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41–196 CC 1997

COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS IN MEXICO AND

ALONG THE SOUTHWEST BORDER

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT

REFORM AND OVERSIGHT

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 25, 1997

Serial No. 105–14

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Illinois

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

STEVEN H. SCHIFF, New Mexico

CHRISTOPHER COX, California

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

JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire

PETE SESSIONS, Texas

MIKE PAPPAS, New Jersey

VINCE SNOWBARGER, Kansas

BOB BARR, Georgia

——— ———

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

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JUDITH MCCOY, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL

JUSTICE

J. DENNIS HASTERT, Chairman

MARK SOUDER, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona

STEVE LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin

TOM LANTOS, California

BOB WISE, West Virginia

GARY A. CONDIT, California

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

JIM TURNER, Texas

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

ROBERT CHARLES, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

MICHELE LANG, Special Counsel

SEAN LITTLEFIELD, Professional Staff Member

IANTHE SAYLOR, Clerk

MARK STEPHENSON, Minority Professional Staff Member

RONALD STROMAN, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on February 25, 1997 ....................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Bonilla, Hon. Henry, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Texas; and Tony Castaneda, chief of police, Eagle Pass, TX .................... 24

Constantine, Thomas A., Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration; Mary Lee Warren, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal

Division, Department of Justice; and Douglas M. Kruhm, Assistant

Commissioner, U.S. Border Patrol .............................................................. 41

Gelbard, Robert S., assistant secretary of State, Bureau of International

Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs ..................................................... 4

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Bonilla, Hon. Henry, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Texas, prepared statement of ....................................................................... 27

Constantine, Thomas A., Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 48

Kruhm, Douglas M., Assistant Commissioner, U.S. Border Patrol, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 87

Warren, Mary Lee, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice, prepared statement of .................................. 71

(1)

COUNTERNARCOTICS EFFORTS IN MEXICO

AND ALONG THE SOUTHWEST BORDER

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1997

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL

AFFAIRS, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT, Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:10 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. J. Dennis Hastert

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Hastert, Souder, Schiff, Mica,

LaTourette, Barr, Barrett, Blagojevich, and Turner.

Staff present: Robert Charles, staff director and chief counsel;

Michele Lang, special counsel; Sean Littlefield, professional staff

member; Ianthe Saylor, clerk; Mark Stephenson, and Ron Stroman,

minority professional staff members; and Jean Gosa, minority administrative clerk.

Mr. HASTERT. The Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice will come to order.

Good afternoon. I want to thank everybody for coming today. The

subcommittee and Congress wrestle with an escalating national security threat posed by international drug trafficking. One country

has been on our lips repeatedly over the last week; that country is

Mexico.

Today, we sit a few days away from the President’s annual certification decision. Before next Monday, the President must either

certify that Mexico is cooperating fully with the United States on

all counternarcotics efforts or not cooperating fully.

If he reaches the conclusion that they are not cooperating fully,

he may, in the interest of continuing commercial trade and counternarcotics aid, grant Mexico a national interest waiver. Like last

year, this decision is being closely watched, both domestically and

internationally. Last year, President Clinton certified Mexico’s

counternarcotics efforts while decertifying Colombia’s.

Eleven days ago, the subcommittee concluded its first drug policy

hearing of the 105th Congress and focused on Colombia’s counternarcotics efforts. We learned in that hearing that decertification

can spur action by sending a clear signal of deep U.S. concern. We

also learned that decertification without a national interest waiver

can hurt U.S. efforts to get counternarcotics aid to the target country.

Today’s hearing is focused on learning more about drug trafficking along our Southwest Border and Mexican cooperation in the

2

war on drugs. Make no mistake about it, the four powerful,

wealthy, violent Mexican drug cartels pose direct and insidious national security threats to this country and, in fact, to Mexico’s own

stable future. In fact, the Mexican drug trafficking organizations

are as much a threat as the Colombian cartels have been up to

now.

This hearing is about Mexico and the land border we share, but

it is also about the certification process itself. I think it is very

plain that if, as expected, President Clinton certifies Mexico and

decertifies Colombia, we will want to make sure that there is a fair

and even-handed policy.

Some may not think that would exist. A double standard that undermines the role of certification in our international drug strategy

could be questioned by some. As the certification decision is pending, I cannot yet judge, but I fully expect that, if Mexico is certified

and Colombia is decertified, a close examination of this decision by

Congress certainly will follow.

If this President’s decision will be apparent to most that competing interests in United States-Mexican relations trump the status

of the United States-Mexican thrust on counternarcotics, let’s be

honest with the American people. There is an important economic

link between us. We share a 2,000-mile border and there is a continuing need for Mexican cooperation to curb illegal immigration.

But we also face another reality. The drug czar, the Mexican

drug czar, was just arrested for links to the most dangerous drug

trafficker in Mexico. Mexican officials apparently knew he had been

associated with the trafficker for 7 years, and they knew his assistant had been tied to the drug cartels. Adding injury, U.S. officials

were not even told of his removal on drug charges until 12 days

after that event.

Now, here’s the broader drug picture. Mexico not only shipped

400 tons of cocaine, 150 tons of methamphetamine, and 15 tons of

heroin into the United States last year, they have only extradited

three persons, despite United States extradition requests in 1996

for more than 150 suspected felons. Mexican officials promised me

and other Members of Congress that they would be installing three

ground-based radars to halt air traffic last April. That promise is

now a dead letter. There will, apparently, be no radars.

While Mexico eradicates much opium poppy annually, it has

blocked a blanket maritime agreement to stop traffickers, refused

additional United States antidrug aid, refused to put an extra 20

DEA agents in Mexico, after we appropriated the money for this effort, and now has told DEA agents that they cannot carry weapons

when required to cross the United States-Mexican border. Beyond

this, there are certain deficiencies we cannot fully explore in an

open session.

In short, I am deeply disappointed, and I certainly hope the

President is. In my view, while economic considerations should play

in Mexico’s favor, there should be a careful, honest debate on

granting a national interest waiver to Mexico and maybe a possible

decertification. There should be an honest parallel assessment of

Colombia. That’s what we are here for.

Without anything further, we are rearranging our schedule a little bit to allow our Ambassador on International Narcotics and

3

Law Enforcement Affairs to come before us today, Ambassador

Gelbard.

Before proceeding with our first panel, I am pleased to turn to

my colleague, the subcommittee’s ranking member, Tom Barrett,

for any opening remarks he may have.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank you for holding this second hearing on an issue that is

of vital importance to the American people, because there are few

issues more important to the future national security of our country than controlling illegal drug trafficking. The cost to our Nation

of illegal drug use is estimated at $70 billion per year, and every

year illegal drugs cost 16,000 American lives.

Our Southwest Border remains a principal route for drugs coming into the United States, so I thank the chairman for holding this

hearing today. We will never solve the drug problem in our country

without stopping the flow of drugs over this border. Mexico, unfortunately, remains the principal route for cocaine entering the

United States, with 50 to 70 percent of the total cocaine produced

in South America transported via Mexico.

Mexico also supplied 20 to 30 percent of the heroin and about 70

percent of the foreign-grown marijuana last year, and Mexican traffickers dominate the growing methamphetamine trade in the

United States. Criminal organizations are increasingly looking to

Mexico as a venue for money laundering. The recent arrest of the

Mexican drug czar, Gen. Guttierez-Rebollo, demonstrates that corruption continues to be a major problem for Mexico.

I think that the point that the chairman made on the serious

question of how we look at Colombia and how we look at Mexico

are issues that we have to explore, and I am pleased that the

President is exploring them carefully. I also concur with the chairman that the issue of our economic ties to Mexico weighs into this

equation, and I will be very interested in hearing our panels today.

Thank you.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you.

I would like to welcome Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Ambassador Bob

Gelbard. Because we are trying to work our schedule around his

very busy schedule, I would ask that all other opening statements

be submitted for the record.

Any objections?

[No response.]

Mr. HASTERT. Without objection, so ordered.

Ambassador Gelbard, we had you testify before us last week in

the Colombia hearing. We appreciate your being here today, and

we know it is certainly a busy time of year for you, especially concentrated in these next weeks or so.

Ambassador, if you would stand and raise your hand, the committee’s rules require me to swear you in.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. HASTERT. Let the record show that the witness responded in

the affirmative.

Ambassador.

4

STATEMENT OF ROBERT S. GELBARD, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

OF STATE, BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND

LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS

Mr. GELBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. Good afternoon.

Thank you for accommodating my schedule. As you can imagine,

in the days coming up to certification, we are extremely busy, and

I appreciate your understanding.

Mexico-based drug trafficking organizations take advantage of

the 2,000-mile border between Mexico and the United States and

the massive flow of legitimate trade and traffic to smuggle hundreds of tons of South American cocaine, thousands of tons of Mexican-grown marijuana, tons each of heroin and methamphetamine

precursors, and large quantities of pharmaceuticals to the United

States each year.

Many of these organizations operate extensive distribution networks within the United States. Mexico-based trafficking organizations now dominate the production and distribution of methamphetamine in the United States, a particularly dangerous drug

with alarming abuse projections across the country. Mexico is also

one of the most significant money laundering centers in the hemisphere.

From a foreign policy perspective, the severity of the threat

posed to the United States by drug trafficking organizations operating out of Mexico makes this one of the most important issues

on our agenda with Mexico, an agenda which is arguably one of the

broadest we have in the world.

Counternarcotics cooperation with Mexico is obviously an essential component of our national drug strategy. Mexican President

Ernesto Zedillo, in whom we have the highest level of trust and

confidence, has declared the drug threat and related official corruption to be the principal national security threat to his nation. His

decisions and actions have supported this declaration, and he has

underscored the importance of the U.S. partnership in his government’s antidrug effort.

As we saw last week, President Zedillo moved quickly to remove

from office the new national antidrug coordinator after an internal

investigation revealed ties to the nation’s most powerful drug trafficker. The investigation is continuing, and 36 officials from the

drug commission are now apparently implicated.

While the revelations of corruption by individuals in such sensitive positions is a matter of grave concern to us, the Government

of Mexico’s quick response demonstrated President Zedillo’s resolve

to identify, remove, and punish compromised officials, even at the

risk of embarrassment to his own administration.

The United States and Mexican Governments are working to

build a counterdrug partnership on the foundation of the shared

perception of the threat and our mutual determination to combat

it. It was in this spirit that the United States and Mexico established a high-level contact group on narcotics control a year ago, to

explore joint solutions to the shared drug threat, to coordinate the

full range of narcotics issues, and to promote closer law enforcement cooperation.

5

We will seek, with this sense of partnership, to aid Mexico to address the institutional weaknesses that permit such serious security breaches to occur and persist, and to strengthen its law enforcement capacity through training, material, and technical assistance. Mexico is one of our most important allies in the international struggle against organized crime and drug trafficking. We

need each other, and we are determined to make this partnership

work.

The Mexican Government has prepared a comprehensive strategy, encompassing efforts to attack the drug trafficking organizations, combat money laundering and chemical diversion, eradicate

drug crops, interdict drug shipments, and increase public awareness. The Mexican Government intensified its investigations of

major narcotrafficking organizations, including the Juarez Cartel of

Amado Carrillo-Fuentes; the Tijuana Cartel, headed by the

Arellano-Felixes; the Caro-Quintero Organization; and the Gulf

Cartel, previously directed by Juan Garcia-Abrego.

However, persistent and widespread official corruption, frequent

changes in personnel, lack of institutional capabilities, and failure

to follow through on government commitments have combined to

hinder Mexico’s ability to implement its antidrug strategy effectively or to conclude its organized crime investigations.

In its anticorruption efforts, the Mexican Government dismissed

over 1,250 Federal law enforcement officers and technical personnel, and indicted two former senior Mexican officials on corruption and money laundering charges. It also charged a current

Under Secretary of Tourism with official corruption.

In 1996, Mexican authorities arrested a number of major traffickers, including Juan Garcia-Abrego, head of the Gulf Cartel and

one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives; Jose Luis Pereira Salas,

linked to the Cali and the Juarez Cartels; and Manuel LopezRodriguez, a major maritime operator linked to Jose Castrillon.

The Government of Mexico expelled Garcia-Abrego and Pereira

Salas to the United States. Garcia-Abrego was convicted in Houston on 20 counts, sentenced to 11 life terms, and fined $128 million, with $350 million in forfeited assets. Pereira Salas is awaiting

trial in Miami.

The Mexican Congress passed penal code reforms to criminalize

money laundering and establish some controls on chemical diversion. It also passed an organized crime bill which authorizes use

of modern investigative techniques such as electronic surveillance,

witness protection, and prosecution for criminal association and

conspiracy.

The Mexican Government acknowledged the need to strengthen

its counterdrug capabilities and signed several technical and material support agreements with us, as well as an operational coordination agreement for the border task forces. Interagency cooperation among Mexican antidrug police and military forces improved

drug-related arrests and seizures of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana

increased over 1995. Eradication results were on a par with 1995

but continued the trend toward reduced net production.

Mexican authorities seized 23.8 metric tons of cocaine, 363 kilos

of heroin, more than 1,000 tons of marijuana, uncovered 20 clandestine drug laboratories, made over 11,000 drug-related arrests,

6

and eradicated 22,769 hectares of cannabis and 14,671 hectares of

opium poppy.

Bilaterally, the return of fugitives, money laundering, chemical

diversion, and military-to-military relations were among our highest priorities for bilateral cooperation. The extradition relationship,

while still very far from ideal, improved significantly last year.

Mexico extradited 13 fugitives to the United States, including three

individuals with claims to Mexican citizenship, for the first time.

It expelled a number of other fugitives, including Garcia-Abrego

and Pereira Salas.

The two nations made major strides in forging a more productive

military-to-military relationship, including counterdrug cooperation, training, and technical assistance. Bilateral cooperation on

money laundering controls also improved. Technical working

groups focused on specific ways to improve national and bilateral

effectiveness in areas such as money laundering, chemical control,

demand reduction, arms trafficking, and so forth.

However, there remain many areas where Mexico’s counterdrug

performance can and must be improved and where bilateral cooperation can be improved. These areas constitute the agenda for

our discussions in the coming months and the focus of our joint efforts.

The arrest of Gen. Gutierrez-Rebollo and subsequent dismissal of

36 of his deputies belie previous assumptions that corruption was

largely limited to operational police levels. This illustrates, vividly,

the need for major system-wide reform and integrity controls.

Criminal justice system reform must be a high priority, both for

Mexico’s antidrug efforts as well as for more meaningful bilateral

cooperation.

The organized crime bill must be implemented fully, with appropriate training provided to law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial personnel. Organized crime task forces have been established

but not fully funded or supported.

Personnel rotate too frequently. U.S. liaison personnel have not

been provided appropriate official status or adequate provisions for

self-defense, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman. This must be immediately addressed and resolved satisfactorily. Smooth integration of

the new military antidrug response teams into the existing interdiction framework and clear command-and-control structures must

be effected.

The United States Government is seeking to assist the Mexican

Government combat corruption through technical assistance and

training, particularly in developing trusted units and professional

responsibility. We are likewise working to help the Mexican Government recruit, train, and equip special investigative units which

can become trusted partners of United States law enforcement.

The United States welcomes the improvements in extradition of

fugitives, but there are still long backlogs of pending cases. We

would also like to see extradition of Mexican drug fugitives to

break the perception that they can act with impunity in Mexico

and evade justice through abuse of their citizenship.

There are still major gaps in Mexico’s interdiction program; specifically, to counter fast-moving cargo jets and maritime trafficking.

The existing air interdiction program suffers inadequate funding

7

and logistical support problems. Bilateral maritime cooperation has

been sporadic and needs to be improved.

There continues to be a problem of diversion or fraudulent prescription of pharmaceuticals such as Rohypnol, the so-called date

rape pill, in Mexico, despite United States Government efforts to

raise awareness of this problem.

To make its new money laundering legislation effective, the

Mexican Government needs to implement suspicious and currency

transaction reports with mandatory penalties, something we have

been promised.

While there has been progress in controlling precursor chemicals,

largely because of a concerted effort by the United States to raise

the Mexican Government’s awareness about the growing methamphetamine crisis in the United States, basic controls are needed

on the essential chemicals that are used to manufacture cocaine,

heroin, and other illicit drugs.

As I said earlier, the United States Government is prepared to

work forcefully with the Government of Mexico to assist in accomplishing these objectives. We, of course, need your support in providing the necessary resources and political support for our efforts,

and we welcome what you have done in this last year.

Thank you for your kind attention. I will be happy to take your

questions.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I appreciate your

thorough statement and certainly your hard work on this issue. We

will now move quickly through one round of questions because of

your time restraint, and I will begin.

First of all, in your statement, just listening to it, why isn’t adequate Mexican protection for our law enforcement personnel a condition of United States certification of Mexico? Maybe it is, but I

didn’t hear it in your statement.

Mr. GELBARD. Well, in fact, in my statement I didn’t get into the

issues we have discussed with Mexico regarding certification. But

the questions regarding immunities and the ability to use weapons

for American law enforcement officials who are working with Mexican counterparts is a fundamental priority for the United States

Government.

Last week, when Foreign Secretary Gurria was here in Washington, this was one of the very top issues then Acting Secretary

of State Tarnoff raised, and I think also was raised as one of the

fundamental issues by the Attorney General. So, we consider this

one of our very top priorities. We have been given assurances that

this will be resolved urgently, and we look forward to that.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Ambassador, in your opinion, is the United

States really and truly receiving full cooperation from the Mexican

police and military?

Mr. GELBARD. Mr. Chairman, one of the basic problems that I alluded to in my statement is that there is a serious problem that

Mexico recognizes, in terms of lack of institutional capabilities. I

feel we have strong cooperation from President Zedillo. The problem is the lack of strong capabilities on the part of Mexican law

enforcement. This is what needs to be resolved.

Mr. HASTERT. Let me ask you another issue on extradition. We

have seen over 150 extradition requests, and most of those are still

8

pending. Mexico has extradited only three nationals to the United

States, in 1996, I understand. Is that full cooperation, or what are

the problems involved in that situation?

Mr. GELBARD. In terms of detail, I will defer to my colleague, Ms.

Warren, from the Justice Department. But let me say, first, the

good news was that, for the first time in what I understand is history, Mexico did decide to extradite nationals last year. We are,

however, concerned, as I said, that first we have a long list of others, such as Amado Carrillo-Fuentes, whom we consider to be an

extremely high priority, who have not been extradited.

Second, we remain concerned that the condition of having people

extradited only under exceptional circumstances often means that

people who claim Mexican citizenship, real or otherwise, can escape

sentences commensurate with their crimes.

Mr. HASTERT. These are people who also hold American citizenship; right, in many cases?

Mr. GELBARD. In come cases. But in the case of Juan GarciaAbrego, who apparently did have dual citizenship, the Mexican

Government showed great and serious determination by expelling

him to the United States. He is, of course, one of the leading traffickers in the world.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Ambassador, I guess this is more a comment

than a question. We had very fine testimony on your behalf last

week when we looked at the Colombia situation. I, again, appreciate, with your tough schedule, your being here today. Can you

give us assurance that both those countries will be looked at in an

even-handed way? I think that’s one of the things that we’re concerned about.

Mr. GELBARD. Both of those countries are being looked at in an

even-handed way. There are serious ongoing discussions still being

held about all the certification issues. No decisions have yet been

made, but they are being looked at in an even-handed way, absolutely.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. I’m going to defer to the gentleman

who is the ranking member, Mr. Barrett from Wisconsin.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Ambassador, it’s good to see you back. I appreciate your taking the time. I realize it’s a very busy week for you. When we last

met, some 10 or 11 days ago, that was before the public revelation,

either to the American Government or to the American public,

about Gen. Gutierrez.

What has been our response to the delay, apparently an 11-day

delay between the time he was taken into incarceration and we

learned about it? Am I correct in my assumption that the State Department and the U.S. Government first learned about this some

11 days after his arrest?

Mr. GELBARD. That’s correct. The U.S. Government learned

about this last Tuesday. Actually, we learned about it initially from

press reports coming out of Mexico that were later confirmed by

the Mexican Government. The Mexican Government has told us

that, when they first began to suspect corrupt activity on Gen.

Gutierrez-Rebollo’s part, they wanted to maintain secrecy until

they were able to actually determine that it was true. So for that

reason, they decided to hold a confidential investigation.

9

Once they were able to determine that, indeed and very unfortunately, obviously, it was true, they did inform us in a variety of

ways at high levels.

