U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

62–540 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

OVERSIGHT OF 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

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 4, 1999

Serial No. 106–83

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: 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

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

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

GARY A. CONDIT, California

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

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

DAVID A. KASS, Deputy Counsel and Parliamentarian

CARLA J. MARTIN, 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

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

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

ROBERT B. CHARLES, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

SEAN LITTLEFIELD, Professional Staff Member

AMY DAVENPORT, Clerk

MICHEAL YEAGER, Minority Counsel

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 4, 1999 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Constantine, Thomas A., Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Justice; and Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State ................................................................... 7

Nelson, Benjamin, Director of International Relations and Trade Issues,

National Security and International Affairs Division, U.S. General Accounting Office, accompanied by Ron Kushner, Assistant Director ......... 112

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

Beers, Rand, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of International Narcotics and

Law Enforcement Affairs, U.S. Department of State:

Letters concerning decertification ............................................................ 49

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 61

Constantine, Thomas A., Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Justice, prepared statement of .................. 14

Gilman, Hon. Benjamin A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, article dated March 4, 1999 .................................................. 88

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 90

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

Florida, prepared statement of .................................................................... 4

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

Hawaii:

Chart concerning Mexican extradition statistics .................................... 57

Chart concerning Mexico eradication and seizure statistics .................. 54

Nelson, Benjamin, Director of International Relations and Trade Issues,

National Security and International Affairs Division, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ....................................................... 114

(1)

OVERSIGHT OF UNITED STATES/MEXICO

COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY,

AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met at 10:26 a.m., in room 2247 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the

subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Mica, Gilman, Souder, Hutchinson,

Mink, Cummings, Kucinich, Blagojevich, and Turner.

Staff present: Robert B. Charles, staff director/chief counsel;

Sean Littlefield, professional staff member; Rob Mobley, congressional fellow; Amy Davenport, clerk; Earley Green, minority staff

consultant; and Michael Yeager, minority counsel.

Mr. MICA. I will call the hearing of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources to order.

We have several other Members who are tied up in hearings and

will join us shortly, but I am pleased to welcome you this morning

to this hearing entitled the Oversight of the United States/Mexico

Counternarcotics Efforts.

This morning I will start our subcommittee proceedings by making an opening statement and yield to other Members that are

here. We will then hear from our witnesses and will probably defer

other opening statements, since we have had a delay, until after we

have heard from our witnesses. I appreciate their indulgence.

We did try to be tolerant of their other schedules this morning,

but we must proceed.

I would like to start with my opening comments, again a very serious topic, a grave situation that we are dealing with, particularly

the problems of drugs coming in from Mexico.

Drug abuse in America, especially among our youth, is at epidemic levels. The situation with international drug trafficking, I

believe, is becoming a threat to our national security. Over 14,200

Americans lost their lives last year to drugs and drug-related crime

at a cost of billions and billions of dollars, not to mention the cost

to families and to communities in distress.

Despite a long and productive relationship with our ally to the

south, Mexico, the hard river of drugs ending up on America’s

streets is coming across the Mexican border. Not only is Mexico the

leading source of deadly hard drugs entering the United States, acVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Mar 16, 2001 Jkt 066702 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HEARINGS\62540 pfrm02 PsN: 62540
2

cording to DEA’s signature program, Mexico has now become a

major producer of high purity heroin.

If you wouldn’t mind, let’s hold this up here. This is a chart prepared on the source of heroin from 1997, and it shows Mexico is

not only the major trafficker but it shows that it is now becoming

a major producer of heroin. Of the heroin that is coming into the

United States, 75 percent is produced in South America, and our

DEA Administrator can elaborate on what is happening.

Not only do we have the transiting of this deadly heroin through

South America, we also now have production, and we know this is

accurate by the signature program that can determine the source

of heroin.

Additionally, Mexico serves as the major source of foreign methamphetamine that is ravaging our midwest communities, the western part of the United States and is now spreading throughout the

country. Of the cocaine on America’s streets, 50 to 70 percent

crosses our southwest border. This is an absolutely staggering figure and a staggering quantity of drugs, again all entering through

Mexico.

Additionally, Mexico is, as I said, one of the major foreign

sources of methamphetamine. A recent article in the Minneapolis

Star Tribune stated that about 85 percent of the methamphetamine in Minnesota is smuggled through Mexico. This is just a little quote from the Minneapolis Star Tribune in September of last

year. Drugs coming from Mexico undermine our communities. They

spread and finance gang violence and, in fact, they are destroying

young lives in America at a record level. Heroin deaths among our

young have nearly doubled in the past few years. These are innocent, often unsuspecting youths.

In many cases, our young people are the greatest victims of this

devastation being imported in large quantities, as I said, from Mexico. If nothing else, we should be concerned about young people

who are at the center of this whole issue. Congress, and I believe

the subcommittee, owe them our leadership.

The statistics on drug use, particularly among our young people,

continue to be worrisome and should sober every American and

every Member of Congress. Heroin use is up a staggering 875 percent among our teens. Today we should be appalled by the trends.

Drug overdose deaths continue to plague our metropolitan areas

and not just our inner cities, but, today, suburbs and our schools

and almost every street in our communities.

Drug use is highest among our 12th graders with more than 50

percent of our 12th graders having tried an illicit drug and more

than 1 in 4 labeled as current users.

Today, our subcommittee will examine Mexico’s role in the fight

against illegal drugs. Without question, no country in the world

possesses a more immediate drug threat and national security danger to the United States.

In an effort to fully examine this issue, we will hear testimony

from our DEA Administrator Tom Constantine, and Randy Beers

from the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and

Law Enforcement Affairs. They will be followed by the General Accounting Office who will outline Mexico’s counternarcotics activities

taken over the last year.

3

While some minor progress has been made against drug trafficking in Mexico, that country has, in my estimation, failed to live

up to concerns expressed by Congress over 2 years ago. Despite

some of the reports that progress has been made against drug trafficking in Mexico, Mexico still has not done the following things,

and we talked about these and the House passed a resolution 2

years outlining these things.

Mexico still has not signed a bilateral maritime agreement. Corruption remains a major impediment. Additionally, U.S. drug enforcement agents are not allowed to adequately protect or defend

themselves. Our agents still remain at risk. Mexico has failed to

extradite a single major drug trafficker. What is even more troubling is that, for example, when money laundering was discovered

among Mexican banking officials last year, rather than cooperate,

Mexican officials threatened to indict United States Customs officers.

Now, what is of great concern to me is that Mexico has lost vast

land areas, in fact, they have lost entire states and regions to the

control of narco-traffickers. We have only to look at the Baja peninsula and the Yucatan peninsula for examples of areas completely

lost to narco-traffickers. Under the reports we have received there

are, again, complete areas under the control of narco-traffickers.

If this trend continues, Mexico could be on the verge of turning

its sovereignty over to drug traffickers. It is difficult for me to believe that this administration would certify Mexico as fully cooperating if we just take a few minutes to look at what has taken place

in the statistics. The statistics and facts are indeed troubling. Some

of the statistics from 1998 are absolutely startling. Boat seizures

were down last year in Mexico, 29 percent from 1997. On this chart

are the basic facts of what took place 1997 and 1998 relating to

major seizures of hard drugs—opium, heroin and cocaine. These

statistics are mind boggling. A reduction in heroin seizures of 56

percent, a reduction in cocaine seizures of 35 percent.

These are issues that must really be faced and be at the top of

our agenda today as we attempt to find solutions to this disastrous

situation. We aren’t here today to bash Mexico. We are here in an

effort to find out what went wrong? Does the certification process

work? And why is there such concern among our law enforcement

officials and people on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat?

I will close with the comments of our minority leader who said,

‘‘After reviewing the past year’s record, I am compelled to disagree

with the President’s decision to certify Mexico as fully cooperating

with our government in the fight against drugs,’’ and that was by

Mr. Gephardt.

So there is major concern on both sides of the aisle that this situation with Mexico may be out of control, that we may indeed have

erred in certifying Mexico and that we need to get a real handle

on what is going on and how we can work as partners with Mexico

to bring this situation under control.

So with those opening comments this morning, I would like to

yield to the ranking member of our subcommittee, Mrs. Mink, the

gentlelady from Hawaii. You are recognized.

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

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5

6

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to first note that Chairman Mica and six other Members of Congress have just returned from a very rigorous field trip

to a number of countries, El Salvador, Panama, Colombia, Peru,

Bolivia, and ending up with a 3-day visit in Mexico City before returning to the United States via El Paso. We did make a brief stop

initially in Miami, also.

This trip certainly revealed to me the enormity of the traffic

problem that we are faced with and the transit of drugs through

Mexico was clearly evidenced in all of our discussions with our

American officials and with the various country officials with whom

we had the opportunity to meet.

I come to this subject area rather new, perhaps naive in many

ways about the nature of the trafficking and the amounts and the

course through which they penetrate our borders. But it certainly

was not with any lack of understanding of the scourge that this

country faces in terms of the victims, mostly our children and all

of our communities who are affected by this drug trafficking.

So we have a unique opportunity, I think, in this committee and

in the Congress to focus attention on both the matter that is at

hand today in this hearing, and that is the trafficking problem

through Mexico, and the debate that will ensue with reference to

the President’s decision to certify, and others who feel that they are

in disagreement with that decision.

The other part of the triangle with which I am very much concerned, is to what extent we, in the United States, are mounting

as vigorous as a battle as we can in the law enforcement area. We

have focused our attention on education and treatment and other

matters, but it seems to me that we need to now turn, as we are

doing, to other countries. We need to determine exactly what we

are doing with respect to other countries in the areas of detection,

eradication, and penalties for the people that are responsible for

the consumption of drugs by our constituents.

So I look forward to the testimony this morning, Mr. Constantine

and Mr. Beers. You will certainly add light to the information that

we have at hand, and I look forward to the opportunity to propound a number of questions.

Thank you very much.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentlelady, and I am pleased to recognize

the gentleman from Texas now, Mr. Turner, for an opening statement.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the Chair having this hearing today. Coming from

the State of Texas, that shares a border with Mexico, we are in

Texas, of course, proud of our cultural and economic ties to Mexico,

but also uniquely aware of the law enforcement burdens that come

along with the problems of the narcotics traffic across our border.

We know and understand that the certification process is an

awkward hammer and often difficult to use in a meaningful way.

And we also, I think, in Texas, appreciate the fact that it is often

important to understand that those who generate the demand for

drugs share equally in the burden of finding solutions with those

who generate the supply.

7

But I do think that as we have this hearing today it is important

for us to understand that as we pursue our mutual goals of trying

to eliminate drug use and abuse and of increasing our law enforcement efforts along the border that we must do so with an understanding of the other national interests that we have with Mexico

and the ties that have existed for many years that we want to preserve.

So, Mr. Chairman, with that I appreciate, again, you hosting this

important hearing.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman. I am pleased now to recognize

our two witnesses on our first panel this morning.

We are privileged this morning to have one of the most distinguished law enforcement officers of the United States, Mr. Tom

Constantine, who is our Administrator of the Drug Enforcement

Agency. We are also privileged to have an Assistant Secretary of

the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement of the

Department of State, the Honorable Randy Beers, who has joined

us.

As you may know, gentleman, in addition to having some authorizing ability in the national drug policy area, we are also an investigative and oversight subcommittee of Congress and we do swear

in our witnesses. So if you would please stand up.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. MICA. Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in

the affirmative.

Again, I am pleased to welcome one of the most courageous law

enforcement officers, one of the most respected gentleman that I

have seen. He accompanied me right after I was named Chair. We

went together to a meeting in Europe in Baden, I believe it was,

Austria, and met with officials from throughout the world, some of

the drug czars, leaders, to begin my effort and renew his effort and

others in this international war against illegal narcotics.

I was so impressed with his comments, his presentation, and the

respect that he has, not only in this country, but throughout the

world in this difficult battle. So I am absolutely pleased and delighted that you are joining us today and look forward to your testimony and comments. You are recognized, sir.

STATEMENTS OF THOMAS A. CONSTANTINE, ADMINISTRATOR

OF THE DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; AND RAND BEERS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND LAW

ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Congressman, thank you very much for your

kind comments and to the other members of the committee.

I have submitted a fairly lengthy document detailing our analysis of the organized crime drug problem and especially as it impacts the United States and as the command and control is in Mexico, and I would ask your forgiveness to have that as my official

submission.

Mr. MICA. Without objection that entire statement will be made

part of the record.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. OK, thank you. The central theme of that

presentation concerns really how major organized crime syndicates

8

are impacting the citizens of the United States and how the organizations that are based in Mexico have become so powerful in a relatively short period of time.

All of the information that is in that report and in this presentation is based on a complete and very detailed analysis of every

major narcotics investigation conducted by the DEA, which involves organized crime groups that are headquartered in Mexico.

In addition to our own fact finding and analysis, we consulted

with each of the Federal agencies in the law enforcement community and the intelligence community and we have also reviewed

and discussed our analysis with all the major State, city, and local

agencies throughout the United States.

As a side comment, we have been watching with some degree of

concern over the last 2 or 3 years, a spread of the narcotics problem out of the urban areas of the United States into the rural midsized cities. As a result, we brought together about 100 police

chiefs, sheriffs and prosecutors a little over a week ago to a hotel

out by Dulles Airport. Prior to bringing them there, we submitted

a fairly detailed survey form asking them to describe their narcotics situation in their city, county, town, or State.

Sixty-eight percent of those who came and replied indicated that

the nexus of their drug trafficking outside of their immediate area

was organized criminal groups from Mexico. This was later then

played out in a series of workshops. And eventually we will be putting together a report within the next month explaining all of the

problems that these smaller and mid-sized areas that are suffering,

often without the necessary resources. By the way, that chart depicts kind of a spread, as you can see, of these cities, villages,

towns and counties.

Our analysis of the problem really has focused on how sophisticated criminal organizations based in another country, in this case

Mexico, can commit massive criminal activity within the United

States. At present these syndicates, which are based in Mexico, in

our opinion and in my opinion, pose the greatest drug trafficking

threat to the citizens of the United States.

As a result of some excellent investigations by Federal, State and

local law enforcement we now have a very clear picture of how

these drug lords ship tons of narcotics into the United States, collect billions of dollars from United States citizens, and then, at

times, arrange for the assassinations of either witnesses and/or

public officials in both Mexico and the United States.

We have identified and in many cases acquired sufficient evidence to indict many of the key leaders of these organizations.

But so far, they have been able to evade arrest and prosecution.

Like all organized crime systems throughout the history of the

modern world, they have been able to succeed using traditional

tools. Those tools are violence, intimidation and corruption.

