations linked to the Amado Carrillo-Fuentes organization have
today been identified in the Texas cities of El Paso, Houston, McAllen,
Midland, Odessa and San Antonio, and in California's major cities such
as Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento; also, in Nevada's major city,
Las Vegas; Illinois' major city, Chicago; the major city in the State
of New York, New York City; and Florida's major city, Miami.
Do we know who the leaders of this cartel are? Yes, we do, and so do
the
[[Page S2037]]
Mexican authorities. Amado Carrillo-Fuentes heads the organization and
controls the cocaine, marijuana and heroin transportation to the United
States. His brother, Vincente Carrillo-Fuentes, is primarily
responsible for the group's marijuana trafficking operation.
These men are considered by President Zedillo to be Mexico's primary
national security threat. Amado Carrillo-Fuentes has been indicted in
Florida and in Texas on heroin and cocaine charges. Yet, he has never
been tried in Mexico, nor has an extradition request for crimes
committed in the United States been honored.
Have the Mexican authorities taken any action whatsoever that has
hampered the operations of the Amado Carrillo-Fuentes organization? The
answer to date is no. In fact, there is ample evidence to show that the
Carrillo-Fuentes organization has federal police and government
officials on their payroll, including the former head of the
counternarcotics effort in Mexico, General Gutierrez, who was arrested
3 weeks ago.
Just a few days ago, Mexico did try to arrest Mr. Carrillo-Fuentes.
Let me read from the Los Angeles Times, dated Saturday, March 8:
In an apparently stepped-up search for alleged drug lord
Amado Carrillo Fuentes, more than 100 troops backed by light
tanks commandeered a luxury hotel in Guadalajara late
Thursday night. . . .
Carlton Hotel manager Carlos Hodria said Friday that about
150 soldiers arrived unannounced in trucks and tanks and that
the operation lasted about 40 minutes, jarring most of the
hotel's personnel and 296 guests. He quoted military officers
as saying they were ``searching for a person.''
Obviously, when you roll tanks up to a hotel, whomever you are
looking for is going to know that and be long gone. To my knowledge, no
arrests were made.
The other major cartel at work in Mexico is the Arellano-Felix
organization, also known as the Tijuana cartel. This organization
transports multiton quantities of cocaine and marijuana and large
quantities of heroin and methamphetamine into the United States where
it is distributed by agents employed by the cartel in this country.
The cartel has its base of operations in Tijuana, but it is active in
Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacan, Chiapas, Baja California Norte and Baja
California Sur. It is of particular concern to me because Southern
California is the primary entry point of most of the drugs trafficked
by this organization.
The Arellano-Felix organization has spread its influence deep inside
American cities, often recruiting street gangs to do its distribution
and enforcement work. Orders are given to these agents in U.S. cities
directly from Tijuana through sophisticated telecommunications
networks.
Do we know who the leaders of the Arellano-Felix organization are?
Again, we do, and so do the Mexican authorities.
Alberto Benjamin Arellano-Felix is the leader of the organization and
has overall responsibility for management of the cartel's drug-
trafficking operations.
His brother, Ramon Eduardo Arellano-Felix, is responsible for the
group's security operations, which include well-trained paramilitary-
style forces who assassinate rivals and traitors.
Has any action been taken by the Mexican authorities to rein in the
operations of the Arellano-Felix organization? Have there been any
arrests of its senior leaders?
No, the State Department informs us. This cartel has ``yet to be
effectively confronted.'' Is this an example of the ``encouraging
results and notable progress'' cited by the State Department?
The Amado Carrillo-Fuentes cartel and the Arellano-Felix cartel, to
the best of my knowledge, are operating with absolute impunity. But
even the smaller cartels are hardly touched by Mexican authorities.
I think two recent incidents illustrate just what sort of cooperation
the United States is receiving from Mexico with respect to the cartels.
On February 26 of this year, the Washington Post published an hour-
long interview--hour-long interview--with Miguel Angel Caro Quintero,
leader of the Sonora cartel, who is under indictment in the United
States for crimes committed in the United States and for whom the
United States has requested extradition.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed
in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 3.)
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, as he told the Post:
I go to the banks, offices, just like any Mexican. Every
day I pass by roadblocks, police, soldiers, and there are no
problems. I'm in the streets all the time. How can they not
find me? Because they're not looking for me.
According to law enforcement, the Sonora cartel cultivates, smuggles,
and distributes heroin and marijuana to the United States, as well as
transporting Colombian cocaine. It has operations reaching into
Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota,
Nebraska, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana.
The Washington Post found him, but the Mexican police, up to the last
few days, were not even looking for him. Perhaps the State Department
would explain how this qualifies as ``full cooperation'' with the
United States. I do not see it.
The other incident was a typical February story. I sometimes wish
February would last all year round because the pressure of the March 1
certification decision seems to produce all kinds of results that we
are unable to get the rest of the year, but on March 2, frequently it
is business as usual.
Just hours before the President's decision on certification was to be
made public, the Mexican Government announced with great fanfare the
arrest of Humberto Garcia Abrego, a leader of the Gulf cartel.
Leave aside the question of why Mexican authorities were unable to
arrest this man the rest of the year but miraculously found him on
February 27. What happened next is critical to the integrity of the
effort.
Only hours after the decision to certify Mexico was announced,
Humberto Garcia Abrego simply walked out of custody. The Mexican
Attorney General's office called his release ``inexplicable.'' You
could not write a script that would illustrate our problem with
Mexico's inability to deal with the cartels any better than this
incident.
Yet, the State Department assures us that there have been
``encouraging results and notable progress.'' Not with respect to the
cartels. I sincerely do not believe that the cartels' operations have
been altered, reduced or impeded at all.
Those officials whom the cartels cannot buy they kill.
The cartels have unleashed a reign of terror on honest Mexican law
enforcement officials. The DEA reports that 12 prosecutors and law
enforcement officers have been assassinated in Mexico in just the last
year alone, most of them in connection with the Tijuana cartel.
Let's start with an incident on February 22, 1996, just about a year
ago. Approximately 40 Juarez municipal police opened fire on agents
from the Mexican Attorney General's office, resulting in the death of
one commandante and one agent. DEA suspects the local police were
providing protection for drug traffickers.
On February 23, 1996, Sergio Armanda Silva, a former operations chief
of the Baja federal police, was assassinated.
On April 17, 1996, Mexico City's previous top prosecutor, Arturo
Ochoa Palacios, was gunned down while jogging.
May 1996, Mexico City's top prosecutor, Sergio Moreno Perez, was
kidnapped with his adult son in Michoacan state. Their bodies were
later discovered in a car in Mexico City's suburbs.
June 27, 1996, drug agency commandante Daniel Beruben-Jaime was
assassinated in Jalisco.
July 19, 1996, Isaac Sanchez Perez, the former Baja federal police
commander, was shot in the back of the head and killed in Mexico City.
August 17, 1996, Tijuana prosecutor Jesus Romero Magana was gunned
down outside his home. He was investigating the Arellano-Felix
organization.
September 14, 1996, Baja federal police commander Ernesto Ibarra
Santes, two of his bodyguards and a cab driver were machine-gunned down
in Mexico city.
[[Page S2038]]
Ibarra had vowed to go after the Arellano Felix brothers and to purge
the federal police ranks of any corrupt federal agents who stood in his
way. He held his post for 28 days.
September 21, the body of Hector Gonzalez-Baecenas, assistant to
Garcia Vargas, was found in the trunk of another car. Also tortured.
September 23, 1996, the body of 43-year-old Jorge Garcia Vargas,
Tijuana district chief of the Federal antinarcotics agency was found in
the trunk of a car along with the body of Miguel Angel Silva Caballero,
a former Federal police commander. Both showed signs of torture.
November 3, 1996, a former prosecutor named Martin Ramirez-Alvarez
was murdered in Tijuana. His wife reported that an unknown number of
individuals stopped them in a vehicle utilizing red and blue police
strobe lights. They dragged Ramirez-Alvarez out of the vehicle and shot
him point blank six times. It is believed the Arellano-Felix
organization is responsible for the assassination.
On January 3, 1997, 27-year-old State Prosecutor Hodin Gutierrez-Rico
was assassinated in front of his wife and children at his residence in
Tijuana. Gutierrez-Rico was investigating the murder of a Tijuana
municipal police chief and Presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio.
More than 120 spent shells were found on the ground, and his body was
deliberately run over several times by a van.
And so it goes. These murders are, to me, the most compelling because
their message is undeniable: ``Get too close, and you are dead.'' And
not one of these cases has been solved to date. This is why the
corruption of the military general placed in charge of the
counternarcotics effort is so paralyzing. The question remains: If the
highest military man can be corrupted, then who is left?
But Mexico's failure to combat the cartels effectively is having an
alarming spillover effect into American cities. Robert Walsh, special
agent in charge of the San Diego office of the FBI told my office that
all of the major Mexican cartels have members of United States gangs
working for them.
These agents distribute the drugs shipped in by the cartels and ship
the cash generated from drug sales back to Mexico. They also carry out
revenge murders on orders from Tijuana or Juarez.
Prof. Peter Lupsha of the University of New Mexico, who has studied
the cartels for decades, says, ``I don't believe anyone in La Cosa
Nostra could order a murder 2,000 miles away and expect it to be
carried out. Carillo-Fuentes can do that and much more.''
That is why the State Department's utter denial that the problem is
getting worse is so dangerous. As much as these cartels are destroying
Mexico, their reach is expanding. They have agents in many of our large
and mid-size cities. Their drugs are reaching our children. The gangs
they hire kill ruthlessly to protect their turf in our cities.
It is no exaggeration to say that the lives of hundreds, if not
thousands, of Americans are literally at stake in the war against the
cartels. And the State Department's refusal to face up to facts does
not protect a single child from the bullets of a drug-running gang or a
driveby shooter.
Let me speak about money laundering.
The next item of progress in the State Department's statement of
explanation is that ``the Mexican Congress passed two critical pieces
of legislation which have armed the Government of Mexico with a whole
new arsenal of weapons to use to combat money laundering, chemical
diversion, and organized crime.''
Let us see how good the new money-laundering law is.
It is true that in May 1996, the Mexican Congress adopted a law that
for the first time specifically identified money laundering as a
criminal act. At that time, Finance Minister Guillermo Ortiz Martinez
committed to develop the regulations that would implement this law by
January 1997.
The draft of these regulations, which would require banks and other
institutions to report suspicious transactions of currency, were due in
January. Well, it is now March and the regulations have not been
forthcoming.
No doubt, the implementation date of these regulations, now scheduled
for June 1997, will slide, as will the issuance of a second set of
regulations, governing the reporting of large-scale transactions.
These regulations are essential to combating money laundering.
Reporting requirements discourage would-be money launderers, tip off
law enforcement officials to unlawful activity, and create a paper
trail that can be a powerful investigative tool.
But until Finance Minister Ortiz issues the regulations and they are
implemented, it is business as usual. To date, not a single Mexican
bank or exchange house has been forced to alter its operations.
And until the regulations have been issued, we have no real way of
evaluating the impact of the law. Any law is only as good as its
implementation. It is a giant leap of faith by the State Department to
cite the passage of a money-laundering law as a sign of major progress
when, to date, it has been neither implemented nor enforced.
There are some key questions that must be answered:
Will the regulations prevent bank employees or ministry staff from
tipping off drug cartels about investigations?
