U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

66–877 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

UNITED STATES-MEXICO COUNTERNARCOTICS

EFFORTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 29, 2000

Serial No. 106–155

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

LISA SMITH ARAFUNE, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman

BOB BARR, Georgia

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

DOUG OSE, California

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

SHARON PINKERTON, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

GILBERT A. MACKLIN, Professional Staff Member

CARSON A. NIGHTWINE, JR., Professional Staff Member

LISA WANDLER, Clerk

CHERRI BRANSON, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 29, 2000 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Jordan, Phillip, DEA (Retired), former Director of EPIC ............................. 69

Ledwith, William, Director of International Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration; Mary Lee Warren, Deputy Assistant Attorney

General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice; and John Montoya,

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief, Laredo ..................................................... 18

Letters, statements, et cetera, submitted for the record by:

Ledwith, William, Director of International Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared statement of ............................................. 22

Mica, Hon. John L., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Florida:

Articler dated February 29, 2000 ............................................................. 5

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8

Mink, Hon. Patsy T., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Hawaii, prepared statement of .................................................................... 14

Montoya, John, U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief, Laredo, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 47

Warren, Mary Lee, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, prepared statement of .................................. 37

(1)

UNITED STATES-MEXICO

COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Mica, Hutchinson, Mink, Cummings,

Kucinich, and Tierney.

Also present: Representatives Gilman and Towns.

Staff present: Sharon Pinkerton, staff director and chief counsel;

Lisa Wandler, clerk; Gilbert A. Macklin and Carson A. Nightwine,

Jr., professional staff members; Charley Diaz, congressional fellow;

Cherri Branson, minority counsel; Jean Gosa, minority assistant

clerk; and Chris Traci, minority staff assistant.

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I would like to call this hearing of the

Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources to order.

This morning’s hearing will focus on the oversight of the United

States and Mexico’s counternarcotics efforts. We will be joined by

our ranking member in just a few minutes and we do have Mr. Gilman here. I will proceed first with an opening statement and then

yield to Members, and then we will hear from two panels today.

International drug trafficking continues to be a growing threat to

security in the United States. According to the Substance Abuse

and Mental Health Services Administration, almost 16,000 Americans lose their lives each year as a direct result of illegal narcotics.

At a recent hearing we conducted, the drug czar, General Barry

McCaffrey, estimated that the number of deaths could be as high

as 52,000 each year. The social, economic and criminal justice costs

associated with drugs is a staggering $110 billion a year and climbing; and if we take everything into consideration, there have been

estimates that it could be as much as a quarter of a trillion dollars

a year in costs to our society.

Today, our subcommittee will again examine the United States

and Mexican counternarcotics efforts. It is important that we do so

for several reasons: first, because we have such an incredible supply of hard narcotics flooding across our borders; second, under the

drug certification law that Congress must annually review, the deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:42 Dec 27, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66877.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cision of the administration and the certification process which is

just around the corner here.

Our concern is the increasing role that Mexico plays in drug trafficking activities. Our relationship with our neighborhood to the

south is critical, and it is hard to imagine an issue which impacts

both countries more deeply than illegal drugs. In fact, at a hearing

on Mexico last year, our former DEA Administrator, Tom Constantine, stated, ‘‘In my lifetime, I have never witnessed any group

of criminals that has had such a terrible impact on so many individuals and communities in our nation.’’ That was his quote a year

ago. This statement is from a man who spent 40 years in law enforcement.

He went on to say in a November 26, 1999, New York Times article, ‘‘We were not adequately protecting the citizens of the United

States from these organized crime figures.’’ The ‘‘we’’ he refers to

is the Clinton administration, and I guess it would also have to

refer to Congress as the guilty parties.

Every year the President decides which of the major drug-producing or transiting countries he will certify, and the law has a

phrase which says ‘‘fully cooperating’’—that is the terminology; so

the law determines and evaluates full cooperation with the United

States to end the scourge of illegal drugs. And that is part of the

criteria by which we judge these nations.

Last year, and probably this year, the President will certify that

Mexico is fully cooperating. This decision made, despite what I believe, is very disturbing evidence that our neighbors to the south

have not made sufficient efforts to stop the flow of drugs into our

country. Every year the subcommittee asks what progress is being

made to combat the flow of illegal drugs into the United States

from Mexico.

Specifically, we will ask the following questions today: Why

hasn’t the U.S. Government been able to reach an agreement with

Mexico on adequate safety measures for United States agents assigned to the Border Task Forces?

Why hasn’t Mexico extradited a single major Mexican drug trafficker to the United States?

Why has Mexico refused to allow forward basing of United States

ships or planes in Mexican territory in accordance with domestic

legislation?

And why does Mexico refuse to allow United States law enforcement agents to carry firearms for self-defense?

In light of the answers to these questions, on what basis would

this administration certify Mexico again under the law as fully cooperating?

While there has been a long and productive relationship between

our two countries, the growing amount of illegal drugs that are

ending up on America’s streets and coming across the border

should make us pause. Not only is Mexico the leading transit country for cocaine entering the United States, the DEA’s heroin signature program indicates that in 1 year Mexico jumped from being

the source of 14 percent of heroin in this country to its current status of providing 17 percent of all the heroin seized in the United

States. That is just in a 1-year period, and is probably a 20 percent

increase in production, which should be startling to everyone.

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Today, approximately 60 percent of the cocaine on America’s

streets comes from across our Southwest border. A recent article

from the Washington Post indicates that the heavier flow of drugs

has exacerbated ongoing problems of trust and cooperation between

the United States and Mexican authorities, and is particularly

troubling to law enforcement in light of new statistics showing rising marijuana use among American teenagers. Additionally, Mexico

serves as the major source of foreign methamphetamine that is

ravaging our communities across the Midwest and our Western

States.

We have had previous testimony relating to the meth epidemic

across our country in places like Iowa and Minnesota; other Western and Midwestern States are ravaged by methamphetamines

coming from Mexico. Methamphetamine has supplanted cocaine as

the primary drug threat in most Western States and many Midwestern States, and has emerged as a major concern in the Southeast. The report goes on to say, ‘‘The threat posed by methamphetamine is due to its increasing popularity and rapidly addictive

properties, and the violent behavior sometimes associated with its

use.’’

In previous years, this administration has testified that Mexico

deserved to be certified because Mexico is taking ‘‘significant actions’’ and making ‘‘substantial commitments’’ to address the drug

trade. A year later, these commitments appear to be only words

and misplaced hope by the Clinton administration.

The GAO’s July 1999 report entitled ‘‘Update on U.S.-Mexican

Counternarcotics Activities’’ served as an important midpoint check

on progress being made. The report paints a bleak picture of cooperation by the Government of Mexico and states that Mexico continues to be the primary haven for money laundering in Latin

America. And furthermore, the report states, ‘‘There remains no

single binational plan to address border problems.’’ The United States and Mexico share a common 2,000-mile border. Sadly, the border has become the stage for violence and drug

trafficking. Consider the discovery of mass graves along the border

with Texas. This tells a clear and convincing story of the brutality

of the Mexican drug cartels and their complicity with government

officials.

It is interesting to note, too, that they did find bodies. We did

give notice, and suddenly initial cooperation evaporated and Mexican officials, I am told, tried to get us off the scene as soon as possible; and we may never know what bodies or evidence was removed or what the situation was, but we do know that there have

been in fact hundreds and in fact dozens of Americans and Mexicans who have been slaughtered and buried or missing.

Again, on our border with Mexico, yesterday it was reported in

the New York Times that the police chief of Tijuana was assassinated by four gunmen who put at least 100 shots into his vehicle

as he drove home from mass. I read this morning’s article in the

Washington Post—maybe some of you read it—and it appears that

he is not the only recent Mexican law enforcement official to have

died in this manner.

This article, which I ask unanimous consent to be made part of

the record, without objection, details that brutal killing and the

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history of killings in Tijuana and the Baja Peninsula, which has become a center of violence, not to mention the Yucatan Peninsula

and Quintana Roo, which was run by narcotraffickers and other

states within Mexico which have now been taken over by drug traffickers.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Today, the challenges faced by United States law enforcement officials along the Southwest border with Mexico are

multiplying every day. The GAO report indicates that between September 1996 and February 1999, DEA recorded 141 threats or violent incidents against United States law enforcement personnel,

their Mexican counterparts and public officials. Additionally, in

Mexico, drug enforcement agents are not allowed to adequately protect or defend themselves.

It is also interesting to note that we have a cap on DEA agents,

that has been placed by Mexico. It is not a public number, but it

is a very limited number of agents that are even allowed to operate

in that country; and despite a resolution passed several years ago

by Congress both to allow our enforcement agents to protect themselves and to work in that setting, we still have not had a response

on this issue from Mexico.

Now we hear that $200,000 bounties have been placed on the

heads of United States law enforcement officers by Mexican drug

traffickers. These brazen and arrogant criminal organizations have

amassed tremendous power and influence in the day-to-day lives of

not only the Mexican people, but in the lives of American citizens

and law enforcement representatives.

In reality, our law enforcement officers are indeed involved in a

war. An example of this was the cold-blooded murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Alexander Kirpnick on June 3, 1998. Unfortunately, these actions and threats may be repeated in the future by

those who amass the power and money involved in drug trafficking.

We can see how brazen they have gotten now, to publicly declare

that we have $200,000 bounties on the heads of U.S. law enforcement officials.

There exists today a clear and present danger to our men and

women of law enforcement along the Southwest border. My concern

is that by not demanding more of our Mexican colleagues, we allow

these tragedies to continue.

Tomorrow, we expect the administration to release its annual

certification determinations. I have a difficult time believing that

this administration would certify Mexico as fully cooperating with

the law enforcement efforts of the United States in stopping drugs.