Mr. BARRETT. During the period between which he was incarcerated and the period which we learned about his incarceration, was

there a continuing flow of information coming from the United

States to him or his office? Obviously, he was incarcerated, so he

wouldn’t get it directly, but to his office. I’m trying to measure the

damage that was done during that 10- or 11-day period.

Mr. GELBARD. I do not know.

Mr. BARRETT. In your view, was the failure or the lack of notification from the Mexican Government appropriate?

Mr. GELBARD. It’s a hard call on the part of the Mexican Government. I think they should be commended, obviously, for taking very

seriously the information that began to develop about his corruption, acting on it expeditiously, in spite of the fact that it was obviously a major embarrassment to them. The statement issued by

Secretary of Defense Cervantes was, I think, exemplary, in taking

responsibility for this and acting on it quickly.

It’s hard to second-guess their decision to act with some secrecy

because they acted effectively. What is clear is that now needs to

be an experience upon which to build. There has to be serious action by the Mexican Government in terms of examining, with extraordinary scrutiny, law enforcement officials: background checks,

financial background checks, perhaps even polygraphing people to

ascertain that the degree of corruption that we have seen, up to

and including Gen. Gutierrez-Rebollo and in the case of lots of

other people at lots of other levels, is not repeated and is avoided

in the future, and action is taken against them.

Mr. BARRETT. The irony here—and, again, I juxtapose this with

the hearing we had 10 days ago—on Colombia, it seems we have

a situation where the President or the executive branch is causing

us problems, but the military and the police seem to be more responsible. Mexico seems to be almost a mirror image of that, in

that we have full compliance, it appears, from the President, and

the problems are coming from the police, and that’s why they started moving to the military. Now it’s clear that there are some serious problems in the military.

In the scope of certification, do you think intent is more important, or do you think that the proof should be in the pudding?

Mr. GELBARD. Well, we are, obviously, very interested in both.

There has to be serious intent. The Mexican Government clearly

recognizes that they have a long way to go, in terms of developing

the institutional capabilities. The good news of this incident is that

they did take action, and they took action quickly.

In Colombia, I had to be the one to go to the Colombian Government and ask them to fire the commissioner of police 21⁄2 years

ago. I would welcome the idea of President Samper taking a polygraph exam.

It’s very clear that the Mexican Government has to take serious

action to examine law enforcement officials at all levels, examine

people who are taking positions of responsibility the way we do,

and really examine these very carefully, including such things, as

10

I say, financial checks and other kinds of background checks, and

even polygraphing.

Mr. BARRETT. I realize that the administration has not made a

determination on certification of Mexico, but it strikes me that the

certification or the lack of certification, but with a waiver, would

be a way for us to send a message to Mexico that we mean business. Again, I realize that we are getting cooperation from the

President there. I don’t know how else we can send the message,

though, to other public officials in Mexico that we are serious about

the drug problem.

I don’t know if you want to comment on that.

Mr. GELBARD. I would just say that we have seen, on this day

compared to this day a year ago, I think, some substantial and important changes in Mexico, in terms of them moving forward in cooperation with us. There clearly is a long, long way to go. This is

not something which is going to be resolved in a year or even 2

years. This is going to be something for the medium and the long

term. There clearly is a major corruption problem at all levels: Federal, State, and local.

We are seeing scandals that are opening up repeatedly at lots of

different levels and lots of different places. They need to be dealt

with for Mexico’s own national security. I think that’s basically

what it comes down to.

Mr. BARRETT. One final question: Do you think certification with

a waiver for national interest would ignite American businesses to

be more interested in this issue?

Mr. GELBARD. I really, if you will excuse me, would rather not

talk about certification, even hypothetically, at this point.

Mr. BARRETT. All right.

Mr. GELBARD. Thank you, sir.

Mr. BARRETT. I have no further questions.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman. I now turn to the vice

chairman, from Indiana, Mr. Souder.

Mr. SOUDER. Hi, how are you again? I appreciate your coming

back today. I’ve got a couple of concerns I wanted to express right

off the top. One is that I understand it’s difficult. Anybody who has

at all looked at this issue in trying to clean up a long past history—when we visited Mexico and had the chance to talk with

President Zedillo and their Congress and others—it’s clear, at least

from what you can tell from the superficial personal relationships,

that there is a deep commitment to try to do this.

The problem is that we keep hearing, ‘‘It’s coming. It’s coming,’’

and it’s like a constant back to the future again. Ultimately, at

some point, we have to measure by the actions in front of us. This

is a little bit like your spouse—you said earlier that, well, at least

they have been very honest, and they have cleaned house. It’s a little bit like your spouse coming to you and saying that they were

actually married to someone else earlier before they married you,

and you are proud or pleased that they were honest enough to tell

you that, but the fact is still the fact.

The drug czar, or the equivalent of their DEA, was on the payroll

of the cartel. Now, one of the things—I have just finished reading

the book, ‘‘Bordering on Chaos,’’ which is a—as many books have—

11

have a lot of different controversial things in them, and may have

different parts of it—in its veracity.

But I was very intrigued in one political section, because one of

the things that is very critical in this whole debate is, it’s clear that

the Colombian police are going after and are dying fighting narcotics, but we have questions about the President. In Mexico, we

have questions about the police, but believe that the President and

certain leaders are trying to clean it up, although we have seen the

problem of Clausio getting killed, of multiple murders, of now the

drug czar.

In that book, as a politician, what was very intriguing to me was

the process that Zedillo, at least in this book, was claimed to have

been nominated, and the key person was the Governor, Sonora

Beltrones, and that it talked about his closeness to President

Zedillo, and how he had maneuvered to use the Clausio tape to see

that Zedillo was nominated.

Now, I don’t know whether that’s all true, but it is especially interesting since Sunday we saw pictures and stories, and again

today, from the New York Times, calling into question, which is denied by the Governor, that he has been investigated, as well. The

President of Mexico has said there is no ongoing investigation of

any Governors.

When we met with the President directly, what he told us—and

as a Reagan conservative I found this comforting—that he wanted

to delegate more authority to the Governors and wanted to decentralize power, but that that was complicating things in the drug

issue.

Now, I’m not saying—because I take President Zedillo at his

word—but if this person is indeed—if he’s trying to transfer power

to the Governors, if this person has been critical in his support, if

people in his administration are having problems, at what point do

we say that there is a problem in the Government of Mexico, in addition to their police force, and why aren’t they willing to investigate some of the people in their government itself, such as the

Governors of Mexico? Is it political? Have you asked them that

question? Where do you see this heading?

Because, at some point, we have to not just—because I, personally, from talking to him, have no reason to believe President

Zedillo isn’t completely honest with us, but that’s what we heard

about the drug czar, too. Are you asking them these questions? Do

you want them to pursue additional investigations of their Governors? Are you pushing them, or are you just making public statements that you hope he’s above all this?

Mr. GELBARD. We have raised concerns about individuals with

the Government of Mexico over time. There are individuals about

whom we have been very concerned, deeply concerned, and we have

passed on to senior government officials of Mexico their names.

Under certain circumstances, it’s certainly possible to share information with them. We have concerns about Governor Beltrones,

and we are studying that—we are continuing to study that.

We do try, whether it’s Mexico or Colombia or other countries,

when we have knowledge or strong reason to believe that individuals have been or are involved in drug trafficking, we have a numVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
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ber of ways to try to convey that information, to try to convey our

knowledge. We continue to do that.

Mr. SOUDER. Does it concern you that the President says he

won’t investigate the two Governors or that the Governors aren’t

under investigation?

Mr. GELBARD. Well, I would be concerned under any circumstances when anybody says they are not interested in knowing

information, but I think it’s important to ultimately see what information can be conveyed.

Mr. SOUDER. Because it’s politically very explosive where the

Governors of the territories are often heads of the party in those

areas, and at the same time, the criteria for the differentiation of

Mexico and Colombia has been that we trust the government. We

should be, at the very least, pressing that government as hard as

we can, if that’s the criteria, because one of the questions is, would

the Mexican Government be willing to submit their highest officials

to vetting?

If that’s the premise, and that’s what you’ve leaned on in both

these hearings, that Samper and the government can’t be as trusted—I mean, we can get into the police question, but we have a fundamental differential being based on whether we trust the government right now.

Mr. GELBARD. No, actually, we have serious suspicions or actual

knowledge of corruption about a lot of officials in the Colombian

Government, too, and we try to deal with it in relatively similar

ways. Our interest is ultimately effectiveness. We are deeply worried about corruption at senior levels, as you are, Congressman.

The issue is, the ultimate question, in my mind, is: How do we get

the kinds of results to try to assure that there will be effective rule

of law and action resulting in the kinds of results that Mexico

needs and that we need?

Mr. SOUDER. Understanding the difficulty with immigration and

trade questions, is there nothing short of decertification to send an

even stronger signal to Mexico?

Mr. GELBARD. I’m not quite sure what you have in mind.

Mr. SOUDER. In other words, is there something short—in standards and conditions that we can put on this process—is the administration looking at things short of just either certifying or decertifying?

Mr. GELBARD. Once again, I really, if you will excuse me, I really

don’t want to get into any hypothetical issues about certification.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. It may not be completely hypothetical very

soon. Thank you.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you. At this time we turn to one of our new

Members, Mr. Turner.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One question that I had come to my mind was to inquire as to

what degree our drug war intelligence has been compromised by

virtue of what we have discovered about Gen. Gutierrez. Obviously,

he had been in the job only a short period of time, but I gather

that, in his position, he received briefings and had conferences with

folks on our side of the table about joint efforts to combat drugs.

It would seem that the potential exists, not only for our entire

drug war strategy to have been revealed to those that we would

13

find it most abhorrent to have such disclosed to, but that it also

could have endangered some lives of those who fight the war

against drugs on our side. To what degree do you consider that a

breach of our national security?

Mr. GELBARD. We are very worried about it, for precisely the reasons you cited, Congressman. The administration is conducting an

assessment of that right now, which I hope will be concluded shortly. I think that you might want to raise this with my friend Tom

Constantine, the Administrator of the DEA when he testifies. This

is something that we are examining with great seriousness right

now, between the law enforcement community and the intelligence

community.

Mr. TURNER. Does it not seem that, in light of the potential

threat to actual life that may have occurred, by virtue of the disclosures that may have been made to Gen. Gutierrez, that it would

prompt us to deal perhaps much more firmly with the Mexican

Government in such a circumstance than perhaps we otherwise

would?

Mr. GELBARD. Yes. Obviously, when we see compromise of sensitive information, if indeed such information was passed on to him

or any of his other colleagues, as I have to imagine it was, then

we are seriously concerned, because there is the potential for endangering American lives. As you may be aware, one American

DEA agent was tortured and murdered in Mexico several years

ago.

What it means is we have to be even more careful about the information we pass, how we pass it, who the recipients are, and

under what circumstances they are operating. This is exactly the

reason why we feel it’s so important to be assured, on a continuing

basis, that the counterparts that we work with and with whom we

want to work show the highest integrity in their performance.

Mr. TURNER. I would like to request, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of

myself—and I hope the committee would request—that once the report is concluded regarding the full ramifications of the Gutierrez

situation, that this committee would be advised regarding the findings of your report, Mr. Ambassador.

Mr. GELBARD. We would be happy to share that with you, sir.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. The gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Schiff.

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I first

want to say, as a representative from a Southwestern State, I especially appreciate your holding this hearing.

Let me say, Mr. Ambassador, I want to say up front that I believe I am a strong proponent of strong ties between the United

States and Mexico—for that matter, the United States and Canada,

in particular. Because I believe that, as our closest neighbors, anything that affects these two countries will ultimately and inevitably

affect the United States.

For that reason, I voted for NAFTA, because I think we need to

look at global competition on a global basis. I see the future world

economy based upon regional cooperation in competition with other

regions. More particularly, I supported the President’s decision to

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valuation crisis, because I think economic turmoil in that country,

again, ultimately will affect this country.

I am very proud of that support of Mexico as, again, along with

Canada, our closest neighbors. However, I have always felt that

that cooperation should be seen as a two-way obligation. In other

words, it seems to me that for all the reasons I think the United

States should have close cooperation with Mexico, Mexico should

see itself desiring close cooperation with the United States. I don’t

know that, in all cases, I’ve seen that.

The example we’re talking about now, of course, is the flow of

narcotics. I want to begin with the subject that my colleague, Mr.

Souder, brought up during his questioning.

We have been promised by the Mexican Government, over a

number of administrations, over a number of years, back, certainly,

well before I got to Congress, that there would be improvements in

eradicating corruption in the law enforcement apparatus in Mexico.

No country is free of corruption, but there has been a longstanding

concession that theirs is a very significant problem—and yet we

seem to be getting these promises, and I’m not sure what we’re getting in the way of action.

I think the question is, is Mexico really making progress in terms

of assisting this country in the fight against drugs, given the percentage of drugs that illegally seem to get across our border from

originations in Mexico? I would like you to respond to that, if you

would.

Mr. GELBARD. I fully agree with you that this has to be a twoway street in all aspects of the relationship. We benefit from trade

with Mexico through NAFTA, and so do they. Obviously, it is critical to have the closest possible ties. It is for that reason that I

fully agree with you, too, that the relationship on counternarcotics

has to be a two-way street and has to be the most fluid two-way

street possible.

I think part of the problem you have identified is the problem of

attacking corruption in a serious way, and aligned with that is the

issue of building institutional capabilities so that there are strong

mechanisms to deal with this problem.

The corruption problem has existed in Mexico for a long time. It’s

not just narcotics-related; it’s in other areas, too. I don’t consider

myself naive; I don’t think anybody does. I think President Zedillo

is serious in trying to attack this problem. That’s why he was willing to take the very, very hard decision to publicly remove Gen.

Gutierrez-Rebollo and a lot of his associates. That’s a tough decision in any country.

Trying to develop these institutions in a serious way is also very

tough. We are frustrated. You are absolutely right, we are frustrated by the slowness with which this is developing. Meanwhile,

there has been some good news last year that I mentioned in my

statement. We have seen progress, but all these things take a while

to develop.

Obviously, it is immensely frustrating, because we see corruption

happening on a regular basis, on a frequent basis. My colleagues

in the law enforcement community probably see it even more frequently than I. So we’ve got to have a more fluid two-way mechaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
15

nism. I think the establishment of this high-level contact group has

helped somewhat, but we’ve clearly got to have more.

It’s not just us, though. It’s got to be Mexico that needs it, too,

precisely because President Zedillo himself has identified this as

their No. 1 national security problem and something that really is

hurting Mexico dramatically.

Mr. SCHIFF. How do you explain the fact that Gen. GutierrezRebollo was able to function for so long and at an increasingly

higher and higher level in the Mexican Army, and then get the appointment to be their equivalent of our drug czar position? There

wasn’t an inkling of suspicion on the part of Mexican authorities

that occurred that might have caused someone to think twice before making this appointment?

Mr. GELBARD. Obviously, I can’t explain it, and I won’t explain

it. I would point out, we didn’t do such a great job with Aldrich

Ames and some recent other people, either.

But this is something that, obviously, is part of what I mentioned

before, in terms of the need to have much more scrupulous attention paid, as part of this institution-building, in terms of background checks, in terms of internal affairs units which investigate

people on an ongoing basis, in terms of financial disclosure statements. Maybe people won’t reveal all their wealth, but it might

have come out that he was living in an awfully nice house, perhaps

beyond his means.

There needs to be better mechanisms built in. When we do police

training, we try to build in, as an intrinsic element, the idea of internal affairs units to investigate corruption. The very people who

are in those internal affairs units are polygraphed on a continuing

basis. This is the kind of thing, among the many kinds of things,

that clearly needs to be done on an urgent basis in Mexico.

Mr. SCHIFF. One last question: To the best of your knowledge,

did our Government have any suspicions, serious suspicions, about

Gen. Gutierrez-Rebollo? I am obviously referring to the fact that

Gen. McCaffrey, our own drug czar, was rather lavish in his praise

for the General, which, of course, created an embarrassment for

our Government, as well, when these facts came out. Did we have

any forewarning that there could be a problem here?

Mr. GELBARD. I can’t speak to other agencies. I certainly did not,

and I don’t believe the State Department did. Obviously, Gen.

McCaffrey didn’t. I am reading now in the press that there were

some concerns in some agencies. We certainly hadn’t heard it.

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico.

Mr. Ambassador, I just want to ask you one quick question before I yield to my colleague on the other side.

You, in fact, last year, stepped back from some of the hands-on

policy development; is that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. I’m not sure I know what you mean.

Mr. HASTERT. Were you as intense this year in working on Mexican policy as you were in years past?

Mr. GELBARD. I personally?

Mr. HASTERT. Yes.

16

Mr. GELBARD. Yes, I’ve been very involved. With Gen.

McCaffrey’s designation as the Director of National Drug Control

Policy, he decided that, because Mexico was the fundamental concern, he would take the lead on these issues, and I and my staff

have worked very closely to support him.

Mr. HASTERT. So a lot of the briefings that went on didn’t necessarily come out of your office, what may have been disbursed and

shared with other offices, that responsibility?

Mr. GELBARD. That’s correct.

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you.

The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Blagojevich. Is he here? I’m

sorry.

From Florida, Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Bob, I’m a little bit dismayed by really our lack of intelligence

regarding the Gutierrez problem. Mr. Schiff spoke about it, but we

had our drug czar saying, when Gutierrez was named the head of

the National Institute to Combat Drugs in Mexico, our drug czar

said, he is, ‘‘. . . a guy of absolute, unquestioned integrity.’’ At a press conference January 29, just less than a month ago,

our drug czar was lauding the integrity of Gen. Gutierrez as ‘‘an

honest man and a no-nonsense field commander.’’ I’m really wondering what’s going on with U.S. intelligence, both the information

that you have at the State Department and information that is provided to our agencies. Do you think we’re up to snuff? Do you think

we’re doing what we should be doing to know who’s doing what in

this arena?

Mr. GELBARD. Well, obviously, we wish we had known more. If

there was information, obviously, Gen. McCaffrey and I both wish

we had known it. I had a brief encounter with the new attorney

general of Mexico at the time of his visit and with Gen. GutierrezRebollo.

Mr. MICA. That was my next question. Did you meet with

Gutierrez?

Mr. GELBARD. My principal deputy and I had a working breakfast with them, and I pointed out to Attorney General Madrazo

that he was the sixth attorney general I’ve worked with in 5 years.

I pointed out to Gen. Gutierrez that he was the seventh drug czar

I’ve worked with in 5 years, and I said I really hoped there would

be some continuity. I guess there wasn’t.

Mr. MICA. Well, my next question would be, you met with

Gutierrez, and you said it was a working breakfast; I’m curious as

to how much Gutierrez knew about our national drug strategy and

policy, both from the information you provided him or our other

folks.

Mr. GELBARD. In the discussion I had with Attorney General

Madrazo and Gen. Gutierrez and a number of other people, there

was nothing sensitive discussed at all. The circumstances were not

appropriate.

Mr. MICA. Are you aware of his being provided confidential briefings?

Mr. GELBARD. I don’t have first-hand knowledge of that. I’ve

heard that he was provided with some classified information. But

as I said to Congressman Turner, what’s happening now is that

17

there is an assessment being made, and we are looking at this. The

State Department never briefed him during his visit. We never provided him with any confidential information.

Mr. MICA. You’re not aware of other confidential briefings at this

point? What disturbs me even more is, Mexican officials say that

the relationship between Gutierrez and Fuentes, reputed to be

Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, dated back as far as 7 years, and

yet your agency knew nothing about the problems with Gutierrez;

is that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. That’s right. We don’t collect intelligence, as you

know, Congressman.

Mr. MICA. Well, I’m also becoming a little bit concerned. Last

hearing, on the 14th I think it was, we heard that there were only

two honest people left in Colombia. Today, I’m beginning to think

there’s only one honest individual left in Mexico, the President,

that we can trust, as far as leaders. Is this a false impression?

Mr. GELBARD. Yes, I think on both counts. Obviously, on Colombia, we tend to talk about Prosecutor General Valdivieso and Gen.

Serrano, because they are principal points of contact in terms of operations.

Mr. MICA. Well, who can we trust in Mexico besides Zedillo?

Mr. GELBARD. There are a substantial number of people in whom

we have confidence in Mexico.

Mr. MICA. It’s my understanding that last week they moved the

military into the Southwest Border of the United States in Mexico,

and they are going to now replace those Mexican drug agents; is

that correct?