Unfortunately, as I said last week before the Senate, as I testify

on this issue of the problem and the impact on these organizations

that are based in Mexico on the citizens of the United States, it has

been interpreted by some as a criticism of the people of Mexico or

the Government of Mexico. Nothing could be farther from the

truth. I have great respect for the citizens of Mexico, and I have

met with a number of public officials who I respect equally.

9

However, I have at several times in my law enforcement career

taken an oath of office. I also administer that oath of office to new

DEA graduates and at one time, State troopers. And that oath requires that we protect the citizens of the United States. I take that

oath very seriously. I have dedicated my life to it. At times I have

risked my life for those same principles.

So our analysis on this problem is not based on criticism of Mexico as much as it is based on the fact that there are criminal organizations and drug lords who live there who are doing a great deal

of damage within the United States. Their operations are fairly traditional.

On any given day, probably as we are speaking here this morning, drug lords in Colombia and Mexico are involved in business

transactions. The transactions that they are involved with is that

they communicate with criminal operatives they have sent into the

United States. These organizational operatives then arrange for the

shipment and storage of tons of cocaine and hundreds of kilos of

heroin and methamphetamine to be sold to our citizens.

The criminal organizations based in Mexico have matured from

being merely a transportation agency for the Colombia organizations to become the dominant threat to the citizens of the United

States. An example of one case on one organization on one subset

of that organization, it is a group led by the Arellano-Felix brothers

out of the Baja area of California, Tijuana, and Mexicali. They ship

tons of cocaine into Los Angeles, Tucson, Chicago, Detroit, and

Greensboro, NC.

We were fortunate enough in the investigation to see some of

their records. We found that this one group, in 90 days, had

shipped 10 tons of cocaine into the United States and taken $90

million in cash out of the United States back to their headquarters

in Tijuana.

Mention was made of methamphetamine. They not only control

50 percent of the distribution of cocaine, they found that they had

a drug that they could manufacture from the beginning, of which

they did not have to share the proceeds with the criminal organizations from Colombia. We had a minuscule methamphetamine problem in this country until it was wide scale distribution developed

from these criminal organizations.

To give you a sense of the growth and the explosion of that, in

1991, emergency room admissions in this country for methamphetamine were 4,900. By 1997, the emergency room admissions had

gone to 17,400. In 1992, the seizures along our border with Mexico

of methamphetamine were 7 kilos. In 1998, there were 1,400 kilos

seized. So we’ve moved from small motorcycle gangs and relatively

low level usage to widespread distribution and manufacture from

organized crime groups in the distribution in the United States and

it spread from California to every State in the union except for,

strangely enough, the northeast quadrant exclusive of the Philadelphia area.

To give you an example of the impact in the middle part of this

country, in Des Moines, IA, there are now more methamphetamine

arrests than there are drunken driving arrests. In Marshalltown,

IA, last year, a set of elected officials and teachers and police chiefs

and sheriffs and county executives came to my office looking for asVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Mar 16, 2001 Jkt 066702 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62540 pfrm02 PsN: 62540
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sistance anyplace they could find it. A community that never had

a drug problem now all of a sudden had a major methamphetamine

problem. And they have a high school there. There’s 1,600 students

in that high school. Over one-third of those students have now

tried methamphetamine.

We have, in the course of our investigation, found major laboratories that are run by these criminal organizations that are in and

of themselves very dangerous. We find that they build them and

construct them in areas close to middle schools, in equestrian centers where young people are taking riding lessons, and all of them

being driven by the heads of the criminal groups that are based in

Mexico.

There is an incredible amount of violence always associated with

organized crime. These groups, like all of their predecessors,

whether in the United States, Italy or Colombia, rely on violence

as an essential tool of their trade.

They use contract killers and brutal assassinations, and that is

done for one reason, to intimidate. To intimidate the common citizen and to intimidate many public officials from providing witness

information that is essential to arrest or prosecution. If these people are intimidated and do not provide us information, investigations will never be successful.

It is not only limited to their activities as they occur in Mexico.

We also are increasing experience in violence and threats by these

same groups against U.S. citizens in law enforcement along the

border.

I mentioned in the beginning of my discussion the fact of what

we are really dealing with is a powerful organized crime syndicate.

And that is the key to understanding our adversaries, and it becomes much clearer and our strategies for dealing with it become

more direct. For the first 70 years of this century, the primary drug

of abuse in the United States was heroin and really heroin at a

fairly low level of usage and low purity.

Recently, in the presentation that Congressman Mica talked

about, we did some research in Baltimore in the mid 1950’s. At

that point in time the population was 949,000 people and the number of heroin addicts was 300 to 350. The population of Baltimore

is now 675,000 people and there are 39,000 heroin addicts.

So the city of Baltimore, as for a heroin problem, has gone from

1 heroin addict for every 3,161 people in the 1950’s to 1 heroin addict for every 17 people in the 1990’s. That heroin traffic was driven by organized crime.

I have a chart up here of what it looked like then. The nexus and

the command and control was, for the most part, in New York City.

Those of you who have seen the movie the Godfather or looked at

some of the arts and entertainment reconstruction of organized

crime development in the United States would be familiar with

that.

The source of Europe was the so-called French connection. The

major crime families would then arrange for the distribution of the

heroin throughout the United States. And, really, it was in the

halls of Congress and in the Senate that finally we became aware

and moved from a state of denial on organized crime to a recognition.

11

The hearings held in the late 1950’s, especially by Senator

McClellan from Arkansas, were key in being able to explain to the

citizens of the United States how serious this problem was. Interestingly enough, if you go over those transcripts, which I have, you

will find that the chief counsel for those hearings was Bobby Kennedy. He then moved from there to become Attorney General and

implemented the types of investigative prosecutorial strategies that

were essential to dismantling organized crime.

And we have done, I think, a tremendous job in reducing organized crime to what it is today. I watched television the other

night. They depict organized crime as Skinny Joe Morleno from

Philadelphia as being the head of organized crime, supposedly, in

the United States, who will have little or no impact on anybody

outside of south Philadelphia.

But if you look, and we see a change, the change occurs that despite those successes as we move from cocaine, we now find out

that the nexus for organized crime in the United States is based

in Colombia. They decided that they did not need any criminal organizations in the United States to set up their distribution or

money collection. They established what we call cell structures.

They went to major cities. They dispatched thousands of their own

employees into the United States. The high level were trusted people. The low level people filled out work forms listing all of their

biographic data so that they dare not testify and they dare not cooperate.

From there they would collect the money and then they would

distribute the drugs throughout the United States. They are still

very powerful. They are still a great danger. But a great credit to

General Serrano and the head of the Colombia National Police and

his policemen, working with the DEA and other governmental

agencies, they have been able to arrest all of the major organized

crime figures and have now become very aggressive in a proactive

fashion despite major difficulties that they face today.

The picture of organized crime has now changed again, and the

change is that the groups from Colombia originally entered into

what they thought was a business arrangement with the organizations out of Mexico. And the groups from Mexico would transport

the drugs for Colombia into the United States and turn it back over

to Colombians for distribution in much like the previous chart.

It wasn’t long before that changed, and now we see two parallel

organizations in the United States for organized crime, one based

in Colombia, one based in Mexico. The group from Mexico becoming

increasingly stronger, the strength of the Colombian groups tending to be diluted over a period of time.

So there are some parallels between our experience in the United

States with the Mafia and La Cosa Nostra and today’s syndicates

in Colombia and Mexico. However, there are some differences.

The amount of money that these organizations in Colombia and

Mexico make, the impact on the communities and citizens of the

United States, the violence and the corruption associated with

these groups that we see today are nothing like we could have ever

imagined in the 1950’s and 1960’s. They make the traditional organized crime or Mafia in the United States look like grade school

children compared to what they do.

12

They have sophisticated intelligence systems. They have mansions, safe houses, planes, armored cars, security teams,

encryption. Increasingly they use encryption to try to deflect what

we do in the investigation.

The one thing that is constant and will always be constant in organized crime has been pointed out in every Presidential commission and every congressional hearing. Organized crime cannot and

will not exist without the collaboration of corrupted law enforcement individuals who protect the criminals and condone criminal

activity.

I have a very elaborate report on the major crime families that

are in charge of this narcotics trafficking in my submission. Many

of the key leaders that you see in that report in these organizations

have been investigated continually within the United States, and

we have been able to secure sufficient evidence to indict them. All

that we need to do is to locate them and arrest them and bring

them back to face justice between a jury of their peers of the community and the people they have injured.

I have privately and publicly thanked the Attorney General, Mr.

Medrosa, from Mexico and his staff for their arrest this year of

Jesus and Luis Amezcua. That was a very significant, important

arrest. Unfortunately, the judiciary in Mexico has dismissed all of

the criminal charges existing in Mexico. The only remaining

charges are charges of investigations conducted in the United

States and we are still waiting for the outcome of the extradition

process.

The ability to deal with organized crime is, believe it or not, fairly direct. We have learned lessons over a period of time that these

groups are not invulnerable.

They can be dismantled. They are not held together by any political or religious philosophy. They are only held together by greed

and corruption.

We know that honest, hard working law enforcement officers and

prosecutors can prevail. We have seen it in the United States. We

have seen it in Italy. And we have seen it in Colombia. I also know

from experience that if they are left unchecked, these drug lords

and organizations will only grow more powerful and dangerous to

the citizens of the United States and Mexico. The level of corruption, the level of violence that we see that they impact within Mexico will be the same strategy that they use in the border States and

increasingly in the other States in the union.

Finally, we have to recognize this as a long, difficult process. We

have invested in the DEA millions of dollars and tremendous efforts on the part of DEA agents to develop cooperative relationships.

However, honestly, these have had only limited success at

present. Many of the joint ventures that we have established and

begun to start have really been impacted by the fact that the traffickers are willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to corrupt law enforcement systems.

In the past year, we have encountered a significant setback. The

setback was a unit that a great deal of money was expended and

energy into a special vetted unit so that we could share information

in a sensitive basis for high level targets. We now have found out

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that significant people at senior levels in that unit appear to have

been corrupted, which is a major disappointment to both the Government of Mexico and the United States.

There are many varied opinions that you will hear on this, as I

do. However, I believe there is one fact that cannot be challenged.

That is that these major organizations, the leaders of these organizations, are inflicting tremendous damage on the citizens of the

United States. I also have to tell you that they have become more

powerful each and every year that I have held this job as head of

DEA. And, unfortunately, very few of them have been brought to

justice.

I am often asked why I am so serious about this issue and why

I am so direct. I believe it is important to note and to remember

that every day and every night we are asking thousands of young

American law enforcement officers to go out and to risk their lives

to protect me, my family, and all of us from the danger of these

powerful groups.

Over the course of a 39-year career in law enforcement, I have

lost a number of friends, classmates, coworkers, and subordinates

who have been killed in the line of duty. Often that requires you

to sit down with the mother or father or husband or wife and try

to, in their trauma and grief, explain the significance of the loss.

In the course of those conversations I am often asked, especially

if it is related to narcotics, am I serious about this. Is the loss of

their son, the loss of their daughter, the loss of their husband or

their wife, sometimes their mother or father, has it been in vain

or are we committed to somehow continuing this battle against the

individuals responsible? I tell them I am serious.

We are serious. We will continue with all of our energy. However, if there is a continued ability of the drug lords who are really

causing these deaths to evade arrest, extradition and prosecution,

I think it makes it very, very difficult to reassure these families of

our seriousness.

Thank you very much, Congressmen.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Constantine follows:]

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Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony, and I am pleased now

to recognize the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International

Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the Department of State,

Mr. Beers. You are recognized, sir.

Mr. BEERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of this committee.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you on what is,

as the chairman so correctly indicated initially and Mr. Constantine has so much further indicated, a very, very serious problem, both to the United States and to Mexico. I have a longer presentation which I would like to have submitted for the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered. It will be made a part

of the record.

Mr. BEERS. Thank you very much, sir.

We have been through a process, our certification process, which

began in December and continued through until the President’s announcement on February 26th. We had 28 countries to consider— 4 were given national interest waivers and 2 were decertified.

We had 14 interagency meetings on this process at various levels. We had a unanimous recommendation of the four cabinet officials recommending from State, Treasury, Justice and Defense, as

well as senior White House officials; and the President then recorded their views and certified or decertified or provided national

interest waivers to the countries in question.

The basis under which we made those decisions comes from a

law which you all have passed and it states that we should determine that a country has fully cooperated with the United States or

taken steps on its own to achieve full compliance with the goals

and objectives of the 1988 U.N. Drug Convention. With respect to

this language and the decision which we are asked to make under

it, we have asked our lawyers to give us their views on that statute; and while the statute says, ‘‘fully cooperating,’’ we have determined that this is not a rigid or unrealistic standard.

First of all, achieving full compliance with all of the goals and

objectives of the 1988 drug convention is an aspiration for all of our

efforts, a goal that even the United States continues to pursue each

year.

As to fully cooperating, we look at several indications. First of

all, we review the challenges facing a country. Then we ask ourself

whether the government has the ability to meet those challenges,

whether the government is genuinely trying to meet the bench

marks that we jointly establish with them, whether the country’s

attitude toward fighting narcotics trafficking is adequate, and

whether or not the government performance, in light of the overall

situation, is adequate.

It is on that basis that we make those decisions and on that

basis that the President determined that Mexico was fully cooperating. He recognized that Mexico faces serious, very serious problems. Drug trafficking, transshipment, production, money laundering and corruption.

In addition to the President’s decision, I would ask that we submit for the record letters from the Governors of Texas, Arizona,

New Mexico, and California, all of whom state that it is their belief

that decertification would jeopardize existing and future antidrug

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and law enforcement relations between these two countries and indicating their full support for certification. I ask that these two letters be inserted in the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, they will be made a part of the

record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BEERS. Thank you, sir. This is not to say that we or the Government of Mexico do not acknowledge, as Administrator Constantine has indicated, the very serious problems that do exist in

Mexico. In a recent presentation—both governments agreed on five

major elements which very closely parallel Administrator Constantine’s point.

Serious crime in Mexico has nearly doubled in the past 7 years.

That crime is more organized and more violent than ever before.

Law enforcement agencies within Mexico generally proceed without

adequate resources.

Those same law enforcement agencies also lack training, equipment, adequate salaries, and are, as Administrator Constantine indicated, extremely vulnerable to corruption. In addition to that, the

courts also represent a problem. Their sentencing is inadequate to

the crime, and there are not enough courts to deal with this problem.

This is a presentation that was made to us by the Government

of Mexico as they presented to us their recent counternarcotics initiative. So there is no difference between our two countries. There

is no denial in either country that the problems in Mexico are serious.

But we still continue to believe that Mexico is, in fact, fully cooperating. And let me try to indicate how we came to that decision.