It troubles me to think that we have set a standard, and Mexico

has failed to meet that standard again and again, and yet the administration turns a blind eye to the obvious: There is no satisfactory cooperation with the Government of Mexico on the narcotics

issues.

I am sensitive to the fact that our trading relationship with Mexico is vital. However, we must not forget the thousands of lives that

are lost each year to drugs, the cost to our society, the impact and

devastation to so many American families. As representatives of

the people, we owe them this effort. We owe them this oversight

hearing and we owe them the truth. It is more than our job, it is

our duty, and I don’t think that we should shrink from it.

Finally, in the last year, Mexico hired an army of Washington

lobbyists and slick Madison Avenue types to influence both Congress and mask the drug rot that is coming from that nation. In

this process, they have even helped corrupt the decertification process, which dismays me.

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Behind closed doors, U.S. officials will tell you how the corruption has destroyed, and is destroying, that democracy. And it is

rather sad and we see how corruption has now—such as the brazen

killing of this police chief just, in the last few days, turned to extreme violence in murdering families, standing men and women up

and machine-gunning them down.

So Mexico can hire people to defeat this process. They can mask

the drug rot, as I said, but the plain facts are that the situation

has gotten out of control. Even the United States Ambassador to

Mexico was quoted in the last week, I believe, Jeffrey Davidow, his

quote was that ‘‘Mexico is the world headquarters of narcotics trafficking.’’ I am glad to see that someone has publicly stood up and

called it as it is.

Again, we are back here a year later looking at Mexico’s cooperation in this effort, and I am not pleased to what I see.

I would like to yield at this time to the ranking member from

Hawaii, Mrs. Mink.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John L. Mica follows:]

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10

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Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

These hearings are very important, although perhaps somewhat

premature, because the announcement from the State Department

has not been issued, and will not be, until tomorrow. But given the

fact that we have only 30 days in Congress in order to discuss this

issue and to make a decision as to whether we agree or disagree

with the administration, I believe it is appropriate to begin the

hearings today to try to examine what has happened in the last 12

months.

I think it is important that we rely upon facts that we have gathered in the last 12 months in making our assessment and in discussing the issues that are before Congress. What happened beyond that time, previous, I do not believe is germane to the issue.

The issue is whether the requirements and standards and conditions that the United States felt were fair—fairly imposed upon

Mexico have in fact been adhered to, or at least some measured

progress to meet those standards; and that is the job and task that

is before the Congress, to look at the recommendations of the administration and to make our own independent judgment.

Much is dependent upon an objective, fair assessment of the situation because, as you know, the United States and Mexico share

a common border and not only a common border, but a common

economy. The United States is Mexico’s most important customer

and we purchase a tremendous, wide array of goods and services

that are necessary for their economy. The United States also provides about 62 percent of Mexico’s imports, so we are an important

trading partner.

Nevertheless, it is not that trading partnership that is under examination today, nor should it weigh in as a factor in deciding

whether the decertification should be insisted upon or whatever the

administration recommends.

There is no doubt that the country of Mexico is a principal transit country for 50 to 60 percent of the cocaine and up to 80 percent

of the methamphetamine precursor chemicals. It is also a major

producer of marijuana and heroin and may be responsible for up

to 30 percent of heroin and 70 percent of foreign-grown marijuana

entering the United States.

It is highly unusual, in my understanding of international relations, for our country or any other country to interpose standards

of conduct upon another foreign nation. But that is not the issue

in these examinations. The issue is the impact upon our citizens of

an uncontrolled quantity of drugs coming across the border.

I have said in numerous hearings that the United States has an

equal obligation to inquire as to the efficacy of our own law enforcement agencies and the standards that we lay in examining to what

extent we are capable and insistent upon interdicting and arresting

and putting the full force and power of our law enforcement agencies against these unconscionable intrusions of drugs into our communities. We have a job to do to decrease demand, to insist upon

prevention and treatment; and so, as we examine the implications

of Mexico’s conduct or failure of conduct, we need to also closely examine our own situation within the United States.

These are very serious deliberations. I hope that they are not

done in any partisan way to seize political advantage over the

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issue. This question is far too serious for that type of approach. We

need to look at the facts. We need to examine the fairness of our

evaluation and to seriously consider all aspects of this issue.

It is an important question that Congress has laid appropriately

before the people of this country, through the Congress, and I believe that this subcommittee is fully prepared to exercise that nonpartisan decisionmaking responsibility that it undertook several

years ago.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Patsy T. Mink follows:]

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Mr. MICA. I thank the ranking member and remind members of

the subcommittee, that on Monday we will be in California and

Sacramento at the request of Mr. Ose on narcotics trafficking, a

field hearing; and on Tuesday we will be at the United StatesMexican border conducting a hearing—I believe it is in Mr.

Bilbray’s district in San Diego—on continuation of this issue. All

members are invited to attend and participate.

Mr. Gilman, thank you for being here, and you are recognized.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Chairman Mica. I want to thank you for

conducting this timely hearing prior to the administration’s acting

on certification in Mexico.

Regrettably, the administration for many years has failed to

apply the law faithfully when it comes to its annual March 1 annual certification of Mexico’s antidrug cooperation; and despite our

Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow’s statement just last week, ‘‘The fact is that the headquarters of the drug trafficking world are

now in Mexico,’’ we expect that this year is not going to be any different.

The State Department’s assessment of Mexico’s antidrug performance is simply not objective. Our diplomats are resigned to

writing annual assessments that place Mexico’s unsatisfactory cooperation in the best possible light. Our Nation is ill-advised and

ill-served when the bureaucracy feels obliged to help our President

paint an inaccurate picture of an issue as important as Mexico’s cooperation in our joint fight against drugs.

Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey has raised the drug policy

to a high art, and after years of high-level cooperation, including

a trumpeted 1997 joint analysis, United States and Mexican officials do not even agree on how extensive the drug problem is or

whether it is getting any better or worse. Our governments have

yet to agree on how to implement the highly touted ‘‘performance

measures of effectiveness’’ which are intended to assess real

progress toward our common strategy for combating drugs.

Moreover, despite the honesty and cooperation of some senior

Mexican antidrug officials, improvements in eradication and recent

maritime seizures, there has been no major progress in uprooting

the drug cartels that are doing business with virtual impunity in

Mexico.

We respectfully call the following salient facts to the attention of

our Secretary of State, including the following.

Mexico’s counternarcotics efforts are hamstrung by overly centralized decisionmaking, by appalling inefficiency and by rank-andfile law enforcement corruption. A good example of those problems

is found in the Mexican Government’s much-heralded arrest of

Amezcua cartel officials in October 1998. Two lawyers in the Mexican attorney general’s office allowed a corrupt drug informant in

that case, Gilberto Garcia, to walk free in Cancun in exchange for

a suspected cash bribe. Mr. Garcia may be in custody and waiting

extradition, but neither of these officials was prosecuted for their

apparent complicity, confirming the worst suspicions about the vulnerability of even-handed, vetted units.

The highly touted Special Investigative Unit [SIU], has virtually

been shut down as part of a dispute between Mexico and United

States officials about how we should be screening SIU members.

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Mexican authorities, apparently fearing that wiretaps might snare

corrupt officials, are said to have further rendered the SIU impotent.

Situations in Mexico continue to deteriorate rapidly. Drug kingpins, few of whom have been extradited to our Nation, operate with

virtual impunity in Matamoros and Ciudad Juarez and Cali and

Tijuana, Baja California and Norte. These drug traffickers operate

as virtual feudal lords in border Sierra states, corrupting or handpicking local government officials.

Our own law enforcement agents are in constant mortal danger

from these traffickers. Despite years of our Nation’s pleas, Mexico

refuses to authorize our law enforcement agents to legally carry

arms to defend themselves. As if we needed more evidence of the

danger to our good antidrug agents, we now have the news that

Chairman Mica just recited, that Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de

la Torre was driving to his office this past Sunday when gunmen

using rifles and 9-mm pistols pulled up along side his black suburban and fired 99 rounds into the car, killing him.

Mexico’s position on this matter defies logic. It is apparent from

all of the facts that we have seen and heard, the administration is

going to have to do more than just talk about Mexico’s cooperation.

Talk is cheap. The cost to our young people for the increased

manufacture and distribution of cocaine and heroin and

methamphetamines, the emergence of Mexican criminal groups and

the intelligence gaps simply are too high a price to pay. Much is

going to have to be done to improve our relationship with Mexico

in our drug war and much more should be done before we certify

Mexico.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman.

I recognize now Mr. Tierney from Massachusetts.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for having this hearing

and just associate myself with the remarks of the ranking member.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

I recognize Mr. Hutchinson.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you. I will try to be brief.

I thank the witnesses for being here today and I am grateful for

this hearing. I returned from Mexico in January—very instructive—and I think about two things that really struck me as I was

there.

One, methamphetamine is a serious problem in Arkansas, and

my drug director in Arkansas said 50 percent of our methamphetamine comes from Mexico. I was in Guadalajara, and I asked the

Mexican officials—I said how many lab seizures did you have, and

the answer was somewhere between 15 and 30. I said was that just

in Guadalajara, and they said, no, that is the entire country of

Mexico. In Arkansas, we had over 500 lab seizures last year, and

that sort of points up the contrast as to how you measure success,

perhaps.

The other thing that struck me was before I went there I asked

the DEA—and I trust Mr. Ledwith will correct me—as to how

much aid we give to Mexico; and I believe it is about $17 million

in antinarcotics efforts. In contrast, we are talking about sending

down to Colombia one-point-some billion dollars, and Mexico is in

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the $17 million range; and of course the other thing that is amazing, the Mexican Government didn’t ask for more money.

I think the issue is, how can we improve performance? How can

we improve cooperation? How can we bring Mexico into being a

part of our cooperating countries to a higher level in working with

the United States, working with our DEA, working with our extradition efforts?