Second, will the regulations provide immunity for employees who
report a suspicious transaction and are acting in good faith? If not,
they may be reluctant to report transactions as required, or killed if
they do.
Third, will the regulations contain exemptions for any industries?
They should not.
In addition, there is a major weakness in the new law in that it does
not provide for sanctions against banks and financial institutions that
fail to comply with reporting requirements. Without such sanctions,
Mexico's money-laundering laws will remain woefully inadequate.
Now, there is a report today in the Financial Times of London that
Mexico will introduce its antilaundering regulations this week. We
shall see. Those regulations will need to be evaluated. But why has it
taken Mexico until mid-March, and a crisis over certification, to get
to this point? That is not a sign of a fully cooperating country.
Meanwhile, massive money laundering continues in Mexico unabated. And
it is spilling across the southwest border.
California State Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement Chief George Doane
testified last March that ``at a money counting and shipping house in
the Los Angeles area, agents located $6 million in cash and financial
records in a residence occupied by three Hispanic nationals, indicating
that $75 million had been counted, packaged, and shipped from the
residence via a commercial bus company to Mexico.''
An analysis done by the DEA of all transactions between the San
Antonio Federal Reserve and area depository institutions showed a
currency surplus of $2.96 billion in 1995--a clear sign that cartels
have successfully laundered money to their final destination in Mexico.
The DEA's Donnie Marshall told Congress in September that a DEA
investigation known as Zorro II in the Los Angeles area ``resulted in
the arrests of 156 people, the seizure of approximately 5,600 kilograms
of cocaine, and over $17 million in U.S. currency. The majority of this
$17 million was seized as it was being prepared for shipment to Mexico
or seized from vehicles that were en route to Mexico.''
Marshall also described cambios, or exchange houses outside the
banking system, located along the borders of Texas and California,
which are a significant factor in the laundering of drug proceeds where
Mexican traffickers intermingle cash derived from drug sales with
legitimate exchange business. My staff recently visited 22 of these
exchange houses.
So the State Department sees encouraging results and notable progress
in the area of money laundering as well. I say that today there is no
effective effort to deter the laundering of drug money anywhere in
Mexico.
Corruption
The State Department's statement of explanation sees progress even
where--by its own admission--none exists. This is how the Department
describes Mexico's so-called progress on combating corruption:
[[Page S2039]]
In an effort to confront widespread corruption within the
nation's law enforcement agencies, former Attorney General
Lozano dismissed over 1,250 federal police officers and
technical personnel for corruption or incompetence, although
some have been rehired, and the Government of Mexico indicted
two former senior Government officials and a current
Undersecretary of Tourism.
Now, the sentence, in a sense, refutes itself. When you say that some
have been rehired, of course, if they were innocent, we would want them
to be rehired. But if they were guilty, we would want them to be
prosecuted. So let's look and see what happened.
According to the DEA, of the 1,250 officers dismissed for corruption,
not a single one was successfully prosecuted--not one.
The rash of murders of prosecutors and law enforcement officers in
Tijuana is a case in point. These assassinations have been made
possible in large part because the Tijuana police have been so
thoroughly corrupted by the Arellano-Felix organization.
According to the Los Angeles Times on March 3, 1997, court papers
recently filed in United States district court by the Mexican
Government in an extradition case contain testimony to the effect
that--and let me remind you that this is from court papers submitted by
the Mexican Government--``the state attorney general and almost 90
percent of the law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges in
Tijuana and the State of Baja California . . . are on the payroll'' of
the Arellano-Felix organization.
In the same San Diego court documents, a former presidential guard,
army lieutenant Gerardo Cruz Pacheco, told how he recruited soldiers to
unload drug shipments and helped Tijuana cartel gunmen assassinate Baja
federal police commander Ernesto Ibarra Santes in September.
The Federal judicial police have been so corrupted by the cartels
that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between them and the
criminals. That is why some were encouraged by the prospect of
increased participation of the Mexican military, which has not been so
tainted by corruption, in the anti-drug effort.
But that's why the startling revelation about Gen. Jesus Gutierrez
Rebollo, the head of the National Institute to Combat Drugs--Mexico's
top counternarcotics official--who is a 42-year veteran of the armed
forces, has cast grave doubts upon that hope.
When the Mexican Army planned a raid of the wedding of the sister of
Amado Carrillo-Fuentes, the drug lord had been tipped off in advance,
some say by General Gutierrez himself. As a result, he escaped arrest
by leaving early or not attending. But Mexican troops found federal
police providing protection for drug traffickers at the wedding.
And most concering to me is that corruption is spreading rapidly
across the border into the United States. For example:
In Calexico, CA, former INS inspector Richard Felix admitted to FBI
agents that he pocketed up to $500,000 in bribes for permitting loads
of cocaine and marijuana to pass uninspected through his port of entry
lane.
In El Paso, former Customs and INS inspector Jose Trinidad Carrillo
gave drug traffickers a price list for his help in getting drugs
through his border-entry lane: $10,000 per car, or $40 per pound of
marijuana and $250 per pound of cocaine.
Stories of officials of U.S. border towns being bribed are now
surfacing. Some of this I heard myself in the testimony of a border
rancher to the Judiciary Committee last year.
President Zedillo appears to be trying his best to fight drug
trafficking, and he has honest people on his side, like Elvira Ruiz,
one of the few female police chiefs in Baja, whose life has been
consistently threatened by the cartels.
But the efforts of these people are unfortunately being completely
overwhelmed by the uncontrollable tide of corruption.
The arrest of General Gutierrez has been cited by the administration
as evidence of the Mexican Government's commitment to fight corruption.
But the way in which this situation was handled raises serious
questions about Mexico's willingness to cooperate with the United
States.
On February 6 of this year, Defense Secretary Enrique Cervantes
Aguirre confronted General Gutierrez, asking him to explain how he came
to live in an apartment that was beyond the means of his salary. The
general began suffering a heart attack and was placed in the hospital.
After 12 days of investigating, on February 18, Defense Secretary
Cervantes had Gutierrez placed under arrest for accepting bribes from
the Carrillo-Fuentes cartel.
Yet during that entire 12-day period, the Mexican Government gave no
indication to the United States that it suspected that its top drug
official was corrupt. In that time, U.S. officials continued regular
contacts with Gutierrez' National Institute to Combat Drugs, not
knowing that its operations were directed by a man in the pocket of
drug kingpins.
General Gutierrez had been in Washington shortly before he was first
questioned about his spending habits. He met with our drug czar, Gen.
Barry McCaffrey, who called him a man of absolute, unquestioned
integrity. Why would Mexico allow Gutierrez to visit Washington when he
was suspected of corruption, and why--at the least--would they not
alert the United States side?
Our own drug enforcement officials have been forced to conduct damage
assessments to determine how much and what kind of intelligence was
provided to the general, and perhaps passed right onto the Amado
Carrillo-Fuentes. We are left to worry that the lives of our agents in
the field and our informants have been placed in jeopardy.
So we can praise the Mexican Government for arresting Gutierrez, but
their delay in notifying the United States of their suspicions about
the general begs an important question: Is this a sign of the full
cooperation for which Mexico has just been certified?
Cooperation with U.S. Law Enforcement
The State Department's statement of explanation then goes on to
describe the extensive cooperation that has taken place between the
Mexican and United States Governments:
The United States and Mexico established the High-Level
Contact Group on Narcotics Control (HLCG) to explore joint
solutions to the shared drug threat and to coordinate
bilateral anti-drug efforts. The HLCG met three times during
1996 and its technical working groups met throughout the
year. Under the aegis of the HLCG, the two governments
developed a joint assessment of the narcotics threat posed to
both countries which will be used as the basis for a joint
counter-drug strategy.
All the high-level meetings in the world don't amount to a hill of
beans unless there is cooperation and coordination on the ground
between law enforcement agencies of the two sides.
Once again, the State Department's assertion that these meetings are
a sign of real progress misses the point. Whether or not our leaders
can work together is less important than whether our cops can work
together.
And plainly, at the moment, they cannot. Given the staggering level
of corruption in the Mexican police, it is no wonder that DEA
Administrator Constantine told the House Committee last week: ``In
short, there is not one single law enforcement institution in Mexico
with whom DEA has an entirely trusting relationship.''
That statement by itself should call into question Mexico's
qualification to be certified. It is echoed by law enforcement agents
on the ground:
On March 7, 1997, Ed Ladd, president of the California Narcotics
Officers' Association, issued a statement in which he announced that
the association's board had voted unanimously to support congressional
efforts to overturn the decision to certify Mexico. This vote, Mr. Ladd
said, ``is based on our longstanding experience with the widespread
corruption and lack of cooperation shown by the Mexican government.''
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text the
statement of Ed Ladd, president of the California Narcotic Officers'
Association, be included in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, is it so ordered.
(See exhibit 4.)
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol
Council, the union which represents nearly 5,000 Border Patrol agents,
told my staff on March 4, 1997:
The level of trust for Mexican authorities is almost non-
existent. He said that ``the lack of cooperation includes
failure to provide assistance, aiding and abetting criminal
[[Page S2040]]
activity, and even acts of aggression against Border Patrol
Agents.'' He described U.S. agents observing Mexican officers
who were clearly escorting aliens and drug smugglers.
The police chief of El Centro, CA, Harold Carter, told my staff that
his officers are very leery of who they can trust in Mexico.
These are the views of our law enforcement officers. But the question
of whether Mexico is fully cooperating with the United States can also
be easily answered by looking at Mexico's policies on working with DEA
agents. In this area, there have been three significant failings.
One was the failure of the Mexican Government--the same one that has
just been certified as fully cooperating--to adequately fund and staff
the binational border task forces that had been agreed upon by the high
level contact group.
What good are high-level meetings that produce agreements on
cooperation if one side then fails to live up to its end of the
agreement?
Second, Mexico has hampered the ability of the United States military
to contribute to interdiction efforts. Mexico refuses to allow United
States Navy ships on patrol for drug smugglers in the Pacific to put
into Mexican ports to refuel without 30 days notice--and without paying
cash. As the cartels increasingly turn to sea-routes to smuggle their
drugs, this policy seriously hampers our ability to stop them.
Also, overflights by U.S. reconnaissance aircraft are still under
negotiation. These flights would enhance the ability of both sides to
find and disrupt drug shipments.
The third major failing has been Mexico's refusal to allow United
States drug enforcement agents to carry sidearms to protect themselves
while on the Mexican side of the border. As a result, Mr. Constantine
had no choice but to suspend operations in which DEA agents cross the
border, because they cannot protect themselves.
In the last several days, there has been a flurry of meetings between
American and Mexican officials. Did the United States gain any
concessions? Well, Mexican officials were quoted as saying that ``the
rules have stayed exactly where they are''--which means no sidearms.
There you have it. Full cooperation.
Extraditions
The State Department's statement of explanation makes another
astonishing claim on the subject of extraditions. It says:
The Government of Mexico established the important
precedent of extraditing Mexican nationals to the United
States under the provision of Mexico's extradition law
permitting this in ``exceptional circumstances.''
Here is my understanding of the actual facts:
First, Mexico says it has changed its policy to allow the extradition
of Mexican nationals to the United States. Of course, we are talking
about Mexican nationals who are wanted for crimes committed here in the
United States.