First and foremost, and I think there has been no disagreement

among any of us, President Zedillo is fully committed personally to

fighting drugs and to a strong antidrug alliance between the

United States and Mexico. Senior officials in his administration— Administrator Constantine indicated Attorney General Medrosa as

one. There are others as well—have a serious, long-term commitment that is real, vital and productive to cooperation with the

United States and dedication to deal with the drug problem within

Mexico.

In addition to that, last year in February, the United States and

Mexico concluded a binational strategy which represents the basis

of an antidrug alliance between the two countries. Following up on

that alliance, over the course of the last year, the Government of

the United States and the Government of Mexico have developed

what we call performance measures of effectiveness which were

concluded this February after approximately a year’s worth of negotiation.

This commits both governments to looking at approximately 80

indicators of performance that both countries will collect data on

and then both countries will discuss how progress has been made

along these indicators, where shortcomings have existed along

these indicators, and how these performance indicators might show

better in the year ahead.

It is that embrace that countries who are both fully committed

to cooperation would take. Countries that are in disagreement don’t

conclude this kind of agreement or don’t conclude this kind of alliance. This is unprecedented in terms of cooperation between two

countries, between the United States and any other country.

In addition to that, the Government of Mexico, as I indicated earlier, has just announced a major counternarcotics initiative, approximately $400 to $500 million investment in law enforcement

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and infrastructure over the next several years. This is an announcement which was made public in February but was actually

heralded by both a budgetary decision which their Congress passed

in December and an earlier announcement in August.

This particular effort includes, first and foremost, a significant

expansion of the anticorruption activities of the Government of

Mexico. They will expand the number of personnel who will be vetted. They will fully screen officials who are currently performing

counternarcotics activities. They will establish oversight mechanisms to insure the continuing reliability of those engaged in

counterdrug activities.

There is no misunderstanding on their part about how serious

the problem is. And as Administrator Constantine said, this is an

action that is going to require years of work and they understand

that and are not shying from that.

In addition to that, they have also added state-of-the-art technology in airborne surveillance, high speed patrol boats, helicopters

and mobile x-ray units that will also be added to enhance the capabilities of better paid, better equipped, better trained and more professional law enforcement officials.

In addition to that, with that counternarcotics enhancement,

Mexico now spends approximately 1.4 percent of its national budget on counternarcotics activities. That is, by way of comparison,

larger than the 1 percent which the United States spends on its

budget.

That is the heart of the argument in favor of full cooperation.

But in order that we talk about the full range of performance, because it is not a perfect performance, I would also ask your indulgence to go over the two charts which I gave to you earlier.

First, we have this chart, which is an attempt to take our international narcotics strategy control report data and extend it back

to 1986 so that you have 13 years of data. The first two points that

I would make are on opium—— Mrs. MINK. Mr. Chairman, may I ask unanimous extent that

that chart be inserted in the record at this point?

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BEERS. Thank you. The first point that I would make refers

to opium and cannabis cultivation. As you can see with respect to

the 1998 column for opium, the amount of potentially harvestable

opium has gone up from 1997 to 1998.

I think it is important to look at this time series data over the

entire range. We are disappointed, the Mexicans are disappointed,

that the amount went up. It represents above the mean but not far

above the mean for the entire time data series. Equally important

to remember, because we are talking about cooperation and effort,

the eradication. The effective eradication on the part of the Mexican Government, you can see, has also gone up.

In fact, if you look at the time series data that effective eradication—and that’s not information that we have taken from the

Mexican Government. That is information which we have obtained

by our own intelligence collection. Potentially harvestable crop has

had effective eradication, which was 9,500 hectares this year.

In that context, it is important to remember that overall field

size, as we have determined, has generally gone down. The amount

of camouflage and intercropping has generally gone up. In addition,

if you look at the cannabis production you will notice that that has

generally come down over time. Eradication is up and down over

that point in time. But the overall potential yield has come down,

I think, significantly over that long-term time series.

With respect to seizures, opium and heroin both are not very favorable this year. The opium gum is down. The heroin is up, but

not significantly. This is an area that we and the Mexican Government, I think, need to do better on. Cocaine, as you correctly indicated, has come down significantly from last year.

I think it is important to divide the time series into two large

chunks of time. If you will go back to the time period from approximately 1989 to 1993, you will see quite large seizures. Those are

the result of a cooperative effort between DEA and the Government

of Mexico called the Northern Border Response Force, where we

and the Mexicans, using helicopters that we generally provided,

were able to interdict serious small plane incursion into northern

Mexico.

The traffickers changed their pattern of activity as a result of

that, and we and the Mexicans have not adapted effectively to be

able to seize the same levels.

But if you look at the next 5-year time period, you will see, except for the spike in 1997, that we are talking about roughly the

same overall performance level of cocaine seizures. With respect to

cannabis, I think you can see that over the longer-term trend we

are basically talking about a rising amount of cannabis seizures.

With respect to methamphetamine, which the Administrator has

described as an exceedingly serious problem for the United States,

while we had a modest increase in the amount of methamphetamine seized this year, over the longer term time series it is nothing to speak of. What has happened that is new and different, and

I believe important, is that Mexico has now also criminalized precursor chemicals.

And for the 2-years of data that we have since they have undertaken this you will see that overall there is a rise in the amount

of precursor chemicals that have been seized. With respect to labs,

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they are down over the most recent years and that is a cause for

concern and something we should look at.

With respect to arrests of nationals and foreigners, it is a relatively constant picture over time although there were some periods in which there were very high peak years.

I would like to go from that data to the second chart which I

handed out, which refers to extraditions. This is a very serious

problem, a very serious issue, and one which I think it is important

that we all understand.

Mrs. MINK. Mr. Chairman, I ask that the chart be entered into

the record.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, that chart will be made a part of

the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BEERS. Thank you. As Administrator Constantine has indicated and as our government has indicated, this is a serious issue

and one which we care about a great deal and talk with the Mexican Government a great deal. It is important, I believe, as we look

at this process to consider that it is a two-part process.

The process as a whole generally involves the Mexican courts at

a low level, first making a decision based on Mexican law that a

Mexican national cannot be extradited. That decision by that lower

court is then referred to the Foreign Ministry. The Foreign Ministry has an extraordinary power with respect to Mexican nationals

to override that law and has done so in a number of occasions.

What we have gathered here and what we are trying to depict

and what I will now explain is, first, the number of extraditions

that the Government of Mexico, the executive branch, has authorized and the number of individuals that the Mexican court system

have allowed to be extradited, and the number of deportations

which the Government of Mexico administratively has authorized

to come to the United States.

First, with respect to those who were authorized for extradition,

I apologize we don’t have data for 1995. We will try to update that.

But if you look at that time series, you will see that the Government of Mexico as a whole has generally increased the number of

individuals who have been authorized, and there have been Mexican nationals who have been authorized for extradition, including,

as Administrator Constantine said, one of the Amezcua brothers.

The Mexican courts have not been as cooperative, shall we say,

or at least have been unwilling to extradite at the same levels that

the government has been willing to authorize extraditions. And you

see below, a lower level of extraditions that were actually effected,

individuals sent to the United States.

And as has been correctly noted throughout, although there are

four Mexican nationals who have been extradited over the past 4

years, none of those individuals are major drug traffickers. There

is one minor drug trafficker, but no major drug trafficker of Mexican nationality has been authorized for extradition. There was a

major drug trafficker, Garcia Braggo, who was a dual national.

That is the indication in the 1996 column. Overall, there have been

drug traffickers but they have all been foreign citizens.

It is equally important, I believe, to also look at the deportations,

which, as you can see, these are not Mexican nationals but they

have risen over this timeframe. In addition to that, it is also important to note that we have, this year for the first time, two successful prosecutions under article IV of the Mexican constitution in

which an individual who was denied extradition to the United

States was successfully prosecuted within the Mexican court system and brought to justice.

So while we do not have what we believe to be an entirely adequate system of extradition, we are at least seeing cooperation with

respect to the government in the prosecution of some individuals

who have not been extradited.

In addition to that, we have the first money laundering prosecution after the money laundering laws have been established. We

have vetted units that are coming on line. But that is not to say

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that this is a perfect record, and Administrator Constantine, I

think, has made that case quite clearly.

Particularly, we are concerned about the corruption that has

been found in vetted units after they have been vetted. That said,

those individuals have been moved to other assignments, perhaps

not entirely adequate but at least out of the picture of working

with us in those vetted units. Moreover, much of the information

that we have is derived essentially from Mexican Government and

law enforcement officials.

We have two significant negative court decisions regarding extradition of criminals to the United States. Having said that, the

Mexican Government has indicated to us that those decisions will

be appealed. And we have, as I indicated earlier, the rising opium

poppy cultivation, which expanded despite an increased effort.

These are issues and areas of concern.

But let me also come back for a moment and talk very briefly

about the overall record in terms of trying to deal, on the part of

the Mexican Government, with the senior levels of management of

the various cartels which exist in Mexico.

First, the Juarez or Carrillo-Fuentes organization, the chief of security, Noe Breto was rearrested this year. General Jesus Gutierrez-Rebollo received 14 additional years making his term of sentence 30 years for the corruption that he undertook on behalf of

this cartel.

Carlos Topillia, the reported founder of the cartel has received 27

years in prison for the result of his actions. Sixty-five members of

the cartel have been indicted, although not yet arrested. And 111

cartel properties have been seized in 1998.

With respect to the Tijuana cartel or the Arellano-Felix organization, General Alfredo Navarro Larra received 20 years for bribery

on behalf of the cartel. The two Arellano-Felix brothers have been

formally indicted. Key security and money launderers have been indicted. The key lieutenant, Paez Martinez, has been approved for

extradition. In the Sinaloa [ph.sp.] cartel or the Miguel CaroQuintero cartel we have two key lieutenants arrested, R.C. Jucopo

and Jose Soto-Soto.

We have two outstanding provisional arrest warrants for Miguel

and Rafael Caro-Quintero and the youngest brother, Jose, remains

in prison under arrest.

I think that in addition to that we have the Calima or the

Amezcua Conteres cartel. The two brothers are arrested and remain in prison despite the dismissal by the Mexican courts of the

Mexican charges, basically on the charges that we have brought

against those individuals. Seventeen members have been indicted.

The Addon Amezcua-Quintero, another brother has also been indicted for firearms violations.

In addition to that, a member of the Colombian Calle cartel, who

is a lawyer operating in Mexico, William Moran, has also been arrested; and that was done at our request. This is a mixed record,

but we believe that in total, with respect to the issue of fully cooperating, we have a Mexican Government that is committed to cooperation with the United States.

We have indications by that government of serious intent to do

serious business and indications that they have done that serious

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business. They are waging independently and in cooperation with

us, a serious counternarcotics effort. It will require time. It will require effort. It will require commitment, and it will require cooperation by the United States with that government to develop

the mutual trust that we need to make over the time ahead.

That concludes my presentation. Thank you very much for this

opportunity to testify, and I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Beers follows:]

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Mr. MICA. I have questions for both of our witnesses, but I am

going to yield for just a moment to the chairman of the International Relations Committee, Mr. Ben Gilman, who has joined us

and who has a statement he would like to make. He has left a

meeting to come here. And without objection, if I may, I would like

to recognize him at this time.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Chairman Mica.

I regret that I was delayed in coming up and I am going to have

to return. We are conducting a mark up on several foreign policy

measures down on my committee. And I want to thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for your leadership in holding this important hearing on

the President’s, what I consider, ill-advised full certification of

Mexico in our common fight against illicit drugs.

And I thank you for bringing two top notch panelists before us,

Mr. Beers from our Department of State, and Tom Constantine,

our DEA Director, both of whom have been highly instrumental in

trying to formulate a more effective drug policy for our Nation. And

I appreciate your long-time efforts, Chairman Mica, both in helping

draft the original certification statute and working with me and so

many others here in the Congress in trying to keep illicit drugs in

the forefront of our foreign policy and our national security agenda.

Several Presidents in the past have said drug trafficking is a national security problem and too often we forget that issue. Your understanding about how the annual drug certification came about is

important for those who wonder how we got here in today’s measuring of Mexico’s performance. And we in the Congress for far too

long have heard many good words and pledges about fighting drugs

together.

But very often, little concrete action was ever forthcoming for the

major producer or source nations who often promise to help us.

These very same producers are transit nations but also, of course,

at the same time they enjoy the benefits of our taxpayers’ largesse

in the way of economic assistance, in the way of aid, trade, and

multilateral loan guarantees and other benefits that we often consider as part of our foreign policy.

Congress in 1986, I think wisely, combined the need for full cooperation in our efforts against drugs with the major producer or

transit nations’ right to access some of American taxpayers’ largesse. The American people have overwhelmingly supported certification since that time, and I also noted with some astonishment

just last April in a Wall Street Journal poll that 65 percent of the

people in Latin America agreed with the American public in that

approach.

They also favored U.S. imposed sanctions on countries not doing

enough to combat drug production and trafficking.

I remember at a recent, not too long ago, conference in Atlanta

arranged by former President Carter in which we were debating

the drug certification process. And there was some question raised

as to whether or not that was beneficial to our policy. I happened

to sit next to the former President of Bolivia, who leaned over to

me and he said, ‘‘You know, if it wasn’t for the drug certification

problem, despite all the protests to the contrary, we wouldn’t have

passed very significant legislation in our parliament on asset seiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Mar 16, 2001 Jkt 066702 PO 00000 Frm 00089 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62540 pfrm02 PsN: 62540
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zures and money laundering.’’ He said it has been a strong motivation and I certainly agree with that.

The American people have been joined in support of certification

by important groups such as the National Conference of Mayors

and the National Narcotics Officers Association Coalition, and

other police officials who daily face the brutal cost and the deadly

consequences of the illicit drugs from abroad on the streets of communities of our Nation.

Simple, straightforward, and most importantly, always seeking

our assurances from these producers and transit nations like Mexico that besides words, the President would be able to say to the

Congress, we are getting full cooperation in our drug war. No challenge, I don’t think, is more important than this vital fight against

illicit drugs, especially in our own hemisphere.

Mexico is a neighbor to the south, an important neighbor and the

gateway, regrettably, for nearly 60 percent—60 percent of the illicit

drugs entering our Nation. And as good neighbors alone, never

mind the multilateral loan guarantees they may receive from us,

I think we are entitled to full cooperation and they to ours as well.

We are doing our share here at home with billions spent on demand reduction and treatment as well as reducing supplies. We

have also provided assistance to the Mexican authorities in many

areas to help them do a better job in fighting drugs.

I led the way when Mexico wanted to get its military more involved in fighting drugs in helping obtain 72 United States Army

Huey helicopters for Mexico and were pleased—incidentally, Mr.

Beers, we thank you for your help in the recent initiative to provide Hueys for Colombia. The Colombian narcotics police force that

has been pleading for them for many months now—and we welcome the opportunity that we are providing to them to help them

fight the war.