I was just reading the material, and the striking statistic of the

Attorney General, who indicated, I think, 1,400 Mexican law enforcement officials were dismissed for corruption over a couple-year

period. I was delighted that the report I get is that the American

businesses there are starting to put pressure and demanding more

action by the Mexican Government. American businesses are used

to dealing in a society that has or respects the rule of law, and we

have to be able to develop that there.

So I am just citing that as a little background and some of the

observations that I had.

I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses and addressing

how we can improve our cooperation and our success rate, protect

the DEA and really bring them in, the Mexican Government, bring

them in to joining our effort in fighting drugs.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman.

Now we will turn to our first panel. The first panel consists of

Mr. William Ledwith. He is the Director of International Relations

for our Drug Enforcement Administration. We also have Ms. Mary

Lee Warren, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division

of the Justice Department; and Mr. John Montoya, he is with the

U.S. Border Patrol, Sector Chief from Laredo. Welcome to all of our

witnesses.

As you know, this is an investigations and oversight subcommittee of Congress and of the Government Reform Committee. We do

swear in our witnesses.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. The witnesses answered in the affirmative.

We have at least one new witness here today and two veterans.

We try to limit your remarks. We won’t run the clock this morning

since we have two short panels, but if you have lengthy documentation or information you would like to have made part of the record,

we will do that upon unanimous consent.

At this time, I am pleased to recognize Mr. William Ledwith, Director of International Operations for DEA.

Welcome and you are recognized, sir.

STATEMENTS OF WILLIAM LEDWITH, DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION; MARY LEE WARREN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; AND JOHN MONTOYA, U.S. BORDER PATROL SECTOR

CHIEF, LAREDO

Mr. LEDWITH. Good morning, Chairman Mica, Congresswoman

Mink, and other distinguished members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee today

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to discuss the issue of the United States and Mexican counternarcotics efforts.

I would like first to thank the subcommittee for its continued

support of the Drug Enforcement Administration and overall support of drug law enforcement. Thank you.

My testimony today will provide you with an objective assessment of the law enforcement issues and concerns surrounding the

drug threat posed by international drug trafficking organizations

operating from Mexico. As you are aware, DEA’s primary mission

is to target the highest, most sophisticated levels of international

drug trafficking organizations operating today.

Due to the ever-increasing legitimate cross-border traffic and

commerce between the United States and Mexico, several Mexicobased international organized crime groups have emerged and

flourished. In fact, recent reporting indicates that the UnitedStates-Mexican border remains a major point of entry for approximately 70 percent of all illicit drugs smuggled into our country.

These groups have established elaborate smuggling infrastructures

on both sides of the border. Furthermore, these criminal organizations spawn violence, corruption and intimidation that threaten the

safety and stability of our cities and towns across America.

Following the dismantling of the Medellin drug cartel during the

late 1980’s, the Cali drug cartel formed an alliance with Mexican

trafficking groups in order to stage and transport drugs through

Mexico and across the Southwest border. With the disruption of the

Cali syndicate during the early part of the 1990’s, Mexican trafficking groups consolidated their power and began to control drug trafficking along the United States-Mexican border. In response to the

emergence of these Mexican drug trafficking organizations, it became apparent that a coordinated strategy for law enforcement

counterdrug activities be implemented. DEA in concert with other

Federal agencies established the Southwest border initiative, an integrated, coordinated law enforcement effort designed to attack the

command and control structure of organized criminal operations associated with the Mexican federation. This strategy focuses on both

intelligence and enforcement efforts which target drug distribution

systems within the United States, and direct resources toward the

disruption of those principal drug trafficking organizations. A vital

component of this strategy involve the formation of a joint DEA,

DOJ, FBI and U.S. Customs Service project that resides within

DEA’s Special Operations Division. Its mission is to coordinate and

support regional and national criminal investigations and prosecutions against the trafficking organizations that most threaten the

United States.

Two sections that are the heart of the Southwest border project

have focused their efforts exclusively on the principal Mexican drug

trafficking organizations. They aim at the command and control

networks of these identified organizations and their supporting

groups.

One such example of the effectiveness of this SOD component

was Operation Impunity, which is a 2-year international investigation that culminated in the arrest of over 106 individuals linked to

the Carrillo-Fuentes drug trafficking organization headquartered in

Cancun, Mexico. The investigation encompassed 53 DEA, FBI and

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U.S. Customs Service case investigations incorporating 14 Federal

judicial districts. In addition to the arrests, this investigation has

resulted in 36 seizures, netting some 12,434 kilograms of cocaine,

half a kilo of heroin, 4,800 pounds of marijuana and more than $19

million in U.S. currency.

Operation Impunity resulted in unparalleled coordinated and cooperative effort among the law enforcement community of the

United States. Within Mexico, the DEA and the Government of

Mexico’s equivalent to the DEA, FEADS, continued to conduct joint

investigative endeavors throughout Mexico. The joint investigations

are being conducted with the two primary investigative components

of the FEADS-vetted units, the sensitive investigative units and

the base intelligence units.

The achievements of the BIU and the SIU, as related to cases

against the major Mexican drug trafficking organizations, are minimal. The inability of these units to fully employ the provisions of

the organized crime law, to promptly investigate these major organizations, has been equally disappointing.

As has been discussed and testified to previously, it is no secret

that elements of the Mexican Government have been mired in corruption for years. In fact, the Federal preventive police was created

in 1999 in response to the existing corruption within the police

ranks. The Government of Mexico reported since April 1997, more

than 1,400 of the 3,500 Federal police officers have been fired for

corruption and 357 of the officers have been prosecuted.

Perhaps the most alarming incident involving Mexican police officials occurred on November 9, 1999, when a DEA special agent

and an FBI special agent were debriefing a confidential source in

Matamoras, Mexico. During the course of this debriefing, the special agents and the confidential source were surrounded and physically threatened by documented Mexican trafficker Osiel

Cardenas-Guillen and approximately 15 armed associates. Each of

these associates, one of whom was brandishing a gold-plated automatic assault weapon were either municipal or state police officers.

Furthermore, despite monitoring the entire incident over the

DEA agent’s special cellular telephone, who had called to request

assistance, the state judicial police commander took no action. Due

only to their resourcefulness and ability to diffuse this potentially

fatal encounter were the agents and the confidential source able to

survive unharmed.

Among other issues, this incident highlights the vulnerability of

DEA and FBI special agents working in Mexico. Recently, however,

judicial efforts to stop corruption are under way. On January 11,

2000, a Mexican Federal judge issued an arrest warrant for the

magistrate who wrongly freed a methamphetamine trafficker. Then

on February 3, 2000, the Mexican Federal supreme court ruled that

the suspended Morelos Governor, Jorge Carrillo-Olea, could be

brought to trial for protecting drug trafficking and kidnapping activities. Olea, a retired general and former director of Mexico’s civilian intelligence agency and former antidrug commissioner for

the attorney general’s office, was ordered by the Federal supreme

court to be placed under house arrest by the PGR. The PGR, however, has yet to take him into custody. This is the first time the

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Federal supreme court ruled to refer a Governor or executive

branch official to trial.

Although a treaty has been in existence with Mexico since 1978,

no extradition requests were signed by the Mexican foreign relations ministry until 1996. Consistent with this, no major drug traffickers were extradited to the United States in 1999. The Mexican

Government did extradite 10 fugitives on narcotics-related or

money-laundering offenses during 1999, eight United States citizens and two Mexican citizens. One Mexican citizen, a low-level

drug trafficker, was sought on drug charges after escaping from a

United States prison while serving a sentence on drug-related

crimes. The other Mexican citizen, who had killed a United States

Border Patrol agent, was sought on murder and marijuana smuggling charges.

In conclusion, Mexico is a country of great strategic importance

to the United States, and counternarcotics is one of the most critical aspects of that relationship. The effectiveness of national and

bilateral efforts against drug organizations will depend largely on

demonstrable process and disrupting and dismantling these

transnational narcotics trafficking organizations. This includes apprehending, prosecuting and convicting major drug traffickers and

exposing and prosecuting individuals and businesses involved in

providing critical support networks such as front companies, security, transportation and the like. Therefore, it is vital for the DEA,

along with other U.S. Government agencies, to continue to support

the Government of Mexico in the field of counternarcotics operations. In turn, however, it is hoped that the Government of Mexico

will provide adequate investigative manpower, financial resources,

equipment, and reciprocal drug intelligence in support of bilateral

drug law enforcement.

DEA will continue to promote bilateral cooperation to improve

law enforcement. It is abundantly clear that concerted law enforcement efforts such as Operation Impunity, will significantly improve

our ability to counter and eliminate transnational drug trafficking

organizations.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify before the committee today. I will be happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ledwith follows:]

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Mr. MICA. We will withhold questions until we have heard from

all of our panelists.

The next witness is Mary Lee Warren, Deputy Assistant Attorney General with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department.

You are recognized, and welcome.

Ms. WARREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ranking member and

esteemed members of this subcommittee. I am pleased to return as

a veteran before the subcommittee on these matters of great importance. Because the other agencies have been called to testify, I

have tried to focus my remarks today on the United States-Mexican fugitive relationship, extradition and deportation; and I ask

that my full written statement be received for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered.

Ms. WARREN. I will do my best to respond to other inquiries on

other topics that arise during the proceedings.

First, as to extradition, to put my testimony in context, prior to

1995, there had only been a handful of extraditions from Mexico

under our 1978 extradition treaty. Since the beginning of the

Zedillo administration and the 5-plus years after that, there have

been enormous improvements in the bilateral treaty implementation between our two countries that resulted in the extradition

from Mexico of 58 individuals, including, for the first time in history, seven Mexican nationals charged with or convicted of crimes

in this country; and over the same period of time, the United

States has extradited 85 fugitives, including 12 United States citizens, to Mexico.