Second, to my knowledge, the Mexican government has sent three
Mexican nationals to the United States. One was Juan Garcia Abrego,
head of the gulf cartel, but he was expelled, not extradited, because
he held American as well as Mexican citizenship. The other two were for
murder and sexual abuse, not for drug charges.
Third, to date, Mexico has never--never--extradited a single Mexican
national to the United States on drug-related charges. That, I believe,
is a fact.
Now the Mexican Government says, and the State Department apparently
believes, that Mexico is prepared to extradite Mexican nationals on
drug charges in ``special circumstances.''
If this is truly a change of policy on the part of Mexico, let us see
results. There are 52 outstanding extradition requests for Mexican
nationals wanted on drug charges. Mexico should honor these requests
now.
It should be pointed out that these extradition requests are for
crimes committed in this country. How can a good friend, ally, and
neighbor deny extradition of 52 people wanted for drug-related crimes
committed here, and the statement still be made that they are fully
cooperating in our antidrug efforts?
A good place for Mexico to start would be with Francisco Arellano-
Felix of the Tijuana cartel, who is currently in custody in a Mexican
prison and wanted on narcotics charges here in the United States.
Another good start would be Miguel Caro Quintero, who walks the streets
of Sonora without fear of arrest and grants interviews with the
Washington Post. He has four indictments pending against him in the
United States.
Mexican nationals wanted on drug charges is clearly the highest
priority. These include many of the drug kingpins. But there are other
sensitive cases as well that need to be resolved.
John Riley Henrique was indicted by a Federal grand jury in the
eastern district of California for trafficking at least 150 kilograms
of cocaine from Mexico to the United States. Henrique, an American
citizen, is thought to be connected with Miguel Angel Felix Guillardo,
the mastermind of the 1985 murder of DEA Agent Enrique Camarena.
Law enforcement sources told my office that John Riley Henrique was
detained by Mexican law enforcement and then suddenly released without
warning. He is still believed to be in Mexico. The Mexican authorities
should find him, apprehend him, and extradite him.
T.J. Bonner of the National Border Patrol Council testified before
the Senate Banking Committee on March 28, 1996, about the tragic fatal
shooting on January 19, 1996, of a Border Patrol agent, our agent,
Jefferson Barr. Agent Barr was killed while intercepting a group of
marijuana smugglers along the border near Eagle Pass, TX.
Before he died, Agent Barr wounded one of his assailants. The FBI
interviewed the suspect, a Mexican national, in a Mexican hospital, and
the United States later charged him with murder and sought his
extradition. The Government of Mexico sentenced the individual to 10
years in prison on a narcotics-related charge but has refused to
extradite him.
For the State Department to say that Mexico is fully cooperating on
the issue of extraditions under these circumstances dishonors the
memory of Agent Jefferson Barr.
America's law enforcement officers know how serious the problem is. I
would like to quote from a March 2, 1997, press release put out by the
National Border Patrol Council, local 1613, of San Diego. It reads:
The certification of Mexico is a clear blow to the efforts
of U.S. Border Patrol agents in their daily efforts at
thwarting the massive amounts of illegal drugs entering the
country every day. Additionally, this certification is a
disgrace to the memory of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jefferson
Barr.
The Need to Waive Sanctions
Some worry that decertifying Mexico will harm our relationship with
an important friend and ally. Others worry that it will make Mexico's
drug problem worse.
Mexico is a friend and an ally, but I ask my colleagues: Do we do
Mexico any favors by turning a blind eye to the depth of the problem?
Do we do Mexico any favors by suggesting that the status quo is good
enough? Will Mexico take the steps necessary to combat the flow of
drugs if the United States keeps telling them year after year after
year that they are doing enough and that they are fully cooperating?
The truth is that failure to decertify Mexico makes a mockery of the
entire certification process. Columbia is decertified. Mexico is not.
And today, the drugs coming from Mexico are the greatest threat. It
makes no sense.
I know of few Members of this body, if any, who want to impose
sanctions on Mexico. Senate Joint Resolution 21, which the Senator from
Georgia and I introduced last week, decertifies Mexico but authorizes
the President to waive all sanctions if it is in the vital national
interest, and we will give testimony to that resolution in the Foreign
Relations Committee the day after tomorrow.
The same is true of House Joint Resolution 58, which passed the House
International Relations Committee by a vote of 27 to 5 last Thursday
and will likely pass the full House by a large margin later this week.
I believe that we do have vital national interests in Mexico that
require us not to impose sanctions at this point. All we are asking for
is an honest, accurate assessment of whether Mexico has fully
cooperated with us in the war on drugs, and to send the message that
this cooperation must improve rapidly or Mexico will be fully
decertified next year. This is what the law provides, and the facts, I
believe,
[[Page S2041]]
speak for themselves. Mexico has not met the test of full cooperation
required for certification.
Steps Toward Recertification
I realize that the administration has been working feverishly to
negotiate agreements with Mexico which will show that progress is being
made, and I hope they can do that. But it is too late to improve
Mexico's performance in 1996. The year is gone. But let me lay out some
of the steps I believe Mexico needs to take in order to be eligible to
be recertified, if she is decertified.
First, effective action to dismantle the major drug cartels and
arrest their leaders.
Second, full and ongoing implementation of effective money-laundering
legislation and rigorously enforced bank regulations with penalties for
those who do not comply.
Third, compliance with all outstanding extradition requests by the
United States so that cartel leaders and major traffickers can be
brought to justice.
Fourth, help at the border. Mexico, as a friend, an ally, and a
neighbor, should help enforce the border and prevent the flow of
contraband. It is not enough to see this as simply America's problem.
And this goes for the seas as well. Not to permit United States
military ships to refuel in Mexican ports without 30 days notice is
unacceptable from a friend.
Fifth, improved cooperation with U.S. law enforcement officials,
including allowing United States law enforcement agents to resume
carrying weapons on the Mexican side of the border, and for Mexico to
pay their share of the effort and be fully supportive of United States
help.
Any legitimate American law enforcement officer detailed to Mexico
and working drugs should be permitted to carry a sidearm --or they
should not go.
Sixth, implementation of a comprehensive program to identify, to weed
out, and to prosecute corrupt officials at all levels of the Mexican
Government, police, and military.
If Mexico takes these steps, I would support recertification even
during the current year, which the law allows if there is significant
progress in a decertified country.
Mr. President, I believe I have laid out a strong case that Mexico
did not earn certification as fully cooperating on counternarcotics in
1996. Have there been instances of cooperation? Of course. But can
anyone credibly say that Mexico has fully cooperated with the United
States? It is not even close.
It is important for us to be honest with ourselves about this issue.
If we are not honest with ourselves, we unreasonably lower our guard
against the incredible danger that Mexican drug trafficking poses to
our children, our schools, and our communities.
If we are not honest with ourselves, we dishonor the dedication of
thousands of DEA and Border Patrol agents who put their lives on the
line every single day to try to keep drugs from reaching our streets. I
believe today those agents have every right to feel betrayed.
Senator Coverdell, Senator Helms, myself, and others will continue
trying to disapprove the Mexico certification and enact a vital
national interest waiver. Similar legislation is moving through the
House. We will make our best effort.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time and ask unanimous
consent that Senator Coverdell and Senator Hutchinson of Arkansas be
permitted to speak during morning business charged to the time under my
control.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
Remarks by Thomas A. Constantine, Administrator, Drug Enforcement
Administration, Before the House Government Reform and Oversight
Committee, National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal
Justice Subcommittee
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee: I appreciate
this opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee today on
the subject of Mexico and the Southwest Border Initiative. My
comments today will be limited to an objective assessment of
the law enforcement issues involving organized crime and drug
trafficking problems with specific attention on Mexico and
the Southwest border. This hearing is extremely timely, and
during my testimony I will provide the subcommittee with a
full picture of how organized crime groups from Mexico
operate and affect so many aspects of life in America today.
I am not exaggerating when I say that these sophisticated
drug syndicate groups from Mexico have eclipsed organized
crime groups from Colombia as the premier law enforcement
threat facing the United States today.
Many phrases have been used to describe the complex and
sophisticated international drug trafficking groups operating
out of Colombia and Mexico, and frankly, the somewhat
respectable titles of ``cartel'' or ``federation'' mask the
true identity of these vicious, destructive entities. The
Cali organization, and the four largest drug trafficking
organizations in Mexico--operating out of Juarez, Tijuana,
Sonora and the Gulf region--are simply organized crime groups
whose leaders are not in Brooklyn or Queens, but are safely
ensconced on foreign soil. They are not legitimate
businessmen as the word ``cartel'' implies, nor are they
``federated'' into a legitimate conglomerate. These syndicate
leaders--the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers in Colombia to Amado
Carrillo-Fuentes, Juan Garcia-Abrego, Miguel Caro-Quintero,
and the Arellano-Felix Brothers--are simply the 1990's
versions of the mob leaders U.S. law enforcement has fought
since shortly after the turn of this century.
But these organized crime leaders are far more dangerous,
far more influential and have a great deal more impact on our
day to day lives than their domestic predecessors. While
organized crime in the United States during the
1950's through the 1970's affected certain aspects of
American life, their influence pales in comparison to the
violence, corruption and power that today's drug
syndicates wield. These individuals, from their
headquarters locations, absolutely influence the choices
that too many Americans make about where to live, when to
venture out of their homes, or where they send their
children to school. The drugs--and the attendant violence
which accompanies the drug trade--have reached into every
American community and have robbed many Americans of the
dreams they once cherished.
Organized crime in the United States was addressed over
time, but only after Americans recognized the dangers that
organized crime posed to our way of life. But it did not
happen overnight. American organized crime was exposed to the
light of day systematically, stripping away the pretense that
mob leaders were anonymous businessmen. The Appalachian raid
of 1957 forced law enforcement to acknowledge that these
organized syndicates did indeed exist, and strong measures
were taken to go after the top leadership, a strategy used
effectively throughout our national campaign against the mob.
During the 1960's, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy was
unequivocal in his approach to ending the reign of organized
crime in America, and consistent law enforcement policies
were enacted which resulted in real gains. Today, traditional
organized crime, as we knew it in the United States, has been
eviscerated, a fragment of what it once was.
At the height of its power, organized crime in this nation
was consolidated in the hands of few major families whose key
players live in this nation, and were within reach of our
criminal justice system. All decisions made by organized
crime were made within the United States. Orders were carried
out on U.S. soil. While it was not easy to build cases
against the mob leaders, law enforcement knew that once a
good case was made against a boss, he could be located within
the U.S., arrested and sent to jail.
That is not the case with today's organized criminal
groups. They are strong, sophisticated and destructive
organizations operating on a global scale. Their decisions
are made in sanctuaries in Cali, Colombia, and Guadalajara,
Mexico, even day-to-day operational decisions such as where
to ship cocaine, which cars their workers in the United
States should rent, which apartments should be leased, which
markings should be on each cocaine package, which contract
murders should be ordered, which official should be bribed,
and how much. They are shadowy figures whose armies of
workers in Colombia, Mexico and the United States answer to
them via daily faxes, cellular phone, or pagers. Their armies
carry out killings within the United States--one day an
outspoken journalist, one day a courier who had lost a load,
the next an innocent bystander caught in the line of fire--on
orders of the top leadership. They operate from the safety of
protected locations and are free to come and go as they
please within their home countries. These syndicate bosses
have at their disposal airplanes, boats, vehicles, radar,
communications equipment and weapons in quantities which
rival the capabilities of some legitimate governments.