Mr. GELBARD. Let me answer your previous question. We believe

that President Zedillo is trying to put serious, honest people in the

government. He’s trying to show effectiveness, and we saw some of

those results last year. It’s not easy for him, particularly because

of the lack of background information and the ability to develop

this, but there are serious, dedicated people in Mexico, without any

question.

In terms of the army being deployed for counternarcotics operations, on the one hand, this is being done because of a lack of confidence, to a certain degree, in the police. There’s no question about

that, and that’s what they have said. On the other hand, there

have been such efforts before, and some of these efforts have

worked, but others have failed because of corruption.

For example, I am aware of one such effort in Chihuahua within

the last couple of years that did not work, and there have been others, too.

Mr. MICA. Well, we get into the Chihuahua situation. We also get

into the use of U.S. assistance against domestic opposition.

Mr. GELBARD. Let me just finish. This is exactly why we think

it is critical for the Mexican Government to develop the kinds of

clear, trustworthy units, in which they feel confident and in which

we feel confident, to carry out operations on a successful basis.

Mr. MICA. I hope it’s not being done, just a week before the certification process, as show.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

18

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Ambassador, before I move on to our next

query, I have to step away for a minute. I want to personally thank

you for being here and for taking time to do this.

Now I would like to ask the gentleman from Ohio, Mr.

LaTourette.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you again, Mr. Ambassador, for being here. I think the

last time we saw you was on Valentine’s Day, and I would have

preferred to have seen my wife, but it’s nice to see you again in

another hearing.

I want to followup a little bit on some of the questions that Mr.

Mica, and Mr. Turner, and also Mr. Barrett were exploring. My

recollection from the Valentine’s Day hearing, in response to some

questions that I had asked you about President Samper of Colombia, was that part of our general disgust with that administration

had to do with not only the allegations that he had received $6 million, allegedly, in campaign contributions from narco traffickers,

but I think you indicated to the panel at that hearing that there

was a longstanding history that dated back many, many years that

could be documented.

Mr. Mica was just talking to you in that same vein about Gen.

Gutierrez, and there have been accounts that—and actually, if you

play out the scenario, it would be highly unlikely that a fellow who

is only 10 weeks new on the job, all of a sudden, has developed a

relationship that would land him in a new apartment and the ability to live above his means. So it makes sense that the hints that

there is, in fact, a 7-year relationship, I suppose, that more likely

than not would exist.

Mr. Mica was exploring with you the fact that, you know, what

did we know here in the United States or what did we not know

here in the United States. When you were talking to Mr. Barrett

and Mr. Turner, it was on the issue of whether or not there was

a flow of information and, as I understood, even though I stepped

out of the room when you were talking to Mr. Turner, that there

is an investigation ongoing as to what information may have been

sent to Gen. Gutierrez and his associates.

Is the administration likewise conducting an investigation or an

analysis of whether or not different branches of our government

should be talking to each other? For instance, should Justice—have

you made any inquiry as to whether or not Justice had any information about Gen. Gutierrez prior to this recent event in February?

Mr. GELBARD. Certainly, we are looking into the question of

whether and which agencies did have information, any information

about him, and obviously, if so, why we didn’t know about it. We

have normally had a very good relationship with agencies about

trying to determine when there are individuals about whom there

is suspicion, and that has enabled us, I think, to act usually pretty

effectively. So if there was any information and policymakers didn’t

get it, obviously, that’s a subject of great concern.

Mr. LATOURETTE. The thing that struck me in your prepared testimony, you made the observation that Gen. Gutierrez’ arrest and

sort of defrocking belied earlier assumptions that the corruption

was limited to the police. I assume that this series of activities now

19

indicates that the military, which was considered to be more trustworthy than the national police, is now called into suspicion, as

well.

Who, in the administration, is going to be charged with that sort

of coordination of interagency intelligence gathering? Has someone

been assigned to that task, or is it sort of an ad hoc enterprise?

Mr. GELBARD. I think this is basically under Gen. McCaffrey, in

the sense that he has responsibility for coordination of the national

drug control policy.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Just one last question because I know you

have a busy schedule today. When the chairman began the hearing, he expressed a concern and a question that Colombia and Mexico be treated in an even-handed manner during the certification

or recertification process. Your response was that they are. You

also indicated a hesitancy to talk about the certification process.

I think what leads some Members on this panel to be somewhat

nervous is, there have been some accounts in the newspaper that,

after the Gutierrez affair, if we can call it that—we won’t call it

Gutierrez Gate, I guess—broke in the papers, that this situation

will not impact upon the administration’s decision on certification.

There are other accounts that with Colombia and Mexico, Mexico

is somehow different because Mexico is such an important trading

partner with this country, whereas Colombia is not.

None of them are attributed to you, obviously, because I don’t assume you feel that way. Can you give us the administration’s assurance, or at least the State Department’s assurance, that those

types of considerations are not taking place in the certification

process?

Mr. GELBARD. First of all, I am always surprised by accounts in

the press which come about this time of year and are coming out

now, alleging that decisions have been made one way or another

about any country. I will be categorical, as far as I am aware, no

decisions have been made about Colombia, Mexico, or any other

countries. I think I have reason to be knowledgeable about this.

The Secretary of State is just returning from her trip this afternoon, and we haven’t met with her yet about it. There have been

no discussions between the President’s Cabinet and the key Cabinet members about this. The Secretary’s recommendations, which

are what are called for under the law, have not been forwarded to

the President yet. So I can assure you that those accounts are not

accurate.

Mr. LATOURETTE. Just an observation, as my yellow light goes on

is, I had the opportunity to see the Secretary on television over the

weekend, from overseas, and I found her comments regarding this

situation of waiting to see when she got home, to take a look at

all of the developments, to be highly commendable, and I commend

her for them.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and yield back.

Mr. SOUDER [presiding]. Thank you.

I now yield to my friend from Georgia, Mr. Barr, former U.S. attorney from Georgia.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador, I certainly understand that there are some delicate

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derstand that you have to be very careful about what you say, but

I am absolutely baffled by some of the things I’m hearing today.

You say that our Government has the highest level of confidence

in Zedillo. I’d hate to see a leader that we don’t have the highest

level of confidence in. You said that the United States is prepared

to work forcefully with Mexico, yet you won’t make any statements

at all, even hinting at doing anything tough with them. You say

that now we’re really going to tighten up. You mentioned

polygraphing the Generals. Good luck. I don’t consider that even

realistic to talk about that.

You started to make a statement, and I’m not quite sure whether

you finished it or not, I hope you didn’t, to the effect that we don’t

collect intelligence on these things, in response, I think, to either

a statement or a question from another Member about why we

were caught absolutely flat-footed here. I know we collect intelligence on these matters.

Mr. GELBARD. I don’t believe I said that.

Mr. BARR. You then said there have been no discussions in our

Cabinet about this. I read press reports that not only is—I mean,

our Government seems to be essentially unconcerned about this,

and I mean, there are apparently no plans to decertify Mexico. Not

only that, but I’m hearing press reports today that the administration wants to move the process forward, for what purpose I don’t

know.

But can’t you at least state that the most prudent thing to do at

this point would be not accelerate the process of making a determination on the certification? Would you at least be prepared to

state that?

Mr. GELBARD. The President is required by law to make a determination on certification by this Saturday.

Mr. BARR. Right. But I’m hearing press accounts—and I’d like

you to, hopefully, state that they are absolutely, categorically

wrong, that the President is considering accelerating that, so that

the decision is made even before that time.

Mr. GELBARD. I haven’t heard any of those press accounts, and

I don’t know where they come from.

Mr. BARR. Are they wrong?

Mr. GELBARD. I have no idea what is being discussed in the

press.

Mr. BARR. Let’s just say, hypothetically, if there were press accounts.

Mr. GELBARD. These are issues which are being examined and

discussed with the utmost seriousness, which is what they merit.

The issue of certification, for any country that’s on the majors list

that was sent to the Congress by the President, is being examined

with great care and great examination. I’m not responsible for

things that come out in the press, nor would you want to be, Congressman, but I can only assure you.

Mr. BARR. But if I’m misquoted in the press, I’ll at least say it’s

wrong. Can’t you at least say that that’s wrong?

Mr. GELBARD. I wasn’t quoted in the press saying that either. I

can only assure you that the relevant members of the administration are looking at these issues intensively. This is why I asked to

be excused from this hearing, because we are deeply involved, not

21

just within the State Department, but within all parts of the Government that have responsibilities on these issues.

When I talked about the Cabinet, what I meant was that there

has been no formal discussion yet among Cabinet members with

the President, of which I’m aware, to make final decisions. But

there are detailed, comprehensive discussions going on, on a continuing basis. I will be going back to some this afternoon. I have

been involved in some this morning, as I was yesterday and the

day before that. So this is going on in a very, very serious way.

As I said on the date of the previous hearing, it’s only been with

this administration that certification has been taken really seriously. When I took over my responsibilities, my feeling was, this

is the law of the land, and therefore I was going to handle this as

a very, very serious issue.

We wouldn’t be even having these discussions, probably, if I, supported by then Secretary of State Christopher, Attorney General

Reno, and most importantly, President Clinton, had not taken the

fundamental decision to handle the certification issues as serious,

critical issues. We feel that they have played a very useful role in

policy.

If you look back on the history.

Mr. BARR. I’m not interested.

Mr. GELBARD. If I can just finish my statement, please.

Mr. BARR. Hold on just a second, please. I mean, I’m not interested in saying the last administration didn’t do anything on drugs,

and this is the only administration that has. That’s not the point.

It’s not the case, either.

Mr. GELBARD. That isn’t what I said.

Mr. BARR. Well, you know, let’s stay away from the political rhetoric. What I’m trying to get at is, how we can look at the situation

in Mexico and reach anything but one of two conclusions, both of

which impact, I would think, seriously on the certification decisionmaking.

Those two conclusions—and I think they are the only two that

can be reached—are, one, either Zedillo is not a knight in shining

armor and not the most trustworthy man on the face of the earth,

or second, he may be very honest, but he has absolutely no knowledge of or control over what’s happening in his government.

Where you have an individual such as Gen. Gutierrez, he’s not

a mid-level functionary; he’s not a petty bureaucrat; he is the top

person. He is more important than Gen. McCaffrey. I mean, he is

not only the policymaker, in a sense, but the executor of that policy. There is no more important person in their government, if they

are, indeed, going to have an effective antinarcotics operation.

Yet we have this person in the government apparently on the

take for quite some period of time, and the President either didn’t

know about it until just a few days ago, which raises a serious

question in my mind, as I said, about whether or not he is in control of his government, even assuming he is honest. Second, he may

not be as honest as we’re talking about here. I mean, we’ve been

fooled before. Gen. Gutierrez certainly fooled the top people in our

Government.

Mr. GELBARD. I have every reason to believe that President

Zedillo had no knowledge that this man was corrupt. What he deVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
22

cided to do when they began to have suspicions of his corruption

was that he ordered an investigation; he ordered the man taken

into custody, through Secretary of Defense Cervantes; he acted

quickly until he got a confession; and he then incarcerated the man

pending trial, as he has now done with others; and there is an ongoing investigation taking place.

I think you, particularly, would understand, as a former prosecutor, that the need to act swiftly and in secrecy worked here. The

tragedy, of course, is the person who they appointed. But I have

no reason to believe that he had any knowledge of this. If he had,

then the question would be, why did he take such action, as he

swiftly did?

Mr. BARR. Well, if he is honest, and let’s assume, hypothetically,

that what you’re saying is correct, then do we have here a very

honest government that is not in control of its government?

Mr. GELBARD. We have a government, as I have said repeatedly

today, that is clearly aware of the need to try to build institutional

capabilities, because they know they don’t have them right now,

and they know they have a serious corruption problem that they

are beginning to deal with.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you for your questions, Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. We are going to have one additional question from

Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Gilman, who is chairman of another full committee, as you well know, isn’t able to ask this question, a question that I also share with him, relating to the February 14 hearing on drug policy, in which you participated. You

twice answered, in response to questions, that there had, in fact,

been no impact from decertification on the Colombian National Police.

The question that we have is, how could you make that statement with a couple of things that had happened? First of all, there

was a DC–3 that was not repaired for, I think it was, months—it

may have been as many as 6 months—while the administration

was trying to decide whether or not they could repair the plane

under FMS. That’s the first part of the question.

The second part of the question is, I have a list that was provided me from the Colombian National Police Force, and it’s of

equipment that reputedly was not provided or stopped, per decertification, to the Colombian National Police Force. Just a few of

these—and I’ll give you the whole list—it’s ammo, machine guns,

air refueling equipment, aircraft armor installation team.

Without objection, I would like these entered in the record.

Mr. BARRETT. May I see a copy of those, please, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. MICA. Basically, how?

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, I will object until we see a copy.

If I could see a copy, please.

Mr. MICA. OK. I’ll be glad to give it to you.

Basically, Mr. Gelbard, how can you say that there was no impact from decertification to the Colombian National Police Force,

with this information that has been provided to us?

Mr. GELBARD. What I did say during the hearing—and I, of

course, welcome the fact that we have parallelism now, a lot of disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
23

cussion on Mexico in the Colombia hearing, and now a lot of discussion on Colombia in a Mexico hearing—I did say, at the time, that

the way the certification law was written excluded, according to all

legal authorities in the executive branch, the ability to provide

FMF and FMS assistance, and the administration is examining the

idea of using a 614 waiver to provide the assistance. I was very

clearly on the record about that.

That being said, just because there are things that the Colombian police may feel are among their needs does not mean that we,

necessarily, can provide them through assistance, based on off-theshelf or inventory availability. Some of these things are based on

equipment that the U.S. military has, without degrading readiness,

and other things we just simply can’t provide.

Mr. MICA. Well, Mr. Chairman, the statement that was made on

page 20 is, ‘‘The decision to decertify did not in any way affect the

support provided to the police.’’ Those are your exact words. We

have this information of material that was not provided or equipment that was, in fact, delayed. It doesn’t appear to jibe.

Is there any objection to including that list of material into the

record?

Mr. BARRETT. We’re having a photocopy made to look at it. Before we are done, I will resolve it one way or another.

Mr. MICA. All right. Mr. Chairman, then, at the appropriate

time, I would ask that, if there is no objection, that be made part

of the record. Thank you, and I yield back.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for coming.

I know this is your favorite time of year, and I appreciate your

sharing it with us. Once again, we appreciate the time you spent

with the committee.

Did you have any additional questions?

Mr. BARRETT. Again, thank you, Ambassador. Good luck with

your decisions.

Mr. SOUDER. Will the second panel please come forward?

While we are welcoming our second panel, the gentleman from

Wisconsin has a point of order he would like to raise.

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order. Let me say

at the outset that I plan to withdraw this point of order. Let me

further state to Mr. Castaneda and Representative Bonilla that I

am simply making a parliamentary point, so please don’t take it

personally.

Mr. Chairman, we were informed only last night at 5:30 about

the appearance today of Mr. Castaneda. As I’m sure you know,

committee rules require members to be notified 3 days in advance

of hearing of any witness that might be present. If you would like

to make changes to the witness list within 3 days of a hearing, I

would appreciate your contacting the minority directly, as soon as

you are aware of any changes.

I withdraw my point of order.

Mr. SOUDER. We will definitely take what you said under advisement. There was a problem getting logistics organized, and that’s

why you were told that he may be, but it was only confirmed at

the end. We also have had, in this story, a lot of things breaking.

In the past history of this committee, and we will continue to try

to do that, we have tried to work very closely with the minority,

24

because it’s important we approach the drug issue in a bipartisan

way.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you for your concern.

I would now like to welcome our second panel. We are fortunate

to have our distinguished colleague, Congressman Henry Bonilla,

from the San Antonio area.

Welcome.

Congressman Bonilla represents the 23d District, from the State

of Texas. That includes El Paso, Eagle Pass, and Del Rio townships.

Congressman Bonilla, we thank you for taking the time to be

with us.

Also, we have Tony Castaneda with us here today. Chief

Castaneda is the chief of police in Eagle Pass, TX. He is here today

to give us a picture of the front line in the drug war along the border.

We thank you for taking time to come up to be with us today and

to share your grassroots wisdom on what’s happening in your

hometowns.

Mr. Bonilla.

STATEMENTS OF HON. HENRY BONILLA, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS; AND TONY

CASTANEDA, CHIEF OF POLICE, EAGLE PASS, TX

Mr. BONILLA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

You are correct, the only reason we did not let the committee

know a little earlier about Chief Castaneda’s visit here is because

the logistics were being worked out, and we informed the committee just as soon as we knew he was going to definitely appear.

We appreciate the indulgence.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad he is here today, because, as soon as

I make some brief remarks, he is going to let us know, first-hand,

what it’s like on the front lines at the Mexican border. The chief

sees first-hand the smugglers coming across the border, armed, arrogant, fearless, understanding that it’s almost an open-door policy

because of the lack of Border Patrol and Customs agents to police

such a large square-mile area. That’s something that we’re here to

discuss in detail here today.

Mr. Chairman, once again, I salute you for focusing attention on

a problem, for those of us living along the border, that we’ve had

to live with for far too long. We, on the border, have been on the

front lines of this battle against drugs for years, and we welcome

your help and the help of anyone in this country who can help us

fight off the invasion of drug smugglers along the Mexican border.

The Rio Grande is the lifeblood of the region, not a barrier dividing it. Mexico is our neighbor. It is often said that you can choose

your friends, but you can’t choose your neighbors. You have to live

with each other, and I am committed to supporting policies that ensure that we continue to live together as friends, Mexico and the

United States.

We can’t pretend Mexico’s problems will not affect us. Mexico is

a nation in crisis. Its institutions are under strain. Mexicans have

25

seen their economy offer the promise of a better life, only to see

this dream dashed by economic setbacks time and time again.

Mexico’s middle class is increasingly impatient with the failings

of a one-party State and generations of corruption. A genuine

multiparty system is beginning to take hold. Not surprisingly,

these revolutionary changes, the hope they embody and the abandonment of old uncertainties which have accompanied their rise,

will shape the face of Mexico’s future. That future will have a great

impact on our future along the border and throughout the United

States.

The drug barons have moved into this power vacuum, Mr. Chairman. Our Nation’s immense demand for drugs has made them billions of dollars, and they are using these resources to further

spread their scourge. To win this battle, we must wage a battle on

two fronts, against both supply and demand for drugs.

Drug use is a threat to our children’s future. The drug lords’ profits have given them the resources to capitalize on Mexico’s economic stress and tradition of political enrichment to buy themselves a base of operations. The difficulty in combating this onslaught is immense and need not be minimized. Our national interest demands that we assist in this effort. However, that is easier

said than done, as there are few certainties concerning this problem.

The people who live in my district are on the front lines of this

conflict. Drug trafficking is threatening their lives. Ranchers and

farmers live in fear as armed smugglers cut down their fences and

pass right outside their homes, brazen, even when people are out

in the backyard and children are playing nearby. Many feel pressured to sell property to the smugglers.

One of my constituents, a ranch hand, reported witnessing armed

guards standing watch over a large quantity of marijuana, awaiting its pickup by U.S. drug dealers. My colleagues, this is not an

acceptable environment for Americans, and we are talking about

America. No American citizen should have to live under this

threat.

Unfortunately, the administration has taken actions which have

exacerbated the problems my constituents face. Less than 100 of

the 1,000 new agents joining the Border Patrol have been assigned

to this region covering over 600 miles of the Texas-Mexico border.

This region has fewer resources to stop the smugglers than others.

Actions speak louder than words. The drug lords understand the

administration’s message. The message is, ‘‘Go right ahead and

smuggle along the Texas border. There are fewer resources here to

stop you, so why not come on in.’’ The Clinton administration needs

to change its tune. The good people of Eagle Pass and other border

communities deserve no less. I would appreciate the committee’s

help in working to direct resources where they are needed, as opposed to where they are politically beneficial.

The situation in Mexico is grave. In recent days and at this hearing today, we’ve seen Mexico’s drug czar, Gen. Jesus GutierrezRebollo arrested for being in the pocket of the Juarez Cartel. This

has followed months of investigations linking high-ranking members of the Salinas government and family to the drug cartels. Just

yesterday, serious allegations were made regarding the Governors

26

of Sonora and Morelos. All this information appears to paint a very

gloomy situation in Mexico.

In fact, there is some very good news in this bad news. The good

news is that the truth is finally coming out. Corruption is being exposed and justice is being served. Let us not ignore this progress

as we recognize the massive scope of the drug problem.