The 1999 figures, as reviewed by Mr. Ledwith, 14 individuals

from Mexico to the United States, including 2 Mexican nationals;

from the United States to Mexico, 16 individuals including 1

United States citizen. A fact that has not gone unnoticed, Mexico

has still not extradited a major drug trafficker of Mexican nationality. Accused methamphetamine kingpins Jesus and Luis Amezcua

and Tijuana cartel lieutenant Arturo ‘‘Kitti’’ Paez Martinez remain

in custody in Mexico as their extradition cases wind through the

extradition process.

Others whose extraditions we sought and, unfortunately, the

courts rejected either have been released, such as Jaime Ladino

Avila, an Amezcua brother methamphetamine lieutenant, and

Florentino Blanco Mesa, an Arellano Felix organization enforcer.

Or others who are being prosecuted by the Mexican authorities domestically, such as Jaime Gonzalez Castro, a Sonoran trafficker

who brought enormous quantities of drugs into Arizona; and Oscar

Malherbe, who was arrested in 1998 and the court decided in 1998

he would not be extradited—he was No. 2 in the Gulf cartel—they

are proceeding against him domestically.

We are not optimistic about the outcomes of those domestic prosecutions. Our evidence, such as court-authorized wiretaps and coconspirator testimony, are not given the same persuasive weight in

the Mexican courts as they are here where that evidence was collected. The Mexican attorney general’s office and their foreign ministry have taken a vigorous stance in the ‘‘Kitti’’ Paez Martinez

case before the Mexican supreme court, asking their highest court

to reject the intermediate court’s flawed rationale seen in the

Jaime Gonzalez Castro case and the Oscar Malherbe case that

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Mexican nationals must be prosecuted domestically and not extradited.

We and the Mexican authorities remain hopeful that the Mexican

supreme court will decide the ‘‘Kitti’’ Paez Martinez case in favor

of extradition and resolve this issue once and for all. But for now,

the extradition results in the Mexican courts are disappointing to

the Justice Department, a sentiment that I know is shared by the

Mexican authorities and by the members of this subcommittee.

In an attempt to clarify a lingering issue which has been raised

before this subcommittee and by other Members of Congress, we

have been asked on several occasions to give the total number of

fugitives that are pending in each country’s file cabinets. This number is somewhere in the several hundred range for each side. However, I suggest this is not a meaningful number. Both the United

States and Mexico have backlogs of extradition requests that are

so old that either our location information about the fugitive is no

longer of use or, for others, the cases may no longer be prosecutable, either due to loss of witnesses or the like.

To address this problem, Mexico and the United States initiated

a joint program to reconcile and prioritize our outstanding extradition requests and to exchange lists of our active and priority

cases.

Those cases that still logically and realistically can and should

be prosecuted by the other government and those that may be

older, but are nonetheless of such significance to the requesting

country to demand continuing attention and pursuit. For example,

the fugitive sought for the murder of the DEA agent and a fugitive

sought for the murder of a Phoenix police officer.

As a result of this cooperative undertaking, both Mexico and the

United States can now accurately report to this subcommittee that

we each have approximately 125 active and priority extradition

cases pending before one another at any given time.

Let me raise with this subcommittee some recent court decisions

in Mexico that cause us great concern. The first is Florentino Blanco Mesa, whose extradition we sought for the Southern District of

California for his involvement with the Arrellano Felix organization. He was released in Mexico on the grounds that the SRE, their

foreign ministry, had not fully explained its reasons for finding the

case exceptional enough to warrant the extradition of a Mexican

national, and had not sufficiently reviewed the extradition package

to correct what we believe were hypertechnical flaws, such as the

absence of the translation on the seal of the package—extraordinary things that have never been asked for before and are certainly not part of their extradition requests to us. It seemed to be

an occasion of a court reaching to find a decision.

In another case, that of Jaime Ladino Avila, an Amezcua brother

lieutenant whom we are seeking to face methamphetamine trafficking charges, extradition was denied because the court in his case

found that the potential imposition of a life sentence in the United

States would violate the Mexican constitution and Mexican extradition law, and that the SRE should have requested an assurance

from us that no such sentence would be imposed.

The United States-Mexican extradition treaty allows the parties

to request assurances against the imposition of the death penalty,

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but contains no similar provision as to life imprisonment. If other

courts in Mexico should find the Ladino court’s reasoning persuasive, we will face enormous and perhaps insurmountable difficulties in securing the extradition from Mexico of the full range of serious criminals that we seek. Major traffickers are facing life imprisonment under our sentencing schedule here in the United

States and the State crime violators, those who have committed

murder, are certainly facing up to life in State prison.

Moreover, this ruling in the Ladino case is not limited to Mexican nationals and therefore could be applied to United States citizens or to third-country nationals, even though such individuals

could not be prosecuted domestically under their article 4. Under

that particular provision that allows them to prosecute Mexican nationals, it is that nationality that grants jurisdiction to the Mexican

courts. There would be no jurisdiction for the U.S. citizens or thirdcountry nationals.

These decisions are profoundly disturbing to us and our Mexican

colleagues alike. They understand the vital significance of a vigorous and reciprocal extradition relationship in our efforts against

drug trafficking and violence.

Once more, I can give this subcommittee assurances that these

concerns have been and will continue to be raised at the highest

levels of our government with our Mexican counterparts, for example, through upcoming consultations between Attorneys General

Reno and Madrazo in the next few days and during the Binational

Commission meetings involving several Cabinet officers from the

two countries scheduled for mid-May.

Returning now to the deportation issue in May of last year, I was

pleased to be able to report to this subcommittee that Mexico,

working with the United States Marshals Service and the FBI, our

Embassy in Mexico City, had significantly enhanced its program

for deporting or expelling United States citizens who were in violation of Mexican immigration laws and who at the same time were

sought as fugitives from United States justice. These enhanced efforts in 1998 led to the deportation of over 30 such individuals. I

advised in my later testimony last year that we had seen a disturbing trend downward in those deportation numbers. This negative

trend continued and the Marshals Service reported only nine successful cooperative deportations from Mexico in 1999, and so far,

there have been no improvements in 2000.

The best we can discern as a reason for the decline in the deportations and expulsion is an apparent renewed preference for the

use of the extradition treaty to affect the return of fugitives and

the desire by certain officials within the PGR and the SRE to be

the central points for all returns—and the deportations come

through the immigration officials.

As with extradition, the Department of Justice and, in particular,

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Attorneys General Reno and Madrazo are committed to doing everything possible to reinvigorate the commitment to use deportation whenever it is the most effective and expeditious legal mechanism for promoting the interests of justice.

As I noted, I wanted to focus on extradition and deportation in

this oral testimony. I will try to respond to your questions.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Warren follows:]

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Mr. MICA. We will now hear from Mr. John Montoya. He is with

the U.S. Border Patrol. He is a Sector Chief for Laredo.

Welcome, and you are recognized, sir.

Mr. MONTOYA. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman

Mink, Congressman Hutchinson and other distinguished members

of the subcommittee.

I am John Montoya, Chief Patrol Agent of the Laredo Sector of

the U.S. Border Patrol. I appreciate the opportunity to give you an

overview of the Laredo Sector and also to thank you for your concern and support over the years. I want to present to you the areas

where I believe we have been successful and also give you some insight where I feel there is still a threat to our operations.

Our agents are diligently performing their duties every day in an

environment that is becoming more dangerous and threatening because of alien and narcotics smugglers. In addition, the agents protect our national security by the arrest of individuals who enter

this country illegally and who may pose a terrorist threat to our

communities.

The Laredo Sector covers 171 miles of river border and is comprised of eight stations. The Laredo Sector has 690 Border Patrol

agents, 12 antismuggling agents, 13 detention enforcement officers

and 131 support positions on duty. Currently 555 of these agents

are assigned in the three stations immediately and directly adjacent to the river. All agents receive 20 weeks of intensive training

at the Federal law enforcement training center in Glynco, GA, and

at the Border Patrol Academy in Charleston, SC. The training includes law, Spanish, physical training and firearms training. They

are equipped with semiautomatic handguns, automatic long guns,

body armor, portable and mounted night vision equipment.

Based on effective operations to control the border in El Paso and

San Diego, the Border Patrol and INS initiated Operation Rio

Grande in South Texas in August 1997. Our strategy in the Laredo

Sector targeted a 4-mile area where approximately 70 percent of all

illegal entries were occurring within the sector. Within this 4-mile

stretch of river, agents were placed in a high-visibility posture at

16 intensely trafficked crossing points.

As Operation Rio Grande has continued and additional resources

have been received, the deployment area has been extended to 141⁄2

miles. Since the onset of Operation Rio Grande, apprehensions of

illegal aliens have diminished by 66 percent within the deployment

area. In addition, narcotics apprehensions have become almost nonexistent and crime rates have also been reduced within this area.

Aliens that are turned over to the Border Patrol by other agencies have also decreased by 33 percent. However, there has been

a definite shift of illegal traffic from the deployment area to the

flanks in both aliens and narcotics. This has been increasing as the

operation continues. Our Laredo North Station continues to apprehend large groups of 25 and more as smuggling operations are

forced away from the deployment areas.

The Laredo Sector is greatly affected by all criminal activity in

the area, but more so by smuggling activity. This sector has identified 27 alien smuggling organizations and 25 narcotics smuggling

organizations that operate within the confines of the Laredo Sector.

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These organizations have the capability to smuggle in excess of

6,000 aliens and multi-tons of narcotics per month.

Coordination with Mexican law enforcement agencies is complicated by both the number of Mexican law enforcement agencies

and frequent turnover within these agencies. To overcome this, we

recently formalized an arrangement whereby the Laredo Border

Patrol has a single point of contact with Mexican law enforcement

agencies through the Mexican Immigration Service.