Whereas previous organized crime leaders were millionaires,
the Cali drug traffickers and their counterparts from Mexico
are billionaires.
It is difficult--sometimes nearly impossible--for U.S. law
enforcement to locate and arrest these leaders without the
assistance of law enforcement in other countries. Their
communications are coded. they are protected by corrupt law
enforcement officials, despite pledges from the Government of
Mexico to apprehend the syndicate leaders, law enforcement
authorities have been unable to locate them and even if they
are located, the government is not obligated to extradite
them to the U.S. to stand trial.
In Mexico, as is the case wherever organized crime
flourishes, corruption and intimidation allow the leaders to
maintain
[[Page S2042]]
control. These sophisticated criminal groups cannot thrive
unless law enforcement officials have been paid bribes, and
witnesses fear for their lives. Later in my testimony I will
discuss some of these problems in greater detail.
It is frustrating for all of us in law enforcement that the
leaders of these criminal organizations, although well known
and indicted repeatedly, have not been located, arrested or
prosecuted.
the cali group and traffickers from mexico
We cannot discuss the situation in Mexico today without
looking at the evolution of the groups from Colombia--how
they began, what their status is today, and how the groups
from Mexico have learned important lessions from them,
becoming major trafficking organizations in their own right.
During the late 1980's the Cali group assumed greater and
greater power as their predecessors from the Medellin cartel
was brash and publicly violent in their activities, the
criminals, who ran their organization from Cali, labored
behind the pretense of legitimacy, posing as businessmen,
just carrying out their professional obligations. The Cali
leaders-the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers, Santa Cruz Londono,
Pacho Herrera--amassed fortunes and ran their multi-billion
dollar cocaine businesses from high-rises and ranches in
Colombia, Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela and his associates
composed what was until then, the most powerful international
organized crime group in history, employed 727 aircraft to
ferry drugs to Mexico, from where they were smuggled into the
United States, and then return to Colombia with the money
from U.S. drug sales. Using landing areas in Mexico, they
were able to evade U.S. law enforcement officials and make
important alliances with transportation and distribution
experts in Mexico.
With intense law enforcement pressure focused on the Cali
leadership by brave men and women in the Colombian National
Police during 1995 and 1996, all of the top leadership of the
Cali syndicate are either in jail, or dead. The fine work
done by General Serrano, who appeared before your
subcommittee only two weeks ago, and other CNP officers is a
testament to the commitment and dedication of Colombia's law
enforcement officials in the face of great personal danger
and a government whose leadership is riddled with drug
corruption.
Since the Cali leaders' imprisonment on sentences which
were ridiculously short and inadequate, traffickers from
Mexico took on greater prominence. The alliance between the
Colombian traffickers and the organizations from Mexico had
benefits for both sides. Traditionally, the traffickers from
Mexico have long been involved in smuggling marijuana,
heroin, cocaine into the United States, and had established
solid distribution routes throughout the nation. Because the
Cali syndicate was concerned about the security of their
loads, they brokered a commercial deal with the traffickers
from Mexico, which reduced their potential losses.
This agreement entailed the Colombians moving cocaine from
the Andean region to the Mexican organizations, who then
assumed the responsibility of delivering the cocaine into the
United States. In 1989, U.S. law enforcement officials seized
21 metric tons of cocaine in Sylmar, California; this record
seizure demonstrated the extent and magnitude of the Mexican
groups' capabilities to transport Colombian-produced cocaine
into the United States. This huge shipment was driven across
the Mexican/U.S. border in small shipments and stored in the
warehouse until all transportation fees had been paid by the
Calif and Medellin cartels, to the transporters from Mexico
are routinely paid in multi-ton quantities of cocaine, making
them formidable cocaine traffickers in their own right.
The majority of cocaine entering the United States
continues to come from Colombia through Mexico and across
U.S. border points of entry. Most of the cocaine enters the
United States in privately owned vehicles and commercial
trucks. There is a new evidence that indicates traffickers in
Mexico have gone directly to sources of cocaine in Bolivia
and Peru in order to circumvent Colombian middlemen. In
addition to the inexhaustible supply of cocaine entering the
U.S., trafficking organizations from Mexico are responsible
for producing and trafficking thousands of pounds of
methamphetamine, and have been major distributors of heroin
and marijuana in the W.S. since the 1970's.
Major Traffickers from Mexico
A number of major trafficking organizations represent the
highest echelons of organized crime in Mexico. Their leaders
are under indictment in the United States on numerous
charges. The Department of Justice has submitted Provisional
Warrants for many of their arrests to the Government of
Mexico, and only one, Juan Garcia Agrego, because he was a
U.S. citizen has been sent to the U.S. to face justice. The
other leaders are living freely in Mexico, and have so far
escaped apprehension by Mexican law enforcement, and have
suffered little, if any inconvenience resulting from their
notorious status, I believe that in order to fully expose
these syndicate leaders, it is more beneficial to refer to
them by their personal names than by the names of their
organizations.
Amado Carrillo-Fuentes
The most powerful drug trafficker in Mexico at the current
time is Amado Carrillo-Fuentes, who, as recently reported,
allegedly has ties to the former Commissioner of the INCD,
Gutierrez-Rebollo. His organized crime group, based in
Juarez, is associated with the Rodriguez-Orejuela
organization and the Ochoa brothers, from Medellin, as
well. This organization, which is also involved in heroin
and marijuana trafficking, handles large cocaine shipments
from Columbia. Their regional bases in Guadalajara,
Hermosillo and Torreon serve as storage locations where
later, the drugs are moved closer to the border for
eventual shipment into the United States.
The scope of the Carrillo-Fuentes' network is staggering;
he reportedly forwards $20-$30 million to Colombia for each
major operation, and his illegal activities generate ten's of
millions per week. He was a pioneer in the use of large
aircraft to transport cocaine from Colombia to Mexico and
became known as ``Lord of the Skies.'' Carillo-Fuentes
reportedly owns a fleet of aircraft and has major real estate
holdings.
Like his Colombian counterparts, Carillo-Fuentes is
sophisticated in the use of technology and counter
surveillance methods. His network employs state of the art
communications devices to conduct business. His organization
has become so powerful he is even seeking to expand his
markets into traditional Colombian strongholds on the east
coast of the United States.
Presently, Carrillo-Fuentes is attempting to consolidate
control over drug trafficking along the entire Mexican
northern border, and he plans to continue to bribe border
officials to ensure that his attempts are successful.
Carrillo-Fuentes, who is the subject of numerous separate
U.S. law enforcement investigations has been indicted in
Florida and Texas and remains a fugitive on heroin and
cocaine charges.
Miguel Caro-Quintero
Miguel Caro-Quintero's organization is based in Sonora,
Mexico and focuses its attention on trafficking cocaine and
marijuana. His brother, Rafael, is in prison in Mexico for
his role in killing DEA Special Agent Kiki Camarena in 1985.
Miguel, along with two of his other brothers--Jorge and
Genaro--run the organization. Miguel himself was arrested in
1992, and the USG and GOM cooperated in a bilateral
prosecution. Unfortunately, that effort was thwarted when
Miguel was able to use a combination of threats and bribes to
have his charges dismissed by a federal judge in Hermosillo.
He has operated freely since that time.
The Caro-Quintero organization specializes primarily in the
cultivation, production and distribution of marijuana, a
major cash-crop for drug groups from Mexico. The organization
is believed to own many ranches in the northern border state
of Sonora, where drugs are stored, and from which drug
operations into the United States are staged. Despite its
specialization in marijuana cultivation and distribution,
like the other major drug organizations in Mexico, this group
is polydrug in nature, also transporting and distributing
cocaine and methamphetamine.
Miguel Caro-Quintero is the subject of several indictments
in the United States and is currently the subject of
provisional arrest warrants issued by the United States
government, yet in an act of astonishing arrogance he called
a radio station in Hermosillo, Mexico last May indicating
that he was bothered by statements I had made that he was an
innocent rancher and charges made against him by DEA were
untrue. He then had the audacity to give his address and
invite law enforcement officials from Mexico and the United
States to visit him--yet he remains at large.
The Arellano-Felix Brothers
The Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO), often referred to as
the Tijuana Cartel, is one of the most powerful and
aggressive drug trafficking organizations operating from
Mexico; it is undeniably the most violent. More than any
other major trafficking organization from Mexico, it extends
its tentacles directly from high-echelon figures in the law
enforcement and judicial systems in Mexico, to street-level
individuals in the United States. The AFO is responsible for
the transportation, importation and distribution of multi-ton
quantities of cocaine, marijuana, as well as large quantities
of heroin and methamphetamine, into the United States from
Mexico. The AFO operates primarily in the Mexican states of
Sinaloa (their birth place), Jalisco, Michoacan, Chiapas, and
Baja California South and North. From Baja, the drugs enter
California, the primary point of embarkation into the
United States distribution network.
The AFO does not operate without the complicity of Mexican
law enforcement officials and their subordinates. According
to extradition documents submitted by the Government of
Mexico in San Diego, California, key family members
reportedly dispense an estimated one million dollars weekly
in bribes to Mexican federal, state and local officials, who
assure that the movement of drugs continues to flow unimpeded
to the gateway cities along the southwestern border of the
United States.
The Arellano family, composed of seven brothers and four
sisters, inherited the organization from Miguel Angel Felix-
Gallardo upon his incarceration in Mexico in 1989 for his
complicity in the murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique
Camarena. Alberto Benjamin Arellano-Felix assumed leadership
of the family structured criminal enterprise and provides a
businessman's approach to the management of drug trafficking
operations.
Ramon Eduardo Arellano-Felix, considered the most violent
brother, organizes and coordinates protection details over
which he
[[Page S2043]]
exerts absolute control. The AFO maintains well-armed and
well-trained security forces, described by Mexican
enforcement officials as paramilitary in nature, which
include international mercenaries as advisors, trainers and
members. Ramon Arellano's responsibilities consist of the
planning of murders of rival drug leaders and those Mexican
law enforcement officials not on their payroll. Also targeted
for assassination are those AFO members who fall out of favor
with the AFO leadership or simply are suspected of
collaborating with law enforcement officials. Enforcers are
often hired from violent street gangs in cities and towns in
both Mexico and the United States in the belief that these
gang members are expendable. They are dispatched to
assassinate targeted individuals and to send a clear message
to those who attempt to utilize the Mexicali/Tijuana corridor
without paying the area transit tax demanded by the AFO
trafficking domain.
The AFO also maintains complex communications centers in
several major cities in Mexico to conduct electronic
espionage and counter-surveillance measures against law
enforcement entities. The organization employs radio scanners
and equipment capable of intercepting both hard line and
cellular phones to ensure the security of AFO operators. In
addition to technical equipment, the AFO maintains caches of
sophisticated automatic weaponry secured from a variety of
international sources.
A Joint Task Force composed of the Drug Enforcement
Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation has
been established in San Diego, California, to target the AFO;
the Task Force is investigating AFO operations in Southern
California and related regional investigations which track
drug transportation, distribution and money laundering
activities of the AFO throughout the United States.