My colleagues, America has faced more difficult challenges and

triumphed in the past. I know that we can defeat the drug scourge

and build a better future on both sides of the border. An important

first step would be in letting law enforcement, not politicians, map

out our strategy. We need to ensure that Federal law enforcement

efforts are closely coordinated with local law enforcement. We need

to make sure that all parts of the border get the resources they require.

I am pleased that we will now hear from Chief of Police of Eagle

Pass, Tony Castaneda, who has traveled and just arrived here in

Washington within the last hour, to tell us what is going on on the

front lines of the battleground along the Mexican border.

Mr. Chairman, if I may now turn the microphone over to Chief

Castaneda, I will do that.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry Bonilla follows:]

27

28

29

Mr. SOUDER. I need to swear you in, Mr. Castaneda.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that the witness responded in

the affirmative.

Once again, we welcome you here, and we are looking forward

to hearing your testimony.

Mr. CASTANEDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before I start off, I would like to extend my sincere apologies for

being delayed today. I ran into some problems at the airport, and

luckily we were able to work those out so I could be here on time.

Mr. SOUDER. We appreciate your coming so far, and it’s unlikely

you had a private, direct plane that got you here.

Mr. CASTANEDA. Yes, it’s a long line.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I represent a community that borders the Mexican border. I grew up in Eagle Pass,

went to school there, have a family, and I live along the border myself, in the community of Quemado, which is a small farming community about 20 miles north of Eagle Pass.

Currently, I’ve been the chief of police for the city of Eagle Pass

for 3 years, and statistically I have seen an increase in our regular

crimes there in the community. Most of the crimes and the criminals that we’ve been able to arrest come from an extensive history

of being involved in narcotics trafficking.

About a year ago, sir, we lost a very good fellow law enforcement

officer in the city of Eagle Pass, a Border Patrolman by the name

of Jefferson Barr. Mr. Jefferson Barr’s death opened the eyes of the

members of our community, something that law enforcement personnel were already exposed to. Nevertheless, the community has

rallied behind this death to make sure that we regain our community.

Basically, my trip here, sir, today is to echo the sentiments of

Congressman Bonilla, who represents the interests of our area. Our

area is desolate. We’re understaffed, and it’s a big drug haven for

the drug lords moving in.

Last year, after the death of Jefferson Barr, our community was

saturated with news reports of being identified as a drug haven, a

major drug route for Mexican traffickers. As a result of that, we

saw temporary relief from supplemental agents from the DEA,

Customs, and even Border Patrol. Then, with the assistance of Senator Phil Gramm, we got the assistance of the State of Texas to

bring in State troopers to assist us in detecting and working an

interdiction program.

However, that help was only shortlived. They were there for several months, and they had a big impact in our community, and

they were welcome. However, now they are gone. We are starting

to see an increase again on drug seizures in our area and crime

again in our communities.

Basically, I’m here, sir, to answer any questions that you all

might have concerning these incidents. Basically, the major turning

point for us has been the death of Jefferson Barr, sir. It affected

the morale of my officers, realizing that we’re understaffed and not

properly equipped. It’s a dangerous situation. We have encountered

several violent incidents where exchange of gunfire has been with

30

narcotic traffickers. We have arrested several narcotic traffickers,

and we have seized a lot of narcotics.

The U.S. Border Patrol that services our area are our first line

of defense down there. They are the major interdiction force. Besides interdicting narcotics, they are also assigned the task of

interdicting the illegal entry of aliens into our country. What we

have recently is that the narcotic traffickers are using illegal

aliens, poor, decent folks trying to earn a decent living, you know,

using them as fronts so that the agents will detect them, apprehend them, and then shortly after they have finished with their

business, then the narcotic traffickers come in through the rear

with the dope.

It’s an overwhelming battle, and certainly Federal attention

needs to be serviced in this area. My presence here, sir, is only a

direct testimony of what the need needs to be, and that we need

the help.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much, Chief, for coming.

Thank you, Mr. Bonilla, for arranging that. We appreciate your

leadership here in fighting for this.

Starting my questions, are the Border Patrol ever moved from

your area, and what happens if they are pulled over to another targeted area? Do the dealers then move into your area? Can you see

that immediately? What kind of reaction do you see?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Yes, sir. I become aware of several special assignments sometimes, that they move local agents stationed there

in the Eagle Pass area to go service other areas in Arizona, California. When this happens, sir, it’s undermining an already limited

defense.

My office is regularly on a routine, daily operation. We apprehend and detain a lot of illegal aliens and wait for the Border Patrol to come in. They are inside the city limits of Eagle Pass. So

once they are moved, certainly it limits the response time for the

agents to service the whole area, and it has a big impact when they

are moved from the Eagle Pass area to other areas of the border.

Mr. SOUDER. What are the odds that the drug dealers don’t know

that the Border Patrol people have been moved? In other words,

when I was at the Nogales border, they even had spotters on the

Mexican side to watch how closely they were looking at the cars.

They would send somebody through and see what they were doing.

There were spotters to watch the spotters.

Now, Border Patrol isn’t quite as visible as that, but I would assume that the information would be pretty potent that, when they

are out of town, it opens up.

Mr. CASTANEDA. Absolutely, sir. They perfect their own methods

of operation. We have checkpoints out of the community of Eagle

Pass, and regularly they are staffed by Border Patrol agents doing

their work. However, narcotic traffickers and illegal alien traffickers, you know, they know the hours. They have spotters, as you

mentioned, sir, and they try any which way to try to smuggle the

drugs in.

Usually, when those posts are manned on the highways, that

leaves an area open along the riverbanks or limits the amount of

officers that can be assigned to particular sectors to patrol the

river.

31

Mr. SOUDER. Do you view the police on the other side of the border as helpful, as assets? If you have a tip, and somebody moves

across the other side, what is your relationship?

Mr. CASTANEDA. We maintain a pretty good relationship with the

local law enforcement officers there, sir, but normally they are not

the ones that call us and give us information such as, ‘‘We have

a particular load that’s going to come through here,’’ or anything

like that. Our relationship hasn’t nurtured that type of a relationship with them.

Mr. SOUDER. How large is your police force, and what is your

equipment, vis-a-vis the drug dealers that you are seeing coming

through, in the communications, in the weapons?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Basically, I supervise a police force of 58 sworn

commissioned officers, by the State of Texas, plus my support staff.

Out of those 58, I have about 10 officers: 6 that are assigned to the

local DEA office there; and 4 that work hand-in-hand with the U.S.

Customs Service office there in Eagle Pass.

Basically, from what I gather from the reports and their conversations with me, as far as statistics and intelligence, they are

running into a lot of armed bandits, you know, smuggling the marijuana. They have pretty modern technology to assist them in coming through, and I’m talking about night vision glasses, good communications systems with them, and things of that nature, sir. Basically, we’re meeting people that are sophisticated in their game

plan in order to bring in the narcotics.

Mr. SOUDER. One of the core questions, we always hear how long

the border is from Texas on through New Mexico, Arizona, and

California, and that it’s impossible to make progress. One of the

fundamental questions is, when we put pressure on at the logical

points, and in effect move the traffickers off the main highways, is

it easier or harder?

Because, on one hand, it would seem like the Highway Patrol

and other people who normally pick them up wouldn’t be available

if you move them off. On the other hand, some of the reaction I got

from my Arizona experience was being able to see that, in effect,

if you deprive them of the main roads, often they will have to resort to mules or other types of things, and the planes flying overhead may see them moving through an open area as opposed to inside the city, or mixed in with other traffic.

Can you give me some of your ground level feelings on that?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Basically, sir, over the years, a lot of Federal

pressure was placed on south Texas. As a result of that, we started

apprehending a lot of narcotics smugglers in the Eagle Pass area

that had prior arrest histories effected down in south Texas. But

normally the narcotic traffickers in our area, when they are in

transit of the narcotics, they are either stored in stash houses there

in the community and then moved at a later date, you know, smuggled under furniture, produce, or things of that nature.

I don’t know if I answered your question, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I’m wondering, if you put the pressure on at the

crossing points, and you have intensive—if we focus our intensive

efforts at the logical crossing points, presumably, what that does is

move a certain percentage off by small airplane, or by mule train,

32

or other types of things. Does that, in your experience, make it

harder or easier on the dealers?

In other words, on the one hand, you have all these miles and

miles of ranchers and things with fences that can be cut through;

on the other hand, they are a little more isolated. Because, in the

city, once it’s mixed with the commerce, boy, it’s like hunting for

a needle in a haystack.

Mr. CASTANEDA. Yes, sir. If we were to concentrate heavily along

the border, it would certainly make it difficult for the traffickers to

come through. This can come through with the personnel and the

resources to supplement police departments like ours.

We do have a concern with the rental of a lot of buildings where

they are hiding, narcotics to be moved at a later date. The officers,

Federal officers, assigned to the port of entry and the local Border

Patrol, they apply the necessary pressure to try to put up a legitimate defense. However, the area is very vast and long, and there

are a lot of holes through there.

Mr. SOUDER. One last question. Congressman Bonilla referred to

ranchers who are afraid and others. Are they afraid to speak out?

Is there increasing intimidation? Is this getting worse?

Mr. BONILLA. Yes, they are afraid to speak out, Mr. Chairman.

In many cases, we have tried to get people to come out and publicly

tell their story, and they are simply terrified that, if they are seen

on the evening news or in a newspaper article, that there will be

retaliation against them. It’s unfortunate. It is a horrible situation

along the border.

Just to elaborate on what the Chief was just talking about,

changing manpower from one spot to another and how that might

affect things. Yes, I think your question was right on target. It’s

hard, with the limited manpower and the vast amount of space we

have to cover down there, to keep an eye on every inch of the border.

This is a war going on, and I think down the road we’ve got to

look at somehow having unmanned UAV surveillance, or satellite

surveillance, or something, so that they know that we can watch

every inch of the border, versus a place where we happen to have

more agents at 1 day.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Barrett.

Mr. BARRETT. Chief, we appreciate your coming and sharing your

testimony with us.

We have heard today a number of questioners and people talking

about the corruption, both within the military in Mexico and within

the local police forces. I assume that you have interaction with the

local police forces on the other side of the border, and I am interested in your perception as to, either directly or indirectly, how

much you know or feel, how much corruption there is there.

Mr. CASTANEDA. I think corruption is a way of life down there,

sir. Since I’ve been there, for the 3 years, I have terminated three

officers, and two of them were because of involvement in narcotics

or suspicion of narcotics, or in illegal entry of illegal aliens for profit.

On the Mexican side, the only thing I can comment on is what

I read in the paper. I do not frequent with them. I do not converse

33

with them, and do not talk shop with them. Basically, there is an

area of mistrust, but still, nevertheless, to say there’s a lot of decent folks that try to uphold the law in Mexico, and especially in

the border community. But, nevertheless, I’m still limited as far as

what I tell them and how I conduct myself back there.

Mr. BARRETT. Is the distrust a mutual distrust?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARRETT. What do you perceive is the reason they mistrust

the American side? I’m from Wisconsin, so this is new to me, to

find out why they would distrust you.

Mr. CASTANEDA. Well, the mistrust would be that they don’t

know if really you’re part of the game plan with them, and just us

living on this side of the border and they living on that side of the

border. You have some officers, like I mentioned, that are extremely honest and they will share information. However, since we

don’t know them and we don’t deal with them directly, we sometimes limit what we tell them, and that perks up their ears, you

know, sometimes that we’re not playing a full game with them.

That starts developing the mistrust on their side.

Mr. BARRETT. Do you have any idea how much they make?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Excuse me, sir.

Mr. BARRETT. Do you have any idea how much they make?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Very little, sir. I don’t know. It just varies.

Mr. BARRETT. Again, not knowing the region, can you give me

sort of an estimate or guesstimate as to how much they would

make?

Mr. CASTANEDA. I’d say no more than $50 every week.

Mr. BARRETT. OK.

Representative, I appreciate your attention to this problem. Obviously, the issue of utmost importance this week is whether we certify Mexico or whether we don’t certify. Again, I look to you for

your expertise. Having a long border with Mexico, you obviously

have a lot more economic interaction than I do, coming from Wisconsin.

I would just be curious as to whether you have formulated an

opinion on certification or what we should be doing.

Mr. BONILLA. Well, I think the barometer we should look at is

whether or not it’s helpful or hurtful, in terms of certification. I

think it would be helpful to have the certification, to let them know

that, even though they have stumbled greatly, we believe they are

trying to correct the problems. There are vast problems. If we were

not to give them certification, then I think it would be, to some degree, perhaps, demoralizing, and that is not helpful. So I think,

given the two choices, we should certify Mexico.

Mr. BARRETT. The third option that is being bandied about, to

show our displeasure with what has happened in the last several

weeks and the failure, really, to clean up the lower echelons of

Mexican Government, is not to certify but to grant them a waiver

for national security interests. What is your feeling about that?

Mr. BONILLA. Well, I’m still thinking about that. I can’t give you

a definitive answer right now. Sometimes I wonder whether the

problems that they have with corruption, that go from, as we have

seen, the very top to the very bottom level of law enforcement, as

the chief is referring to, it is almost like changing an entire culture

34

and way of thinking, because it’s a way of life, almost, to be corrupt

at many levels.

The alternative is to just allow them to drown and not offer a

helping hand to Mexico. Since they affect us directly in so many

ways, I think it’s in our best interest to try to at least be encouraging with certification and any other assistance we can give them.

Mr. BARRETT. I agree with you that decertification is not something that we need to do. If we went with a straight certification,

how would you think it would be appropriate, or do you think it’s

appropriate for us to send a message about the high-level corruption that we have seen? What should we be doing?

Mr. BONILLA. Well, I think we should send a message; absolutely.

We can’t act like nothing is going on down there. I think, by the

fact that we’re having this hearing, we’re talking about some very

serious problems in Mexico that we’re aware of and we want them

to fix it.

If we do follow through with the certification, there ought to be

an addendum or some kind of message attached to it that we want

to see more improvement. Because even though they were willing

to correct this problem with the person who was just arrested last

week, there are many of us who feel it should have been done earlier and that we should have seen the evidence presented earlier

and not wait so long.

So I don’t think we should, by any means, just sit back and act

like nothing and continue doing things the way you’re doing them

now.

Mr. BARRETT. OK. I have no further questions at this time.

Mr. SOUDER. That’s a particular concern if it’s true that Gutierrez tipped off Fuentes about incoming flights from the El Paso center, being in your district, that was tracking. Those types of tips

to the very people we’re trying to catch would be so counterproductive, at the grassroots level, to what we’re doing.

Mr. Schiff.

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, as I had the opportunity to say to Ambassador

Gelbard a few minutes ago, I’m a strong proponent of a strong

United States-Mexico relationship, for a number of reasons, including, I believe, involving Canada and other countries who are our

closest neighbors. However, in this area of law enforcement, I have

found just an increasing frustration.

Let me talk about the Mexican side first. Ambassador Gelbard

said that the Mexican Government was beginning to address its severe corruption problem. They have been beginning to address it

since I entered law enforcement in 1972, in the State of New Mexico.

Again, we have to be sensitive to the fact that we’re talking

about the internal affairs of a sovereign country; on the other hand,

a country with whom we desire a great deal of cooperation and for

whom I supported specific cooperation when they asked for it, and

very pleased to do so and have no regrets.

I just don’t know what the answer is, and I just wonder if either

of you gentlemen have anything to add, especially if you favor continued certification. What can we do to get the Mexican GovernVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
35

ment to begin a little faster, in terms of the movement they are

making?

Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Schiff, I think all we can do is continue to

apply pressure at the international level and perhaps get some

other countries to join our effort. We need to let them know that,

if they want to increase their standing in the world as a free country, a sovereign country that wants to be a trading partner with

other countries around the world, that they have got to demonstrate that they have their own house in order. Otherwise, it’s

always going to be there as a drain on their efforts to try to become

a part of the world in a respectful way.

We’re not suggesting, by any means, that we intercede in a sovereign nation anymore than we would want anyone interceding in

our sovereign nation, but I think we need to continue to apply the

pressure, internationally, along with other countries who believe

that the drug problem needs to be eliminated.

Mr. SCHIFF. Chief, anything you want to add on that?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Yes, sir. Mr. Schiff, I would like to say, my earlier comments, I hope they won’t misinterpret it by meaning that

the majority of the Mexican officers are corrupt or on the take. We

do have a lot of Mexican police officers that take to heart their solemn obligation to uphold the law and serve their communities.

These are the officers that we need to continue to support.

I am sure, within the PGR, the local State police in Mexico, you

have honorable men and honorable people in Mexico that need our

help. Certainly, it is in the best interest of this country to continue

to support Mexico. However, you know, a message needs to be sent

that they need to clean up their own house.

Mr. SCHIFF. Chief, that was a very good point to add, especially

in view of our previous conversation. Nobody is indicting the entire

law enforcement institution in Mexico. However, it has been acknowledged by a number of people, including Ambassador Gelbard

who testified earlier, that although every country has some degree

of corruption in law enforcement—we’re certainly not immune to

it—the problems in Mexico have historically been worse. Trying to

address those problems is what we are all talking about, not, of

course, every single official there.

Let me now move to this side of the border, and that is, let me

ask you, Chief or Congressman, do you think you have received all

the support that can reasonably be provided by our own Federal

Government in your fight against illegal drug trafficking across the

border? It seems to me that of all the things that the Federal Government has exclusive or very nearly exclusive control of—I would

say it’s exclusive—it’s control of the borders.

That’s the responsibility of the Federal Government to regulate.

It’s not the responsibility, necessarily, to regulate every fistfight

that might occur in your jurisdiction, Chief, but I think we have

the primary responsibility here of determining who and under what

circumstances people cross the border.

Do you feel like you’re getting adequate support from our national Government?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Mr. Schiff, in Eagle Pass, our department has

a very good working relationship with Federal law enforcement in

our community, and they are very responsive. We work a lot of

36

close cases together, sir, and I’m talking from DEA, FBI, ATF, Customs, Border Patrol, Immigration. We do have a very good relationship, sir.

Our area is growing, and as the area grows, the problems are

going to continue to exist or get bigger. It would be just that we

continue to pay attention to these areas, to continue to supplement

those areas with the necessary personnel to try to minimize the

problems.

Mr. SCHIFF. Chief, I was given some information—and I must acknowledge to you, I do not know the total basis for it, perhaps you

can supply the rest—however, that the Federal officials did not

provide aerial surveillance when requested for a Texas State operation that dealt with targeting an 80-mile stretch of border right

around your jurisdiction. Are you familiar with what that might be

about, Chief?

Mr. CASTANEDA. No, sir. Basically, from my officers that are assigned to work with DEA and Customs, you know, they report of

having good relationships with aerial surveillance when it is requested from either Customs or the Border Patrol.

Mr. SCHIFF. One last question. Going back, again, to the Mexican

side of the border, and actually, Chief, following up on your point

that there are a number of officers in their government as dedicated to eradicating drugs as you are, on behalf of our Government,

given the fact that Mexico, like the United States, has a Federal

system of government, do you have any suggestions—or Congressman Bonilla, do you have any suggestions for—are there ways that

we can improve the direct agency-to-agency contacts between departments like the chief’s department and similar agencies along

the border, on the Mexican side of the border?

Is there anything we can do directly, so that those who are together in fighting this battle can work more closely together on a

day-to-day basis, without having to every day go through their Federal capitals? Any suggestions on that?

Mr. CASTANEDA. One of the things that we have been doing, Mr.

Schiff, is trying to provide training to the officers on the Mexican

side so that they get accustomed to our procedures, so they will

know, and we will be able to work a little bit better. I think this

opens the door for some confidence and acceptance on both sides.

We try to visit and exchange information on limited situations.

I think one of the major problems that is attributed to exchanging

or opening our whole information is because Mexican officers customarily stay, and Federal officers are moved regularly. They are

not located in certain areas for extended periods of time so that

they can build up that good working relationship with their American counterparts.

I think this is one of the problems that creates that mistrust and

lack of information from both sides.

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Chairman, may I elaborate on this subject just

for a second?

Mr. SCHIFF. OK.

Mr. BONILLA. One of the difficulties, as the Chief is pointing out,

to working with law enforcement on the other side, as those of you

who have visited some of the border communities know, as soon as

37

you step across the border you are, in many cases, entering Third

World neighborhoods. There has never been—and we wish there

could be—greater sophistication among law enforcement on the

other side, as well. I just wanted to elaborate on that, because the

chief touched on it.