Furthermore, of major concern are recent incidents involving

Mexican authorities. In one incident, for example, a Mexican municipal police officer fired shots toward the United States side following pursuit of an individual. This incident has been addressed

with the Mexican Consul and American Consul and the relevant

Mexican police authorities. However, it underscores the tensions

and the dangers that our agents face on a daily basis.

Laredo Sector has employed a twofold approach to its operations

to include narcotics interdiction and education in order to battle

the influence of drugs in the sector area. Interdiction efforts take

place along the river with special response teams, normally outside

the deployment area and on highway checkpoints. The sector has

a Drug Demand Reduction Education Program comprised of agents

who visit schools and organizations that are connected with children. The agents make presentations on the dangers of drugs and

drug use. Agents assigned to the program made presentations to

over 820 children and 180 adults just in the month of January

2000.

The education of our children against the use of illegal drugs is

important to the entire United States. If we, as a country, can

eliminate the supply and demand of this evil, we would be able to

prevent the decay or death of our youth.

The Laredo Sector has a history of aggressively pursuing and

supporting technology that will help accomplish the mission in a

safer, more efficient manner. The sector has had great success with

night vision technology through scope trucks, individual agent

night vision goggles, and fixed camera sites which afford agents the

advantage of knowing who and how many individuals they are encountering and if they are armed.

We must never lose sight of the fact that the ultimate resource

in achieving success is the men and women who are on the line.

The ability to continue to phase in an Operation Rio Grande is

paramount to achieving the success that this sector and service set

out to accomplish since the inception of the strategy.

On behalf of all the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol,

I thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today. I would

be pleased to answer any questions you may have at this time.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Montoya follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Montoya. I will ask the first question.

We have this headline—I think you are familiar with it; it says

Drug Traffickers Set Bounty on Agents, offering $200,000. I guess

they were after Border Patrol folks.

What is your response to that particular threat?

Mr. MONTOYA. Well, we became apprised of the threat, or the information and the intelligence on threat. We immediately placed

our officers, our agents, on alert. We made contact with all the law

enforcement community, not only in the Laredo Sector, but also

with the Mexican authorities.

This was done and accomplished through our liaison officers and

also through our informants.

We take all threats seriously, whether they are directed at the

Border Patrol or any other law enforcement agency.

Mr. MICA. Doesn’t this represent a more brazen threat by drug

traffickers to our agents?

Mr. MONTOYA. Again, it is very serious. Our agents are confronted with many types of threatening situations on a daily basis,

and when they hear information or are provided intelligence that

there is someone out there specifically targeting them or another

law enforcement officer, we do respond; we do take the necessary

safety precautions to protect our agents.

Mr. MICA. It doesn’t appear that it is routine operating procedure

for them to almost go public with a bounty on our Border Patrol

agents. Is this a new tactic?

Mr. MONTOYA. During my 24 years, Mr. Chairman, with the Border Patrol there have been numerous threats made against law enforcement agents on the U.S. side; obviously all along the border,

the most infamous obviously being DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

During that time period, we were on a high state of alert.

Mr. MICA. What about with this threat? Is this something to take

seriously or just a media account?

Mr. MONTOYA. No, sir. Again, we take all the threats and we try

to validate the information through the use of informants, through

our contacts, throughout all agencies both on the United States

side and the Mexican side.

Mr. MICA. Is this a valid threat?

Mr. MONTOYA. Sir?

Mr. MICA. You said you try to validate. Is this a valid threat to

our agents?

Mr. MONTOYA. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. It is. OK.

Do we have any recourse? If somebody harms, kills or maims one

of our agents, do we have a reward system for information leading

to them? What is the reciprocity that we have under law?

Mr. MONTOYA. As far as the—excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Go

ahead.

Mr. MICA. I said, are you aware of that?

Mr. MONTOYA. Yes, sir. As to the incident itself, we do have the

ability to pay reward money for information leading to the disclosure or the arrest, et cetera, of any individual.

Mr. MICA. What range? Is that sufficient and is it set by law or

is it a discretionary amount that you can determine?

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Mr. MONTOYA. Within my authority, I can only approve up to

$5,000. From there, it has to go up the chain of command.

Mr. MICA. How about DEA, Mr. Ledwith? If somebody comes

after a DEA agent, is there an adequate reward system in place?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir. There is literally nothing we would not

do to recover that person who threatened or harmed a DEA agent.

And yes, sir, there is an ability within the Department of Justice.

Mr. MICA. What are your limits? Mr. Montoya said $5,000 and

then he needed approval of that, which doesn’t appear like much

of a reward.

Mr. LEDWITH. I am quite convinced, sir, that if there were an attack upon a Federal U.S. law enforcement official, we would be

able to get a very significant amount of money offered as a reward.

My limits, I can go to the Department of Justice, I would think in

terms of $500,000 or $1 million would not be too low.

Mr. MICA. Shouldn’t that be extended to our border agents who

are under threat?

Mr. LEDWITH. Well, sir, I can’t comment directly, but I would

imagine by the time a threat or that kind of situation arrived in

Washington, significant resources would be made available.

Mr. MICA. Do you know if the Department of Justice has a policy

on this? I just want to see if we have in place a mechanism to reciprocate. Because for me, this is unprecedented to have our agents

publicly threatened in this fashion and a bounty put on their

heads.

Ms. WARREN. I don’t know the procedure specifically for the Border Patrol, but I know with the other agencies there is an application procedure up through the Attorney General for amounts of $1

million.

Mr. MICA. But we need to make certain that we have adequate

policy and law in place to make certain that our agents are—I don’t

know if we can protect them, but if they are going to threaten them

in this fashion and in some way they are put in harm’s way, we

need to be able to retaliate.

Mr. Ledwith, you described an incident and one that concerns me

about I believe it was one of our agents, surrounded by drug traffickers.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir, I did. It was a DEA special agent and an

FBI special agent assigned to our offices in Mexico, sir, in November 1999, in Matamoros.

Mr. MICA. This also appears to be a little bit more brazen. They

were very fortunate in that they were not harmed. Do you see a

pattern of more threatening situations to our agents in that area?

Mr. LEDWITH. Our men and women that serve overseas, sir,

sadly I am here to tell you that we have a constant situation with

threats against our men and women overseas, as do many others.

Mr. MICA. I am interested today in the situation in Mexico.

Mr. LEDWITH. I would say, sir, yes, that it appears to be more

brazen.

Mr. MICA. The murder of the police chief seems to be one of the

most emboldened acts I have witnessed. Am I correct in that they

also murdered a previous police chief in that area?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir, you are correct.

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Mr. MICA. What about cooperation? Was your agency involved or

the FBI in the recovery of the remains from the operation inside

the Mexican border? Your agents were involved?

Mr. LEDWITH. No, sir. That was principally an FBI operation. We

provided some support to them.

Mr. MICA. Are you aware of any pressure to close that operation

down from the Mexicans?

Mr. LEDWITH. No, sir, I am not personally aware of any.

Mr. MICA. Are you aware of that operation, Ms. Warren?

Ms. WARREN. Somewhat, yes.

Mr. MICA. How would you describe the cooperation of the Mexican officials in that?

Ms. WARREN. The cooperation through Attorney General

Madrazo and the PGR was excellent from the very beginning. The

Mexican media made it very difficult for Attorney General

Madrazo, but he stated publicly that this cooperation would continue. It was such an important effort; and it did continue.

Mr. MICA. Was there any pressure to close that down?

Ms. WARREN. I know of the storm in the Mexican press that was

raised against Attorney General Madrazo, but he withstood that

storm.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Ledwith, did you have a specific recommendation

on certification or decertification of Mexico to any of your superiors?

Mr. LEDWITH. Sir, the method by which we make a report is to

the Department of Justice. We do not make recommendations. We

give a recital, if you will, of the results obtained that year and the

cooperation that we enjoyed.

Mr. MICA. Did you review that report as it was presented to the

Department of Justice?

Mr. LEDWITH. I reviewed the report before it left DEA, sir, en

route to the Department of Justice.

Mr. MICA. If I had a copy of that report, would it indicate that

Mexico is fully cooperating?

Mr. LEDWITH. It would indicate, sir, that Mexico is cooperating,

but that there are substantial problems.

Mr. MICA. Would you like to comment on what the problem areas

are?

Mr. LEDWITH. Well, sir, there would be several areas: the extradition of people that we have asked to have extradited; the fact

that there has not been a major trafficker arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned in Mexico in some years; the fact that the polygraph program with the vetted units was shut down in August of last year

due to difficulties with the procedure; and the fact that we have

had—since 1996, we have not been able to utilize the so-called

‘‘commuter agents’’ to go into Mexico from the border areas and

conduct cooperative and bilateral, multilateral investigations.

Mr. MICA. What about the progress in allowing our agents to

arm themselves?

Mr. LEDWITH. There has not been any progress in that area that

I am aware of, sir.

Mr. MICA. You probably wouldn’t get into the maritime agreement area, would you?

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Are you aware of the maritime agreement? I understand an

agreement was signed with basically no terms. Are you familiar

with that, Ms. Warren?

Ms. WARREN. Not familiar enough to answer your questions on

that. I know we have had some good maritime cooperative success

in this last year and that the Coast Guard has worked vigorously

to try and develop parallel operational procedures so that they can

work together and hand off these cases as best as possible; but as

to the terms of the agreement, I am not familiar.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Montoya, dealing with Mexican officials in your

border work, would you describe their actions as fully cooperating

with you in the antinarcotics effort?