Jesus Amezcua
The Amezcua-Contreras brothers operating out of
Guadalajara, Mexico head up a methamphetamine production and
trafficking organization with global dimensions. Directed by
Jesus Amezcua, and supported by his brothers, Adan and Luis,
the Amezcua drug trafficking organization today is probably
the world's largest smuggler of ephedrine and clandestine
producer of methamphetamine. With a growing methamphetamine
abuse problem in the United States, this organization's
activities impact on a number of the major population centers
in the U.S. The Amezcua organization obtains large quantities
of the precursor ephedrine, utilizing contacts in Thailand
and India, which they supply to methamphetamine labs in
Mexico and the United States. This organization has placed
trusted associates in the United States to move ephedrine to
Mexican methamphetamine traffickers operating in the U.S.
Jose Osorio-Cabrera, a fugitive from a Los Angeles
investigation until his arrest in Bangkok, was a major
ephedrine purchaser for the Amezcua organization.
Joaquin Guzman-Loera
Joaquin Guzman-Loera began to make a name for himself as a
trafficker and air logistics expert for the powerful Miguel
Felix-Gallardo organization. Guzman-Loera broke away from
Felix-Gallardo and rose to patron level among the major
Mexican trafficking organizations. Presently, he is
incarcerated in Mexico; however, Mexican and United States
authorities still consider him to be a major international
drug trafficker. The organization has not been dismantled
or seriously affected by Guzman-Loera's imprisonment
because his brother, Arturo Guzman-Loera, has assumed the
leadership role. The Guzman-Loera organization transports
cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States
for the Medellin and Cali organizations and is also
involved in the movement, storage, and distribution of
marijuana, and Mexican and Southeast Asian heroin. This
organization controlled the drug smuggling tunnel between
Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico and Douglas, Arizona through
which tons of cocaine were smuggled.
Guzman-Loera, who has been named in several U.S.
indictments, was arrested on June 9, 1993 in Talisman, Mexico
for narcotics, homicide, and cocaine trafficking and is
presently incarcerated at the Almoloya de Juarez Maximum
Security Prison in Toluca, Mexico.
Effect of Mexican Organized Crime on United States
Unfortunately, the violence that is attendant to the drug
trade in Mexico is spilling over the border into U.S. towns,
like San Diego, California and Eagle Pass, Texas. Last
summer, ranchers along the Texas/Mexico Border reported they
were besieged by drug organizations smuggling cocaine and
marijuana across their property--fences were torn down,
livestock butchered and shots were fired at the ranchers
homes at night. Ranchers reported seeing armed patrols in
Mexico with night vision equipment, hand-held radios and
assault rifles that protected a steady stream of smugglers
back packing marijuana and cocaine into the United States.
The problem became so acute that the State of Texas and the
Federal government sent support in the form of additional
U.S. Border Patrol Agents, DEA Special Agents, Officers from
the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas National
Guard. Life has returned somewhat to normal in that area, as
the drug gangs reacted to law enforcement pressure and have
moved their operations elsewhere.
DEA information supports widely reported press accounts
that the Arellano-Felix organization relies on a San Diego,
California gang known as ``Logan Heights Calle 30'' to carry
out executions and conduct security for their distribution
operations. Six members of ``Calle 30'' were arrested by
DEA's violent crime task force and the San Diego Police
Department for the murder of a man and his son in San Diego.
Since that time 49 members of ``Calle 30'' have been arrested
by the Narcotics Task Force in San Diego on a variety of
charges from trafficking to violent crimes.
On December 11, 1996, Fernando Jesus-Gutierrez was shot
five times in the face during rush hour in the then exclusive
neighborhood, the Silver Strand, in Coronado, California,
after his death was ordered by the Arellano-Felix
organization. In 1993, a turf battle over the methamphetamine
market between rival drug gangs from Mexico resulted in 26
individuals being murdered in one summer in the San Diego
area.
U.S. law enforcement strategy versus organized crime in mexico
The Southwest Border Initiative (SWBI) is Federal law
enforcement's joint response to the substantial threat posed
by Mexican groups operating along the Southwest Border. The
SWBI, now in its third year of operation, is an integrated,
coordinated strategy that focuses the resources of DEA, FBI,
the United States Attorney's Office, the Criminal Division,
the U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Customs Service and state
and local authorities on the sophisticated Mexican drug
trafficking organizations operating on both sides of the
U.S./Mexican border.
Through this initiative we have identified the
sophisticated Mexican drug trafficking organizations
operating along the entire U.S. border. These groups are
transporting multi-ton shipments of cocaine for the Colombia
groups, as well as heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana.
Imitating the Colombian groups, the Mexican organizations are
highly compartmentalized, using numerous workers to
accomplish very specific tasks, such as driving load cars,
renting houses for storage sites, distributing cocaine, and
collecting profits. Through the compartmentalization process
each worker performs a distinct task and has no knowledge of
the other members of the organization.
We are attacking the organizations by targeting the
communication systems of their command and control centers.
Working in concert, DEA, FBI, U.S. Customs Service and the
U.S. Attorneys offices around the country conduct wiretaps
that ultimately identify their U.S. based organization from
top to bottom. This strategy allows us to track the seamless
continuum of cocaine traffic as it flows from Colombia
through Mexico, to its eventual street distribution in the
United States. However, even though this strategy is
extremely effective in dismantling the U.S. based portions
of the organizations, we are frustrated by not being able
to use this same information to reach the organization's
bosses in Mexico and their current counterparts in
Colombia. Criminals, such as Carillo-Fuentes and Arellano-
Felix, personally direct their organizations from safe
havens in Mexico and until we garner the complete
cooperation of law enforcement officials in Mexico, we
will never be truly effective in stopping the flow of
drugs from their country.
The Southwest Border Strategy is anchored in our belief
that the only way of successfully attacking any organized
crime syndicate is to build strong cases on the leadership
and their command and control functions. The long-term
incarceration of key members of these organization's command
and control will cause a steady degradation of their ability
conduct business in the United States and with the assistance
of foreign governments, the long-term incarceration of the
leadership will leave the entire organizations in disarray.
The Cali syndicate once controlled cocaine traffic in the
world from a highly organized corporate structure, with the
incarceration of the Cali leaders we see the cocaine trade in
Colombia has become far less monolithic and several
independent unrelated organizations are controlling the
exportation of cocaine to the U.S. and Mexico. This change is
a direct result of the incarceration of the Cali leaders and
their inability to fully control their organizations from
prison.
We spoke to you last year about the successes of Zorro II,
conducted under the auspices of the SWBI, during which both a
Colombian distribution organization and a Mexican smuggling
organization were dismantled and the infrastructure of both
organizations were destroyed. Ninety court authorized wire
taps resulted in the arrest of 156 people and the seizure of
$17 million dollars and 5,600 kilograms of cocaine. Most
importantly, neither the Colombian or Mexican organizations
have been able to reconstitute these distribution
organizations. Zorro II confirmed our belief that cocaine
distribution in the United States is controlled by the
foreign syndicates located in Colombia and Mexico.
Since Zorro II, we have continued to focus on the command
and control function of other transportation and distribution
cells operating along the Southwest Border and throughout the
U.S. These investigations are time and resource intensive,
but yield significant results. Additional investigations, of
similar significance and importance as Zorro II, have been
developed since that time, however due to the sensitive
nature of the investigations. I am precluded from discussing
them at this time.
[[Page S2044]]
corruption and intimidation: tools of the trade
Traditionally, organized crime has depended on the
corruption of officials, and the intimidation of potential or
actual witnesses, as well as violence against anyone who
stands in the way of business. The Medellin and Cali
traffickers were masters of corruption, intimidation and
violence, and used these tools effectively to silence and
coerce.
Organized crime figures in Mexico routinely use these tools
as well. The recent arrest of the Commissioner of the INCD in
Mexico last week is the latest illustration of how deeply
rooted corruption is in Mexican anti-narcotics organizations.
A good illustration of the extent of corruption in Mexico was
revealed when officials, seeking the extradition of two of
Arellano-Felix's contract killers, who are currently
incarcerated in the United States, submitted papers
indicating that the State Attorney General and almost 90
percent of the law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and
judges in Tijuana and the State of Baja California have been
compromised and are on the payroll of the Arellano-Felix
brothers. In addition, several high ranking police officers
regularly provide the names of witnesses who give statements
against the Arellano-Felixes and have even provided
information that assisted in locating targets for
assassination. Just recently, the Federal Police in Baja
California Norte were replaced with military troops, a tacit
admission of the level of corruption in that area. Yet, as we
observed with the arrest of Gutierrez-Rebollo, the military
is not immune from corruption either.
Historically, corruption has been a central problem in
DEA's relationship with Mexican counterparts. In short, there
is not one single law enforcement institution in Mexico with
whom DEA has an entirely trusting relationship. Such a
relationship is absolutely essential to the conduct of
business in that, or any other nation where organized crime
syndicates traffic in narcotics.
In the brief time we have allotted to us today, I would
like to provide you with some recent examples of the
corruption which we encounter all too frequently in Mexico.
This January, the Mexican Army raided the wedding party of
Amado Carillo-Fuentes' sister. When they arrived at the
scene. Mexican Federal Judicial Police were guarding the
party. The MFJP had alerted Carillo-Fuentes about the planned
raid, and he was able to escape.
The Arellano-Felix organization routinely bribes government
officials to obtain information from prosecutors' offices
including information on potential witnesses.
Despite the firing of over 1,200 government officials for
corruption charges by President Zedillo, no successful
prosecutions of these individuals has taken place.
In March 1996, DEA Task Force Agents arrested two
individuals who identified themselves as police officers from
Sonora, Mexico. Eleven hundred pounds of marijuana were found
on the scene, and the police admitted they worked at the
stash house.
In July a Mexican Army Division arrested nine Mexican
Federal Judicial Police Officers and seized 50 kilograms of
cocaine and $578,000 in U.S. currency. The defendants were
acting under the direction of the Commandante for Culiacan,
Sinalon at the time.
While a great deal of the corruption plagues the law
enforcement agencies in Mexico, the Mexican military and
other institutions are also vulnerable to the corrupting
influences of the narcotics trade. The Mexican Government has
replaced police with military officials, who are not fully
trained in all of the aspects of narcotics investigations.
This situation is far from ideal. Political officials are
also not immune to narcotics corruption: DEA has documented
instances where public officials have allowed drug
traffickers to freely operate in areas under their control.
Corruption is the most serious, most pervasive obstacle to
progress in addressing the drug trade in Mexico.
In addition to the serious corruption problems plaguing
anti-narcotics enforcement efforts in Mexico, murders and
violence are commonplace methods of silencing witnesses or
rivals. Since 1993, twenty-three major drug-related
assassinations have taken place in Mexico. Virtually all of
these murders remain unsolved. Many of them have occurred in
Tijuana or have involved victims from Tijuana. In the last
year, 12 law enforcement officials or former officials have
been gunned down in Tijuana and the vast majority of the 200
murders in that city are believed to have been drug-related.
A number of these incidents involving law enforcement
officials are a serious indication of the depth and breadth
of the power of the traffickers in Mexico.
The Arellano-Felix organization was responsible for setting
off a bomb at the Camino Real Hotel in Guadalajara, where
they intended to kill a rival trafficker, hosting a party for
his daughter. Two men were killed and fifteen people wounded.
In September 1996, Jorge Garcia-Vargas, Sub-Director of the
Tijuana office of the Institute for the Combat of Drugs
(INCD) and former Commandante Miguel Angel Silva-Caballero
were found shot to death in their car in Mexico City. The
bodies showed signs of torture, similar to those on the
bodies of Hector Gonzalez-Baecenas. Garcia-Vargas' assistant
in Tijuana, and three body guards who were tortured and
killed five days earlier in Mexico City. Garcia-Vargas' death
came only one year after he took the job in Tijuana.