But you asked a question earlier, Mr. Schiff, is our Government

doing everything we can to help law enforcement along the border,

and I just want to make sure that you understand the answer is,

clearly, no. A lot of us in the Southwest were concerned, especially

during the last 12 months, that perhaps, during an election season,

Border Patrol agents and other manpower, INS, were being shifted

out of Texas into other States like California—and California needs

help, too—but we have a big, tenfold amount of mileage to cover

along the border.

While the drug stories were hitting the newspapers nationally

about the arrogant, armed, law enforcement-defying drug smugglers coming across the border, even during that time, Border Patrol agents were being shifted from Texas to go to other areas during an election year. I wanted to make sure that I was clear about

that, for the record.

Mr. SCHIFF. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr.

Schiff.

I want to comment, too, that while it looks like it’s a Southwest

Border problem, the drugs come across in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and come to Indiana and Wisconsin, and

places in the Midwest, and kids are dying in our streets because

of our failure, to some degree, to control it at the borders.

The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Chief, I read about the tragic death of the Border Patrol officer near your community. I’m wondering if the threat of

drugs coming from Mexico is as bad now or worse than it was a

year ago when that death took place; about the same, or where are

we?

Mr. CASTANEDA. I’m glad you touched on that, Mr. Mica. The

death of Jefferson Barr is the ultimate sacrifice that a peace officer

can give for his country. Just this morning, I was being briefed

that, in my community, at 4 a.m., there was an exchange of gunfire

with narcotic traffickers. So my response to your question is, sir,

it isn’t getting any better. So, obviously, it’s getting worse.

Mr. MICA. It’s getting worse. Well, I just had handed to me a

summary of the administration’s plans. Our drug czar was having

a press conference while we’re having this hearing. It’s a good diversionary tactic.

But he said, ‘‘The administration plans to concentrate its antidrug efforts on education and prevention.’’ The summary said, ‘‘The

strategy calls for bold changes in antidrug policy, such as explicit

recognition that demand reduction must be the centerpiece of the

national antidrug effort,’’ and ‘‘Prevention of drug use by youth is

the top priority, with an emphasis on prevention of underage

drinking and smoking.’’

38

I guess there’s a list of five basic goals; the last of these is

strengthening the interdiction in air, land, and sea. So it doesn’t

look like you’re going to win out in this new policy.

Mr. BONILLA. Mr. Mica, that’s going to sound like a wonderful

story, I’m sure, on the evening news, but the reality is that there

is, again, a war going on along the Mexican border, with all of our

States. Until we get more law enforcement down on the border, all

of these programs that sound wonderful—and some of them may

be very helpful—are not going to stop two-thirds of the amount of

drugs coming into our country across the Mexican border.

Mr. MICA. So what do you think, Chief?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Mr. Mica, I know that public education and

drug awareness has its place, sir, but I’d have to agree with the

Congressman, sir. I mean, it’s a war, and I think the priority is

that, you know, we need to supplement the men that are actually

out there trying to do the interdiction.

Mr. MICA. I think you told me, too, that a large portion of the

crime in your community is drug-related; is that true?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Absolutely, sir.

Mr. MICA. We held a hearing in my little community. I serve a

beautiful area in central Florida. It’s probably as nice a place as

you want to live, and I usually hold up a headline that shows ‘‘Heroin deaths increasing; cocaine deaths increasing.’’ I didn’t bring it

with me; I just sent it back to the office. But that’s my little community. Yours is 26,000. You had an officer shot to death. That was

one horrible death. I can’t imagine the pain that your community

or the loss of that young mother left with children, as I understand

it.

But here in Washington, just before we left, they came into the

streets and blew away an officer, just put the gun in and blew him

away. In the streets of Washington, last year, they killed 399 individuals in our Nation’s Capital. So it’s everywhere. It’s in my community. It’s in Washington. We’re going to be talking about prevention of underage drinking and smoking as a sort of centerpiece. It

looks like we’re pretty much zeroing in on the problem, doesn’t it?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Well, I’m not a politician, Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. I guess I’m not a very good one either. My last question would be, you’re in law enforcement down there on the front

line in the border community, are these people just coming across

carrying a little dope, or are they fairly well equipped? What is the

status of the smugglers? Is it an amateur hour, or is there some

well organized effort down there? Is it something we’re just imagining?

Mr. CASTANEDA. No, it’s a very well organized effort, Mr. Mica.

When you have armed smugglers with tracking devices, night vision glasses, walkie-talkie radios, they know pickup points, they

have stash houses, I mean, you’re basically talking about people

that are organized and they know what they are doing.

Mr. MICA. You weren’t too aware of what the request was for

surveillance of the border area, but as I understand it, there was

some question as to whether we could provide as much surveillance

information to the State, the Federal Government could, as was requested. Was that the problem, that there was too much surveillance, aerial surveillance requested?

39

Mr. CASTANEDA. I’m not aware of that, Mr. Mica, so I really can’t

respond to that, sir.

Mr. MICA. OK. What, in your estimation, then, would help, from

the Federal level, in this war?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Well, total commitment, sir. If you’re going to go

to war, you know, you need to dedicate it to the cause and make

sure that we come out victoriously.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Mica.

The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Barr.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chief, just as I came back in, after having been at a brief meeting, you were saying something that I think is entirely appropriate,

and that is the war against drugs is, in fact, a war. Yet we have— and I think Congressman Mica might have touched on this, and

maybe some others—I have been reading, during our district work

period last week, the administration’s 1997 drug strategy, which I

gather the President made public today.

He states explicitly in there that it is not a war against drugs,

because war is too harsh a term to use, that we need to have compassion and view people that do drugs as victims. That is a very

subtle way of, I think, changing the entire complexion and character of what heretofore has been, in the view of our Government,

one of the most serious challenges facing our country. So I appreciate your using the word drug rather than a social problem, or a

disease, or something, because I think it really is a Drug War.

I think I also heard Congressman Mica make reference to the

fact that, throughout the administration’s new so-called ‘‘drug

strategy,’’ in many instances in that document, they link explicitly

drug usage, mind-altering drugs, illicit or illegal drugs, whatever

you want to call them, with teen use of tobacco and underage

drinking. Both are serious problems, but in my mind don’t come

anywhere close to the danger posed to our society, and you and

your men, by the drug trafficking and drug usage.

Do you and your officers fear for their lives when they confront

underage smokers, tobacco smokers?

Mr. CASTANEDA. No, sir.

Mr. BARR. Do you fear for your lives when you confront people

of any age who are trafficking in mind-altering drugs?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. Do you fear for your lives when you see people and

come into contact with people who are under the influence of mindaltering drugs?

Mr. CASTANEDA. Yes, sir.

Mr. BARR. In your view, is this one of the most serious problems

facing our society and our country today?

Mr. CASTANEDA. It’s an extremely serious problem, sir. Just to

comment on our community, on the death of Jefferson Barr, I think

a lot of people took their head out of the dirt and realized that we

actually have a problem.

Mr. BARR. I think that, nowadays, some people in this administration are putting their heads in the dirt. Not that we’re

condoning teen smoking, not that we’re condoning teen alcohol

40

usage, those are very serious problems, but, again, to constantly

link these three as if they are somehow on par with each other, in

terms of priorities and importance, I think does a disservice to people like you and your officers, who literally do put their lives on

their line fighting this scourge on our society.

I commend you for it, and also the work, Congressman Bonilla,

that you have been doing on the front lines, as well, in the political

arena. Thank you both very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Barr.

I want to thank both of you for coming and stress that we obviously are spending millions and millions of dollars on treatment

and education, as well, and police officers all over the country are

involved in D.A.R.E. and other programs in the schools. There’s not

a parent who isn’t concerned about trying to get their kids off of

drugs and understand the importance of gateway drugs and that

we need to focus on that.

But the plain truth of the matter is, there’s only so much we can

do in Fort Wayne if we’re getting flooded with the cheap drugs

coming into the streets with the potency we are, and we should

never back off of any facet of the war. I went to 18 schools this past

fall, talking about this issue.

We’re also kidding ourselves if we think we’re going to be able

to win just through a couple public service announcements and

something in school, when it’s flooding the rock music scene and

the movie scene. We’ve got to have a war going on every front, and

the starting is right where it’s coming across the borders.

Thank you for taking the time to educate us by coming all the

way in from Eagle Pass, and thank you, Mr. Bonilla.

Mr. BONILLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CASTANEDA. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SOUDER. Will the third panel please come forward.

It is my distinct pleasure to welcome our third panel. We have

with us today Tom Constantine, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration; Douglas Kruhm, Assistant Commissioner, U.S. Border Patrol; and Mary Lee Warren, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice.

We thank you all for being with us today.

If you will please stand. Obviously, Mr. Constantine has been

here so often that he knows not to sit down.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that the witnesses responded

in the affirmative.

Mr. Constantine, if you will go first. I appreciate you have been

here so many times, and I think that, through the past year-anda-half, a lot through your efforts directly here and through your

staff, it has really helped us focus on the drug issue. While we may

have disagreements from time to time with the administration, the

fact is, it’s great that we’re all now fighting together to really raise

the American consciousness on this issue. I want to congratulate

you personally for your leadership with this.

41

STATEMENTS OF THOMAS A. CONSTANTINE, ADMINISTRATOR,

DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION; MARY LEE WARREN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL

DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE; AND DOUGLAS M.

KRUHM, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, U.S. BORDER PATROL

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Congressman, thank you.

Obviously, with the press of time, I have a long statement that

we will file for your record. However, let me just kind of set the

parameters around my testimony.

Based on 37 years in law enforcement, both at the local level, the

State level, and now at the Federal level—and I have, since I’ve

been head of DEA, reviewed every major case that involves large

scale narcotics trafficking between the United States and Mexico;

I have visited every city, town, and county along the Southwest

Border, all the way from Brownsville over to San Diego—I’m trying

to set out for you how the organized crime systems that really

manage and run these narcotics trafficking groups work and the effect that they have on the United States, and some of the issues

that involve the Government of Mexico.

Many times, as I look at people refer to these groups as some

type of a complex or sophisticated business relationship, and title

them as cartel or federations, I think that masks the true meaning

of what are very vicious, destructive entities.

The group from Cali, Colombia, and the four major trafficking

groups in Mexico, out of Juarez, Tijuana, Sonora, and the Gulf, are,

in my opinion, simply organized crime groups, only this time the

leaders are not in Brooklyn or Queens, but rather, in many ways,

existing in safety on foreign soil.

The syndicate leaders, the Rodriguez-Orejuela brothers in Colombia, to Amado Carrillo-Fuentes, Juan Garcia-Abrego, Miguel CaroQuintero, and the Arellano-Felix brothers, are simply the 1990’s

versions of the mob leaders U.S. law enforcement has fought since

the turn of the century, only this group of leaders are, in many

ways, more dangerous and more influential, and have a great deal

more impact on our daily lives than their domestic predecessors.

While at one time we could control or investigate and, in many

ways, manage our own outcome within the United States, the

present organized crime system, in many ways, makes their influence pale in comparison. The individuals operating from headquarters locations absolutely influence the choices that many

Americans make about where to live, when to venture out of their

homes, or which schools to send their children to. The drugs and

the attendant violence which accompanies the drug trade have

reached into every community within the United States.

Organized crime in the United States was addressed over time

but only after we recognized the dangers that the Mafia posed to

our everyday way of life. I can recall a time within the United

States when there was an absolute rejection of the idea that there

was a Mafia or organized crime. That changed in the fall of 1957,

when a State police sergeant named Edgar Croswell raided an estate at Appalachia, NY, and uncovered all the leadership of organized crime in the United States.

Following thereafter, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy was unequivocal in his approach to ending the reign of the Mafia, and conVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
42

sistent law enforcement policies and legislation were enacted which

have resulted in substantial gains. Today, the Mafia, as we know

it in the United States, has, in many ways been decimated and is

a fragment of what it once was.

At the height of its power, those groups were in the hands of a

few major players within our own criminal justice system. All decisions were made within the United States, orders were carried out

on U.S. soil, and while I know, having worked those cases, it was

not easy to build them against the Mafia leaders, law enforcement

knew that once a case was made, the subject would be located, arrested, and sent away to jail for a very long period of time.

That is not the case with today’s organized crime. They are

strong, sophisticated, destructive organizations, and now those decisions are made virtually in sanctuaries in Cali, Colombia, and

Guadalajara, Mexico. Even the day-to-day decisions as to where to

ship the cocaine, which cars their workers in the United States

should rent, which apartments should be leased, which marking

should be on the cocaine package, which contract murders should

be ordered, which official should be bribed and how much, are decisions made outside of the United States.

These are shadowy figures who have armies of workers in Colombia, Mexico, and the United States, but these workers answer to

them via daily fax machines, cellular phones, and pagers. These armies carry out killings within the United States: 1 day an outspoken journalist; 1 day a courier who had lost a load; the next an

innocent bystander caught in the line of fire, all on the orders from

the top leadership.

They operate from the relative safety of protected locations and

are free to come and go as they please within their home countries.

These syndicate bosses have at their disposal airplanes, boats, vehicles, radars, and communications equipment which in many ways

rival that of small countries.

It is difficult, sometimes almost impossible, for U.S. law enforcement to locate and to arrest the Mafia leaders without the assistance of law enforcement in those host countries. Their communications are coded. They are protected by corrupt law enforcement officials.

Despite, often, pledges of cooperation, they have not been able to

apprehend the syndicate leaders, and law enforcement authorities

have been unable to even locate them. Even if they are located, the

Government is often not obligated or does not desire to extradite,

to send them to the United States to stand trial before a jury of

the peers of those whom they have injured.

In Mexico, as discussed today, as in any other country where mafias or organized crime have flourished, two things are vital and

important: there has to be corruption, and there has to be an intimidation of law enforcement. They cannot thrive, they cannot

exist unless the law enforcement officials have been bribed and corrupted and the witnesses fear for their lives. It’s a lesson that we

learned full well in the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s.

We can’t really talk about the traffickers from Mexico without a

little historical reference to the group from Cali, Colombia, probably the most sophisticated, powerful organized crime syndicate

that the world had ever seen. As they assumed greater power and

43

control and money, their relative impunity from arrest, at least

until 1995 and 1996, allowed them to amass fortunes where they

ran these multibillion-dollar corporations.

They used landing areas in Mexico and often were able to evade

United States law enforcement officials, and eventually made important alliances with transportation and distribution experts in

Mexico. There has been intense law enforcement pressure focused

on the Cali leadership by the brave men and women of the Colombian National Police, in 1995 and 1996.

All of the top leadership of the Cali organized crime systems are

now either in jail or dead. The fine work was done, much of it by

Gen. Serrano, who appeared before your subcommittee only 2

weeks ago, and a host of other CNP officers, many of whom gave

their lives.

Since their imprisonment, on sentences which I must tell you are

ridiculously short and not really a serious deterrent to drug trafficking in Colombia, traffickers from Mexico have now taken on

some greater prominence. The alliance between these two groups

had benefits for both sides.

Traditionally, the traffickers from Mexico have long been involved in smuggling marijuana and heroin. As they brokered the

distribution routes throughout Mexico, the group from Cali was

concerned about the security of their loads. They made a commercial arrangement with the traffickers from Mexico, which reduced

their potential losses.

This agreement entailed the Colombians moving cocaine from the

Andean region to Mexican organizations who then assumed the responsibility of delivering the cocaine into the United States, and

originally turning it over to organized crime systems from Colombia that are operating within America.

The majority of cocaine entering the United States continues to

come across this border. There, however, is new evidence that traffickers in Mexico have gone directly to sources of cocaine in Bolivia

and Peru, in order to circumvent Colombian middlemen. In addition, Mexico is now responsible for being the primary producer and

trafficker of thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, most of

which is distributed within the United States.

There are several major traffickers in Mexico. I will briefly discuss them as we put a chart up with their pictures. These are the

leaders of the major organized crime systems in Mexico. Most of

them are already under indictment for crimes that they have committed within the United States.

The Department of Justice has submitted provisional arrest warrants for many of these subjects, and only one, to my knowledge,

Juan Garcia-Abrego, because he was a dual citizen, has been sent

back to the United States to face justice. The others, in many ways,

have escaped law enforcement action and have suffered little, if

any, inconvenience from their criminal activities.

The first, which has been mentioned, and this is only one—and

I would suspect it’s important not to indicate that this is the only

organized crime leader in Mexico, because I think that would be a

mistake; there are many powerful syndicates operating out of that

country—but the one who has received the most attention in the

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paper recently is Amado Carrillo-Fuentes, the head of the so-called

‘‘Juarez Cartel.’’ He is the individual linked in the papers and linked in reports

of the corruption and bribery of Gen. Gutierrez, the commissioner

and the head of the INCD, which is the equivalent of the DEA in

Mexico. He is associated with the Rodriguez-Orejuela organization

in Cali, and the Ochoa brothers in Medellin. He handles huge shipments of cocaine from Colombia. They have regional bases in Guadalajara, Hermosillo, and Torreon, and those are merely storage locations to move the drugs closer to the United States.

The scope of his financial network is staggering, and probably

much of it is unknown in exact detail to us. We know that he often

forwards $20 million to $30 million to Colombia from each major

operation or shipment. Like his Colombian counterparts, he is sophisticated in technology and countersurveillance. He has become

so powerful that he is even seeking to expand his market into traditional Colombian strongholds on the East Coast of the United

States.

Carrillo-Fuentes, who is the subject of numerous separate United

States law enforcement investigations, has been indicted in Florida

and Texas, and, again, still remains a fugitive, unarrested, in Mexico.

The second is Miguel Caro-Quintero. He’s the brother of Rafael

Caro-Quintero, the individual who was responsible for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of a DEA agent in Mexico in 1985. He

also is a major trafficker in cocaine, in Mexican heroin, and marijuana. Miguel Caro-Quintero is the subject of several indictments

in the United States, and currently the subject of provisional arrest

warrants issued by the U.S. Government.

Yet, when I was in Mexico City in April of last year, and mentioned the fact that Miguel Caro-Quintero was a major trafficker

and should be subject to arrest, he immediately called a radio station in Hermosillo, indicating that he was bothered by statements

that I made and he was rather an innocent rancher, and that the

charges were untrue. He had the audacity to give his address and

invite law enforcement officials from Mexico and the United States

to visit him, yet he remains at large.

The third group which you will hear a great deal about is the

Arellano-Felix brothers, operating out of San Diego, a very powerful, very aggressive, and undeniably perhaps the most violent. It

extends its tentacles directly from high echelon figures in the law

enforcement and judicial systems in Mexico to street-level gangs in

the United States. They operate primarily in the Mexican States of

Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacan, Chiapas, and Baja, California. From

Baja, the drugs enter the United States, the primary point into the

organized crime systems in America.

Reports from the Mexican Government indicate that key family

members of the Arellano-Felix brothers reportedly dispense an estimated $1 million weekly in bribes to Mexican Federal, State, and

local officials who assure that the movement of drugs continues to

flow unimpeded to the gateway cities along the Southwest Border.

They are well armed, well trained security forces, and described

by law enforcement officials as paramilitary in nature. The enforcers are often hired from violent street gangs in the cities and towns

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in both Mexico and the United States. They are dispatched to assassinate targeted individuals in Mexico and the United States,

and they send a clear message to those who would attempt to utilize the Tijuana corridor without paying the area transit tax. A

joint task force, composed of the DEA and the FBI, has been established in San Diego to track and investigate their operations.

The Amezcua brothers are the individuals primarily responsible

for the shipment of ephedrine from Europe and from Asia into

Mexico, and then into the United States, and for the manufacture

of methamphetamine.

The Guzman-Loera group also transports cocaine from Colombia

through Mexico, and has been named in numerous indictments,

was arrested in Talisman, Mexico, for narcotics, homicide, and cocaine trafficking, and he is presently incarcerated at the maximum

security prison in Mexico.

One thing that I think is often missed, and I think if you listened

to Chief Castaneda—and I was at Eagle Pass this summer myself—is that these organizations have a tremendous impact and

make victims out of U.S. citizens.

To look at Eagle Pass and to talk to these ranchers, and to see

the people who have lived on this property all of their lives, who

are afraid to go down to the river and to use a boat that they have

on a dock, I asked them why? Their fear was that they would witness a murder or they somehow would witness a crime. They then

would be somebody who would have to be eliminated by the groups

involved.

Many of them were interested in selling their property. Often the

property appears to be being purchased by groups from the organized crime systems out of Mexico, so, in essence, the border completely disappears at that point in time.

There has been outstanding work, I’m sure, by the chief, especially by the Border Patrol, which is an unsung group of heroes in

this whole battle. Not only have they lost the life of an agent, they

are dedicated, and they are the individuals who are right in the

middle of this. I have watched them, and I’ve been very impressed.