The ‘‘fully cooperating,’’ and that is in quotes, certification decision of Mexico’s dismal record for 1998 cannot and ought not stand

unchallenged. The administration itself is now in the business of

giving us mere words, not any evidence of any concrete deeds and

action.

We understand a resolution of disapproval has already been introduced and wisely, I note, with a national interest waiver so we

give Mexico the failing grade of F that they deserve for performance in the war on drugs without any adverse economic consequences.

I look forward to working closely with Chairman Mica in this

area of disapproval in the days and weeks ahead. We need to sit

down and we need to discuss our concerns with the Mexican Government. They are not apparently hearing what they need to hear

from the administration.

It was very nice of them to say they have gotten some new equipment, new radar instruments, that are going to help in spending

$400 million in that direction, but that’s not the end all and that’s

not the most effective thing they should be doing.

And I welcome the statement this week of the minority leader,

Mr. Gephardt, that he felt compelled—compelled to disagree with

the President’s certification of Mexico. This isn’t partisan politics.

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It is about our young people. It is about our communities. It is

about our national security.

As I said yesterday at our own International Relations Committee hearing, the high level working groups that our Nation and

the Mexican Government now routinely convene on cooperating

and fighting drugs, and we are pleased they are doing that, are

avoiding the reality and the poor record that is obvious to all of us.

Perhaps the high attitudes of those working groups affected the

judgment of the administration officials who recommended to the

President—and they made a strong recommendation to the President and the President apparently relied on it—the totally unjustified decision to certify Mexico as fully cooperating in our common

war on drugs.

And I will try to be brief in closing. The facts are very different

in Mexico. Drug seizures are down. No major kingpins have been

extradited to our Nation. The administration admitted as much

yesterday, even with all the charts and graphs in trying to paint

the best picture. In addition, the Mexican Government has yet to

permit our courageous, dedicated DEA agents that Mr. Constantine

has been seeking to carry sidearms with full diplomatic immunity

in the dangerous drug war, permission that virtually every other

cooperating government has provided. The head of the DEA, our

lead drug fighting agency—and I am pleased he is here—Mr. Constantine, and we call him a cop’s cop, has called the corruption in

Mexico the worst criminal threat to our Nation that he has ever

seen in nearly 40 years of law enforcement.

I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record, Mr. Chairman,

include a column from today’s Washington Post by Bob Novak. Mr.

Novak has examined the DEA’s Administrator’s outstanding law

enforcement record and is clear of unambiguous analysis of the situation in Mexico today, and he has concluded, as many have here

in the Congress on both sides of the aisle, that the administration

is also corrupting the certification process with this kind of full

passing grade that it has provided to Mexico.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, that will be made a part of the

record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And in closing, let me say much more needs to be done. Congress

is going to have to help lead the way. And I look forward to today’s

testimony and I will have an opportunity to examine it on the conclusion.

I regret I am going to have to return to my International Relations Committee. But I want to thank you for this opportunity to

appear and for giving me the opportunity to add my words to your

important hearing.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. I thank Chairman Gilman and look forward to cooperation of our two committees—subcommittees in this effort.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MICA. If I may, Mrs. Mink has a unanimous consent request.

Mrs. MINK. Congressman Dennis Kucinich asked unanimous consent to have his opening statement inserted.

Mr. MICA. Without objection, his statement will be made part of

the record.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. MICA. If I may, I would like to proceed with questions. We

can get right into it, and if Members have a comment or opening

statement we would be glad to insert them in the record.

First of all, Administrator Constantine, Congress passed—the

House of Representatives did—several years ago, a number of requests of Mexico. I think six very specific requests, that we wanted

to see some cooperation on. I think it is almost exactly 2 years ago,

in March. Can you tell me, as I go over these, whether anything

has been done or not, to your knowledge.

First of all, a maritime agreement?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. You probably have to ask the Coast Guard or

the State Department.

Mr. MICA. But to your knowledge, is there any progress in a maritime agreement?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I couldn’t say one way or the other, Congressman. I am not familiar with the progress on that.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Beers.

Mr. BEERS. We have begun over the course of the last year a—— Mr. MICA. Has a maritime agreement been signed between Mexico and the United States?

Mr. BEERS. No, sir. We are in the process of—— Mr. MICA. Thank you. Mr. Constantine, we asked for protection

of DEA agents, another one. Has that been addressed?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, I have always publicly tried to avoid the

levels of protection so that I don’t increase the threat to any of the

agents. But the issues involve the—— Mr. MICA. Are they the same?

Mr. CONSTANTINE [continuing]. The safety of our agents has not

been resolved as of yet.

Mr. MICA. Have we extradited one major drug trafficker? That

was the third. You said no. Mr. Beers.

Mr. BEERS. Garcia Braggo, sir.

Mr. MICA. One—Mr. Constantine, one major Mexican?

Mr. BEERS. He is a dual national, sir. Excuse me, I don’t mean

to mislead.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Not to my knowledge, Congressman.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We had also requested not only enactment

of money laundering and corruption laws which were done at that

time of our request. I think these were already in place. But we

asked for cooperation on money laundering. Mr. Constantine, have

they been cooperating?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. It is my understanding that the law has been

passed. We have not had any major investigations at the DEA.

Mr. MICA. Casablanca, what did they do with Casablanca?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Casablanca was a Customs case, and I am not

familiar with all the details with it, but I am aware of the issue.

Mr. MICA. Did they threaten to indict our officials?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That is the report that I read, yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. Radar in the South, has there been any progress on

radar? Putting radar in the South was another thing that was specifically mentioned.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I am not familiar with that or what progress

has been made.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Beers, is there radar in the South?

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Mr. BEERS. No, sir, not to my knowledge.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. So in each of these areas we have seen almost no progress.

Mr. Constantine, are the figures that we have, are the seizures

down on heroin? Are the seizures down on cocaine?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The seizures, as reported by the Government

of Mexico, on both heroin and cocaine are down, yes, sir.

Mr. MICA. Now, you gave me this chart that I held up on production. Is the production of heroin up or down?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That’s the signature analysis program.

Mr. MICA. That is, I should say, production. And you are seizing

this, and this is what you can identify in the United States seized

and its source?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Let me give a little bit of context to that.

There are three primary ways that we try to assess the source of

heroin in the United States.

One is the signature analysis program. The signature analysis

program is, as you said, seizures usually at ports of entry. The

drug is then sent to our special testing laboratory and we get the

results that way.

The second is what we call a domestic monitoring program,

where we actually go out and buy heroin in selected cities in the

United States and send that in for analysis.

Mr. MICA. Are we seeing more Mexican produced heroin or less?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Yes, sir. That figure—— Mr. MICA. More or less, sir?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. More, sir.

Mr. MICA. OK.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. But to give you a sense—— Mr. MICA. Methamphetamine, you said that they are explosive?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, there has been—in the United States we

moved, in a 5 or 6 year period of time, from a very low level drug

problem of the use and manufacture of methamphetamine to a substantial abuse problem. Within the United States there has been

a change in the manufacture and the distribution system from the

low level motorcycle gangs to major organized crime systems based

out of Mexico.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Constantine, is there a single Government of Mexico law enforcement agency which your DEA agency has complete

trust and confidence in?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I would say, in working with the key people

that I have worked with, Mr. Medrosa, Mr. Riberole, and Mr.

Horan, I find them to be honest and trustworthy. The problem that

they have and we have is that every major criminal investigation

that we have conducted and that I know of, somewhere in the investigation involves a corrupt law enforcement official or systemic

corruption.

So it’s—we limited our information to a very select group of people that we think we can trust.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Constantine, am I correct that we have moved

from corruption to a form of narco-terrorism? You cited the Baja

peninsula. I also understand the Yucatan peninsula. Are these controlled by drug interests at this point and are there other areas

controlled by drug interests?

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Mr. CONSTANTINE. I wouldn’t define either of those areas as

narco-terrorism. What I would say in both of the areas that you

have defined is that the level of drug trafficking, the power of the

organizations, and the corruption that is occurring within the systems makes it difficult, and obviously by virtue of the fact that

none of them have been arrested, virtually impossible to apprehend.

Mr. MICA. The situation has been reported out of control in the

Yucatan peninsula particularly with the reports that the Governor

there is closely linked to drug traffickers and because of connections with the government he may not even be subject to arrest.

What is your take on that situation?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I believe you are talking about the former

Governor who leaves office.

Mr. MICA. Right.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I think there was an election that was held.

That is an investigation that was conducted—is being conducted by

the Government of Mexico. I would not comment in a public forum

about elected officials in an ongoing criminal investigation.

Mr. MICA. We will have an opportunity next Thursday. We are

planning a closed briefing by you and others from the intelligence

community on the situation. I just alerted the Members. Mrs. Mink

and I had requested that and we are pleased that you are complying with that.

Mr. Constantine, based on your knowledge of the law—and the

law is pretty simple. I helped draft it back in the 1980’s, a certification law—it says a country must be certified as fully cooperating.

Based on your knowledge of the law—and I don’t want a political

answer. I don’t want a diplomatic answer. You are a chief law enforcement—you are the chief law enforcement officer we have to

rely on in this entire illegal narcotics area.

Would you recommend certification or decertification of Mexico

as fully cooperating?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Congressman—and this is not a diplomatic or

political answer, but it is the answer that I have articulated ever

since I have been in Washington. I don’t think it is the role of a

law enforcement official to evaluate somebody for a public or political policy decision like certification. So all that I do is I provide

the policymakers who make those decisions with what the picture

looks like, how the criminal organizations operate, and how we respond to them. And I have very carefully avoided that——

Mr. MICA. Is the picture one of fully cooperating?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. No.

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I would like to yield now to the ranking

member, Mrs. Mink.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The testimony that you

have provided this morning linking up the major organized crime

families in Mexico with a distribution system within the United

States is very terrifying and places a dual responsibility in your

agency to not only help us understand the source issues within

Mexico and how they are coming into the United States and where

the control and corruption and trafficking is within Mexico, but

also how that distribution system impacts our metropolitan areas

and our cities and communities all over the country.

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So I see this as a dual challenge to your agency. And you have

very, very accurately described the dilemma of trying to indict or

arrest or apprehend these foreign connections that are within our

cities.

You indicated that many of them have been indicted but have

fled and, therefore, the criminal justice system has not been able

to bring them to trial and to so-called fulfill the justice responsibility; and that is very disappointing.

I have a very strong interest in this field. Because I believe that

the frustration of the American public is that they are not aware

of the great efforts of your agency, because we don’t see the whole

picture and the connection with the source and with this whole discussion about certification, which I believe is interconnected.

Now, following on the chairman’s question, which you felt disinclined to respond to because the decision is not yours. It is something that all factors have to be put together and then the President makes his decision. But if the Congress were to decertify Mexico, may I ask you the question. What would be the impact of that

decertification on the work of your agency?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. It would be difficult to predict. It would be

based in part, I suspect, on the reaction of the Government of Mexico. I couldn’t predict—those places where we have looked at this

historically, at least since I have been in the city, Colombia, I

think, is the classic example.

It resulted in increased cooperation and results and sharing of

assets because of the reaction. That does not guarantee that there

would not be a completely different reaction from the Government

of Mexico. That, I think, is a question that we best ask to someone

other than myself. I am not clairvoyant.

By the way, you are very perceptive for a new person who has

read this, as you explained, to understand our problem. Our problem is exactly that organized crime situation. Because we invest a

tremendous effort and amount of money in seizing drugs and arresting key individuals, but where we wind up, Congresswoman, is

we wind up with mid-level people who we can find as operatives

in the United States but their bosses hardly ever come here for fear

of being arrested or indicted.

So whereas when Attorney General Kennedy had this approach

of going after the leadership as the ultimate goal and we were successful, we are frustrated by the fact that the people we know are

directing these operations literally, so far, are immune from sanction generally. So you have a very good grasp of what our problem

is.

Mrs. MINK. Now when you talk about having indicted some of

these traffickers, you are not then talking about the top of the rung

but the middle level?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. No. We have arrested the middle level. We

have indicted them and arrested them when we can find them in

the United States. We have indicted the key leaders in the top of

the organizations based on the things that they do. The acts they

commit are part of a conspiracy within the United States. Those

are the individuals who so far have been immune from sanction.

Mrs. MINK. Now is it possible for you to submit to the committee

a list of these high level traffickers that you have indicted?

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Mr. CONSTANTINE. I could give them to you by name and by rote.

I know them. We all know them. They are written on our minds

indelibly.

Mrs. MINK. If the committee would indulge me, we have that in

the record right now. It is something that I am very, very much

interested in having in the record.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The two key people from the Arellano-Felix

organization that control the whole Tijuana, Mexicali distribution

system up into the West Coast have both been indicted.

Ramon Arellano-Felix is a top 10 fugitive in this country for the

last 2 years. You have Rafael Caro-Quintero. He is in prison in

Mexico in relationship to the murder of a DEA agent in the mid

1980’s but he is still wanted here for crimes. Miguel Caro-Quintero,

who Mr. Beers mentioned, of the Sinaloa group—to give you a

sense of our frustration, he has been indicted again and again.

And when I mentioned his name as a potential target in Mexico

City a little over 21⁄2 years ago, he called a radio station to accuse

me of slandering his reputation and said that he had routinely

driven through police roadblocks and military roadblocks and was

never challenged despite my comments. He then, a year later, gave

an interview with the Washington Post about the same issue. He

is a leader of a major organization.

We have Vicente Carvillo-Fuentes, the brother of the famous

Carvillo-Fuentes organization, Eduardo Gonzalez-Quirarte, Oscar

Majerbe. Arturo Paez-Martinez, who Mr. Beers mentioned, has

been arrested but we are awaiting extradition. Jaime GonzalesCastro, Jaime Ladino-Avila, Jose Gerardo Alvarez, William Brian

Martin, Miguel Angel Martinez-Martinez.

These are all key figures, including the two Amezcua brothers,

who are key. And I give great credit to the Government of Mexico

for their arrest. But their extradition and return to the United

States would be a major asset for us in these investigations. And

there are a number of others and I will submit them on the record

for you.

Mrs. MINK. You spoke in your testimony about the personal danger that many of the DEA agents are constantly under. I would

like to ask you what personal dangers are you under as the person

leading this agency?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, I don’t know. From time to time, obviously, there are people who would say it is dangerous. But I have

been doing this for 39 years. Perhaps I am fatalistic and don’t play

the threats too low. I carry my own firearm and protect myself, as

I have for all of those years.

I suspect the more I testify about these people, the more I explain who they are and the bigger danger they are to the United

States, the greater danger perhaps I raise for myself. But I am

more concerned about the people who work for me and who, as I

mentioned in my conclusion, night and day are willing to protect

us.