Ernest Ibarra-Santes, the Director of Federal Police Force
in Tijuana, and two police officers were executed by machine-
gun fire as they drove along a main street in Mexico City.
Ibarra-Santes was executed just 29 days after he became
Director and two days after he reprimanded his own force
stating ``The Police had become so corrupt they weren't just
friends with the traffickers, they were their servants.'' A
Mexican Army officer has been implicated in this murder.
Baja State Prosecutor Godin Gutierrez-Rico was assassinated
in front of his residence in Tijuana on January 3, 1997.
Guiterrez a supervisory state attorney and former head of a
special enforcement unit that investigated high profile
homicides in Tijuana, had assisted DEA in identifying several
assassins for the Arellano-Felix organization. Information
strongly links the Arellano-Felix's to this murder which was
particularly vicious; Guiterrez-Rico was shot over 100 times,
after which his body was repeatedly run over by an
automobile.
It is hard to imagine that in our own nation, we would
stand for such killings and for government inaction in
solving the murders. The assassinations in Mexico are akin to
three Assistant United States Attorneys, the Special Agent in
Charge of the DEA office in San Diego, the Special Agent in
Charge of the FBI office in Houston and the Chief of Police
in San Diego being murdered callously by drug dealers.
Americans would not accept these murders going unsolved and
no arrests being made. For any country's law enforcement
agencies to be viable partners in the international law
enforcement arena, they must apprehend and incarcerate
those criminals who murder with such impunity.
cooperation with mexico
The primary program for cooperative law enforcement efforts
with the Government of Mexico is a proposed series of
Bilateral Task Forces (BTF's). The U.S. and Mexico signed a
memorandum of understanding in 1996, outlining the framework
for the United States Government and the government of Mexico
to conduct joint investigations against targeted drug
organizations. These Bilateral Task Forces (BTF's) were
established in Juarez, Tijuana and Monterrey. The task forces
in Tijuana and Juarez have been limited in their ability to
collect intelligence and seize drugs and they have not met
their most important objectives of arresting the leaders of
the major syndicates and dismantling their organizations.
During bilateral plenary meetings, Mexican officials
promised they would allocate $2.4 million from seized assets
the U.S. had shared with Mexico towards the financing of the
BTF's; however, Francisco Molina Ruiz, the former head of the
INCD, advised DEA that he had been unable to obtain the
financial support necessary to make these Task Forces
operational. The BTF's for the most part are staffed with
enthusiastic young officers, however, they have neither
received the training nor the equipment necessary to build
cases on and arrest these sophisticated and wealthy drug
traffickers.
The most significant shortcoming of the B.T.F.'s however,
lies in its leadership. On at least two occasions, after
having been advised of pending enforcement actions by their
subordinates, corrupt command officers in Mexico City
compromised the investigations. One involved the attempted
seizure of sixteen tons of cocaine belonging to the Arellano-
Felix family. To be successful in Mexico, we must be able to
share intelligence with the B.T.F.'s with the confidence that
it will be promptly acted on and not be compromised by
corrupt officials that is not the condition that we are
currently faced with in our relationship with the bi-lateral
groups.
Unfortunately, I was recently forced to limit DEA
participation in these B.T.F.'s, because of a decision by the
Government of Mexico that would no longer allow us to
guarantee the safety of our Special Agents while they were
working in Mexico. The atmosphere in Mexico is volatile and
threats against DEA Special Agents, along the border, have
increased substantially; therefore I have rescinded travel
authority for all DEA Special Agents to Mexico, to
participate in counter-drug investigations, until they are
provided appropriate protection, that is commensurate with
the risks inherent in these dangerous assignments.
prospects for progress
Since coming to office, President Zedillo has promised that
he would take action against organized criminal groups in
Mexico. In that time period he has moved to make significant
changes to the law enforcement process by sponsoring the
Organized Crime Bill to provide the tools needed to
successfully attack the criminal synidates and formed the
Organized Crime Task Force and the Bilateral Task Forces.
However, even with the improved process, the infrastructure
of the mechanism, itself, is so decimated by corruption that
short term results are very doubtful.
The real test is in the mid- and long-term. Unless some
meaningful reforms are made in the law enforcement systems
responsible for targeting and apprehending major organized
crime figures in Mexico, that nation, and unfortunately our
own, will continue to fight an uphill battle as drugs will
continue to flow into cities and towns across the United
States. To date, our inability to successfully attack the
major organized crime groups in Mexico, as we have the United
States and Colombia, is a direct result of our inability to
arrest the leadership of these groups.
[[Page S2045]]
President Zedillo has acted against corrupt officials, and
has stated that he is committed to professionalizing Mexican
law enforcement. Yet the bottom line remains; until the major
organized crime figures operating in Mexico are aggressively
targeted, investigated, arrested, sentenced appropriately and
jailed, both Mexico and the United States are in grave
danger.
What law enforcement steps are necessary for long-lasting
progress against organized crime leaders in Mexico? We faced
the same questions in our mutual struggle against the
Colombian organized groups during the past decade. What it
took was an all-out effort by the Colombian National
Police to target and incarcerate the top leaders in Cali.
Until the Government of Colombia was put on notice that
their lack of commitment to this goal was unacceptable,
the CNP did not have the moral backing it needed to move
out aggressively. In Mexico's case, it appears that the
political will to rid the country of the its narco-
trafficking reputation is there; however, what is lacking
are clean, committed law enforcement agencies willing to
take on the most powerful and influential organized crime
figures operating on a global scale.
We hope that efforts towards this end will bear fruit. In
November, 1996, the Government of Mexico passed an Organized
Crime Law which provides Law Enforcement officials with many
of the tools needed to successfully attack the sophisticated
drug syndicates in their country. Included as part of the Law
were: authorization to conduct electronic surveillance, a
witness protection program; plea bargaining; conspiracy laws;
undercover operations; the use of informants by police.
For these new law enforcement tools to be utilized
effectively, the new law mandated the Government of Mexico to
form Organized Crime Units to conduct the investigations and
further stipulated that the laws could not be enforced until
the unit was formed and properly trained. The Organized Crime
Units are now in place and consist of 60 officers to
investigate crimes specified under the law. The Government of
Mexico has agreed to insure the integrity of the Organized
Crime Unit through the use of polygraphs and regular
background investigations. However, like the Bilateral Task
Forces, these units will not be successful and DEA might not
be able to share sensitive information with them as long as
their supervisors or managers are corrupt.
It is important to remember that law enforcement in the
United States did not have wiretap authority and wide ranging
organized crime laws such as RICO and Continuing Criminal
Enterprise until the late 1960's. The Government of Mexico is
effectively 35 years behind us in establishing laws that were
critical in our successful dismantling of organized criminal
syndicates. If they work properly, the Bilateral task forces
and our Southwest Border Initiative can be favorably compared
to the Strike Forces established by Bobby Kennedy in the
1960's. This 1990's version of the Strike Force is
international in scope and pools the resources, expertise and
laws of several federal and state institutions in the United
States with those in Mexico.
It is absolutely essential that the Organized Crime Units
and the Bilateral Task Forces have integrity insurance
programs as part of their charter. Unless these units are
trustworthy, informants who cooperate will not be safe,
undercover investigations will be compromised and
intelligence sharing process will not function at all. As we
have seen recently, both the military and law enforcement
have been grievously compromised by these criminal groups and
this brings into question the ability of any program in
Mexico to remain corruption free. However, last week we saw
in the arrest of General Gutierrez-Rebollo, that some
trustworthy units do exist and can work without compromise.
The problems of establishing a corruption-free law
enforcement infrastructure are not insurmountable. However,
to become credible in the law enforcement arena the
Government of Mexico must ensure the integrity of the units
that have the responsibility of tracking down and arresting
the syndicate leaders, insuring these individuals are either
prosecuted in Mexico and receive meaningful sentence
commensurate with their crimes or agree to extradite them to
the United States where they will receive punishment similar
to that of Juan Garcia-Abrego.
Exhibit 2
U.S. Government Printing Office,
Office of the Public Printer,
Washington, DC, March 10, 1997.
Hon. Diane Feinstein,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Feinstein: We return herewith your manuscript
entitled ``Re: Remarks by Thomas A. Constantine'' submitted
to this Office for insertion in the Congressional Record, and
respectfully invite your attention to the following
regulation of the Joint Committee on Printing:
(1) No extraneous matter in excess of two printed Record
pages, whether printed in its entirety in one daily issue or
in two or more parts in one or more issues, shall be printed
in the Congressional Record unless the Member announces,
coincident with the request for leave to print or extend, the
estimate in writing from the Public Printer of the probable
cost of publishing the same.
(2) No extraneous matter shall be printed in the House
proceedings or the Senate proceedings, with the following
exceptions: (a) Excerpts from letters, telegrams, or articles
presented in connection with a speech delivered in the course
of debate; (b) Communications from State Legislatures, and
(c) Addresses or articles by the President and the Members of
his Cabinet, the Vice President, or a Member of Congress.
(3) The official reporters of the House or Senate or the
Public Printer shall return to the Member of the respective
House any matter submitted for the Congressional Record which
is in contravention of these provisions.
This manuscript is estimated to make approximately 5 pages
of the Congressional Record at a cost of $1,152.00. If you
still desire to have this matter published in the Record,
permission must again be requested of the Senate for its
inclusion and the probable cost should then be announced and
this estimate attached to the manuscript sent to the Official
Reporters.
Sincerely,
Charles C. Cook, Sr.
Superintendent, Congressional Printing Management Division.
____
Exhibit 3
[From the Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1997]
Alleged Kingpin of Sonora Cartel Untouched by Law
(By John Ward Anderson)
Caborca, Mexico.--Miguel Angel Caro Quintero, identified by
U.S. officials as one of Mexico's drug smuggling kingpins,
arrived in a pickup truck at his modest horse and cattle
ranch here and described life in this small desert town 60
miles south of the U.S. border.
``I go to the banks, offices, just like any Mexican,'' said
Caro Quintero, who has four indictments pending against him
in the United States on charges involving cocaine, marijuana,
money laundering and racketeering. ``Every day I pass by
roadblocks, police, soldiers, and there are no problems.''
``I'm in the streets all the time. Howe can they not find
me?'' he asked at the end of a rare, hour-long interview.
``Because they're not looking for me.''
Caro Quintero, 33, is identified by U.S. law enforcement
officials as the head of the Sonora cartel, which they
describe as one of Mexico's main drug mafias. Although
arrested here in 1992 on tax charges, he has never been
convicted of any crime, and Mexican authorities have never
charged him with any drug violation.
U.S. officials see Caro Quintero as a prime example of how
weak Mexican laws and an intricate web of corruption have
permitted some alleged drug kingpins to operate their
syndicates with impunity and live without fear of arrest,
conviction or extradition to the United States. At the same
time, high-ranking politicians, government officials, judges,
prosecutors, and military and police officers have enriched
themselves by protecting the syndicates, and they are rarely
prosecuted or investigated.
After Caro Quintero's 1992 tax arrest, for instance, the
United States and Mexico launched a joint prosecution effort.
``But it was thwarted when Miguel used a combination of
threats and bribes to have the charges dismissed by a federal
judge in Hermosillo [capital of his home state, Sonora], and
he's operated freely since that time,'' said an official of
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Similar allegations of high-level corruption are aired
almost daily here, depicting decay in Mexico's justice system
and some of its other institutions, including the military.