Also, the Texas Department of Public Safety has made their life

improve to a degree.

The DEA information on the Arellano-Felix gang, to give you a

sense of the impact on the United States, we know that they have

hired a group out of the city of San Diego, CA, called the Logan

Heights Calle 30, to carry out executions and to conduct security

for the distribution of their operations.

Our DEA violent task force has arrested six members of this

group, along with the San Diego Police Department, for the murder

of a man and his son in San Diego. Since that time, 49 members

of this gang have been arrested by the narcotics task force in San

Diego, ranging from drug trafficking to crimes of violence.

On December 11, 1996, in Coronado, CA, in San Diego County,

Fernando Gutierrez was shot five times in the face during rush

hour, in an exclusive neighborhood. This death was allegedly ordered by the Arellano-Felix brothers from Tijuana. There have

been 26 homicides in 1993 over the control of the methamphetamine traffic.

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Our role, as law enforcement officials—and that’s how I look at

it, as an organized crime investigation—we have joined together

first with the FBI, now with the Justice Department, the Criminal

Division, the Border Patrol, Customs, and virtually every State and

local agency, and we have targeted these organized crime groups

on the Southwest Border.

We have been able to identify them. We know how they operate.

We know their transportation systems. But they are highly compartmentalized, use sophisticated technology and numerous workers to accomplish very specific tasks. We are attacking, trying to

get the command-and-control system and the leadership.

Unfortunately, although we can get the leadership in the United

States, and we can take their system down, and we’ve been very

effective, we are very frustrated because we cannot use this same

information to reach the organizations’ bosses in Mexico or their

current counterparts in Colombia.

Criminals such as Carrillo-Fuentes and the Arellano-Felix group

personally direct their organizations, and until we can garner the

complete cooperation of law enforcement officials in Mexico, we will

never truly be effective in stopping the flow of drugs from that

country.

The strategy is anchored in our belief that the only way of successfully attacking any organized crime syndicate is to build strong

cases against the leadership. We have done that in the United

States with a great deal of work, over a long period of time. After

30 years of doing that, we can see a steady degradation of their

ability to conduct organized crime business in the United States.

We spoke to you, sometimes in testimony, often in personal briefings, about what we call the Zorro II investigation. This was one

of those combined Southwest Border investigations where we were

able to arrest 156 major principals in those organizations, seize $17

million along with 5,600 kilograms of cocaine. However, and perhaps most importantly, neither the Colombian nor the Mexican

leadership of these groups that are controlled have been arrested.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Constantine, if you can kind of summarize

here. We will insert your whole statement in the record.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Perhaps the most difficult part—and I will

close with that—is two things: One is the corruption intimidation.

You have seen the impact of the commissioner of the INCD being

apparently arrested in the last 7 days. The papers filed by the Government of Mexico in San Diego indicate that the State attorney

general and almost 90 percent of the law enforcement officials and

judges in Tijuana and Baja have been compromised.

What this has meant for us, and this has built over a period of

time, is that there is not one single civilian law enforcement institution in Mexico with whom DEA has a really trusting relationship. That relationship is absolutely essential.

We have talked with—and I agree with Ambassador Gelbard—

President Zedillo has made this a priority in meetings that I have

attended. As a career law enforcement official, I give credit to people who will do a corruption investigation inside their agency, even

though it is embarrassing. However, all of the types of tools and

processes we have in place, and all of the legislation, have, in many

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ways, been placed in a situation where they have been dysfunctional at this period of time because of the corruption issue.

I think that is the No. 1 improvement that has to be made before

we can get on to the drug enforcement. Unfortunately or fortunately, the role of conducting corruption investigations in Mexico is

not the responsibility of the DEA or any other United States agency. That responsibility will have to fall to that government.

There is much more in detail in my statement. I thank you for

the time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Constantine follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I thank you, and it was helpful to lay out the history before you got into the final points. We will draw out some

more in questions, too.

Ms. Warren.

Ms. WARREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the

subcommittee, for this opportunity to address you at what is both

a difficult and critical time for the United States.

The events of last week, the arrest of the INCD commissioner,

are sobering reminders of the power and the reach of these major

trafficking organizations. In this case, it appears to be the Amado

Carrillo-Fuentes organization. The last 6 months and the Administrator’s testimony just echo the fact that we are overwhelmed in

Mexico, and drugs flowing into the United States, with the violence

of these groups and, as well, the corruption that they spawn.

Yet, at the Department of Justice, we also understand that we

do not have the option of not working with our neighbor, Mexico.

It will not serve the interests of either of our countries. Instead, we

must proceed in a cautious way, with measured steps, and with an

aim to achieve tangible results, borne of the cooperation against a

shared threat.

I would like to touch on some of the initiatives that we are working on, advise you of some of the obstacles we have faced and how

we are addressing them, and something of our United States-Mexico justice relationship.

The Administrator spoke of the Southwest Border Initiative involving the major Federal law enforcement agencies, drug law enforcement agencies, as well as the prosecutors. It is an extraordinary step for law enforcement to be working in such a cooperative and coordinated way, and, frankly, it is the only way we will

be able to achieve results against such powerful groups.

We have had the success of the Operation Zorro II investigation

that he spoke of. In addition to that, we were able to do the final

cleanup in the Juan Garcia-Abrego investigation that has now led

to his sentencing of 11 life terms.

In addition, another case that you might be interested in is one

that we refer to as the Tunnel Case, in the southern district of

California, where members of the Guzman-Loera organization not

only traveled over land with their drugs into the United States, but

tunneled underneath the border from Mexico, coming up in Otay

Mesa, using a 1,400-foot tunnel under the ground to transport their

drugs into the United States and then to return the drug proceeds

to Mexico. The leading defendant found in the United States has

now been convicted and faces a mandatory life term for that offense.

The key to the successes in these operations has been the coordination and the cooperation. It has also involved a lot of training in

sophisticated investigative methods. These investigations rely on a

great deal of court-authorized wire taps that take more training for

our investigators and prosecutors. The Southwest Border Initiative

has undertaken that training.

In operational terms, perhaps one of the best ways we have to

make inroads against the Mexican-based criminal drug organizations has been through the United States-Mexico border task

forces. The mission of the task forces, composed in the past of

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INCD officers, DEA agents, FBI agents, and Customs agents, has

been to target and dismantle those major organizations in the various geographic locations just South of our border.

They work through sharing law enforcement intelligence, in the

hopes of developing compelling prosecutions of these major traffickers. It has also been sort of the laboratory or on-the-job training

in what investigative techniques there are and how cases can be

developed; training that in the past has clearly not been available

to the Mexican officers.

A fair assessment of the performance of the task forces to date

would be mixed, at best. There have been some successes. These

task forces should serve as a model of what law enforcement can

and should be in the counternarcotics effort.

However, there have been obstacles posed by Mexico’s failing to

adequately fund the task forces—DEA has covered most of the expenses of the task forces—Mexico’s failing to provide appropriate

status and security guarantees for the United States participants,

as well as the lack of training and continuity of the Mexican staffing. These latest revelations of corruption only further hinder and

set back the progress of this effort to date.

There are many ways that we work in a United States-Mexico

relationship. Let me just review swiftly the hierarchy of that cooperative effort. At the Cabinet level, there is the binational commission. The Attorney General chairs a subcommittee of that group on

legal issues and counternarcotics issues. A high level contact group

you know of and has been spoken of. A third is a senior law enforcement plenary group led by the deputy attorney general from

Mexico and myself, along with representatives from the law enforcement agencies on both sides.

Much of the substantive work of all these groups is done by

working groups under them. The larger groups offer an opportunity

for an exchange of ideas and criticism, at times. I would like to review with you just some of the efforts of the working groups.

For example, in the fugitive and mutual legal assistance area—

this is, of course, a major concern to the Justice Department, and

this is an area that has required our constant work and attention

and prodding over the past few years—there is a good report.

In 1996, Mexico extradited 13 persons, including 6 for narcotics

offenses, as compared to a total of 5 extradited in all of 1995. Also

remarkable, for the first time, a Mexican national was extradited

to the United States, and a dual national was extradited, as well.

We are currently seeking extradition of numerous individuals from

Mexico on a wide range of different crimes, including the major

narcotics trafficking offenses.

We have had a major frustration eased a bit, in recent times, in

our mutual legal assistance. We have sought such things as bank

records and telephone records in support of our prosecutions, our

investigations in the United States. We are beginning to get faster

responses with those important documents.

In the past year, in counternarcotics, Mexico did pass important

laws in their organized crime laws; frankly, in some areas that we

urged upon them, in terms of evidence-gathering. It was clear to

us that there was no way that they could build cases against the

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tronic surveillance. We advised them of that repeatedly, offered the

U.S. law as a model in the balance of right to privacy and the need

for law enforcement to be able to do its investigations.

They have now enacted many new evidence-gathering authorities

that should assist in developing cases. They have yet to implement

those. We have to help in training, but they need a plan on how

they will implement wire taps, plea bargains, immunities for witnesses. In money laundering, they passed a law making money

laundering criminal, but have yet to publish or implement the necessary regulations, in our mind.

In the area of corruption, it has the potential to undermine the

well-meaning efforts of both governments. We can only be dismayed by the latest revelations from Mexico. At the same time, we

would do well to remember that corruption exists on both sides of

the border, albeit in a more pervasive form to the South.

In the last 4 years, on our side of the border, U.S. law enforcement agents have been convicted of corruption-related crime along

the border. They have received periods of incarceration upon those

convictions, and we are committed to a course of vigorous

anticorruption efforts on our side. The safety and protection of our

citizens and law enforcement officers, and the public confidence, depend on this.

The solution to endemic corruption in Mexico is not to cordon

ourselves off from them. They are an indispensable partner. President Zedillo has identified the principal threat to Mexico’s national

security as these international traffickers.

The best approach that we see, in simple words, is to work with

the people we can trust, based on the information we have, seeking

as much information and expanding that information as much as

possible; design safeguards in our operations in case they should

later be compromised by the corrupting influences of the traffickers.

An example of the safeguards would be the full vetting of the

task force agents, vetting to include security questionnaires, checks

of all of our law enforcement indices, urine testing for drugs, and

polygraph examinations. This vetting process, combined with training, minimum time requirement, and perhaps added salary or bonuses to reflect that added training, might increase our confidence

that the task forces could be substantially free of corruption and

have the personnel capable of carrying out the task.

Ultimately, of course, we support the efforts of President Zedillo,

as manifested by his many public statements to root out corruption

in Mexican society. This is corruption that has grown there over a

period of generations, and we see it as a very long-term process.

Until that process is well along the way, the best approach we see

of working with Mexico is to work forthrightly on agreed-upon action items, with adequate safeguards for our personnel and our information.

It will take a long time for Mexico to build fully professional,

competent, corruption-free law enforcement and judicial institutions. We are committed to doing everything we can to support

their efforts to achieve those goals. In the meantime, we must and

will press the Mexican Government to extradite significant criminals, including the drug kingpins, who are wanted in the United

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States, to bring to this country where our law enforcement and our

judicial infrastructure is today better able fully and fairly to prosecute, convict, and incarcerate them.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Warren follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your testimony, Ms. Warren.

Mr. Kruhm.

Mr. KRUHM. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am

very pleased to be here to address you concerning the U.S. Border

Patrol’s role in this Nation’s anti-narcotic and dangerous drug initiatives.

The Border Patrol is the mobile uniformed enforcement division

of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and is the primary

Federal agency for drug interdiction between ports of entry. The

U.S. Customs Service is responsible for interdiction at the ports,

with support from INS inspectors. The Drug Enforcement Administration has the primary responsibility for drug investigations, as

you have seen the briefing from the Administrator this afternoon.

The Border Patrol maintains a direct presence along the nearly

2,000-mile Southwest Border where the Patrol is staffed by 5,400

agents. Congress and the administration have made control of illegal immigration a top priority and have worked to provide INS

with the resources necessary to support an enforcement strategy

that is making a difference.

This strategy restores the rule of law to the Southwest Border.

Our goals are clear: deter illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and

alien smuggling between the ports of entry, and facilitate legal immigration through the ports of entry. We appreciate the resources

and policy support which Congress has provided in the last 3 years.

The INS border control plan has several key objectives: to provide the Border Patrol and other INS enforcement divisions with

the personnel, equipment, and technology to deter, detect, and apprehend unauthorized aliens, illicit drugs, and other contraband; to

regain control of major entry corridors along the border that have

been controlled by illegal migrants and smugglers; and to close off

the routes most frequently used by smugglers and illegal aliens,

and to shift traffic to areas that are more remote and difficult to

cross, giving us the tactical advantage.

Intelligence reports and actual experience indicate that drug

smuggling and alien smuggling are often linked. Illegal migrants

seeking assistance from alien smugglers often become mules carrying narcotics as part of the price of passage to interior points in

the United States. The Border Patrol employs a multifaceted strategy to deter and/or apprehend narcotics and alien smugglers along

the border.

At the immediate border, we deploy agents and utilize fences,

high-powered lights, sensor systems, and other technologies such as

cameras, and in some locations we even use horse patrols. We also

employ a system of traffic checkpoints situated along major roads

leading away from the border. These checkpoints are highly effective in the interdiction of both aliens and drugs.

The Border Patrol has grown from around 3,900 agents in 1993

to an expected level of 6,878 agents by the end of fiscal year 1997.

The administration’s goal is to have almost 7,400 agents by the end

of 1998.

Beginning in 1994, we concentrated new Border Patrol agents in

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est increase in illegal migrant flows. We also initiated strategies

designed specifically for those geographical areas.

Operation Hold The Line, begun in El Paso, TX, was designed to

maximize the visibility of Border Patrol agents along a 20-mile

stretch of the border formed by the Rio Grande River. The goal was

to preclude unauthorized entries into the city of El Paso.

Operation Gatekeeper applied a similar deterrent strategy, beginning in October 1994, south of San Diego. Given the different

terrain and makeup of border crossers, this operation combines immediate border visibility with an expanded support infrastructure,

including technology, prosecution, and detention. In February 1995,

we began tactical operations in Arizona with Operation Safeguard,

in Nogales and later Douglas.

In the fall of 1996, the McAllen Sector increased its anti-smuggling efforts by targeting staging areas, drop houses, and citizen

complaints. At the same time, McAllen is increasing enforcement

activities at the immediate border by conducting joint operations

with the U.S. Customs Service, Department of Defense, the U.S.

Coast Guard, and State and local law enforcement agencies.

We have seen dramatic success in each of these areas. Daily migration from Juarez to El Paso was cut by 75 percent in the first

months of Operation Hold The Line. Since Operation Gatekeeper

began, illegal entries into San Diego’s Imperial Beach area and

areas to the east of that have dropped by 60 percent.

Consistent with the beginning of a new tactical strategy, apprehensions in the McAllen Sector are now up 34 percent from January 1996 to January 1997. Local law enforcement officials attribute

a decrease in crime in those communities, at least in part, to Border Patrol initiatives.

We have continued to expand the use of technology in support of

our agents in all of our Southwest Border sectors. We are installing

IDENT terminals to fingerprint, photograph, and collect data on

the aliens we arrest. A large portion of Border Patrol’s drug seizures and a tremendous amount of real-time intelligence are a direct result of electronic sensors placed along remote or inaccessible

smuggling routes. The Border Patrol canine program and our horse

patrol have also resulted in a significant number of arrests and

drug seizures.

Although investigation of narcotics cases is not a function, per se,

of the Immigration Service or the Border Patrol, interdiction of

narcotics is a primary part of our mission. The volume of Border

Patrol drug seizures has climbed steadily from 150 tons of marijuana in fiscal year 1991 to 330 tons in fiscal year 1996. Since

1991, we have seized 84 tons of cocaine.

These interdictions have provided critical leads to the investigative agencies, contributing to the destruction of drug trafficking organizations and independent smugglers. The combined value of our

drug seizures is nearly $2 billion. There is no dollar value that can

be attached to the problems associated with these drugs if they had

been allowed on our streets and in our schools.

To give a further indication of the magnitude of our workload, we

made 1.5 million arrests of illegal aliens along the Southwest Border during fiscal year 1996. In performing all of these tasks, the

Border Patrol has formed effective partnerships with DEA, the

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FBI, Customs, the Department of Defense, the Department of

State, and the Government of Mexico.

INS has received significant support from the U.S. military and

National Guard units, and they are currently serving as listening

posts, observation post monitors, intelligence analysts, electronic

technicians, helicopter pilots, vehicle and aircraft mechanics, bus

drivers, sensor board monitors, low light level television operators,

and firing range officers.

Over the past several years, military and National Guard personnel have built over 41 miles of border fencing and barriers in

California and Arizona. This year they will complete another 14.5

miles.

The Border Patrol works with Mexican law enforcement along

the border to stem border robbers preying on migrants, drug smuggling, and other criminal activity. We have created procedures and

structures for a more rapid and coordinated response to specific

criminal activity.

In summary, let me say that the mission of the INS and its Border Patrol are committed and equipped to work in cooperation with

other agencies to secure the external borders of the United States.

Our approach emphasizes prevention through deterrence, flexibility

to address vulnerable areas via comprehensive strategy, technology

as a force multiplier, and redeployment of personnel and resources

to key border areas.

The U.S. Government has also made clear progress in regaining

control along the Southwest Border. In short, we are successfully

raising the cost and difficulty of entering the United States illegally. These efforts have also disrupted former routes for bringing

in illicit drugs. They have forced smugglers and port runners to use

ports of entry and untraditional routes to further their illegal activities.

Regaining control of our borders is a commitment. We appreciate

the attention of this committee to the problems we face and again

thank the Congress for its support of our endeavor.

I would like to add a personal note for the record. Just 6 days

ago, Border Patrol Agent Tony Betts was our latest officer to be

shot in the line of duty. Fortunately, he is doing very well, and he’s

a very lucky young man. He was shot during an encounter with a

horseback pack bringing in marijuana, and about 413 pounds were

seized during that incident.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kruhm follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. I hope you will express our

sympathy and support for him, as well as the many other people

on the front lines trying to protect our families and our kids.

I would like to start with Mr. Constantine and a couple of questions here, going directly to some of your concerns about security.

There are some questions that I want to raise, if anybody else has

any additional insight into this.

Do we currently know if undercover informants of law enforcement agents have been compromised, and when will we know if it

is a severe security breach? What exactly happened in this relationship? I know it’s publicity DEA didn’t want. Every time they

say this guy’s name, they say, ‘‘The DEA-like agency in Mexico.’’

Obviously, we have grave concerns that security was breached.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, we operate on one basic assumption.

When he took over that position in early December, he then had

access to all of the information that was available in, in essence,

their institute against drugs. I’ve seen some newspaper reports

from his predecessor, Mr. Molinas Ruiz, who said he turned over

to him all of the files.

So any investigation that was being done on a Federal level in

Mexico by law enforcement in Mexico was available to him. All of

these binational task forces, which, as Ms. Warren said, have had

mixed results, if not limited results, all of that information was

available to him.

Now, we are always very cautious about providing any information through law enforcement in Mexico, unless we can fully believe that it’s somebody that’s trustworthy and we will not get an

informant hurt or an agent hurt. So, I mean, the General is not the

first person in the hierarchy and in the structure of those antidrug

agencies in Mexico who has either been arrested or removed, or

sometimes assassinated.

So it is our policy always to be very cautious. Many times, as of

today, we just have information that we feel we cannot share with

them, for those very reasons. What information the people from

Mexico and Mexican law enforcement have in the files in that

building that he reviewed, or who he put into all of those task

forces, my assumption is that anything that was available to him

has been compromised completely.

Mr. SOUDER. Plus the DEA agents?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, DEA agents, by name and location, obviously, that information was known to him. Whether or not he provided that also, we don’t know. We just operate under a complete

assumption this individual was totally corrupt.

His total purpose, obviously, in his own interest, it would look

like he was taking that position to make himself richer and to provide information with one of the leading organized crime figures in

the world. I must assume that there was nothing that he held back

if he had it.

Mr. SOUDER. Do we know if it was him who tipped off Mexico’s

most powerful trafficker, Fuentes, about a sister’s wedding was

going to be raided?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That, again, is our assumption, anytime that

there were a series of arrests or raids planned. Early this winter,

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there was information, apparently, that there was a wedding to

take place of Carrillo-Fuentes’ sister, at a ranch in Mexico.

