In Guadalajara, until the kidnapping, gristly torture and eventual murder of United States Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena, launched Thursday afternoon, February 7, 1985, there was little reason for anyone to tap the business or home telephones of the editors of the Guadalajara Reporter.
The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ruled Mexico then, which meant no freedom of the press. No surprise there, really. In 1990, Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa (who would win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010) was invited by Mexico world-acclaimed author Octavio Paz to attend a Mexico City conference entitled “The 20th Century: The Experience of Freedom.”
Vargas Llosa embarrassed his hosts by declaring that “Mexico is the perfect dictatorship.” He went on to elaborate why. This outraged Mexico’s business and political elite, who knew well that this was true, but considered it an unforgivable insult when it articulated publicly, especially by a foreigner. For less well connected citizens, and less well off – a majority of the country – it became, first, a political rallying call among opposition politicians and their followers, among most of the Republic’s university students and young politically aware men and women. Among Mexico’s huge population of campesinos it was both a timely witticism and a welcome, meaning a wisely put, description. It soon became a cliche, though it continued to be an accurate description of the PRI, which had then ruled Mexico for 61 consecutive years.
Vargas Llosa was quickly spirited out of the public for his safety, The government was accustomed to using raw methods to deal with such critics. Besides, many said, for there were too many high-profile murders were taking place then, during the second half of the presidency (1988-1994) of Carlos Salinas de Gortai. No one seemed immune.
With the Camarena “incident” (which included his pilot, Captain Alfredo Zavala Avelar) any official control of the media eroded quickly, as local DEA agents, despite both Washington and Mexico City efforts to stymie their investigations, exposed that Guadalajara drug gang operations had extensive contacts with the government that extended “to the highest levels.”
During this time, I was warned by members of the U.S. Consulate here that the phones of scores of people were being tapped, and the Reporter should print articles about what was taking place only after that news had already appeared in the Mexican media. Often, because we were a weekly publication, this was not greatly frustrating. The local drug lords had killed six Americans, mistakenly believing they were DEA agents. That news, mixed with the kidnapping of “Kiki” Camarena, ignited reader interest and calls for more detailed information, and for more level-headed action from authorities both north and south of the border.
Naturally, as editor I had cultivated contacts with willing sources in all the organizations and government agencies – wherever, whenever I ran into responsive folks. But once the bodies of Kiki and Zavala were found, I received repeat calls saying that a new round of bugging was taking place. “Be careful,” was the last words these callers left with me.
One of these sources amazingly was a policeman who few people would believe might be talking to a modest-sized gringo weekly newspaper possessing few close contacts with heavyweight sources. Sometime early in the 1980s, I had called the number of someone who knew a Mexican police officer to ask how foreigners could legally respond when a burglar was breaking into their home – especially if they legally possessed a firearm. Because of a possible misrouting of my call, or perhaps because some subordinate was away from his\her desk, after a time I ended up with Gabriel Gonzalez Gonzalez, a state judicial police officer of high rank. Sensing this was a call gone astray, I was eager to make the most of it. I apologized for bothering him with such a “simple” question, but ... etc. Once I got my answer, I asked about the levels of various crimes in Guadalajara and Jalisco. And to his questions, described what kind of newspaper the Reporter was. At his probing, I said, yes we had close relations the U.S. Consulate, for we often ran stories fielding anticipated questions about matters of Consulate policy that affected our readers, changes in Consulate hours, the arrival of new personnel, etc. I figured Gonzalez was having a slow day. After that I sought reasons to call him, questions of importance, or clarification of announced changes in police procedures.
Then shortly after Camarena and Zavala were kidnapped and the search was being pressed, I received a late afternoon call from him. He had never called me before. When I called him back, identifying myself, I was asked by an anonymous person to stop calling him at his office or at his home. I was surprised, for I didn’t have his home phone number.
On March 13, Gonzalez Gonzalez died in custody of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police. The MFJP said he died of a “spontaneous rupture of the pancreas.” That was about the same time that I was called to come into a friend’s office and was told that the Reporter’s phones were tapped. “Be careful what you say on the phone. And don’t tell anyone besides your wife that you’re bugged.”
Later, forensic experts said Gonzalez died of a “powerful blow,” and that he was not an addict as Jalisco and federal police had earlier declared. U.S. authorities termed Gonzalez Gonzalez one of the most competent officers in the Jalisco State Judicial Police.
Many of us who had contact with him had the same impression. Though I never quoted him directly about significant matters, he was forthcoming and up-front about pertinent stories dealing with foreign residents and visitors, and overall police policy in Jalisco. And he continued to be available in the early days of the Camarena case. Then his office asked that I not call him, Within a month he was dead. Mexican sources later told us that Gonzalez Gonzalez’s phones both at his office and at home had been tapped.
Once we knew the Reporter’s phones were “dirty,” we began making “delicate” calls from outside the office. Despite that, we often had to resort to amateurish tactics – code names and such – because often it was suspect that the phones of people we were calling might also have eavesdroppers at work.
While that was taking place, state, city and federal authorities were speaking publicly against “foreign influences” responsible for the “lamentable and unjust” negative campaign against Mexico. That was declared by then-Foreign Relations Secretary Bernardo Sepulveda Amor. The then-governor of Jalisco (and later federal attorney general) said it was “unacceptable that a few isolated events should besmirch the honor of the fine people of Jalisco.” And that was true. However, the events were not “a few” and several of them were still going on as the governor and the Foreign Relations Secretary spoke.
In fact, in another fashion, they continue to this day, as the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. The kill-crazed narco co-leader of the drug trade in Jalisco was Rafael Caro Quintero, originally from Sinaloa. There, he had learned the business from his uncles. And here, he ordered the kidnapping and death of Kiki Camarena and Alfredo Zavala, and six other Americans, who were mistakenly believed to be DEA agents. Caro Quintero was run down and kidnapped in Costa Rica in 1985. He was convicted and sentenced in 1989 to 40 years in prison for his crimes – at least some of them.
But his influence continues. His “dirty money,” according to the U.S. Treasury Department, is allegedly bankrolling Guadalajara construction and real estate projects, restaurants, a luxury spa, gas stations, a shoe store and a swimming pool company. Wednesday the Treasury Department announced that 18 people – including Caro’s four children, wife and daughter-in-law as well as 15 businesses linked to him had been “designated” under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Designation prohibits Americans from doing business with them, and freezes any assets they have in banks under U.S. jurisdiction.
But designation sometimes does not work effectively. But it does show that U.S. law enforcement officials – in this case the DEA – have long memories.