Mr. MONTOYA. It has been demonstrated in the short time that

I have been in Laredo, the last 6 months, we have an outstanding

relationship with the head of the Mexican Immigration Service,

who has jurisdiction for crimes committed along the immediate border. They act as our go-between with the other agencies.

We have, as I mentioned in my oral testimony, some incidents

which caused us major concern. With the assistance of Mr. Gabriel

Cortez, who is the director of Mexican immigration in Nuevo Laredo and the Mexican consul, we were able to go to the table with

these agencies and discuss our concerns in a mutual arrangement

to prevent future incidents.

Mr. MICA. You have only been there 6 months?

Mr. MONTOYA. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. Is the situation over the border getting better or worse

as far as trafficking and violence, in your observation?

Mr. MONTOYA. I can speak to our narcotic seizures within the Laredo Sector. The volume of marijuana in the Laredo Sector has increased almost 100 percent in just the 4 months of this fiscal year.

Mr. MICA. Your observation of the situation relating to trafficking and violence, so the volume has had a 100 percent increase in

a short period of time. What about violence?

Mr. MONTOYA. We have not had any, at least directed at our

agents, et cetera. However, on the Mexican side there have been

at least two incidents within the last month that caused us this

concern.

Mr. MICA. One final question, Mr. Ledwith. There is a cap put

on DEA agents in Mexico, which I guess is not public information.

Do you think the agency would support a resolution by Congress

or request by Congress to have that cap lifted?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir. There is a cap on the amount of agents

we are allowed to have in Mexico.

Mr. MICA. Given the statement of our United States Ambassador

and appointing a very qualified man, whom we all know, who basically said the headquarters of world narcotics trafficking is Mexico;

and they imposed a cap a number of years ago—I am not sure

when that was, but at least since I have been on this subcommittee—is it time to lift that cap?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir, I would say that it would be.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mrs. Mink.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you very much.

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Mr. Ledwith, we have a burden to try to look at both sides of this

equation, the things that have gone well and are effective, and

weigh it against those things where there have been major failures;

the same thing that a jury would have to do in finding a preponderance of the evidence, we have to make that same examination.

In reading some of the materials that have been forwarded to us,

which undoubtedly will be covered by the administration in explaining whatever decision they arrive at, my question goes to

what if the Congress insists upon decertification, or what if the administration recommends decertification, what impact would that

have on the ability of your agency to continue the work that it is

now doing in Mexico?

Mr. LEDWITH. That’s an exceptionally interesting question,

ma’am. It might be presumptuous of me to answer it. On the one

hand, I would hope that this would be a message to the Government of Mexico to redouble their efforts in many areas. I would

also be concerned that it might adversely impact on DEA’s ability

to work within that country due to the reaction of the Mexican

Government.

Mrs. MINK. Is there any intelligence within your agency, that is

examining this issue, and was it included in your agency’s analysis

of this problem when it forwarded its comments to the administration for decisionmaking?

Mr. LEDWITH. I do not believe in the comments that we forward

to the Department of Justice on the certification issue, that that

particular issue was addressed. It certainly is the subject of some

debate within DEA.

Mrs. MINK. So the issue is one that has not been weighed in in

terms of impact? We have to take into consideration that it could

go either way? It could assist us in insisting upon greater cooperation and greater enforcement efforts, or it could go the other way;

there is no real way that we can determine that in advance?

Mr. LEDWITH. I would not be able to advise you as to what the

ultimate reaction of the Mexican Government would be, no, ma’am.

Mrs. MINK. The next question then is, in one of your criticisms

of the Mexican Government’s failures is that they have not apprehended, arrested, tried or convicted any major drug trafficker within their country. Is that a true statement, what you responded to

the chairman’s inquiry?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, sir, with the possible exception of the

Amezcua brothers who have been awaiting extradition to the

United States, the Mexican Government has not captured,

tried——

Mrs. MINK. They have extradited certain individuals to the

United States or allowed their extradition, but they have not, on

their own, tried a major drug trafficker; is that your answer to the

question?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, ma’am. The Mexican nationals who were extradited to the United States would not be classified as major drug

traffickers. Saying that, the Mexican Government has not arrested—certainly not tried or convicted—any major drug traffickers

in any way.

Mrs. MINK. How would you explain that and how does that add

to this quantum of mystery of what would happen if we decertified

65

them? If they are not, even under the optimum circumstances now

of being a major trade partner and having the protection of NAFTA

and all of these other benefits of a renewed interest of collaboration, how do you explain their failure to understand the urgency of

this issue? And if we did decertify, isn’t it fair to assume that the

failure would be even greater and that this situation would be even

more exacerbated?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, ma’am, I suppose that it might well be. It

would be difficult to arrest less than none.

Mrs. MINK. I get your point.

Now, on the other hand, there is this demonstrated activity with

regard to the eradication of marijuana plants and all of those efforts with respect to cultivation and activities in that area, and the

report goes on to say that these activities have greatly enhanced

over the past 12 months. Is that your observation as well?

Mr. LEDWITH. I would say that the eradication efforts are promising, yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MINK. As against what occurred in 1998, there has been

vast improvement over the past 12 months?

Mr. LEDWITH. There appears to be an improvement in eradication efforts, yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MINK. So it would be fair to say that this is Mexico’s answer

to our concerns about drug trafficking, that they are taking

stepped-up measures to eradicate the cultivation, production and

distribution systems of the drugs within their own country, but

that that is about it?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, ma’am, that certainly would be an effective

response to the problem of Mexican marijuana and Mexican heroin.

It in no way impacts on the flow of Colombian cocaine through

Mexico.

Mrs. MINK. Now, that’s another issue. I don’t think it is fair to

weigh in on Mexico what we have as a separate problem with Colombia, that we are now trying to deal with separately, as a separate issue.

While that is true, it travels through Mexico, I think we have to

look at their own individual situation in making an assessment

whether to go forward with decertification or not.

This is an extremely complex issue.

Now, how many DEA and FBI agents are there in Mexico, or are

you not allowed to say?

Mr. LEDWITH. I would be able to say that we currently have almost 45 DEA agents and six FBI agents.

Mrs. MINK. Total? That’s all total?

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. MINK. That’s the cap that the chairman referred to?

Mr. LEDWITH. We currently have no more than 45 DEA agents

and 6 FBI agents, ma’am.

Mrs. MINK. That sounds like a very minuscule number of

people——

Mr. LEDWITH. I should say the six FBI agents——

Mrs. MINK [continuing]. To deal with such an enormous problem

like this.

Mr. LEDWITH. Yes, ma’am, I would agree with you.

66

The six FBI agents I referred to are FBI agents involved working

in DEA offices against drugs. There are other FBI agents in Mexico

who work nondrug cases, though.

Mrs. MINK. Given the very limited number of people you have

there, if we decertified, isn’t it a reasonable assumption that none

would be allowed in?

Mr. LEDWITH. I think that might very well be a reasonable assumption.

Mrs. MINK. Ms. Warren, on the whole matter of extradition, I am

very much confused. In your testimony you said article 4 of the

Mexican penal code has been interpreted to mean that it was mandatory for the Mexican Government to try its own citizens.

Ms. WARREN. Those were decisions by intermediate level appellate courts. The issue is now before their highest court, the Mexican supreme court, for decision; and we hope for a favorable resolution of that, a resolution that would say that article 4 does not bar

the extradition of the Mexican nationals, and that should proceed

according to the treaty.

Mrs. MINK. Now, if they haven’t had any trials, arrests or trials

of any significant drug traffickers within their own country, to

what extent is article 4 a real impediment?

Ms. WARREN. They have had and they continue to have prosecutions under article 4 and under their regular criminal prosecutions.

I agree with Mr. Ledwith, they just haven’t had any prosecutions

of any high-level traffickers or of the leaders of the major organizations.

Mrs. MINK. Do you have an explanation of why that has not occurred? That is a very troubling point which has been raised in

many hearings last year, in meetings that we had with leaders in

Mexico; and to this date, there has been no reasonable explanation,

and one has to assume that it is because of political pressures, corruption, whatever other kind of explanation comes to mind, because no one seems to be able to pinpoint this difficulty.

Ms. WARREN. I am not able to find the one answer to it. They

do have some major traffickers now held for extradition to the

United States. We remain hopeful that those will work and those

will appear in our courtrooms, the Amezcua brothers.

Mrs. MINK. But then they argue that they won’t do this because

of our death penalty.

Ms. WARREN. No, they are not facing the death penalty.

Mrs. MINK. These individuals are not?

Ms. WARREN. No, they are not, but they are facing substantial

time for their trafficking offenses as violations of U.S. law.

It has been very difficult for the Mexican law enforcement authorities to locate and arrest the major traffickers. They receive a

great deal of support and assistance from DEA, but the primary

force, of course, is Mexican law enforcement. President Zedillo and

Attorney General Madrazo inherited a very difficult situation in

the level of corruption in law enforcement in Mexico. It is something that we cannot understand in the United States.

We go after one bad apple in a giant barrel and we are outraged

that there was one bad apple.

67

Think of the numbers that they have had to dismiss and how

many more are within their ranks. It makes law enforcement very

difficult.

Mrs. MINK. Would you put on the plus side of the ledger the fact

that they have fired these thousands of individuals that they have

found to be corrupt?

Ms. WARREN. Absolutely. It has been an enormous and courageous undertaking for them to go after that.

Mrs. MINK. Is that a process that has now come to an end and

is subsiding, or are they continuing to go forward with this internal

investigation?

Ms. WARREN. No, that is a continuing, ongoing effort, both in an

administrative way to remove them from employment as well as

identifying criminal violations to prosecute those individuals. It is

a commitment that the President and the Attorney General have

made and make publicly again and again.

Mrs. MINK. Do the President and the Attorney General of Mexico

have the power and authority to bring a prosecution against a

major trafficker on their own? And has that been explored as one

way to overcome this inertia?