And many of them get killed in the line of duty, and the seriousness of that, and how serious we have to be to go after the leadership. I have two sons of mine who are in law enforcement. I probably worry about them more than I worry about myself.

Mrs. MINK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Mr. MICA. I am pleased now to recognize for questions the gentleman from Arkansas, Mr. Hutchinson.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate

both Mr. Constantine’s and Mr. Beers’ testimony today.

Let me followup with a very important line of questions that

have been asked, which relate to extradition. It is probably the

most critical weapon that we have in dealing with the foreign nationals who impact our drug importation into the United States in

such a heavy degree.

As has been pointed out, the Government of Mexico has approved

extradition in a number of cases but it has been blocked to this

point by the judiciary.

First of all, Mr. Constantine, what is the impression of the judiciary? There has been corruption in the mid-level law enforcement

branch in Mexico. How does the judiciary handle the potential of

corruption? Is bribery a problem in the area of the judiciary?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I’m not an expert, Congressman, on the judiciary or their corruption issue. There have been significant cases

where certain traffickers have been released and there have been

serious allegations of corruption on the part of the judiciary and

significant bribes that were supposedly paid for their release. But

that’s all second-hand information for me.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. Beers, do you have a comment on that?

Mr. BEERS. Yes, sir, I do. I would support what Administrator

Constantine said. There have certainly been reports of bribes. The

Mexican Government has expressed concern to us about this particular issue. Whether or not there was a specific bribe associated

with a specific extradition case, I do not have hard evidence to

that.

But I think there is general agreement that it is a problem. The

Mexican Government has recognized this problem, also, as I have

said; and it has created the National Judicial Council, which is trying to reform the court system. But they have a long way to go.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Well, I have traveled to some of the South

American countries and listened to some of their leaders, and unless you have an honest judiciary you cannot maintain the integrity

of any law enforcement system. And it is important that the Government of Mexico take steps in that direction.

Extradition is very, very important. And it is one thing for the

government to approve it, and it is another thing for the judiciary

to block it where the laws are in place to accomplish that.

Mr. Beers, you have mentioned the letters from the Governors

that you put in the record, and I have respect for all those Governors. But are they not addressing the stability issue—in regard

to our relationships with Mexico? And that really does not bear on

the issue of whether the government is fully cooperating in the

drug war, is that correct?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, I think the letter discusses stability as well.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. That is my point. The letters do address the

stability issue. And for that reason, to me, that goes to a national

security waiver. To me, the issue surrounding the certification

process is whether they are fully cooperating. It is an objective

standard that could be measured. You have put attitude in there

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as an important part of it, but to me it is more of an objective

issue.

And if they are not meeting that objective standard, then we

should grant them a national security waiver for the purpose of

stability. And I think that might be the point that the Governors

are making.

I know that in reference to Colombia, you know, they were denied certification and they worked extraordinarily hard in order to

be granted some assistance the next year and were granted a national security waiver. Was that not beneficial the way that we

handled this with Colombia, Mr. Beers?

Mr. BEERS. I would agree with Administrator Constantine. I believe that the initial decertification of Colombia based on the corruption at the highest levels of the Government of Colombia, in

fact, was appropriately determined and I think beneficial in overall

terms, in terms of that government’s, in particular that police force

of that government, taking extraordinary efforts on behalf of that

country and the world.

As with Administrator Constantine, I also believe that that is not

necessarily a predictor of what the Mexican Government reaction

would be, and I can’t tell you either what exactly the Mexican Government reaction would be.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Certainly that would be the case. But, you

know, we should first follow the law very carefully and trust the

wisdom of that law and respect that. And then, I think that even

though it might not be protectorate, certainly I think it worked

very well in regard to Colombia.

And I think that they are moving in the right direction because

of the stand that we took and the compliance with the law.

Let me ask the question, again, to Director Constantine. In justifying the certification of Mexico, the administration has touted the

Mexican Government’s arrest of the Amezcua brothers——

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Amezcua.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Known as the kingpins of methamphetamine.

It is my understanding that all the drug charges against those

three have been dropped and they remain in prison pending the

resolution of the U.S. extradition warrants. Was there a trial for

these men?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I don’t know what the judicial proceeding was,

but it was found that they were not prosecutable in Mexico on the

violations. Whether it was a lack of evidence or it was how the evidence was gained, the charges were all dismissed.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Are they still in custody?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Yes, sir.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Pending the disposition?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Pending the—one of them, I think it is. Jesus,

is pending extradition to the United States. But both Jesus and

Luis have pending charges in San Diego.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Is there any evidence that these traffickers

continue to operate from their jail cells?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Not to my knowledge, Congressman.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Is the prison system becoming more stable in

terms of reducing the amount of corruption?

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Mr. CONSTANTINE. I’m not an expert on their penal system. I just

couldn’t comment on it, to tell you the truth.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. And finally, because I know we have a vote

that is going on, are there any mandatory minimum sentences in

Mexico for drug traffickers or for possession of drug substances like

we have in the United States? That has had such a beneficial impact in our country.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I’d have to get back with you. I’m not aware

of that myself.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. Do you know, Mr. Beers?

Mr. BEERS. Nor am I, sir.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. So, I mean, you recited somebody got 20 years.

Do we know what that means? Does that mean they get out in onesixth the time? Is there a mandatory period of time? Do they serve

20 years? What does that mean?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, I have to get back to you. I don’t have the precise

answer on that. But I would acknowledge, as did the Government

of Mexico, that their sentencing system is inadequate with respect

to the crimes. They have told us that, and they are looking to try

to deal with that problem themselves.

Mr. HUTCHINSON. I think we ought to look into that, because it

is not just sentencing but also how long they serve and what happens after that and whether we should encourage, you know, the

use of mandatory minimums, more control over the sentencing

process, more direction in that regard. And I thank the chairman.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas.

I would ask our witnesses to remain, if they can. What I am

going to do is recess the subcommittee for 15 minutes, approximately. We will try to reconvene at 12:50 and I will give you a

quick break. We do have Members that have additional questions

and we will try to expedite those upon our return. With that, this

subcommittee stands in recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. MICA. I would like to call the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources back to order.

I am pleased at this time to recognize a gentleman who I have

had the pleasure of working with as ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Civil Service when I chaired that subcommittee,

and a gentleman who has very eloquently stated how the narcotics

problem affects not only the Nation but specifically the area that

he represents and that we have heard references to today, Baltimore. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings, you are recognized, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your comments, also. I must tell you,

Mr. Constantine, your answer to a question a few moments ago

really touched me when you talked about your life and your concern about the men and women who work for you. And I can only

say that I am sure everybody up here feels the same way.

We really do care about the men and women who put their lives

on the line every day to make our world a safer place, and I hope

that you will express that to them on behalf of our committee, that

we do appreciate what you do and what they do.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Thank you.

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Mr. CUMMINGS. I must tell you that I have a lot of concerns

about whether Mexico should have been certified. Because as the

chairman said, drugs affect my community probably as much as or

more than any community or district in the United States. When

I go home, I literally sleep in fear; because I am surrounded. My

block is surrounded by folks who seem to deal in drugs 24 hours

a day. So this is a very personal thing for me. And I wish everybody had cable TV so they could hear some of this testimony.

A lot of people, I don’t even think they comprehend—I’m talking

about good people, good, hard working people. The question that we

get constantly is, well, what is the government doing about the

drug problem? There are no boats or planes that the people in our

neighborhood own. So how are these drugs getting in the country?

And I wish they could hear and understand how massive and difficult these problems are.

When we talk about corruption, I think it is very difficult to penetrate it. But I think someone—I think it was Mr. Hutchinson or

the chairman said something that I agree with. I can’t think of too

many other methods to get deep into effective corruption fighting

than certification. And that leads me to my first question to both

of you.

I mean, it seems as if the certification process—and I understand

everything you have said about opinions, about governments. I understand that, and I respect that. And if I cross that line with my

question, just let me know; because I certainly don’t intend to.

But I am wondering, here we are. We sit, of course, as a Congress to the United States representing the people, and we have

this problem which affects so many Americans. And I think we are

always trying to figure out how we can be most effective.

I was just wondering of both of you, do you—I mean, the certification process is one thing. Can you think of any other ways we

can kind of force governments or push them into greater cooperation? Without even—I am not even getting into whether Mexico is

cooperating fully. I have my opinion on that—but I am just wondering if you all can see any way?

Because when I think about the corruption process, when you

have threats of death and violence and then you have money, big

money, being used, those are two very significant forces.

So I was just wondering if you all had any opinions as to other

things that either the Congress could do with regard to making the

certification process even stronger or more effective? Or is there

something else that we can do?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I think probably Mr. Beers would be better to

talk about the process.

But let me explain to you a little bit about something that I

think is important to note and I did earlier. These organizations

that we deal with are not invulnerable. I have seen this again and

again. They can be broken down. They can be brought to justice,

and you can change the situation. There is not an infinite number

of them.

In those countries who have experienced this before, the United

States being one of them, Italy, Thailand, Colombia, a select

group—and it doesn’t have to be an army of them—of very honest,

courageous people in law enforcement leadership positions, with

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support, start to make the appropriate arrests of the key individuals, which sends a signal to the citizens that law enforcement can

be trusted and that they can then provide information and witness

information to honest, aggressive law enforcement officials.

In some cases—and you can kind of picture this in your life— those honest law enforcement officials appreciate some type of pressure from an external source to help change the situation. Now

whether that is certification or decertification or what other processes are out there—I don’t know, Congressman, I think it is one— trying to support those people or individuals who are in there in

a cooperative or bilateral fashion for as long as you possibly can.

And if at the end of all of that effort that is not effective, then

I think, speaking as a citizen rather than the head of DEA, that

we have to do something as a Nation to insure these people are

brought to justice.

I spent 8 years working for Governor Cuomo at the height of the

crack problem in New York City and New York State. I can remember his speeches to this day, and everybody knows that he is

a great speaker. But this one I remember. He would say, ‘‘They

don’t grow coca in the Bronx. They don’t grow opium poppies in

Brooklyn. These drugs are manufactured from someplace else and

distributed from someplace else,’’ and that we needed assistance at

that time from the Federal Government in dealing with these

issues external to the United States.

Now what that process would look like, there’s a lot of people

with better experience than I have in this and may know of previous negotiations. But I think there comes a point in time where

crime leaders or leaders of these drug gangs who visit tremendous

devastation to Baltimore or New York or to Newark or Boston, or

whatever the city or town might be, have to pay a price for what

they have done, or else the law enforcement system has virtually

broken down completely. But I think Mr. Beers might be better

able than I to talk about certification and alternatives.

Mr. BEERS. Thank you, Tom. I generally agree with what Tom

said, and we were talking about this over the break, that both of

us would agree that there is no single silver bullet solution to this.

But I think we also both agree that a system which will allow

a government or governments to go after the leadership of trafficking organizations represents one of the premier policy choices

in terms of dismantling and disrupting the largest trafficking organizations, and that it doesn’t have to be a large army that does it.

A small unit can do it.

But, then, that country has to have, also, I think, a criminal justice system that can also take the product of the work of that unit

and turn it into the completion of the process. Which is to incarcerate those individuals and to take away their ill-gotten gains and

give them back to the people who were hurt or the law enforcement

officials who are paid to protect them.

I would add to what Tom said, and I don’t think he would disagree with this, that in addition to that—and that’s a national solution—we are absolutely dependent upon international cooperation. These criminals don’t honor international boundaries. They

move across them. We are sometimes thwarted in our ability to be

able to respond effectively, because we all still exist in a world as

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government officials in which borders do have meaning. And DEA

and other organizations, just in this country, are looking at those

problems. We are not by any means there, yet.

The third thing I would say in that—and it is in support of the

international cooperation. And I spoke about it with respect to

Mexico, but it is also not unique. And that is, in that form of international cooperation, the ability to sit down with one’s counterpart,

look at the problem, describe the problem accurately, look at the

policy options for solutions, talk about what the objectives are, talk

about what progress has been made, and then talk about where deficiencies were and where other things might be done better.

We are starting that process with Mexico. We are a little further

behind in the hemisphere, but that is also an effort that has come

out of the Summit of Americas in the Hemisphere.

None of this is going to solve the problem overnight. The corruption that Tom talked about is very serious. And Italy’s ability to

deal with that took how many years, Tom?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Ten or fifteen years.

Mr. BEERS. So Mexico is at least indicating to us how much they

recognize the problem and that they are committed to doing something about it. Now we have to allow them to get on with doing

it and support them in doing it, and hopefully we’ll have the same

results and hopefully in a shorter amount of time.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one other question. You know, I was listening to you and Mr. Beers talk about extradition. You know, I

couldn’t help but think about this case in Maryland that upset so

many of us with Israel, the young man who allegedly committed

murder in Montgomery County, which is not very far from here.

And we were very upset about that.

But when I thought about it, I thought about the five-judge panel

that said in a 3 to 2 vote that the laws just would not allow them

to grant the request of the United States. I said to myself, I said,

‘‘Well, those are the laws of that country and I guess we just have

to live with them.’’

Do you in this situation—I mean, do you feel that when it comes

to extradition that there is some unfairness with regard to Mexico?

I mean, I’m just curious. In other words, do you think that it is

weighted against—either one of you—against the United States?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Let me say, and I have to make this clear,

that the biggest problem for us is the key figures are never arrested. I mean, it never gets to an extradition question.

Mr. CUMMINGS. They don’t even get to that point?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Because the key leaders in these organizations

are very seldom ever arrested. And the reason they are not arrested is that they have either intimidated the witnesses or they

corrupted the public officials.

Then once arrested, and if their charge is pending in the United

States, as there are for many of them, then there would be a test

of the extradition process. And there is one key individual who begins that process over the last several months, one of the Amezcua

brothers. We will see how that works out.

But more important to me as a law enforcement official trying

to deal with a major crime organization, when the leaders can continually, year after year after year, despite their names being menVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Mar 16, 2001 Jkt 066702 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62540 pfrm02 PsN: 62540
103

tioned, identified every place in the world, can avoid even a simple

arrest by virtue of the fact that they drive around, Congressman,

in a convoy of 50 to 80 heavily armed people.

A significant number of those heavily armed people are policemen, which means that a small group of honest law enforcement

officials who try to make an apprehension are placed in great jeopardy.

We had in the Tijuana area this year, where a courageous captain from the city police department tried to make an arrest of a

major marijuana shipment and was shot and killed, and two of the

people who were involved in the convoy for the load of marijuana,

who were involved in the killing of the captain, were highway patrol or State police officers from that area. And that’s kind of the

sense of the difficulty of the apprehension.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you.