The recent revelations have prompted a more thorough debate
among U.S. officials over whether President Clinton should
certify by Saturday that Mexico is a reliable ally in the
international war on drugs.
``I don't know if `collapse' is the correct term'' for
what's happening to the justice system, Attorney General
Jorge Madrazo Cuellar said in a recent interview. ``But it's
the gravest crisis Mexico has faced in the modern age.'' On
Tuesday, Madrazo announced a ``top-to-bottom'' reform of his
office to address the crisis--the latest in a number of such
reforms announced in recent years.
The New York Times reported Sunday that two state
governors--Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera of Sonora and Jorge
Carrillo Olea of Morelos--have aided Amado Carrillo Fuentes,
head of a Juarez-based smuggling cartel. Despite numerous
U.S. intelligence reports detailing their drug ties, the
Times reported, ``both [governors] seem to enjoy a tacit
immunity from concerted criminal investigation in Mexico and
the United States.''
A spokesman for Attorney General Madrazo said neither
governor is under investigation for ties to drug smuggling.
At the same time, some of Mexico's top alleged kingpins--
including Carrillo Fuentes, Caro Quintero and brothers Jesus
and Luis Amezcua, who are considered among the world's
biggest traffickers of methamphetamine--have no drug charges
pending in Mexico. Despite indictments against each of these
men in the United States, U.S. officials say they face little
threat of being apprehended and extradited for trial in the
United States because of tough restrictions against
extradition in Mexico's constitution.
Until last year, only two Mexican citizens had been sent to
the United States for trial under a 1978 extradition treaty
between the
[[Page S2046]]
two countries. But new laws permit Mexico's foreign minister
to find ``an exception'' permitting extradition. Last year,
four Mexican citizens were sent to the United States,
including two accused drug dealers.
Juan Garcia Abrego, the head of the Gulf cartel who was
recently sentenced to life in prison in a drug trial in
Houston, was not extradited but deported to the United States
because he held dual citizenship.
Mexican anti-drug officials said Carillo Fuentes has
weapons and conspiracy charges pending against him. If
arrested, they said, he would be held while drug trafficking
charges were filed and officials considered a pending U.S.
request for extradition.
Authorities thought they would nab Carillo Fuentes at his
sister's wedding in early January, when private planes
ferrying guests in and out of local airports led drug
investigators to believe that he would make an appearance at
the ceremony. But the Juarez cartel chief never showed up,
and officials say he may have been tipped off by Gen. Jesus
Gutierrez Rebollo, the anti-drug czar who was arrested last
week after officials charged he had been an informant for
Carrillo Fuentes for years. A federal judge indicted
Gutierrez yesterday on charges of aiding and protecting
cocaine shipments, the Associated Press reported.
While drug investigations here have been severely hampered
by corruption, U.S. and Mexican officials said, until
recently they were also crippled by a legal system that did
not permit the use of evidence gathered by wiretaps or paid
confidential informants. In November, however, Mexico's
Congress approved an organized crime bill that legalizes such
tactics and institutes a witness protection program.
``We didn't have any legal way to introduce into evidence
taped conversations--wiretaps--or to protect witnesses who
enter into plea bargains in return for evidence that can be
used against kingpins,'' said Juan Rebolledo Jout, a top
Foreign Ministry official. Without such tools, he said,
``these people are powerful, they are corrupt, and they are
difficult to catch.''
However, Mexican officials conceded, a critical problem
still remains. Because U.S. cases are often built with
confidential informants and wiretaps, it is unclear whether
Mexican judges will allow extraditions to move forward if
they are based on U.S. cases that used wiretaps and
confidential informants before they became legal in Mexico.
U.S. officials said they are beginning a major extradition
push for Caro Quintero because there are no charges against
him in Mexico. Mexican officials said he is under
investigation.
``The problem is, we don't know why he doesn't have charges
against him,'' said the Foreign Ministry's Rebolledo. ``We
are reviewing how decisions are made and investigations are
being carried out.''
Caro Quintero denied being involved in any way in drug
trafficking. He said he and his family are the victims of a
vendetta by U.S. drug agents seeking revenge for the 1985
murder in Guadalajara of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.
Miguel's brother Rafael, co-founder of the infamous
Guadalajara drug cartel, was convicted in Camarena's slaying,
which U.S. officials frequently cite as the event that opened
their eyes to the growing power and menace of Mexico's drug
mafias.
With his brother's imprisonment, ``Miguel Caro Quintero now
runs the organization,'' DEA chief Thomas Constantine told
the Senate two years ago. It is one of ``the four major
[Mexican] drug trafficking organizations that work closely
with the Cali [Colombia] mafia'' to smuggle cocaine into the
United States, Constantine said.
Caro Quintero called the charges ``fabrications'' and held
up his relatively peaceful lifestyle as proof he is not
wanted by the law. He added that he does not believe his
brother killed Camarena.
Tall, with jet-black hair and a thick mustache, wearing
bluejean pants and jacket with a plain shirt and a white
cowboy hat, Caro Quintero looks like he stepped out of a
cigarette ad. He said his family--he has three brothers and
six sisters--grew up in the neighboring state of Sinaloa,
where his father, who died five years ago, owned a cattle
farm. He is married and has two sons, ages 7 and 12.
Caro Quintero said his family came to Sonora about 15 years
ago. He denied reports that his family owns hotels, movie
theaters and huge amounts of land in and around Caborca,
which is about 75 miles southwest of the border city of
Nogales, in a remote desert region known as a haven for
traffickers and clandestine airstrips.
A 1994 indictment in Arizona charged that Caro Quintero
negotiated with an undercover DEA agent to set up a series of
such clandestine landing strips to smuggle cocaine into the
United States.
Caro Quintero said he and his family own only a ranch where
they raise cattle and a farm where they grow honeydews and
watermelons for export to the United States. He said the
family's land holdings total about 25 acres.
``If I had a cartel, I'd have a lot of money and my brother
wouldn't be there [in jail],'' he said.
Statement of President Ed Ladd, California Narcotics Officers
Association
The Board of the California Narcotics Officers' Association
voted today to unanimously support Senator Dianne Feinstein
and Senator Paul Coverdell in their efforts to overturn the
President's decision to certify Mexico. The California
Narcotics Officers' Association Board, representing over
7,000 law enforcement agents and prosecutors, is the second
largest professional law enforcement association in the
nation. Today's vote to join with Senator Feinstein on the
decertification issue is based on our longstanding experience
with the widespread corruption and lack of cooperation shown
by the Mexican government.
It is no secret that drugs are a huge problem in
California. What may not be widely known is the alarming rate
in which narcotics spill over the California border from
Mexico. It is estimated that 50% to 70% of the cocaine, up to
80% of the marijuana and 20% to 30% of the heroin are
imported in the United States from Mexico. Without the
cooperation of the Mexican government in the war against
drugs, we cannot put up a fair fight. We strongly urge
Congress to overturn the President's decision to certify
Mexico.
The impact drugs have on our communities exemplifies the
need for the United States to demand full cooperation from
the Mexican government in their efforts to stem the flow of
drugs into our country. As law enforcement agents and
prosecutors, we have witnessed the effects drugs have on our
cities and communities first hand. Dangerous drugs are
becoming more prevalent on our streets. For example, the
supply of black tar heroin brought into California from
Mexico is growing at such an incredible rate that the price
per ounce has been cut in half in just two years--from $800
per ounce to $400 an ounce. By certifying Mexico again this
year, President Clinton is allowing the drug flow to continue
unchecked.
The corruption and violence created by the Mexican drug
cartels will not be lessened until a strong message is sent
that Mexico must improve their anti-drug efforts. The
President's decision to certify does not send this message.
We simply cannot stand by this decision and we strongly urge
Congress to overturn it.
The members of the California Narcotics Officers'
Association are happy to support Senators Feinstein and
Coverdell and other members of Congress and take whatever
steps are necessary to see that full cooperation occurs.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the State
Department's statement of explanation on certification be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The White House,
Washington, DC, February 28, 1997.
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE
Subject: Certification for major narcotics producing and
transit countries.
By virtue of the authority vested in me by section
490(b)(1)(A) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as
amended, (``the Act''), I hereby determine and certify that
the following major drug producing and/or major drug transit
countries/dependent territories have cooperated fully with
the United States, or taken adequate steps on their own, to
achieve full compliance with the goals and objectives of the
1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in
Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances: Aruba, The
Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, China, Dominican
Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, India,
Jamaica, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru,
Taiwan, Thailand, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
By virtue of the authority vested in me by section
490(b)(1)(B) of the Act, I hereby determine that it is in the
vital national interests of the United States to certify the
following major illicit drug producing and/or transit
countries: Belize, Lebanon, and Pakistan.
Analysis of the relevant U.S. vital national interests, as
required under section 490(b)(3) of the Act, is attached. I
have determined that the following major illicit drug
producing and/or major transit countries do not meet the
standards set forth in section 490(b) for certification:
Afghanistan, Burma, Colombia, Iran, Nigeria, and Syria.
In making these determinations, I have considered the
factors set forth in section 490 of the Act, based on the
information contained in the International Narcotics Control
Strategy Report of 1997. Because the performance of each of
these countries/dependent territories has differed, I have
attached an explanatory statement for each of the countries/
dependent territories subject to this determination.
You are hereby authorized and directed to report this
determination to the Congress immediately and to published it
in the Federal Register.
William J. Clinton.
State Department Statement of Explanation
mexico
The Government of Mexico's (GOM) 1996 counter-drug effort
produced encouraging resulting and notable progress in
bilateral cooperation. President Zedillo has declared the
major drug trafficking organizations, and the corruption they
foster within governmental structures, to be Mexico's
principal national security threat. He has intensified the
country's counter-drug effort, in keeping with international
human rights norms, both through legal reforms and
operationally, through the expanded participation of the
nation's military services.
[[Page S2047]]
Drug seizures and arrests increased in 1996. Mexican
authorities seized 23.8 mt of cocaine, 383 kgs of heroin,
1015 mt of marijuana, 171.7 kgs of methamphetamine and 6.7 mt
of ephedrine (its chemical precursor), and destroyed 20 drug
labs. Police arrested 11,283 suspects on drug-related
charges. Authorities arrested several major traffickers: Juan
Garcia Abrego, Gulf cartel leader and one of the FBI's ``Ten
Most Wanted'' fugitives; Jose Luis Pereira Salas, linked to
the Cali and Juarez cartels; and Manuel Rodriguez Lopez,
linked to the Castrillon maritime smuggling organization.
The Mexican Congress passed two critical pieces of
legislation which have armed the GOM with a whole new arsenal
of weapons to use to combat money laundering, chemical
diversion and organized crime. The GOM established organized
crime task forces in key locations in northern and western
Mexico in cooperation with U.S. law enforcement. In an effort
to confront widespread corruption within the nation's law
enforcement agencies, former Attorney General Lozano
dismissed over 1250 federal police officers and technical
personnel for corruption or incompetence, although some have
been rehired, and the GOM indicated two former senior GOM
officials and a current Undersecretary of Tourism. He also
sought to expand cooperation with the United States and other
governments.