Ms. WARREN. Their legal system is not the same as ours. To file

charges, they have to meet a standard of proof that their courts

judge is an appropriate threshold in order to issue arrest warrants.

They have gotten arrest warrants issued against some, for instance, the former Governor of the Yucatan in Quintana Roo. That

was a courageous step. They had the evidence to support it and the

arrest warrant issued. He escaped before they were able to capture

him. So they have tried.

Mrs. MINK. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

You know, Ms. Warren, you sound a little bit depressed. Last

year, I gave a very depressing account of extradition, and you don’t

sound like you are getting all that much cooperation. You outlined

again, and it was confirmed by DEA, still we have not had one

major trafficker, Mexican national extradited, correct?

Ms. WARREN. It is discouraging and there were times that we

were on more of an upward trend in our extradition relationship,

and it has certainly flattened out at the moment.

Mr. MICA. We got one about 2 or 3 weeks ago because extradition

was coming up. It was a minor—wasn’t it—— Ms. WARREN. We have gotten a few recently, correct; but we are

looking for the major cases, and the important ones. The Mexican

authorities and the United States have suffered from the Mexican

court decisions. Both countries are committed to an independent judiciary and both countries suffer when the courts don’t go exactly

our ways.

Mr. MICA. Unfortunately—and I have talked about this corruption and the corruption has now led to violence—we are seeing unprecedented violence just in the last year of public officials, entertainers, law enforcement people slaughtered on the streets. Unfortunately, this may have to take the route of what happened in the

Mafia in Italy. They became so brazen that the public took to the

streets and demanded—I think you may have met Pino Arlacchi,

the head of the ONDCP, who headed that effort, and I feel sorry

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for the Mexicans. This is predictable, that the corruption would

lead to violence and slaughter of their people; and now that is taking place in great numbers. So maybe only an outcry from Mexico

will make something happen.

The other thing, too, is decertification merely asks whether the

country is fully cooperating to receive U.S. trade, financial assistance and other benefits that are given by this country to other

countries. That’s why it is so important and that’s why I agree

with—Senator Helms has said that the process has not been properly followed by the administration.

Having helped draft it, I think that they have misinterpreted the

intent of that, and it is to get their attention. I think if you do get

their attention on suspending some support in international financial organizations, then very quickly we will begin to take action.

Unfortunately, it is taking another route and the violence is now

spawning hopefully some action. Even Mexicans have to be appalled by what has taken place just recently.

Finally, the ranking member and I, in November, sent to the

President a letter requesting that we have a border coordinator for

the Southwest border. That was based on our visit to the Southwest border a year ago, when we met with officials, and it didn’t

appear like—there were many people trying to do good jobs, but it

didn’t appear that we had the coordination. Then we held a hearing

in Washington and then we signed this joint request.

We haven’t had a response back from this request. Has anyone

heard anything about such a proposal and where it is in the administration? Have you heard anything, Ms. Warren?

Ms. WARREN. I am not exactly certain where that proposal is. I

do know that the Department of Justice and the Department of

Treasury together believe that our response, in general, to the need

for greater coordination comes through the Border Coordination

Initiative.

Mr. MICA. Even our Director of ONDCP stated to us, let me

quote, there is no one entity responsible for the coordination of

overall drug efforts along the Southwest border; the primary factor

contributing to the lack of accountability and coordination of drug

control efforts along the Southwest border. That’s what General

McCaffrey said to us.

We reviewed the situation out there. We held a hearing here. We

came to this conclusion. We asked for action.

So is there anything you could do with the Attorney General,

with any of your departments, to try to move this along?

The Border Patrol, I know you are doing the best you think you

can, but we have reviewed this. It has been reviewed by the national drug czar and others, and I still don’t see anybody in control.

Ms. WARREN. Again, the Departments of Justice and Treasury

believe that the Border Coordination Initiative is the response, and

I would like to be able to provide you with those materials that explain that initiative and how it responds.

Mr. MICA. What I may do then, if you will tell them, is when

their appropriations measure comes up, I am going to see what I

can do to block their appropriations this year until we get some action on that.

69

So we will convey that by messenger and letter, because this is

long overdue.

We are going to go back to the Southwest border. We were in El

Paso. We are going to San Diego and that border crossing on Tuesday. We don’t have votes on Monday and Tuesday. We will review

the situation again, but it still appears that we have not had action

where we have requested that.

Mrs. Mink, did you have anything further?

Mrs. MINK. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The best solution, I think, in the

appropriations process is to direct that part of the money being allocated for the initiative be used for the establishment of a coordinator.

Mr. MICA. Well, whatever it takes, and I am willing to work with

you. I always like to just stop the train and see if that gets their

attention.

Mrs. MINK. I am not for stopping the train. I am for taking my

slice out of it.

Mr. MICA. Well, we will do whatever it takes. I thank the three

witnesses for being with us this morning and also for your efforts

on behalf of the citizens in trying to bring some of this situation

relating to Mexico’s drug trafficking and border control, the whole

problem we face.

We thank you for your efforts and excuse you at this time.

The next panel is Mr. Philip Jordan. He is a DEA, Drug Enforcement Administration, former director of EPIC, the El Paso Intelligence Center. He is now retired, and we have asked him to come

and give us his observations; sometimes those in official capacity

are a little bit constrained.

And we also have some new players in this effort, so today we

will hear from someone who is a veteran and a retired EPIC Intelligence Center director.

Mr. Jordan, maybe you could just stay standing. If you don’t

mind, I will swear you in.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. MICA. The gentlemen has answered in the affirmative. Welcome to our subcommittee.

We won’t run a clock on you. If you have anything you would

like, as far as data, information, background, to submit for the

record, we will be glad to do that upon request.

Mr. Jordan, you are recognized. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF PHILLIP JORDAN, DEA (RETIRED), FORMER

DIRECTOR OF EPIC

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Distinguished Congressmen, I want to thank you for inviting and

allowing me the opportunity to speak before this distinguished subcommittee. My remarks will be brief and from the heart.

I was born in El Paso, TX, and raised approximately five blocks

from the United States-Mexican border. I do want to state something for the record. I am not here representing DEA. I have a high

respect for the men and women of DEA, for which I worked for

311⁄2 years.

I gave over 30 years of service to the DEA, and Mexico has been

part of the fabric of my very being. And by the way, with the politiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:42 Dec 27, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\66877.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cal atmosphere that’s out there today in regards to religion, I am

a Catholic.

I am very familiar with the Juarez-El Paso drug transhipment

corridor, but rather than being here and representing DEA, which

I am not, I would like to believe that I am here representing my

neighbors in Plano, TX, of which we have had over 50 heroin overdose deaths in the Metroplex, including about 20 in Plano, where

I presently reside. These are overdose deaths from black tar heroin,

coming from the country of Mexico.

My testimony today is not based on abstractions, nor is it based

on racism or hatred of Mexico. I speak from experience, and this

experience is of a Mexico looted by a corrupt ruling class that is

addicted to drug money, an antidemocratic elite that has for years

oppressed, murdered and terrorized its own citizens, including Kiki

Camarena, who was born in Mexico.

The question before this committee should not be whether Mexico has earned the right to be certified this year for cooperation in

the war on drugs. The question is: Why, given its record, has Mexico ever been certified?

You saw my former associate walk the edges when you asked

him, Mr. Chairman, what does DEA recommend? Of course, DEA

does not recommend certification, but we cannot say it for the

record, or they cannot say it for the record.

I am talking about the real agents that work with the DEA. In

this matter, I can speak from my 30 years of experience in Federal

drug law enforcement. Before my retirement, I was the Director of

the El Paso Intelligence Center, the very core of our government’s

intelligence and knowledge about the drug world. In that capacity,

I knew a lot of what our government knew as it related to drug

intelligence. I helped brief our leading officials on our intelligence

information, information that wasn’t acknowledged. In fact, the

very unit that assembled this type of intelligence and was responsible for the briefings, from the latest intelligence that I have it has

now been disbanded, because it was continuing to expose corruption in Mexico.

I witnessed Mexico being recertified year after year, while the

drug cartels grew in power and wealth until they finally seemed to

dwarf the very Government of Mexico.

It is useful to keep in mind that Mexico earns approximately $8

billion a year from oil production, its major single legal export. Yet

Mexico earns approximately $30 billion a year from drugs.

To put this in perspective, our 1995 bailout of the Mexican economy could have been financed by the Mexican Government, without

borrowing from the United States, by simply dipping into the Nation’s drug revenues. I firmly believe that a strong possibility exists

that the Mexican economy would probably collapse without the infusion of drug money. I do not doubt that the leaders of our government are cognizant of this prospect.

The drug black market is no longer a marginal part of Mexico,

but has become the very foundation which supports the Mexican

Government. The rulers of Mexico survive and profit by selling the

United States death on the installment plan. This time each year,

as Congress debates whether to certify Mexico, events are staged

71

by the United States and Mexican Governments to prove cooperation in the drug wars.

Several years ago, the Mexican Government gave us a bone, an

expendable Juan Garcia Abrego, an individual that while I was

head of the DEA in Dallas, we had him indicted from a Fort Worth

police investigation. He was the head of the Gulf cartel, who, I

firmly believe, failed to leave his government bribe payments at the

highest levels, and this was mainly due to the increased pressure

that he was receiving from the Juarez cartel.

The following year, Mexico arrested the general, Jesus Rebollo,

their drug czar and also a paid employee of the Juarez cartel, a

man whose corrupt past was known to DEA, at least our DEA officers in Mexico.

This year it was the joint FBI-Mexican Government mass grave

excavation in Juarez that resulted in uncovering the remains of

nine men and two dogs. Eight of these victims were allegedly murdered by the FBI’s own Mexican federal police informant.