Mr. MICA. I thank the gentleman from Maryland. I am pleased

to recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

It is good to see you both again, and I want to thank you both

for your efforts. I have a number of questions. I know the corruption issue is very difficult. In fact, it is not even clear that in the

United States we don’t have more cabinet members and former

cabinet members under investigation right now than Mexico, which

is a troubling figure, not for narcotics, however.

One of the questions that I have regards directly this question

of the impact of decertification. I thought I’d ask Mr. Beers first.

Do you know of any country that we have actually decertified

where there has been less cooperation after that? In other words,

some haven’t cooperated. If they were uncooperative, they continued to be uncooperative. They didn’t all become more cooperative.

But is there anybody who has become less cooperative after we

have decertified?

Mr. BEERS. I don’t think it is fair to say that Burma has been

any more cooperative since they have been decertified over the

process. We had formerly a good cooperative relationship with previous governments in Burma. But since they have been decertified,

they have shown no indication of a greater willingness to cooperate.

Mr. SOUDER. Any country other than Burma? Because we decertify anywhere from three to six in given cycles.

Mr. BEERS. I would also add that Nigeria has not shown any further cooperation during the period in which they were——

Mr. SOUDER. Were they cooperating prior to that?

Mr. BEERS. Excuse me?

Mr. SOUDER. Was Nigeria cooperating prior to that?

Mr. BEERS. I am sorry. I just don’t have the information about

that.

Mr. SOUDER. Because it doesn’t always have a positive benefit.

But in trying to anticipate whether it has a negative benefit as

well—or a negative result.

Mr. Constantine, I know from having talked with some of your

agents in Southeast Asia that they, too, are concerned that Burma,

which was human rights certification not narcotics cooperation decertification said—do you know any other case other than—I guess

it is Myanmar rather than Burma—besides that country where we

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have actually gone backward if we decertified? In other words,

what is the risk here based on past experience that decertifying

Mexico would have a negative?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The only country that I think that has had a

direct impact on drug trafficking within the United States and was

decertified was Colombia. The reaction in Colombia as a result of

the decertification was positive. And in my sense of talking with

people in law enforcement and other aspects of the community,

they saw the pressure from the United States as supportive when

they were in a difficult situation. But that’s the only—I take, first

of all, the nexus of a country that impacts us greatly. I have only

been here 5 years and that is the one that stands out significantly.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Constantine, didn’t decertification not long ago

result in one of your brave DEA agents, in fact, being released as

part of the pressures of this process? I didn’t say a country or anywhere but, in fact, there was a very practical impact on your agency?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, there were a lot of people who played a

major role in that. I think his name is Interforth, from the State

Department, was fantastic, as well as the Ambassador, in fighting

for us.

Congressman Gilman was special in that he very early took a

very public stand and was very, very supportive of us. And I think

combining that, the comments that I heard that it would be difficult to say that they are fully cooperative on a certification process if a DEA employee, a national, who was doing a drug investigation, was incarcerated for their efforts. And that is kind of my

memory of how it all played out. And thank God from everybody’s

efforts it was successful and he has been released and is in the

United States.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Souder, if I could intervene for just a moment. I

am asked to chair another committee hearing right now. I have additional questions for both of the gentlemen. I will ask them in

writing and also will direct some questions to Mr. Constantine next

week in a closed session. I turn the chair over to you and I will

try to return as quickly as possible.

If you would introduce our second panel when you conclude and

recognize anyone from either side, I would appreciate it.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. OK, thank you.

Mr. Beers, one of the things as we go through the decertification

debate that—I am sorry. I missed both of your testimony and I am

not sure if you gave this verbally. But in the written document

there are a lot of things that trouble me. Because we just spent 3

days down in Mexico, met with a lot of the leaders.

I think that at the top, just like 4 years ago when I was there

and met with President Zedillo, I think at the top there is a commitment. And one of the fundamental questions of this commitment is, are we strengthening those who are trying to clean up the

system or weakening those who are trying to clean up the system?

Let me first ask the question. When we decertified Colombia

they, in fact, continued to ship flowers and coffee into our country.

Don’t they? In other words, it doesn’t end all trade.

Mr. BEERS. That is correct, sir.

105

Mr. SOUDER. And we continued to ship antinarcotics things to

the Colombian national police, in other words, vetted units and so

on. It isn’t like it suddenly stopped?

Mr. BEERS. Counternarcotics assistance and humanitarian aid

are not cutoff by decertification, yes, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. And it doesn’t end all trade?

Mr. BEERS. No, sir, it does not. Although there is a provision

which could be implemented which could have some trade impact.

It is a separate provision by another law.

Mr. SOUDER. And while many in Congress who are not necessarily big boosters of NAFTA might like that, that is not likely

to be a result. This isn’t a straight NAFTA question of, if all of a

sudden Mexico were decertified that NAFTA is over?

Mr. BEERS. That is correct, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. It would be optional whether you did additional?

Mr. BEERS. That is correct, sir. It is a separate decision.

Mr. SOUDER. One of the things that bothers me, because I am listening to the Foreign Minister, the Attorney General, the Interior

Ministry, as well as the President seem to be committed. We have

met with Members of Congress and the Senate. But in your document here you have a whole series of things.

For example, there are a lot of laws that they submitted to Congress but none become final. The Attorney General, I know, told us

that part of the process that he is trying to follow the law but now

it takes a number of years to pursue the extraditions. But in your

document you also point out that they have this problem with the

lifetime imprisonment clear, so it is not clear how extradition is

going to actually work.

We, in our House decertification in the past, have had the maritime agreement, but they told us that we have never actually made

an official request to them to sign the maritime agreement.

In here, you say in 1998, they uncovered evidence of corruption

in special vetted units that were specially created to avoid corruption, which we didn’t even have in Colombia. This is a new variable. Why wouldn’t we at least, in an interim basis, not restricting

the trade portions necessarily, say we appreciate that in February

of this year you have some more initiatives.

We appreciate that you started some initiatives last year, but

some minimum criteria here, like we go a year without your special

vetted units being compromised.

There was one line in here that says, ‘‘to fight against corruption

a new national registry of public security personnel was used to

match active duty police against those persons who had judicial

proceedings pending against them.’’ Boy, that is a pretty basic

thing that should have been being checked about, oh, 30 years ago.

Why wouldn’t we have—not implying that they don’t have their

motives correct—but use this as a leverage, like we did in Colombia

and like the administration did in Colombia, to say we want to see

specific progress in your courts, specific progress in your legislature

that you are actually moving things, that we are seeing specific

progress on the actual extraditions as opposed to your starting the

process.

Mr. BEERS. Sir, we do that and we have made some progress,

and we believe that this year’s certification decision is based on

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some of that progress made. And we also believe that we have set

up mechanisms that will allow that process to increase further over

time. I spoke briefly at the beginning about these performance

measures of effectiveness.

One of the purposes of this particular process is for both countries to develop an awareness of what is going on in each country,

to talk about the objectives, to talk about the milestones to achieve

those objectives, and then come back after a time period. We will

come back at this in September and see what progress has been

made and talk about a constructive criticism or cooperation which

can improve that even further.

So I take your point to heart, sir, and we are trying to do that.

And I do believe that is why we have made this decision this year

in order to fully certify them.

Mr. SOUDER. I believe—I mean, I heard the presentation of that

document and I do believe that not only Mexico but other countries

are recognizing that they have a domestic problem as well as an

international one, just like we have to do more on demand reduction.

At the same time, we clearly heard last week from the Foreign

Minister this frustration that they aren’t being given specifically

the things on the decertification. And my other point regarding

your comments is that a lot of what is in that document is regarding process.

In other words, if you introduce a bill rather than standards that

the bill has been done, and because I agree with you one sign of

good will is that a process starts. Another sign is actual results.

I also want to take—I will ask the chairman briefly whether this

is in order—yes, it is. I am the chairman right now—and since I

raised Colombia I actually have a question regarding Colombia.

You and I have talked about Black Hawks until we are both blue

in the face and Huey helicopters until we are blue in the face. And

we are happy that we actually have six Black Hawks going to the

Colombia National Police. I think we are starting to see the

progress on the Huey upgrades.

When we met with people from your department and elsewhere

in Colombia, I was concerned because I raised this question of the

guns on the Black Hawks and making sure that they had the best

they got, 19’s rather than the M–60’s, and would like to continue

to point out that when we have spent this amount of money on the

Black Hawks, and I heard the explanations that, yes, you are

under cost pressure. Yes, there are ammunition questions.

But the practical matter is that my understanding is that the M–

134’s are from 1964 and they are having trouble getting spare

parts, whereas the new guns are 1992. We have been told in Colombia that, for example, a Black Hawk helicopter that the military was using that had an M–60 on one side and a GAL–19 on

the other, all the battlefield damage has been on the M–60 side because, in fact, even the narco-terrorists are figuring which side

they don’t want to go to. There is a substantive difference in the

two types of guns.

And when we have invested this amount of money in the Black

Hawks I would argue strongly and would like to hear any convincing evidence to the contrary that the amount of money that we are

107

talking in the differential between these guns once we are this far

along is not worth the argument we are having.

Let’s get them down there. Let’s get them armed the best way,

because long term and the relationship to Mexico is unless we can

get control of the problems in Colombia, Mexico is going to continue

to be a conduit. The United States is under direct pressure and, in

my opinion, there is no more critical area of the world right now.

Peru and Bolivia have made progress. Mexico and the Colombian

Government are trying to make some inroads.

We have a war going on down there. We can talk about being

a cancer to the United States. But there is an actual war. And if

we don’t arm them in the absolute best ways, the pressure is they

are going to come to us like the people in Kosovo, the people in

Bosnia, the people all over the world and say, hey, America, how

are you going to help?

Because we have oil on the one side in Venezuela. We have drugs

pouring in from Colombia. We have the canal on the other side.

This is clearly a compelling national interest, and I don’t understand the constant pressure with your funds not to impact Peru

here and Boliva here and Mexico here and how are we going to

keep the Caribbean front up?

But I would argue that this is potentially penny-wise and poundfoolish if we don’t get them the best guns on the Black Hawks.

Do you have any comments you would like to make?

Mr. BEERS. I would, sir. I agree with you that what we want to

do is to give them the best weapons systems in association with the

mission that they are asked to undertake. We have looked at this

issue. We have favored the Mark–44. They have initially favored

the Mark–44. They are looking at the issue again. It is not firmly

and finally decided.

I spoke to General Serrano the day before yesterday on this very

issue, and we have agreed to continue this subject under discussion.

But if I may make a simple point, and there is a lot more we

could talk about. The simplest point from which we started, sir,

was that with respect to the use of these two systems within the

U.S. military, our special operations units used the Mark–44 on

their Black Hawk helicopters and our army regular forces used the

GAL–19 on their helicopters.

We have asked. We have talked. We have tried to understand

why one unit, a highly specialized, elite set of units, have chosen

to use the Mark–44, and we have asked why the army has chosen

to use the GAL–19. The Mark–44 rate of fire is higher, almost

twice as high as the rate of fire of the GAL–19. The GAL–19 shoots

further. The GAL–19 round is heavier. Those are both indications

that would seem to favor it.

They also mean that on a vessel—on a platform you cannot take

as much ammunition of the heavier variety as you can of the lighter variety. So if you are talking about sustained fire power, I am

told by our military that that is an argument in favor of the Mark–

44. We haven’t settled this finally. We will continue to discuss this.

And I would be happy to give you a final report when we come to

final solution on this, sir.

108

Mr. SOUDER. OK, I would like to continue to work with you, because General Serrano continues to request that the Colombia air

force have that. And when we particularly go up to the higher elevations where the heroin is, as we make actual progress, the firing

and the counterfire power is going to get greater, not less. I am

confident that General Wilhelm is getting a handle on both the defense side and the Colombia National Police and they both need to

be there. I am hopeful that we can make progress.

But at the same time, I want to make sure it is not a budgetary

driven question, that it is in fact substantive, what is the best way

to win this war? Because the price of us marginally making decisions is being slightly behind all the time. We don’t want another

Vietnam where we are always behind.

Mr. BEERS. You notice, sir, I did not argue the budget issue. I

can make that argument, but I am starting from where you are

starting, sir. What is the mission? What is the requirement?

Mr. SOUDER. And also not only what the current is, is that, I

mean, we keep hearing about the potentiality and we know it is

coming, the Stinger missiles and much more fire power in the

hands of the FARC than we have seen. Because if we start to making inroads, it will become greater, not less. We need to prepare for

the next step, not just where we currently are.

Mr. Cummings had some additional questions.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Beers, when you were answering a question of the chairman,

I guess over an hour ago now, he had asked you about a maritime

agreement and you gave your answer and said there was no maritime agreement. It appeared that you wanted to say something

else, and I want to give you that opportunity, whatever it may be,

so that the record is clear.

Mr. BEERS. Thank you very much, sir. What I was intending to

say is that we began last summer to negotiate a multi-lateral maritime agreement with Caribbean states of which Mexico is one. Mexico is a full participant in these maritime negotiations and our negotiator prognosticates that they expect to resolve this maritime

agreement over the course of the next year. That is where we are

today. We will continue to work on it and we are happy to report

to Congress on any progress.

Mr. CUMMINGS. How important is that agreement?

Mr. BEERS. Sir, the agreement allows, in its most general sense,

navies and coast guards around the world or in any water to fully

cooperate across international boundaries.

That is the heart of it, which is if we see a problem and we are

in pursuit and we are in international waters, we have a mechanism whereby we can communicate with a coastal State into whose

waters those vessels may be proceeding. They will then activate

their own law enforcement officials in order to respond to that, or

if they are unable then there is a provision in which the coast

guard, the international state, could pursue that vessel into territorial waters, always with the approval of the host nation, but a

much easier process than otherwise. We have found this works

very well with the Government of Colombia, where in almost every

case the Government of Colombia, as a result of the cooperation

mechanisms that have been set up, actually make the arrests.

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They come out. They pursue. They arrest.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Are our agents receiving adequate protection

when they are in Mexico?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. What I have commented before, and there is

a closed session next week, I tried to avoid talking about all of the

security issues for agents in open sessions.

However, there has been a lot of dialog going back and forth and

both the diplomatic and physical security of our agents has not

been resolved and I believe is insufficient for the task we are giving

to them presently.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Overall would you say we have less cooperation

than, say, a year or more or about the same?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, as I mentioned before, I try to stay out

of the cooperation issue because I think as a law enforcement official that is far afield. The one thing I will say——

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The traffickers are much more powerful than

they were 5 years ago and they have grown more powerful every

year. And they have more wealth at their disposal to corrupt law

enforcement officials, and they use violence. That is the experience

that I see as a law enforcement official.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I still want to stay on this side of the line, because I don’t want—I’m not trying to get you over across this line

that you don’t want to cross. But have you come to some conclusions as to why what you just said has happened?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, the conclusions I draw is the people that

I meet with, that I have respect for, the Attorney General of Mexico and his staff, want to do the right thing. But the machinery

under them has been so badly infected by both corruption and intimidation it is difficult for them to achieve the things that they

want and we want them to achieve. And I think that is the present

situation as I see it in Mexico today.