The information that we later found out, long after the incident

occurred, was that Carrillo-Fuentes was protected by Federal and

local and State police acting as protectors of the organized crime

figure, and the military was going to try to make an apprehension.

We are now seeing reports that the information was then provided

to Carrillo-Fuentes by either the military or law enforcement, so

that he was able to escape and to avoid arrest.

Given what we now know about Gen. Gutierrez, it’s very possible

he could have been a link in that, but there could have been others.

Mr. SOUDER. I would like to ask this question of Ms. Warren, but

others may have a comment on this, too.

It’s fairly shocking that, since Gutierrez had a 7-year relationship, had been in one of the military commander zones for more

than the 2 years that they supposedly were going to do, had shared

apartments under the name of the drug dealers, and a lot of that

type of thing, that Ambassador Gelbard did not know of these problems. Did other agencies, such as anything that you are working

with, know of this? If not, why not; and doesn’t that cause grave

concerns about how we are supposed to deal with Mexico?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Other than Ms. Warren, I’m probably the

most appropriate one to answer that. First, the individuals dealing

in the military, and that is an institution that DEA does not deal

with, information about a military commander within the military

would be very limited. Information that apparently was going on

between he and other corrupt traffickers, I suspect, was kept, obviously, very confidential between them.

As I’ve told you, they have vast technology available to them.

They have corrupted more than one individual. Where anybody was

going to provide information to the Government about corruption,

assassination seems to be the immediate response to that, including numbers of high-ranking officials in law enforcement.

So it’s not unusual to me, in any way, that someone like that

would not come to the attention of Government. I sense, somewhere along the line, that he owned all of this property or that he,

in some ways, had some wealth. This is information, to this day,

we don’t have any of that information. We’re reading the same

thing you’re reading in newspaper reports, and we have not yet

been provided a report of the investigation that eventually led to

his arrest.

It was my understanding, from reading those newspaper reports,

that the apartment that he eventually was living in, which was

subject to question, was the same apartment that Carrillo-Fuentes

went to in a big shootout in the Bajia Mar restaurant in Mexico

City, in which there was an assassination attempt on his life, and

that this was the same apartment. But that was only since he had

been head of INCD and since early December.

Mr. SOUDER. If the State Department and Justice Department

and DEA don’t know that somebody is on the payroll and corrupt

for 7 years, how can we say they are fully cooperating with us?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, I can’t speak for the Government in

Mexico or to how they approach the individuals of their own. I can

only tell you that when I was asked if I would take the job as head

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of DEA, even though I had 34 years with the New York State Police, lived in one house for 25 years, I was subjected to an intensive

background and financial investigation.

In the confirmation process, it was so refined that it came down

that I had to get the original charter from a Rotary Club that I belonged to in Schenectady, NY, because there might be a conflict of

interest between that charter and a high-level Federal position,

which turned out there wasn’t, thank heavens. But there was a

very, very detailed examination of me, my family, and my life before I received that position.

I suspect those are the types of procedures that are going to have

to be put in place if you’re going to develop—and you have to start

someplace. I agree with Mary Lee. We can’t disconnect from these

agencies, and there has to be a beginning. Hopefully, this is the beginning, and there’s a long road ahead of everybody to reach the

type of stage that they need to be at to combat these organized

crime systems.

Ms. WARREN. But there isn’t that systemic review that we have

in our system. There isn’t, at least until very recently, even the existence of something like an Inspector General within the ranks of

the various agencies, that we consider critical in law enforcement

and in the military. There’s a lot of learning that needs to be done.

We were in the dark. I have every reason to believe that President

Zedillo was in the dark.

Mr. SOUDER. At least we can be confident, tomorrow morning,

with our breakfast with Gen. McCaffrey, that if he says nice things

about our DEA director, we have more background.

Ms. WARREN. At least as to the Rotary connection.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. As long as he doesn’t question my intelligence.

But what happens with individuals like this is, people are afraid

to come forward. You might get an anonymous phone call or an

anonymous note from a mail drop, but witnesses are scared stiff of

providing any information to Government. Because of the assassinations and because the corruption is so endemic in many of the

law enforcement institutions, you don’t know who you’re providing

the information to.

Unlike the United States, where people, even with some hesitancy, are willing to step forward and be interviewed and provide

information so you can conduct an actual investigation, that’s not

the case presently in Mexico.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Barrett from Wisconsin.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Constantine, I’m just looking at Newsweek magazine from

today or yesterday, and they say, ‘‘Newsweek has learned that,

even as he was being briefed by U.S. officials, Gutierrez had been

on a vast computerized DEA list called the ‘Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Data Base,’ or NADDIS. His NADDIS file said he

had questionable relationships with drug people and that he was

involved with drug cover-ups in the past, but no one passed that

information along to the drug czar’s office. In fact, McCaffrey received two classified reports giving Gutierrez a clean bill of health.’’

Can you comment on that?

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Mr. CONSTANTINE. I’m not familiar with the classified reports

that the General would have been given. The announcement of

Gen. Gutierrez came out of the blue to us and, I believe, also probably Gen. McCaffrey and other people in the American Government. We have no information. We looked again. There are two, I

think, anonymous letters, dating back to 1988 or 1994, that talk

about Gutierrez as being corrupt, but no information or nothing

that we could investigate or corroborate.

We looked. There were no informants, no investigations, no wiretap information, no reports. So the sense that there were somehow

established reports that linked him to organized crime, in that or

anything that we would work with, just was nonexistent. I’m not

sure why that’s in the magazine, though.

Mr. BARRETT. So you’re saying it’s false, then?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That magazine report?

Mr. BARRETT. Yes.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Yes.

Mr. BARRETT. What type of interaction would you have with the

State Department? I’m trying to figure out where this has fallen

down.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, if we had information that came from a

reliable, confidential source about anybody in criminality in this

country or some other country, or we had picked up that information over a wiretap, or we had a defendant who decided to turn to

be a witness and provided us with information that we could somehow corroborate or be substantial, obviously, in this Government,

we would take it to a prosecutor, usually, the U.S. attorney’s office,

and try to start a corruption investigation.

In other countries, we then provide that information to an Ambassador, so that the Ambassador can then approach the host Government executives to advise them that there is substantial information involving an individual, and that they then will have to

take whatever action they take, either initiate a criminal investigation, do some type of an administrative action, or whatever political

decisions they may have.

But that is done continually around the world. However, what I

think is important for everybody to understand is that you’re dealing with a military system in a country where there is endemic corruption involving the drug trafficking issue, so people don’t come

forward and provide you with information that you can corroborate,

or somebody in that type of institution may not come to your attention.

Anytime—and we’ve done this again and again in many countries, including Mexico—where we have substantial information,

we work through the Ambassador to make sure that information

is provided to the host government.

Mr. BARRETT. Ms. Warren, I apologize, I was out of the room for

part of your testimony, but you talked about the bilateral task

forces. Who are the members of this again?

Ms. WARREN. In the past, they have been members from the

INCD. The great bulk of them are the Mexican drug enforcement

agents. But joining them have been DEA agents, and FBI agents,

and Customs agents were to be assigned, working just South of the

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border, in Tijuana and Juarez, and then another group that works

from Monterrey.

Mr. BARRETT. Given the testimony we’ve heard today about the

rampant corruption, how can you have any confidence in having

this type of arrangement with people in another country?

Ms. WARREN. Well, I think we have to institute and insist on

those safeguards that I mentioned, that our agents are working

with. We have gone through rigorous integrity checks. Those same

checks are applied to those counterpart agents with whom they

work on a day-to-day basis. Without those assurances and without

our confidence in that vetting procedure, I don’t think we can continue. It has to be.

Mr. BARRETT. Reading from the same Newsweek article, it

states, ‘‘In the mid-1980’s, the Mexican Defense Ministry tried to

put together an elite antidrug unit. Part of the requirement for the

45-man squad was passing a lie detector test that included the

question, ‘Did you ever receive payments from drug traffickers?’ So

many military officers failed the test that the whole idea was

scrapped.’’ Ms. WARREN. Well, I won’t comment on the reporting of that

magazine. I do think it is possible. We have been able to, in other

countries and at other times, put together such vetted units. I

think it can be done, but we need to be rigorous and demanding

of those safeguards here.

Mr. BARRETT. OK. Chief, from your perspective, are we winning

or losing this fight?

Mr. KRUHM. I think we’re winning it in some geographic areas.

There are other areas where we may be holding our own or not

doing as well. I was just down on the border at 1 o’clock this Saturday morning, working with the agents down on the line, in the

brush. You can certainly see the evidence that there’s a lot of activity occurring down there.

In other areas, I think we have very well and very ably demonstrated that we can put an appropriate mix of technology and resources down there. It includes having prosecutors. It includes having the investigators from DEA. You have to put the right number

of people down there in order to be successful, in any geographic

area, but you can’t do it just with Border Patrol agents. You have

to have that appropriate mix.

Mr. BARRETT. Do you think we have the appropriate resources

devoted to border agents?

Mr. KRUHM. I beg your pardon?

Mr. BARRETT. Do you think we have sufficient resources devoted

to border agents at this time?

Mr. KRUHM. Well, both the administration and Congress have a

multiple year plan to get to X number of Border Patrol personnel.

I think we have to reassess that every year and make sure that

we’re putting the right number of people out there, and that we’re

appropriately using that funding to buy the right technology and

to put the right mix of personnel out there.

Mr. BARRETT. OK. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. I wanted to ask a brief followup to a question I had

and also Mr. Barrett. Were you not aware that when Gutierrez

came to Mexico City he brought, as his top aide, Montenegro Ortiz,

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who had been already busted once for supposed drug trafficking

ties, and he was in that office?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Personally, I was not aware of that, no. I

knew that he had brought a number of people from the military

with him when he took over INCD. I had not met him or seen him,

or we had not been in any background investigation involving him.

Now, I’d have to check with my country attache in Mexico City

to see whether or not he was an individual that we were aware of.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. Barr has to leave. If I can skip to Mr. Barr of Georgia.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Is that OK, John?

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. BARR. I had the opportunity, just last August, to go down to

the border area, and it was the first time I had been there since

a trip that I made as a U.S. attorney. I must say that there has

been tremendous progress made in the border area, a lot of it very

recently, and I was very pleased to see that. I think a lot of the

moneys that have been made available through the Congress,

through this administration and the prior administration, I think

really are being used very, very effectively.

There, of course, are a lot of things we can still be doing, but Assistant Commissioner Kruhm, I commend you and your men and

women down there, because I think they are doing a tremendous

job, and we have seen some very important successes and strong

movement in the direction of really starting to get a handle on our

border area.

I do have some concerns about what it takes, from a policy standpoint, Ms. Warren, to get this administration interested in what’s

going on with Mexico. I go back, also, to one of the previous witnesses we had here. We have seen, and we heard today from the

gentleman on your left there, who knows full well of whence he

comes and what he speaks of, we have heard and seen irrefutable

evidence that the Mexican Government is rife with corruption from

the top to the bottom.

I think it is fair to say that the lives of the men and women that

work under these two gentlemen are at risk because of what is

going with the Mexican Government. Yet all the President can say

about Mexico is how wonderful they are for paying back a bunch

of money that we loaned them, that some of us think he had no

legal right to loan them in the first place, nothing about drugs,

nothing about the problems.

We have seen, just within the last few days, the top Mexican

general, who apparently has been on the take, not for a week, a

month, 2 months, but years, and we haven’t heard anything about

the administration being even concerned, really, except a little bit

today, about decertification. We’re hearing reports that the administration may be considering accelerating the certification process,

making a decision even before the deadline of March 1.

We have seen, I think, a very serious national security breach

here, in this case and heaven knows how many other cases that we

don’t know about. All the administration can tell us, from the Department of Justice, is, ‘‘We must proceed in cautious, measured

steps, with an aim of achieving tangible results borne of cooperaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00108 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
105

tion against a shared threat, to work with people we feel we can

trust.’’ We can’t trust these people; that’s the whole problem.

My question to you, please, is, from the administration’s standpoint, what is it going to take to get the administration to say,

look, you all have a corrupt government? You’re putting the lives

of our men and women who are trying to work with you at risk.

You’re handcuffing their ability. You either stop it—you’re not

going to get any more money from us—you either get your house

in order, because we don’t have a generation to wait until they develop their country.

We’re not society-building here. We have an immediate threat on

our border with Mexico and we can say all the nice things we want

about what a great partnership we’ve had over the years with Mexico, but the fact of the matter is, we have an absolute crisis on our

border with Mexico. We have a crisis with this Government of Mexico, because it’s their watch.

We’re not hearing anything from the administration except a

bunch of theoretical stuff about how nice it is to work with them,

and we’re going to work with them for the next generation to try

and buildup a system like ours. Why don’t we hold their feet to the

fire? I mean, can’t we do that? What is it about Mexico that this

administration is refusing to even acknowledge that we have to

hold their feet to the fire, to give these men the security and the

tools that they need in order to do their job?

We’re doing a good job on our side of the border, although I was

curious to see that, in your paper here, and you did mention this

in your oral comments, you’re comparing corruption on our side of

the border with Mexican. I don’t think they are even in the same

ballpark. Sure, we have problems from time to time with an officer;

any country does. But to draw any sort of comparison to the problems in Mexico with problems on our side of the border I think is

just uncalled for.

What is it? What do we have to see happen in order for us to

go to the Mexicans and take a hard stand? Because we are not

doing it now, and you can’t tell me with a straight face that we are.

Ms. WARREN. Let me try to respond to your question, if it is a

question.

Mr. BARR. It is.

Ms. WARREN. I think the administration has shown the seriousness that they take the drug problem and the drug problem from

Mexico. They have the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration fully engaged on this and the strong support of the attorney general on this. The planned growth of the Border Patrol

worked very carefully between the Commissioner of INS and the

attorney general.

The administration’s response, certainly from the Department of

Justice, and I can really only speak for that, is not one of looking

through rose-colored glasses. When I speak of—and I spoke of the

corruption on both sides—I made very clear that it is a much deeper and more extensive and more threatening problem down below

our border. I did that in my oral statement as well as in my written statement.

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Mr. BARR. I apologize. I didn’t hear that. I still think it’s an inappropriate comparison, but I appreciate the fact that you mentioned

it.

Ms. WARREN. Corruption and the pursuit of corruption, on both

sides of the border, has to be a priority for us. Our people are

threatened by it. Our law enforcement agents are threatened by

corruption and certainly the confidence of the public deteriorates

with that corruption. We need to be vigorous on that and treat it

as a very high priority. Thank goodness we have all along our law

enforcement history viewed it the same way. So we don’t have generations of rottenness that our neighbor to the South has.

How do we go forward? I think we have to recognize that we

have a shared problem. Our drugs are coming up from there, and

we’re not just going to build the highest fence. I told you about an

instance where they went under the border, so the fence wouldn’t

work anyway.

Mr. BARR. I mean, I’ve seen that while we were down there in

August. I’m not saying that we have to build a higher fence. We

are doing some good things by building stronger fences, but what

are we going to do to hold their feet to the fire?

Ms. WARREN. I think we have to be—and law enforcement is trying to do this; Department of Justice tries to do it—to recognize,

factually, what the improvements are, to press for additional improvements. A lot of their organized crime bill, and this evidencegathering authority that they now have, certainly came with the

initiative of President Zedillo, but with the urging of the Department of Justice that they could not proceed in the 19th century,

this was the 20th century, and they needed those kinds of authorities.

We have to be factual in relating what is working and what is

not; what is improving, what can be further improved. Our extradition relationship has improved.

Mr. BARR. Well, it may be. I suppose it’s all relative.

Ms. WARREN. It’s not good enough, and we shouldn’t rest where

we are.

Mr. BARR. We have over 100 pending extraditions, 52 of which,

according to information that I have, are drug-related. Yet only 13

of those have been formally filed by United States authorities in

Mexico.

Mr. BARRETT. Regular order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Barr, we’re going to go a second round, if you

come back.

Mr. BARR. OK. Can I just finish this question? Thirty-nine of

them apparently fall into the category of provisional requests,

which means that we haven’t even formally filed them. I mean, it

seems to me that we’re not—maybe it’s even worse than I thought,

now that I mention it—not only are we not holding their feet to the

fire, we’re not even pressing as hard as we can on extradition, since

you mentioned that.

Ms. WARREN. Well, filing the provisional arrest request is the arrest warrant request.

Mr. BARR. So there’s nothing further that has to be done on

those?

107

Ms. WARREN. Until the person is apprehended, we wouldn’t provide that sometimes 60- or 100-page document, the extradition

package, until he was apprehended. Of those 100 requests, most of

them have not been located or apprehended. We have cited them

as priorities and keep giving them our top 10 or top 15 so that they

can focus on those, as our most viable cases, our most vicious defendants, and ones that perhaps we have location information on,

to proceed against those first.

The sheer number of requests is not the answer. Mexico has 350

requests to us. We do not know any priority of their cases, something that we must know from them. Those requests are of people

they don’t know are in the United States, or they don’t even know

that they are alive, to some extent. We’ve asked for a priority of,

who do you want as the worst offenders, that you believe are in the

United States, that you have a viable case against today? Those are

what we use; that’s what they should use.

Mr. BARR. I don’t know what that has to do with anything.

Ms. WARREN. We’ll push on that.

Mr. BARR. Well, maybe we’ll push on something.

Mr. SOUDER. We are coming back for a second round, because a

number of us had some additional questions.

I also want to put in one good word for higher fences. In Nogales,

the rooftops were such that they could crawl over. I was told, in

the visit there, that we didn’t build it higher for fear somebody

might break their leg, or something. I have a grave concern that

it’s illegal coming across, whether it’s immigration or drugs, and in

some places higher fences might work, even though, then, they

might tunnel under.

Mr. Mica from Florida.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

To follow up some of the extradition questions, Chief Kruhm, the

individual that was allegedly involved with the killing of Agent

Barr was Jose Chavez, who told FBI investigators he was among

the group that turned on Barr. I have a report here, April 1996,

that we filed a request for Chavez’ extradition. Where is Chavez

these days, Mr. Kruhm?

Mr. KRUHM. He’s incarcerated in Mexico.

Mr. MICA. How is that extradition coming?

Mr. KRUHM. It has not occurred.

Mr. MICA. This is from April 1996. He was killed over a year ago.

How is that extradition coming, Ms. Warren?

Ms. WARREN. He is being proceeded.

Mr. MICA. It’s not a priority?

Ms. WARREN. It is a priority, but at the moment he is being proceeded against by Mexico. He has been already convicted on a narcotics trafficking charge and I think received 25 years for that. He

will soon be charged with homicide charges in Mexico.

Mr. MICA. Will we see him over here anytime?

Ms. WARREN. It depends on whether or not they can, in fact, file

homicide charges. If they cannot, we need to press our extradition,

if they cannot file the homicide charges.

Mr. MICA. Is he on the priority list?

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Ms. WARREN. A priority of the U.S. Government is those who

murder law enforcement agents. This one has already been proceeded against in Mexico.

Mr. MICA. Is it one of our priorities, though, in the 13 that you

were talking about?

Ms. WARREN. He is not on that list because he is already being

proceeded against.

Mr. MICA. So killing an agent of the U.S. Government, the Border Patrol, isn’t among the 13 priorities?

Ms. WARREN. I told you, it’s because they have already proceeded

against him and he is supposed to be spending his time down

there. I would like to continue that, yes, there are those murderers

of law enforcement agents on our list, including the murderer of a

DEA agent.

Mr. MICA. Yes. Is that Camarena?

Ms. WARREN. No.

Mr. KRUHM. That’s Richard Faas, who was shot and killed just

outside of Phoenix, AZ, in June 1994. The individual, Augustin

Vasquez, is a fugitive. They have been unable to locate him in Mexico.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Constantine, I’ll get off of extradition for a second.

Did you meet with Gutierrez?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Yes, I did.

Mr. MICA. When did you meet with him?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. On three occasions when he was in town with

the attorney general from Mexico, once at a dinner that was hosted

for him, in which the United States Government officials—it was

for the attorney general of Mexico, Mr. Madrazo—at the embassy

in Mexico, at a lunch at the Justice Department, and at a briefing

at the DEA headquarters.

Mr. MICA. So he was briefed here in Washington?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. By the DEA and perhaps others, but definitely by the DEA.

Mr. MICA. Well, you have something to do with DEA, don’t you?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Yes. In fact, I was there the day of that briefing and introduced it.