The United States and Mexico established the High-Level
Contact Group on Narcotics Control (HLCG) to explore joint
solutions to the shared drug threat and to coordinate
bilateral anti-drug efforts. The HLCG met three times during
1996 and its technical working groups met throughout the
year. Under the aegis of the HLCG, the two governments
developed a joint assessment of the narcotics threat posed to
both countries which will be used as the basis for a joint
counter-drug strategy.
U.S.-Mexican bilateral cooperation on drug law enforcement
continued to improve in 1996, particularly in the areas of
money laundering, mutual legal assistance, and criminal
investigations. The USG provided training, technical, and
material support to personnel of the Office of the Mexican
Attorney General (PGR), the National Institute to Combat
Drugs (INCD), the Mexican Treasury, and the Mexican armed
forces. The Government of Mexico established the important
precedent of extraditing Mexican nationals to the United
States under the provision of Mexico's extradition law
permitting this in ``exceptional circumstances.'' This paves
the way for further advances in bringing fugitives to
justice. Both governments returned record numbers of
fugitives in 1996.
Even with positive results, and good cooperation with the
U.S. and other governments, the problems which Mexico faces
remain daunting. The Zedillo Administration has taken
important beginning steps against the major drug cartels in
Mexico, and towards more effective cooperation with the
United States and other international partners, but the
strongest groups, such as the Juarez and Tijuana cartels,
have yet to be effectively confronted. The level of narcotics
corruption is very serious, reaching into the very senior
levels of Mexico's drug law enforcement forces, as witnessed
by the February 1997 arrest of the recently-appointed
national counternarcotics coordinator. President Zedillo
acted courageously to remove him as soon as the internal
Mexican investigation revealed the problem, but this has been
a set-back for Mexico's anti-drug effort, and for bilateral
cooperation.
Mexican police, military personnel, prosecutors, and the
courts need additional resources, training and other support
to perform the important and dangerous tasks ahead of them.
Progress in establishing controls on money laundering and
chemical diversion must be further enhanced and implemented.
New capabilities need to be institutionalized. Above all, the
GOM will have to take system-wide action against corruption
and other abuses of official authority through enhanced
screening of personnel in sensitive positions and putting
into place ongoing integrity controls.
While there are still serious problems, and a number of
areas in which the USG would like to see further progress,
the two governments have agreed on the parameters of a joint
approach to combat the narcotics threat, and are at work on
developing this strategy. The drug issue will remain one of
the top issues in the bilateral agenda and will be one of the
main issues discussed during President Clinton's planned
visit to Mexico in April.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from South
Carolina [Mr. Hollings], has asked to cosponsor Senate Joint Resolution
19, Senate Joint Resolution 20, and Senate Joint Resolution 21, and has
also asked for time, which I would ask be charged to my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from
California. She has, as usual, done her homework and, her persuasive
arguments at last Thursday's caucus where she debated General McCaffrey
changed my mind. I had hesitated endorsing her initiative. They taught
us in the Army years ago, no matter how well the gunners aimed, if the
recoil is going to kill the gun crew, you do not fire it.
I had to question myself on the recoil here, from this particular
initiative. What good was it going to do? Would it do more harm than
good? It was easily determined, after listening to Senator Feinstein,
that it was definitely going to do more good because, in line with the
limited time, you find exactly what I have learned through hard
experience, in the most recent issue of the London Economist, on page
43:
The Americans' uncritical support of Mexico may have helped
to spread drug corruption in that country over the past
decade.
I will never forget, a good 15 years ago or so, when Senator Howard
Baker, Senator Paul Laxalt, Senator Simpson from Wyoming, and myself,
we were down in Mexico. We had a briefing at that time by President de
la Madrid. At that time everything was just peaches and cream. We were
getting along fine. We were moving forward on then the drug program and
enforcement. I had gone downstairs and forgotten my jacket, raced back
up to get it, and President de la Madrid at the time was briefing the
Mexican press. My consulate there was interpreting for me. He was
giving us unshirted dickens. He said, ``We told those gringos from the
north that we weren't going to stand for this, we weren't going to do
this,'' that was a report of a totally different meeting than which we
had.
My point is they have constantly used the United States against their
particular opposition, time and again, in order to maintain office. In
that light, I want to say again what I said at the hearing with
Secretary Madeleine Albright at the subcommittee for State, Justice,
Commerce on last Thursday afternoon, whereby I was counseling Secretary
Albright, immediately after her statement about Mexico and the great
progress we were making in the drug effort. I said I didn't want to
sound as an upstart, I certainly did not want to sound impudent in any
way, but what I had just heard from the Secretary was State Department
boilerplate.
Why did I say it was State Department boilerplate? I read, back in
the record, the statement made by Warren Christopher 4 years ago. It
was almost word for word just exactly what Secretary Albright was
saying. You can go back to Secretary of State Baker's statement and I
will show you it is almost the same thing. From hard experience, I have
learned that Senator Feinstein is on target and doing this Nation a
wonderful service. As she points out this influx of drugs is a cancer
that is spreading into small towns and communities all over the Nation.
It is going to take some harsh action of some kind. We have to break
this notion that we are neighbors and can't speak freely about our
problems. The situation in Mexico is spinning out of control. The head
of the drug effort down there in Mexico, turns out to be an associate
of the drug cartels. Yet we had him here for 12 days of meetings.
The problem in Mexico was highlighted in the Dallas Morning News:
``The intelligence on corruption, especially of drug
traffickers, has always been there,'' said Phil Jordan, who
headed DEA's Dallas office from 1984 to 1994, ``but we were
under instructions not to say anything negative about Mexico.
It was a no-no, since NAFTA was a hot political football.''
Well, there you are. What we are doing is following a policy to
protect our financial interests; our Wall Street, or our economic
interests, which of course has not worked out. But that is the
motivation. That is the influence, and not really getting to the drugs
and the gangs and the corruption and the law enforcement and crime
problem that we have in this country.
So, where I indicated I would withhold because I thought it would
cause too much damage and I didn't have enough to work with, I went to
General McCaffrey's statement. This was in an open session not--a
secure briefing. When asked, ``If this decertification initiative
passed here and Mexico was decertified, what would happen,'' he said--I
almost quote it word for word--``we would not be able to work with our
friends on drugs.''
The conclusion of this Senator is we have the wrong friends. We have
the wrong friends. We have been going through, as Bob Dole says: Same
act, same scene, been there, done that, again and again and again.
Until we take up something like the Feinstein
[[Page S2048]]
initiative, here, we are not going to get any results.
Immediately, there is the overreaction. The Senator from New Mexico,
Senator Domenici, was at the hearing. He said, ``Oh, I differ with
Senator Hollings absolutely. We don't want to overthrow President
Zedillo.''
I don't want to overthrow President Zedillo. I know from the politics
of Mexico that is the best chance that he stays on, if the United
States jumps him; then he is secure in office politically. That is not
the intent. I think the man is honest. I think he is working hard at
it. But I think it is too great a problem for him. And I think there
are going to have to be some changes down there. I don't see how a
decertification initiative of this kind, with the evidence at hand,
should upset or overthrow.
I was called by the Albuquerque paper over the weekend, that I
suggested we overthrow Zedillo. That is how things can get that far out
of hand. That is nonsense. If he is that weak that a decertification
initiative here, with the facts at hand, would cause him to lose
office, then he is very weak and I think maybe that is the problem.
I think it would be a problem for me, you, or anyone else down there.
This thing has grown bigger than us all and it is going to take this
kind of approach to bring ourselves to any kind of results and stop
this. Because it has been going on year in and year out and we have
given way to our economic interests in order to continue. As the London
Economist says, ``The American's uncritical support of Mexico may have
helped to spread drug corruption in that country over the past
decade.''
I agree with that statement. That is an editorial, lost in a news
column. We ought to take heed and I am delighted, at this time, to join
in, and I thank Senator Feinstein for enlisting me as a cosponsor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I stand here today in full support of
House Joint Resolution 58 and Senate Joint Resolution 21, resolutions
expressing Congress' disapproval of the President's certification to
Congress that Mexico has fully cooperated with United States
antinarcotics efforts during the last year.
Section 490 of the Foreign Assistance Act dutifully permits Congress
to disapprove Presidential certifications made under this section if it
enacts a joint resolution to that effect.
The importance of Mexico's full cooperation with United States
antinarcotic efforts cannot be overstated. Drug use among American
teenagers has nearly doubled in the last 5 years. Most importantly,
more than 70 percent of illegal narcotics entering the United States
comes from the Nation of Mexico.
Mr. President, as we all know, on February 28, the Clinton
administration certified that Mexico cooperated fully with United
States efforts to combat international narcotics trafficking during
1996. However, on February 27, 1 day before the President issued the
certification, the day before the administration received a bipartisan
letter from 39 Senators, myself included, urging our Government to deny
certification to Mexico, the facts unequivocally show that Mexico has
not fully cooperated with the United States.
Seventy percent of the illicit drugs that enter the United States
still enter through Mexico. There has been no change in those figures
or on that front.
The DEA says that Mexican drug traffickers are manufacturing massive
and unprecedented quantities of high purity meth and supplying it to
distribution networks here in the United States which are destroying
our youth and creating a new front in the drug war.
Not 1 Mexican national out of the 100 or more the United States wants
currently for trial here in the United States on serious drug charges
has been extradited to the United States, despite the numerous requests
that our Government has issued to the Mexican Government.
Our own DEA Administrator, Thomas Constantine, has recently said:
There has been little or no effective action taken against
the major Mexican-based cartels. . . . The Mexicans are now
the single most powerful trafficking group--worse [even] than
the Colombian cartels.
Mexico's counternarcotics effort is plagued by corruption in the
Government and in the national police. Among the evidence are that
eight Mexican prosecutors and law enforcement officials have been
murdered in Tijuana in recent months. The revelation that Gen. Jesus
Gutierrez Rebollo, Mexico's top counternarcotics official and a 42-year
veteran of the armed forces, had accepted bribes from the cartels casts
grave doubts upon Mexico's ability to curb corruption at the highest
levels of its own Government.
While there have been increases in the amount of heroin and marijuana
seized by Mexican authorities, cocaine seizures remain low. The 1996
levels are half those seized in 1993. And the same holds true on drug-
related arrests; they are half the figure of the 1992 level.
Lastly, on the eve of full certification to Mexico, the Mexican
police released a notorious money launderer linked to a major drug
dealer, and the United States was informed of this fact only after
certification was announced. The Mexican police officers who released
the individual are now under investigation as a result of this early
release.
In the face of these substantive facts, President Clinton still
certified that Mexico was fully cooperating with our antidrug efforts.
As a father of three, I cannot in good faith be witness to the
corruption of the well-being of America's children.
Mr. President, the resolutions before us are simple. Mexico has
failed with regard to antidrug cooperation; however, the President has
certified giving them a passing grade.
I say to Members of the Senate, both of these resolutions contain a
waiver provision that would permit the President to continue both
bilateral assistance and multinational development assistance for
Mexico. By adopting these resolutions we are declaring that Mexico has
not fully cooperated and therefore should not receive the United States
certification.
Mr. President, based on the facts, including the national interest
waiver, we must send a message to the Nation of Mexico that the
administration made the wrong decision and that these resolutions will
set that record straight while preserving stability in our relationship
with Mexico.
So, Mr. President, I urge the adoption of both House Joint Resolution
58 and S.J. Res. 21 for the good of the Nation and for the good of our
children.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DeWINE. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to.
Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after my
colleague is done speaking that I have 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DeWINE. I thank the Senator very much.
____________________