Mr. CUMMINGS. When you have an opportunity to interact—I

guess you do—with the Mexican people day to day, do you get the

impression that they want to—and I know this may be a difficult

question, but do you get the impression that they want to rid Mexico of this whole drug situation?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I am not an expert on the culture of Mexico.

The one thing I will notice is that the reaction to crimes of violence,

police misconduct, crimes by policemen, and police corruption has

received a great deal of attention in the way of public demonstrations, public outcry, concern by the citizens of Mexico concern the

quality of law enforcement services that they have within the country. That I pick up from newspapers and translations.

Mr. CUMMINGS. When the General was arrested and convicted,

there was some restructuring. Am I right?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you think it is better now? And I know we

have taken this one person out, removed him. But, then when you

restructure, I guess the restructuring could be better or it could be

worse. I mean, have you come to any conclusions on that?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That is about the third or fourth restructuring

that I have seen since I have been head of DEA. A lot of the reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:57 Mar 16, 2001 Jkt 066702 PO 00000 Frm 00113 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62540 pfrm09 PsN: 62540
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sponsibility in Mexico was taken away from civilian law enforcement because of the problems and given to the military.

We are hopeful that these new vetted units—in other words, we

work with the Government of Mexico. We spend our money to

make sure that these people have, as best as we can see, a very

clean background and are not compromised. We bring them to a

training facility in northern Virginia. The Justice Department, the

DEA, and the FBI train them and return them so that we can have

a unit that we can share very critical information with.

That received a major setback this year—I have to be honest

with you—in which senior level people within those units by all indications and everything I could see had been seriously compromised by the traffickers. So we can’t give up. We are going back

and trying to rebuild a new and better system. But that was a

sense of major frustration to us this summer.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I would imagine that when you have a situation

like the one you just described or you have someone who has been

working honestly and courageously, and the next thing you know

harm is done to them, I imagine that that must be—those kind of

events must really set back any kind of legitimate operation quite

a bit. Was that a fair conclusion?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. No, that’s a fair conclusion. There are a number of police officials and prosecutors in Mexico who have been assassinated by all that we can see as a result of a contract assassination by the major drug organizations.

And until those leaders are brought to the bar of justice and held

responsible for that, I can just tell you as a policeman in the

United States if I looked around and I saw my leadership core

being regularly assassinated and bodies found in the fields, I would

wonder how far will I go before I place myself or my family in the

same jeopardy. And in my comments that is the very purpose of

this violence. It is what the Mafia did in the United States. They

never killed police officers, but they killed witnesses. And for a long

time they had a code of silence until Attorney General Kennedy, I

think, as I have said, turned that around.

But that violence is not always random. That has a purpose. And

the purpose is so that nobody is willing to testify. The policemen,

if they don’t take a bribe and they want to be honest, then, are assassinated. I mean, at one time the police chief of Tijuana, back in

1995 or 1996, set out on a major strategy to go after the ArellanoFelix organization in Tijuana. He was, by all of the reports, approached by the trafficking organizations and offered substantial

sums of money to stop doing that. He refused to do that. He was

told you only get one chance, and what happened to him next, he

was led to a phoney complaint and assassinated.

When that happens to a police chief, that has a serious damaging

effect to other people at other levels of the organization. There is

no doubt about it.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I was just curious—as you were talking, I have

just two more questions. As you were talking, I couldn’t help think

about in Baltimore the police funerals that I have gone to and

think about all of the—I mean, we see it all over the country. Police officers come from everywhere, and it is such a—I mean, it is

taken very seriously. I mean, the citizens take it very seriously. I

111

guess it is because it is truly a thin, blue line, a very thin, blue

line.

I am just wondering when damage to the police officers come in

Mexico do you see the same kind of reaction. Do you know?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I am not familiar with their system. I have

been, as you have said, to far too many. Since I have had these two

jobs, the Superintendent of State Police in New York and head of

DEA, I have had 25 people killed in the line of duty and have gone

to 25 funerals and met with 25 families. My roommate in State police school was shot and killed. I was lieutenant in charge of recruit

training at the State police. I had one class of 120 kids. Three of

them were shot and killed within 8 years.

All of those things have had an impact on me, and that is why

I take this so seriously. I mean, that is why I find the ArellanoFelix brothers, Vicente Carvillo-Fuentes, Juan Aspergo, I find these

to be despicable, evil people who have to be brought to justice and

have to be penalized for that activity if we are going to have any

sense of fulfilling the sacrifice that has been made by these individuals involved.

Mr. CUMMINGS. The last question, I am just wondering, when the

Mexican—when you talk to higher ups and folks in the Mexican

Government, I mean, do they know the lay of the land and what

the problems are? I mean, do they say to you, look, you know, you

have got to help us get around all of this.

We are just in fear. We are in fear for our families, for ourselves.

The United States is probably the most significant law enforcement

agency in the world. You know, help us. Do you get that or is it

already assumed that you are going to do that?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The individuals that I mentioned I am involved with, yes, you have those conversations, try to find help. I

usually pay a big price every time I testify on this issue for months

afterwards in that I think the relationship chills and then becomes

cool for awhile, and I take a responsibility for that. But that is part

of the job.

Yes, we talk about those things. I find them to be—the individuals that I have dealt with really want to do the right thing. I

mean, but our frustrations are their frustrations. But eventually—

I think somebody mentioned that somewhere down the line—I

don’t know when the year is. I don’t know when the date is, and

we talk about this for a lot of years—there is going to have to be

an actual demonstration of the results, similar to that which we

saw in the United States, similar to that which we saw in Italy,

similar to that which we saw in Colombia. And then I think we will

be making major progress and improvements.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to just thank both of you for your testimony and want to thank you for all that you are trying to do to

make our streets safer and our lives better. I really appreciate it.

I am sure I speak for all of us.

Mr. SOUDER. I will also thank you for how long you have been

here and for taking the different questions. We have worked with

both of you for a long period of time and not just on behalf of our

citizens but also those in Fort Wayne, where we now have a DEA

task force starting up. And, also, in the DEA and in the State Department employees as we have been in Central and South AmerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:57 Mar 16, 2001 Jkt 066702 PO 00000 Frm 00115 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62540 pfrm09 PsN: 62540
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ica and around the world, those people are right on the front lines.

They have been very helpful, very forthcoming. I really appreciate

the commitment.

We may have disagreements from time to time on how to do different things, how to balance all the financial things. But what we

need to do is have a united American front, and I really appreciate

the efforts of DEA around the world as well as domestically and

in the State Department, not only in directly fighting narcotics but

in helping with crop eradication and crop substitution where we

are actually making progress in some countries.

And if we continue to make that progress and get the pressure

on the transit zone and in Mexico and win the battle in Colombia,

we will at least have moved it all to methamphetamine or something else. But it is a matter of this constant, and we thank you

both for your leadership.

If the second panel could come forward, at this time I would like

to recognize from the General Accounting Office Mr. Ben Nelson,

the Director of International Relations, Foreign Trade, National Security, International Affairs Divisions. He is joined by his Assistant

Director, Mr. Ron Kushner. And before you sit down, we need to

swear in all of our witnesses. So would you raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in

the affirmative.

Mr. Nelson, would you commence with your remarks when you

are ready.

STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN NELSON, DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND TRADE ISSUES, NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY RON

KUSHNER, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee,

I am pleased to be here to discuss our work on the counternarcotics

efforts of the United States and Mexico.

My prepared statement, which I will veer away from a little bit

in the interest of time, will highlight the findings from our ongoing

effort to update our June 1998, report on this matter. This was requested by former Chairman Hastert and Senator Grassley.

My statement covers two broad issues, Mexico’s efforts to address

the drug threat and United States counternarcotics assistance provided to Mexico. You just heard administration witnesses provide

their perspective on the drug problem facing our two countries. You

heard about the threat.

Let me recount. Mexico is one of the largest centers for narcoticsrelated business in the world. Mexico is still the principal transit

country for cocaine entering the United States. Mexico is either a

producer, refiner or transit point for cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin. It is also a major hub for the recycling

of drug proceeds. Mexico’s Juarez drug trafficking organization is

as powerful and dangerous as Colombia’s Medellin and Cali cartels

used to be.

Mexico’s poorest border and the daunting volume of legitimate

cross-border traffic, some 86 million cars and 4 million trucks, proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:57 Mar 16, 2001 Jkt 066702 PO 00000 Frm 00116 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62540 pfrm09 PsN: 62540
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vide near limitless opportunities for the smuggling of illicit drugs

and the proceeds of the sales of those drugs.

You also heard discussion about the level of progress that has actually been made. You also were told by administration witnesses

of the problem of corruption. Our own work indicates that drug

traffickers spend approximately $6 billion a year to suborn various

law enforcement and public officials. You have also heard today

about the new initiatives that the Mexican Government plans to

undertake to better address the problem.

What you have not heard was much discussion on United States

assistance to Mexico.

In light of the fact that many of the key factors, the progress or

lack thereof, have been well established, I would like to focus briefly on U.S. assistance, the usefulness of it—the nature of it, the usefulness, and trends in the provision of assistance. Since 1997, the

Departments of State and Defense have provided the Government

of Mexico with over $112 million worth of equipment, training and

aviation spare parts for counternarcotics purposes. The major assistance included helicopters, aircraft and two Knox class frigates

which were purchased by the Mexican Government through our

foreign military sales program.

Last year, I testified that some of the assistance provided to the

Mexican military was of limited usefulness due to operational and

logistical support problems. In the past year, the two frigates have

become operational. Unfortunately, the situation with the helicopters has gotten worse. All 72 of the helicopters provided to the

Mexican military have been grounded because of air worthiness

concerns. In addition, the four C–26 aircraft provided have not

been used for counternarcotics operations.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening statement. I or Mr.

Kushner will be happy to respond to any questions that you may

have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nelson follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I want to ask an initial question. I will go to Mr.

Cummings and then come back. You just alluded to these helicopters.

Mr. NELSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. I have visited Colombia, actually four times now,

and have been to their facilities where they are repairing these

things. If they think they can get it off the ground, the helicopter

goes up. They borrow parts from all sorts of things to get their helicopters flying. You have a statement here that says, in addition,

four C–26 aircraft are not being used for counternarcotics operations. Right before that you said all of their Hueys are grounded

because of air worthiness concerns, which is an American problem

as well in trying to get that up.

What about these four C–26. Could they fly?

Mr. NELSON. Yes. The problem with the C–26’s—and Mr.

Kushner can add to my statement since he has been down to Mexico. But the problem is not a mechanical problem. It is the mission.

It is whether those aircraft can be suited for a counternarcotics

mission in their current state.

Mr. KUSHNER. So they are not configured for surveillance type operations. It would cost about $3 million per aircraft to reconfigure those so the Mexicans could use them for surveillance type

operations. They received four of them, as we testified. One of them

is completely down. I understand that the nose gear is collapsed

and has not been repaired. And the three other ones, they are operational. They may fly them for transport purposes, but no counternarcotics missions are being flown.

Mr. SOUDER. Have they requested funds for these or have they

done anything in their own government to try to get them ready?

They are just letting them sit there? Why did we give them to them

if they are just going to sit there?

Mr. KUSHNER. That is a good question. It is negative to both your

questions. As far as we know, the Mexicans have not specifically

requested funds to fly the C–26’s nor has the United States Government provided funds to maintain and get those things operational. It is another thing, you can fly those aircraft but they also

have to be maintained. It is kind of a complex aircraft and normally it would have a contractor come in and do the maintenance

of them. There is no contractor down there maintaining those aircraft.

Mr. SOUDER. Did they request these?

Mr. KUSHNER. As far as I know, sir, no.

Mr. SOUDER. So will you——

Mr. KUSHNER. We have four aircraft down there, sir, that are

just basically not being used for counternarcotics purposes. As we

reported last year and we made a recommendation to the Department of Defense and Department of State, that better planning and

coordination is needed when you are considering the type of packages you are going to provide for counternarcotics purposes.

Mr. SOUDER. Were they ever even consulted about these?

Mr. KUSHNER. I can’t answer that, sir. I do not know whether the

Mexicans were consulted about their need for a C–26 or not.

Mr. SOUDER. The bottom line is that it looked good for us to send

the stuff down there like there was an antinarcotics effort going on,

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but they didn’t request it. There is no money in their budget for

it. There is no money in our budget to get them up to speed. They

are sitting on the ground and they are not being used for counternarcotics. Is your general impression—have you looked at Colombia

as well as Mexico in other research? Do you think that Colombians

would have these things sitting on the ground?

Mr. KUSHNER. I have not looked at Colombia personally, but Mr.

Nelson knows a little bit more about that than I do.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Nelson, do you think the Colombians would

have these sitting on the ground without a request in? I mean, do

you know of any case where there is a Colombian helicopter sitting

on the ground that can fly?

Mr. NELSON. Well, to your first question, I can’t answer whether,

you know, this would be the case in Colombia. But I do not know

of any helicopters that are sitting on the ground in Colombia that

are not being used.

Mr. SOUDER. And when we were just in Mexico we were told that

they were going for more go-fast boats. They were looking for different surveillance equipment, and they were putting certain

things in their budget. Now all this happened 10 days before certification was due.

Mr. NELSON. Correct.

Mr. SOUDER. But that they had, because they are concerned

about being able to control these coasts, wouldn’t these four C–26

help with that?

Mr. NELSON. If they were fitted with the——

Mr. SOUDER. In other words, if these were fitted properly, would

these help with those efforts?

Mr. NELSON. Yes. I would agree.

Mr. SOUDER. I will yield to Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I only have a couple of questions. I understand

these gentlemen have to get over to the Senate. Is that right?

Mr. NELSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me ask you this. Why is the organized crime

unit short of fully screened staff? Do you know what the hold-up

is?

Mr. KUSHNER. I think it revolves around having personnel to do

the final screening of them. Those questions have come up over the

last 6 or 7 months. With the rescreening of some of the individuals

within the organized crime unit who actually failed the rescreening

process, there are questions about how they are going to proceed

again. So it has been slowed down somewhat. But 50 percent of the

OCU staff are not fully screened.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Also in the report it talks about how you think

that Mexico needs a sufficiently screened, better paid core of judges

to hear drug cases. And I take it that this is not an idea that is

brand new. What is the hold-up there?