Meanwhile, the volume of drugs crossing the United States-Mexican border increases. The street value of drugs declines and the

U.S. drug problem continues to grow. If the Mexican Government

continues to cooperate as vigorously as it has in the past, the price

of drugs on our streets may easily drop to the same price as lettuce.

This claim of cooperation is simply—I don’t want to say it is a

lie, but not true. Cartel bosses, the drug lords, thrive throughout

Mexico with impunity; and somebody already stated that. Recently,

a leader of the Guadalajara cartel was discovered to be renting a

mansion from the Mexican Attorney General’s office. Raul Salinas,

brother of the previous Mexican President, was discovered to have

funneled hundreds of millions of dollars from drug profits to a

Swiss bank account. These moneys were laundered through a New

York bank that did not even blink at the large money transactions.

Our government wants the American people to believe that while

he was in office, former President Carlos Salinas was too busy to

notice his brother’s illicit activities, and the story continues.

Why do we go through this annual exercise of futility called certification? Is this a simple, pious gesture of no real content because

matters of state override enforcement of our drug laws? Should we

abandon it? Maybe we should just face reality.

We share a 2,000-mile border with a nation where leadership at

the highest level is deeply mixed with the drug business; a government that oppresses its own citizens, including murdering countless people because of the lucrative drug business. It is estimated

that each year approximately 1 million of its own citizens—men,

women and children—give their message to decertify Mexico by

fleeing to the United States, partly to escape the violence associated with the drug business. This is a clear message from their

own people that Mexico should not be certified.

But if we are going to continue this practice called ‘‘certification,’’

let’s at least bargain for something substantial that will help the

people of both countries. You heard testimony here today where

Mexico will not extradite any major drug lord to the United States.

They are not going to extradite the hand that feeds them to the

United States.

72

How about asking for a yearly quota of the drug lords in payment for certification? This human product will not be hard to find

since they are currently living in mansions in Tijuana, Mexico City,

Guadalajara; and they often carry police credentials given to them

by the Mexican Government.

Let’s tell the American people the truth. The Mexican Government is corrupt and fattened by drug revenues. The Mexican Government is helping to poison our people and crush its own people.

Our deliberate lying about this is killing people in both nations;

they are victims of a deadly fiction of our foreign policy, and if we

do this one thing, we will benefit the people of both nations. Americans and Mexicans have made long strides toward our deepest

democratic belief—government of the people, by the people, and for

the people.

I will be happy to answer any questions, and I hope that I was

politically correct.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Jordan. When did you leave DEA?

Mr. JORDAN. 1996.

Mr. MICA. You have pretty much followed the situation then as

a retired official since then?

Mr. JORDAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. Do you still live along the border?

Mr. JORDAN. I was born in El Paso, TX, and I am now in Plano,

TX. Plano, TX, by the way, was where we had that influx of heroin

overdose deaths.

Mr. MICA. Primarily among young people?

Mr. JORDAN. Yes.

Mr. MICA. We have had the same thing, Colombian heroin coming through the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, and into my area, so I am

aware of a bit of the same problem, different routing.

So since 1996 you said you have been a pretty keen observer,

stay in touch and you feel that the corruption has spread over is

it about the same from what you’re hearing and what you’re observing with the Mexican officials?

Mr. JORDAN. It continues to increase. It continues to spread like

a cancer; it continues to penetrate our borders.

Mr. MICA. You also claim that drug money is a source of a great

deal of income for the government and for officials. What do you

base that on?

Mr. JORDAN. Well, the large payments that are documented in

intelligence, the large volume of money that exchanges hands from

the drug traffickers. For example, it was mentioned earlier, you

have to separate the Colombia cocaine coming through Mexico. The

Colombians have to pay the Mexicans to allow that cocaine to come

through Mexico to the United States. So there is an infusion of

money that has to be paid to government officials in order to allow

that transshipment of the cocaine from Colombia to Mexico to the

United States. This is strictly from 30 years of experience.

Mr. MICA. What do you think that it is going to take to get Mexico’s attention to deal with this problem?

Mr. JORDAN. Well, I firmly believe that decertification for 1 year

would send a very strong message to Mexico, and they would get

the message that we mean business. You know, one thing that

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would happen here is that we would be helping both countries. It

would not just be penalizing Mexico, it would be helping them.

Mr. MICA. Maybe you heard my comments during my opening

statement that Mexico has even corrupted the decertification process. They have hired top lobbyist guns in Washington and Madison

Avenue types to gloss over problems and present a good face, masking the narcotics trafficking problem that they have. Even as Chair

of this subcommittee and with others, we are fighting a losing battle because they bought off the opposition.

Mr. JORDAN. It is very hard to compete.

Mr. MICA. Even in Washington at this level.

I don’t mean that they paid them, but I mean that they have

hired the top guns. They have paraded people down there and

shown them only the good side, and they have done a Madison Avenue snow job on the rest of the folks. In the meantime, we have

given them incredible trade benefits, unprecedented in any country.

In fact, we have gone from a positive trade balance to one of the

most negative, exceeded by maybe only China, not to mention loss

of jobs and loss of economic opportunity plus degradation of the environment. They don’t care about labor laws or OSHA or environmental protection, and they take all of this advantage and give us

narcotics in return.

Is that a fair observation?

Mr. JORDAN. It is a very fair observation. Very fair, yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. It is very frustrating because the process certifies that

they are fully cooperating and makes them eligible for U.S. benefits. They have even so contorted the process that they have convinced some people that there should be an international certification, or inter-American certification process, which is one of the

most unbelievable distortions of denying U.S. sovereignty and who

gets these trade benefits or financial assistance.

Mr. JORDAN. One thing, Mr. Chairman, that I am sure you are

aware of is that every year since certification was approved, Mexico

will do a show-and-tell-type thing.

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. JORDAN. Right before February-March.

Mr. MICA. Exactly. We have seen that with one bone thrown recently, coming up with signing up a maritime agreement, which

has basically no terms, and a couple of other hollow gestures,

which is unfortunate.

I think the only thing that is going to resolve it is more violence

in Mexico and the Mexicans rise up and throw out the corrupt officials and demand a change because they have even undermined the

process of certification for the United States of America. That is

how bad it has gotten.

Mr. JORDAN. That’s correct. And I can tell you, sir, that Mexican

comandantes, including one we called him an untouchable, told

Sam Dillon of the New York Times, I believe—exactly how every

year they are supposed to do the right thing at a certain specific

time, and then as soon as certification is approved, it is business

as usual. I know DEA knows it, but I don’t know if the DEA can

do anything about it.

Mr. MICA. I am also told that some of the officials that are removed are replaced with other officials; and we had a report, a

74

GAO report, that some of the officials that have been removed are

just moved to other positions.

Mr. JORDAN. That’s correct. I heard a figure of 4,000, 4,100 were

fired. What you did not hear was how many were rehired.

Mr. MICA. Yes. We have a study that confirms exactly that, and

you are saying you’ve seen the same thing?

Mr. JORDAN. That’s accurate.

Mr. MICA. It is unfortunate, too, that corruption seems to continue even at the highest levels—cabinet, even Office of the President. Would that be your assumption?

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. I don’t have any knowledge of the current

President of Mexico, but in previous administrations—— Mr. MICA. There has been at least one official implicated in his

office, and I think the investigation was closed down.

Mr. JORDAN. Right.

Mr. MICA. Are you aware of the amounts of money that have

been attempted to be laundered? We had a former Customs agent

testify before our subcommittee about a year ago, and he testified

that a Mexican general had attempted to launder $1.1 billion in the

United States.

Are you aware of any corruption in the military?

Mr. JORDAN. Oh, yes. I am familiar with the corruption in the

military from day one. In past operations, to give an example, we

would call the Mexican Federal judicial police to assist us in an investigation in Mexico; and if it was a large operation, we would

have to call the military. Well, in a couple of instances the Mexican

military would notify the principals, and obviously everybody would

escape, just like this Governor escaped. I am sure that the Governor knew that he was going to be, ‘‘arrested.’’ Mr. MICA. We all knew that, and we held a hearing and we cited

evidence that we had from a trip that we made about the Quintana

Roo Governor, Mario Villanueva-Madrid, being involved up to his

eyeballs just before he left office; and because they have that immunity while in office, he slipped through everybody’s hands and

he disappeared.

So you think that is pretty much an inside job, too?

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. That is why you never see any of these officials

arrested or tried in Mexico.

Mr. MICA. About the amount, is that farfetched, the billion dollars? Were you hearing large, significant amounts? I guess we

know that the Salinas brother ran off with in excess of $100 million?

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. I am not saying that all of it is drug related,

but there is a close correlation there between the Garcia organization and the Salinas relationship.

Mr. MICA. You keep current with some of your former colleagues

in DEA and some of the other enforcement agencies?

Mr. JORDAN. Yes, I do.

Mr. MICA. Are they reporting back the same type of activity you

have described to us today?

Mr. JORDAN. Worse activity in Mexico than ever, including the

violence.

Mr. MICA. It has shifted from corruption to violence and at unparalleled levels. Just the brazen murder of the police chief—I

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guess it was just within hours of the departure of the President,

according to this report in the Washington Post. So it has gotten

pretty much out of hand.

Mr. JORDAN. That was a clear message to the President of Mexico that his antidrug speech was not welcomed in that part of town

because they immediately executed the police chief. I mean—— Mr. MICA. Well, we appreciate your coming forward today and

providing us with your insight. Sometimes it is difficult to get people—as you saw, we had government witnesses here—and we appreciate your stepping forward and also your perception over a

number of decades with the agency. We thank you for your service.

We appreciate your testimony.

Do we have an agreement on leaving the record open for 1 week?

By unanimous consent, the record of this hearing will be left open

for additional questions.

There being no further business before the Subcommittee on

Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, this hearing

is adjourned.

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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