Mr. KUSHNER. That hasn’t been really pursued by anyone as far

as we know within the Government of Mexico. The screening process the Government of Mexico has instituted down there, it is

staffed but it is a limited staff and it has limited equipment availability, meaning polygraph-type machines. And these people have

to be trained on the use of those machines.

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So I would say it is a resource constraint as well as just

prioritizing the people within Mexico and the law enforcement community and the judicial community that you are going to screen.

They elected to go with the law enforcement and the specialized

units initially.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you said initially. And then what happened

when it got past the initially?

Mr. KUSHNER. The intent, as far as we know, is to continue this

screening process certainly within the Attorney General’s office.

Now, the specialized units make up just a small part of the Attorney General’s office. I believe the total staffing within the Attorney

General’s office is upwards of 17,000 people. We have been told

that their goal is certainly to screen all those individuals and they

will move on.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Nelson, did you have something to add?

Mr. NELSON. Yes, sir. I believe you raised a very important issue

there with respect to the judges and not having a cadre of professional judges. First of all, I think the screening process—some

judges may not have to, or it doesn’t cover judges. The issue with

the judges is critical in that other law enforcement actions, their

effectiveness is reduced if, in fact, you capture the drug traffickers

and bring them before a judge who will not mete out the proper

sentence or that the traffickers are basically not convicted. And corruption in the judicial branch is a critical issue in Mexico.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So you said judges aren’t screened?

Mr. NELSON. No. The judges are not screened.

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, you would think that with all the

problems that they have had and all the corruption that it might

move to that level. How do you define screening?

Mr. NELSON. Basically, it is a test to determine whether an individual is connected with a trafficking organization or whether they

have something in their past that would raise questions about their

trustworthiness. As Mr. Kushner said, it involves lie detector tests

and some other steps.

Mr. KUSHNER. Psychological profiles, social and financial background checks, medical and physical history. Those are the types

of areas that they cover during the screening process, as well as

the polygraph.

Mr. CUMMINGS. So how are judges elected, then? I mean, do they

have to go through a process like Federal judges do here, for example?

Mr. KUSHNER. I am not too familiar with the process of selecting

judges in Mexico, but I believe a good number of them are appointed.

Mr. CUMMINGS. OK, I don’t have anything else. Thank you all

very much.

Mr. NELSON. Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes.

Mr. NELSON. I have a response from staff back there on your

question regarding helicopters in Colombia. I guess there is a big

problem with the Hueys.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes. That is universal in our military, too.

Mr. NELSON. Right. Only a third of those in Colombia were fully

operational last year.

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Mr. SOUDER. The reason I moved to the C–26’s is that even our

military, our guard units, all have a problem right now getting

them—we’ve grounded. So some countries have continued to fly

those but against our own advice.

I have a couple of additional questions, just to review the summary of your testimony here.

In your testimony, both written and much of what you gave, you

said in 1998, no major Mexican drug trafficker was surrendered to

the United States on drug charges.

You said the heroin threat from Mexico appears to be increasing.

The cultivation of opium in Mexico producing poppies increased by

3,000 hectares in 1998.

You said that corruption remains widespread within the Mexican

Government institutions including the criminal justice system. You

said that a number of senior military and screening personnel were

found to either be involved in or suspected of drug-related activities.

You said that the helicopters weren’t in the air, particularly the

C–26’s. The Mexican narcotics trafficking organizations facilitate

the movement of between 50 and 60 percent of almost 300 metric

tons of cocaine consumed in the United States.

You said that drugs are still flowing across the border at the

same rate approximately as 1997. You said there have been no significant increases in drug eradication and seizures. I think the statistics we were given even by the Mexican Government said that

cocaine and opium gum seizures declined. In their statistics they

gave us maritime interdiction also declined.

You said that money laundering prosecutions and convictions

have been minimal. You said that corruption remains the major

impediment to Mexican counternarcotics efforts. And you said that

most drug trafficking leaders continue to operate with impunity.

As far as results, have you seen any good results or any signs

that they are fully cooperating from a results side?

Mr. NELSON. Well, there were some results last year. And the

witnesses here have pointed out the situation in Cancun, where the

property of drug traffickers was confiscated. And, of course, there

was another initiative—what was the second one?

Mr. KUSHNER. Well, I think one of the major accomplishments

that happened in Mexico this year, as was pointed out by Mr. Constantine this morning, was the arrest of Jesus and Luis Amezcua,

and previously they arrested his brother Rodon. That is considered,

I think, certainly within the law enforcement community, a major

accomplishment. The operation in Cancun was a major undertaking this past fall, where about $200 million worth of property

has been seized, including 4 hotels, a number of restaurants, a

number of yachts, and about 22 residences.

Mr. SOUDER. Anybody arrested?

Mr. KUSHNER. Pardon me, sir?

Mr. SOUDER. Anybody arrested, government or political officials?

Mr. KUSHNER. No, sir. As far as we know, there has been no

major arrest made in the Cancun operation. That doesn’t mean

that there haven’t been any small operators arrested. I don’t think

there have been any major operatives in Cancun or in the Yucatan

that have been arrested.

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Mr. NELSON. I might add, though, that the arrests could be

viewed as a positive. It has been established here that the charges

against both have been basically dropped and it is only the U.S. request that is holding them in jail at this point.

Mr. SOUDER. I mean, it is a problem for those of us in Congress

who represent districts where—in my district there has been a

shift in where the drugs are coming from. They are mostly coming

from Mexico. And as we see particularly heroin pouring into our

country that is native to Mexico, it isn’t even just a transit zone.

And that, in effect, what you are telling us is that the heroin

threats increase and the cocaine threats are increasing. They are

not doing the helicopters. They are having problems screening their

people. Corruption is widespread in their courts. They have actually gone down or at least not had any increases in eradication and

seizures. They are plowing across the border. They are threatening

to sue us over a money laundering prosecution that—their drug

leaders continue to operate in impunity. And the two good signs

are that in Cancun they started a process, although they haven’t

arrested anybody. And in the other place they have started a process but we don’t know whether they are going to be prosecuted.

And furthermore, in their constitution they don’t have life imprisonment.

You know, looking at it as an official here, this politically isn’t

that hard that, in fact, when we were just down on the Texas border I was told by an official, which is broad enough to cover all the

departments so they can’t find the person, that they refer to it as

the North American Free Drug Trading Act. Because they don’t

know how to control the border, because it is so massive and the

cooperation is there.

Do you have any suggestions about our ability to monitor both

the southwest border as well as the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts unless we can get a higher rate of cooperation?

Mr. NELSON. Well, I believe that certainly you can’t tackle the

problem without a lot of cooperation. But there are barriers to that

cooperation, and they are on both sides. On our side it is how much

information can we share at the operational level without compromising our activities.

I think you will hear statements of cooperation at the highest

level of government but you must translate that down to the operational level to attack the traffickers, the organizations, to carry

out seizures and so forth. And that is problematic. I am very familiar with the situation on the southwest border, and we have a

major conflict there between our goals of facilitating the free movement of goods across the border and consistent with both our objectives for economic development. At the same time, it provides limitless opportunities for drug smuggling.

I have been down to the border area and you can see the various

means that people use to get the drugs into the commercial traffic

and across the border.

Mr. SOUDER. What you are saying is very troubling, because are

you saying that the two goals are mutually exclusive?

Mr. NELSON. I am not saying that they are mutually exclusive,

but I do think that it represents a situation where they can come

into conflict, but I don’t think the country can back away from eiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:29 Mar 16, 2001 Jkt 066702 PO 00000 Frm 00140 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HEARINGS\62540 pfrm09 PsN: 62540
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ther of those goals and it is going to require much greater cooperation between the two countries to address it.

Mr. SOUDER. Because in Fort Wayne I don’t want the choice of

whether to have kids die, people shot in streets, gangs selling

drugs, for a few additional jobs. In actuality, we probably lose in

net jobs.

But even from a national American perspective, these are tough

tradeoffs. I mean, some of this, when we were at the Juarez-El

Paso border and you see there is one free bridge backed up for

hours, the pressure on those people to expedite the cars through

when you don’t see the lines at the bridges that have a fee, but

then the pressure that goes on those agents to accelerate or the

confusion that occurs, as we’ve heard in other border crossings

where they will send somebody who is, in effect, a decoy with a

light load to then slip it in because it backs up and the pressure

gets on and people get upset in their cars. It’s human nature, then,

and it limits our ability to do that.

We have to have the will, I believe, which is what is lacking in

your tradeoff, to say either we are going to have more border crossing places with more equipment. Because you have almost set up

a, oh, this is a trade or drugs. But aren’t there some things that

we could aggressively do that could potentially get at the drugs

more, even if we were going to allow the border crossings?

Mr. NELSON. I agree with you. The situation along the border is

very daunting. One only has to be there to see the trucks backed

up for miles to see the hard work of the drug enforcement agents

and the Customs people trying to make sure that drugs are not

getting into the country. One only has to go there to understand

the task at hand.

I think a preliminary kind of effort would be to enhance, through

more technology and other means, the ability of our people on the

border to do their job of detecting illicit drugs. There are other

steps that I believe can be taken including increasing cooperation

with United States counterparts in Mexico. There are a number of

steps that I think can be taken that would tend to ameliorate the

problem, but I don’t think they will fully eliminate the problem of

trying to facilitate the movement of goods while at the same time

trying to protect this country from the scourge of drugs.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you see any signs on the Mexican side of the

border that they are doing things? For example, when we—I mean,

anybody driving down the highway can see we have places where

trucks go over to get checked for weight. Do you see any signs that

before any of their vehicles are heading toward America that they

are doing any antidrug screening? Is there anything on the other

side of the border crossings that show that they are committed to

trying to reduce the number of narcotics coming into our side?

Mr. NELSON. I am personally not aware of any effort on the parts

of the Mexican Government. I do know that the United States has

a proposal or is considering some type of system of preclearance for

trucks and drivers that have been precleared in Mexico to ease the

inspection at the border. I am not sure of the status of that. I was

told that that is one of the proposals being considered and that

they are testing certain technology to try to see if this will, in fact,

be practical.

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Mr. SOUDER. If you were looking at this, in your opinion, are

they full cooperating?

Mr. NELSON. I am not in a position to answer that question.

What I can do is say when you look at tangible results in terms

of seizures, law enforcement activities, people who have gone to

jail, there are not many very firm, tangible results that you can

point to over the last couple of years.

Mr. SOUDER. If I may ask one last question that we constantly

heard in almost every meeting when we were just recently in Mexico and we hear this—we have heard this before—is let’s don’t talk

about what has happened in the past. We are committed to change.

Now as Mr. Constantine said, this is the fourth round of this.

And you made an allusion, Mr. Nelson, just a few minutes ago,

that we have to know that our information isn’t being compromised. But, in fact, when they had a drug czar who was in an

apartment owned by a cartel owner and they didn’t know that and

we didn’t know that and we heard it in front of this committee before that our administration is concerned that every single piece of

material had been compromised, every potential witness, every potential informant, all of our uncover agents had been compromised

and, that, in fact, history sometimes can be a projection and sometimes it isn’t a projection of what is going to happen next.

But wouldn’t you recommend, based on what you have seen, that

to some degree history says that we should be cautious before we

do too many exchanges and build on some record of success here,

and it is not completely irrelevant?

Mr. NELSON. Yes. I would agree with you that you have to be

cautious. But I think that the U.S. law enforcement community is

very much aware of the problem and that they tend to factor this

into the level of cooperation, what they share and what they do not

share and so forth.

I think the issue of corruption runs through all of the processes,

all of the steps and all of the institutions that you have to use to

attack the problem.

Mr. SOUDER. As an auditor, if you were looking at them, and let’s

say we shared all of our information sources with them this year

and then had problems, wouldn’t you come back here as GAO and

say why did you share all of that information given the past history?

Mr. NELSON. It’s a choice between making some progress and

having basically an arm’s length relationship. I think both countries have to work together.

The endemic corruption in the institutions, I think, is going to

be there. It is going to take awhile. And we have to basically work

to achieve what we can, but we need to stay on a course of showing

some progress. I think that is where we need to establish a good

game plan for attacking the problem, including giving them equipment and assistance that works and holding the government accountable for achieving some positive outcomes as the only way of

dealing with what is a long-term problem that is going to require

sustained effort on the part of both governments.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, I thank you for your comments, and Mr.

Kushner’s. Because there is no question what you say is true. I

mean, Mexico is not going to disappear.

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It is clear in North America and Central and South America unless we work together in this hemisphere in trade questions and in

our people moving back and forth across the borders, we have to

learn how to get along. It is more a question of how fast, in what

way.

Mr. NELSON. At the General Accounting Office, I have responsibility for a lot of issues where U.S. objectives can only be achieved

through cooperation and coordination with either multilateral institutions or other countries. And when you look at the range of

issues we have with Mexico, I think that cooperation, sincere cooperation, at all levels is going to be required to address some of

the fundamental issues that go to trade, to immigration, law enforcement. Just a number of key United States policy objectives

play out on the Mexican border, including environmental issues,

labor issues, and so forth.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, once again, I thank you for your testimony.

There is no question from what we have heard both in the first

panel and the second panel that we have a very difficult decision

facing us in the House, because while we can agree that there have

been attempts to make progress, the results haven’t been particularly impressive. And we need to sort through this decertification

process, not because it is fun to go through but because we are very

concerned about the drug problem in this country facing our kids,

facing our families, what it has done to our country, what it has

done in corrupting Mexico, what it is doing and has corrupted Colombia in the past. We have seen success stories in Peru and Bolivia.

There is no doubt that as those governments have gone after it,

we have seen changes in those countries. We have seen when we

have put up efforts at interdiction we can actually reduce the flood

into our country and drive the prices up, which by driving those

prices up and what they can pay by forcing them into river traffic

as opposed to air traffic, we then result in the people on the ground

being paid less, which means that they look for alternative crops.

There are successes. We need to do more in demand reduction in

our country, and we are working on that, on treatment and prevention programs. Enforcement, drug testing in a variety of different

forms.

These are very difficult issues. But one of the fundamental questions we have to ask is if we have a drug certification process, as

I favor and as Chairman Mica originally put in as a staffer when

he was over in the Senate, if we favor this and you never implement it even when there aren’t results, do you lose the effectiveness of the whole process, a process that has served us, in my opinion, well as a country, especially when, as we heard earlier in this

hearing, that, in fact, it wouldn’t cutoff all trade. It doesn’t cutoff

all assistance. And if you aren’t willing to make some steps, are we

really ever going to get the results?

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So we appreciate your participation in the hearing today and the

report that you gave us. We will leave the record open for 2 weeks

for additional questions in written form and additional comments

from our members. And with that, our hearing stands adjourned.

[Whereupon the committee was adjourned at 1:43 p.m., subject

to the call of the Chair.]

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