Mr. MICA. Now, I don’t know if it should be the subject of this

hearing, Mr. Chairman, and maybe it should be the subject of a

closed hearing, but I think we need to find out what information

was relayed at these briefings, and how much intelligence was

transmitted to this individual who now has turned out to be up to

his eyeballs in drug trafficking. So I think we need to come back

and address that. I don’t want to pursue the questioning.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I would be able to answer that in this format

and be more than willing to.

Mr. MICA. Did he meet with our agents in Mexico City also?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I’m sure he met with them from time to time,

but I think you’re talking about that briefing. I think it’s important, in that there’s misinformation out in the media, to get the actual information out.

Mr. MICA. I think that that’s important, but I think we should

pursue it in a closed hearing, both that information and any other

information that your agents discussed in Mexico City with him.

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Let me ask you a question about the military and moving the

military. Last week, they were moving into the Southwest Border

area, taking over some of the former drug enforcement civilian role,

the Mexicans are; is that correct?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That’s correct. The Federal drug enforcement

agents in the Baja-Tijuana area have been removed from the region, sent back to Mexico City, and replaced by military personnel,

according to newspaper accounts.

Mr. MICA. I don’t want to get into a lot of detail, but we’ve been

working with some of the personnel in training and some other

work with individuals who were going to be involved in the drug

effort in Mexico. Are those individuals now involved with the military, or are there none of the U.S.-trained individuals?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The individuals who have been dispatched to

the Baja?

Mr. MICA. By the Mexicans.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I would not know whether they have been selected, trained, or have any narcotics enforcement background.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Warren, you talked about vetted units around the

world and some of these drug hot spots. We had worked with some

folks—I don’t want to get into a lot of detail—but are any of the

folks that we’ve worked with, are they out in the field, in the border, or are they located in Mexico City?

Ms. WARREN. I have no knowledge.

Mr. MICA. You have no knowledge?

Ms. WARREN. No knowledge about who is in the Baja area now,

of how they’ve been trained, by whom; I just don’t know.

Mr. MICA. What do you think the effectiveness of these folks will

be in that area, switching over now?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, moving the military into a traditional civilian law enforcement, in any country, I think is very difficult.

You have people who have been selected for one purpose in life, to

serve in the military. They have been trained to perform military

functions. Now to have the responsibility to conduct complex criminal investigations against some of the most sophisticated organized

crime groups in the world, I think would be difficult, if not impossible.

Mr. MICA. So are they taking a step forward or a step backward?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, it’s tough for me to assess what’s going

into their decision, into their problems.

Mr. MICA. But you’re saying that they are now moving military

in who aren’t capable of conducting an investigation and pursuing

these folks in the manner that a different agency could. So it

sounds like you’re saying it could be less effective.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That’s a decision that would have to go from

the Government of Mexico. My sense, in reading the newspapers,

is that that decision is probably based on their lack of confidence

in the civilian law enforcement institutions in narcotics investigations. If that’s the reason they made the decision, they probably see

it as a step forward.

Mr. MICA. Just one final question. You talked about the breakup of the Cali Cartel, and you gave credit—I guess we give some

of the credit to the national police chief and his brave efforts. Is

there anything similar that’s taken place in Mexico, where there’s

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a break-up of a cartel? What percentage of drugs, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, are coming now through Mexico, and has there been

any similar effort by the Mexican authorities, or do they have that

capability?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, first, by drug group, first with the methamphetamine, virtually 90 to 100 percent of all the ephedrine and

methamphetamine is coming through from Mexico. Black tar heroin, which is a product from Mexico, 100 percent. Cocaine is a figure that we estimate somewhere in the area of two-thirds. That

fluctuates, Congressman, depending upon what—they don’t check

with us, as you know, with their routes, but it is one of their priority routes.

There have been individual arrests from time to time, but in my

experience, in almost 3 years in this position and reviewing all of

the records previously, I see no indication of a disruption of an organized crime family in a manner that would be familiar to us in

law enforcement in the United States.

Mr. MICA. There’s no capability?

Mr. BARRETT. Regular order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. We’ll come back, Mr. Mica.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. My sense is, it’s a mismatch between law enforcement agencies in a difficult situation and powerful organized

crime syndicates.

If I could just answer one—I would not want to leave misinformation out there, because there is too much misinformation out

there. There was no classified or confidential information ever provided to the attorney general of Mexico or Gen. Gutierrez, who accompanied him, either in a briefing in DEA—that briefing was very

similar to what was in my testimony here today in an open

forum—and I’ve checked with the country attache in charge of our

Mexico operations, no such information was provided to Gen.

Gutierrez by DEA in Mexico City also.

Mr. SOUDER. We will come back.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent request

that was pending.

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, from Mr. Barrett. That’s who I was yielding to

next.

Mr. Barrett would like to make a comment.

Mr. BARRETT. I would remove my objection, although I would

note that the document doesn’t say who prepared it or why it was

prepared. I have no objection.

Mr. MICA. The document was provided by Mr. Gilman’s committee to me.

Mr. BARRETT. Has it been prepared privately or by staff?

Mr. SOUDER. The document will be entered into the record with

that reservation, and if Mr. Mica can provide some additional information with it, that will help.

Mr. MICA. By his staff.

Mr. BARRETT. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said. Did you say

it was prepared by his staff?

Mr. MICA. Yes, I believe it—or given to me by his staff.

Mr. BARRETT. OK. So you don’t know who prepared it?

Mr. MICA. I don’t know who prepared it.

Mr. BARRETT. OK. Thank you.

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Mr. MICA. I will try to make that part of the record.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

I had a couple additional questions. I know you’ve been here a

long time, but we’re at a very critical point, depending on the administration’s decision and what we’re looking at here, and particularly looking at the questions related to Mexico, per se.

In response to an earlier question, and also to this question of

pulling back the agents from the Tijuana area, my concern is—because what I understood you to say, Mr. Constantine, is that we

assume that everything we shared with their government has been

compromised, because we don’t know any other way to measure

what information got out, including potentially the names of DEA

agents. Are we pulling agents out or replacing or in any way trying

to protect the lives of our potentially comprised agents?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. First of all, the assumption was, any information that was in the files of the INCD, which is a Mexican institution, we’re making an assumption immediately that all of that information was compromised. Now, that would not be all of the information that’s available to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

There may be things so sensitive that we’ve not shared.

As far as the identification of our agents in country, I assume

that he was knowledgeable about that from his INCD headquarters. Now whether he sought that out purposely for any reason, I am not sure of that. We have not pulled any people out of

there. The only adjustment we’ve made is for our people stationed

in the United States, who formerly used to travel into Mexico on

the binational task forces, about a month ago, I curtailed their activities into Mexico.

The agents, as part of our country team, 35 or 36 of them, they

have operated in a high-risk environment certainly since the death

of Agent Camarena, and we take numbers of precautions which I

wouldn’t discuss publicly, but we feel comfortable we will continue

those, and their supervisors are on alert.

Mr. SOUDER. Do you also have concerns, given what media reports are starting to surface, about the areas of the two Governors,

particularly Sonora, and the safety of our DEA agents there? I presume there they are not allowed to carry weapons, as well.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. No, people who are stationed as part of the

country team have adequate protections. The issue for us was that,

about a year ago, working with both our supervisors along the border and Mexican law enforcement, we recognized that these gangs

were bouncing back and forth across that border so frequently. We

really needed to have a co-located unit of people with knowledge of

both sides of the border.

Those are the individuals who began on the task forces, first in

Tijuana, then Juarez, and then in Monterrey. Those are the ones

that Ms. Warren talked about. Now, what has happened, obviously,

because of a protection issue, we have curtailed their activities and

placed very strong security guidelines around their travel or activities.

The secondary problem of that now comes that those very task

forces would have reported into INCD headquarters in Mexico City.

INCD headquarters in Mexico City is now, until we’re disabused of

that theory, an entity that has been corrupted at the very top.

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Mr. SOUDER. Do you have concerns about the Governors of Sonora or Morales?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I wouldn’t comment in a public environment,

because those are numbers of issues and reports that I’d have to

do in a closed session.

Mr. SOUDER. We may have to seek some additional information,

because one of the core concerns here—because I remember when

we met with President Zedillo, and he told me a personal story

about his son being approached by drug dealers and couldn’t believe that even his son had been approached, I know that he seems

to have such a deep-hearted conviction on behalf of democracy and

a desire to see that done as his accomplishment for Mexico.

But we still have to ask the question of, given the fact that at

least sources in Mexico, numerous sources, say that the Governor

of Sonora was the person who advanced him politically, that he has

been involved in a lot of this, and given the fact that we were so

clearly misinformed about the head of their drug enforcement agency and a lot of the others, even down to not knowing that his chief

staff person had been busted once before for suspected narcotics

trafficking, how do we honestly know? I know Ambassador Jones

said, if he’s wrong about Zedillo, he gives up.

On the other hand, how do we know? We’re being asked to make

a decision in Congress—I mean, I listened to the comments of, unless we work with a country, how can we influence them in the

trade? That argument goes for Burma. That argument goes for Colombia. That argument goes, really, for any country, not just Mexico.

Part of the question here is that we’re taking it, roughly, on blind

faith, when, in fact, he removed his attorney general. He’s got a

drug czar that was crooked. He’s got police that you say up to 90

percent, in Tijuana and Baja, California, are corrupt. Yet in Colombia we don’t see that.

The President—even though I agree, and I don’t want us to back

off Colombia, but the double standard here is, how do you look at—

he hasn’t removed his attorney general; he hasn’t removed Gen.

Serrano. It’s hard for us to understand almost a blind faith right

now in the Government of Mexico. I understand, as Congressman

Barr said, too, we understand the development of a country and

the corruption of it. Five people along our border, compared to 90

percent in Tijuana being under question, is a substantial difference.

When we were debating the NAFTA treaty in America, what I

heard all over the country was, this was much like the early Articles of Confederation in America, where the different States were

evolving, and in our relationship we were coming into a national

country, and we were evolving a little bit like that with Canada,

Mexico, and the United States. We had similar democracy, we had

similar procedures and ways we handle justice and trade and

things, and therefore we were becoming more equal partners.

This type of thing really calls into question, in a lot of American

citizens’ minds, about whether, in fact, there is exactly parallel systems. If one system is evolving—and I have no doubt that everybody in Congress feels we are evolving—and we need to have

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lions of Americans with both direct relatives and Hispanic descent

commonalities.

At the same time, you are not today documenting a country that

is like our country, in their justice system, in their police system,

in their defense system. In fact, we’re having to take this on faith

right now, a fairly blind faith. I mean, I’m open to any comments

with that, but it has been a frustrating process for us.

Then when we get down to, can we trust this person or not, I

understand why it needs to be classified, but we’re being asked to

vote publicly on a very difficult matter. The American people, in effect, can’t get some of this information, for reasons I understand,

because we have classified briefings on a number of things, but it

puts us in a very difficult position, too.

Do you care to comment? You don’t have to. If any of you want

to.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Not really.

Mr. SOUDER. OK.

Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Let me go back to Ms. Warren again. So, in reading

your testimony, it says, ‘‘The Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, has trained over 1,100 officers and prosecutors, and expects to train another 1,500 in 10 seminars by the end

of fiscal year 1997.’’ That’s one of your projects?

Ms. WARREN. That’s part of a Southwest Border Initiative. It is

not just the prosecutors from the Criminal Division. The agents

from DEA and Customs and FBI are part of that training. They

train the prosecutors.

Mr. MICA. As I understand it, a lot of the folks that are involved

here in enforcement now are being replaced with the military?

Ms. WARREN. No, no, this is training of U.S. prosecutors. That’s

what that refers to.

Mr. MICA. Do we have any program where we’re training Mexicans, that you’re involved in?

Ms. WARREN. We have plans for training of Mexican prosecutors.

There has been training of investigators, for instance, in chemical

controls and the identification of precursor chemicals, taking down

of chemical labs. We have plans to train prosecutors in money

laundering and asset forfeiture investigations.

Mr. MICA. The ones that are cited here are all United States?

Ms. WARREN. United States, yes.

Mr. MICA. But we’re not able to extradite anyone for prosecution

from the other side of the border?

Ms. WARREN. Well, no, we have extradited 13. If I could just take

this moment to correct the record, I misspoke by saying that Chavez Laines, the killer of Jefferson Barr, was not on our list. He is

on our list of extraditables, about 11 or 12 priority cases, that list

handed over to the Mexican foreign secretary last week by the attorney general.

Mr. MICA. How much is this program costing, this dangerous

drug training program, the domestic side?

Ms. WARREN. The domestic one, I would have to try and get an

estimate of that cost. It is part of the ongoing in-service training

for all of our prosecutors, and I think has had an enormous return,

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based on the cases they have been able to develop with the investigators in the Southwest Border Initiative.

Mr. MICA. So that’s one reason. So are you adding to the number

of drug prosecutions in that area? If I looked at the statistics—now,

I know, nationally, drug prosecutions the last 4 years have

dropped; is that correct?

Ms. WARREN. I think that is correct, the numbers. I would say

that the stats alone don’t tell.

Mr. MICA. So if I look at these stats now, I’m going to see a dramatic increase in the number of prosecutions in the Southwest Border project?

Ms. WARREN. I don’t think you will see such a dramatic increase

in absolute numbers. What you will see an increase in is the level

of the prosecution and the dismantlement of that part of the organization that worked in the United States. They are much better

cases than we have brought before.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. If I could contribute a little bit.

Mr. MICA. Yes.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. What’s happened is, rather than just taking

numbers and defendants unconnected, we’ve decided on a strategy

to go for the leadership in all of the organizational structure as it

exists in the United States.

One of the cases that we refer to here is Zorro II, because it was

the nickname of the major trafficker. We took down, on 1 day, all

of the major participants who had been sent into the United States

from Colombia or Mexico to run the cocaine distribution system, all

the way from Bellflower, CA, all the way across the country, down

to the leadership of a crack gang in Rocky Mount, NC. That was

156 defendants. That was 90 wiretaps and a huge investment in

translation costs, prosecutors’ time, affidavits. That 156 defendants

may not look like a big number, but those are the people that you

have to take out if you’re going to go after an organized crime

strategy.

Mr. MICA. The net amount of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine

coming into the United States has been on the increase every year,

and the number of deaths have been on the increase, domestic; is

that correct?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The amount of cocaine coming into the United

States, I can’t tell you what the exact number of seizures is, because we go through the cultivation and then production. We figure

there’s about 800 to 850 tons of potential cocaine produced. We

seize, somewhere in the world, either in Colombia, or in the interdiction area, or in seizures at the border, or seizures in the United

States, or Highway Patrol officers in Florida, somewhere around

one-third of that.

So what happens is, the market is overproduced. An economic

model just doesn’t fit cocaine production or heroin production.

Mr. MICA. But we’re seeing more on the street, more trafficking.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, cocaine—strangely enough, heroin is the

big problem in many places on the East Coast. Cocaine, hard-core

abuse, has remained the same. Casual abuse changed dramatically

after the death of Len Bias in 1986 and the attention drawn to it.

It’s probably stayed fairly constant.

Mr. MICA. That’s among adults.

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Mr. CONSTANTINE. Methamphetamine is a huge problem on the

West Coast, a growing problem. On the East Coast of the United

States, heroin, which was once 7 percent 25 years ago, is now 95

percent pure. The Orlando area, many of my friends are chiefs of

police, the sheriff of Orange County is a personal friend of mine,

have been visited by numbers of young people. I think the overdose

deaths are around 30 to 34 people over the last 12 or 15 months,

people from middle class families using heroin at rave parties.

We just held a major heroin conference about 2 weeks ago. We

will be issuing a report within a month. That is a significant problem along the East Coast of the United States.

Mr. MICA. Well, we have given you the assets and resources that

you requested. The Border Patrol, we have given you some, put

back some of the cuts you sustained, I guess, a couple of years ago,

before we took charge of the Congress. Certainly, the Department

of Justice has gotten the resources. I’m just not sure that they are

being properly used or properly directed. Maybe what we’ve done

hasn’t worked. Maybe we need to be looking at some other things

that will work.

It seems to me the statistic, between 1985 and 1992, we reduced

drug use, with law enforcement and interdiction and prevention, by

78 percent, when we had a different emphasis. Now I’m even more

disturbed to hear the President today, with his plans for the future

which haven’t worked in the past, to be more of a repeat of the

mistake that was made the first 2 years, at least, almost 3 years

of this administration. I guess that’s a statement and not a question.

Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you, Mr. Mica.

Mr. Barr from Georgia.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Administrator Constantine, I think that in Ms. Warren’s testimony she used the term ‘‘fully engaged’’ to describe DEA’s activities in Mexico, that DEA is fully engaged.

Ms. WARREN. I did.

Mr. BARR. I think it was just last year that, through this subcommittee and then through the Congress, there were funds appropriated to add 20 new DEA agents for Mexico. Has Mexico been

asked to receive those additional agents?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. We’ve asked that—there is what you would

call—or preceded me, it occurred in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s,

I believe, a thing called the rules of the game that limited the number of DEA agents in Mexico to, I think, 38 or 39 agents.

We have asked to expand that ceiling for our country detail in

Mexico by 6, to bring that up to 45. We then had asked that we

could put three or four people in each of the binational task forces,

each of the three, so we could come up to the figure of 20. We have

not gotten an answer back on the six for the country team.

The individuals who would be working in country on these binational task forces, the three or four to each of those details, the

people are available. At this point in time, the issue is two things:

one, security; second, trying to determine how much damage has

been done by Gen. Gutierrez’ compromising information.

Mr. BARR. Is there a damage assessment team operating?

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Mr. CONSTANTINE. That’s correct.

Mr. BARR. Which agencies are part of that?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. For the purposes of DEA, it’s an internal

audit being done of all of our agents to see what types of information may have been provided, what would be an issue for us. We

would be dealing, obviously, first, with the safety of our own

agents; second, the protection of any witnesses or informants. So

that started the morning after his arrest.

Mr. BARR. What about other agencies? Is Justice a part of that

damage assessment team?

Ms. WARREN. We are not directly a part of that. The Administrator will provide a copy of the assessment to the Attorney General for her review.

Mr. BARR. Might I respectfully suggest that this seems to be important enough for the Department of Justice to be a part of that

damage assessment team. That’s not a question; that’s just a respectful, unsolicited suggestion. Is the FBI a part of that damage

assessment team?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Not that I know of. There is only one FBI

agent working in Mexico City, and on all drug issues, the DEA is

the lead agency. So any investigations that would be involved and

any information would be also involved in the DEA assessment.

Mr. BARR. How about CIA?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I could not speak for them, Congressman.

Mr. BARR. OK. Can anybody? Does anybody know whether they

are part of assessing the damage that’s been occasioned by this latest bout of corruption?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I couldn’t answer that. I don’t know.

Mr. BARR. Does the Department know whether they are part of

the damage assessment team?

Ms. WARREN. All I know is that several of the agencies are undertaking assessments at this time.

Mr. BARR. Mr. Constantine, when you were talking a few moments ago about the numbers of agents, is that a question that has

been posed to the Mexican Government, and they have not authorized or allowed the additional agents in place?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That’s correct. The allocations of agents and

assignment to Mexico was controlled by this agreement which was

reached between the Government of the United States and Mexico

in, I think, 1989 or 1991, where it was limited to 38 or 39. Now,

that has to be changed, obviously. The proposal has been made to

change that and to increase that by six. We do not have an answer

back yet.

Mr. BARR. Mexico has not consented to that yet, not agreed to

it?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. We haven’t got an answer back. They have

not disagreed or agreed.

Mr. BARR. I mean, they haven’t agreed to it. We have asked

them.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. That’s correct.

Mr. BARR. Can your agents carry firearms in Mexico?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. The agents who are assigned to the country

team, as we call it, a country detail, country attache, those individVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00120 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
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uals have full protection. I would not publicly get into what all of

those protections are.

We do have an issue with agents who are stationed in the United

States. They are stationed in the San Diego DEA office, the El Paso

DEA office, and in Brownsville. Those agents were traveling across

the border to be co-located with the INCD agents in these binational task forces.

We became concerned for two reasons: one, there was a wave of

assassinations of substantial criminal justice officials from the

INCD that had begun 9, 10 months ago, and was almost at a fury

pace early this fall. We also started to receive substantial threats

against the lives of our agents who were traveling into those details.

We didn’t believe, in looking at the law and any of the existing

policy, that there were adequate protections for them. They were

in kind of a newly developed status. We laid out a proposal that

they be provided the same protections as our agents working in

country. Again, we have not gotten an answer back, formally, on

that.

I’ve seen things in the paper where it has been denied. Although,

at a luncheon 2 weeks ago, the attorney general, Mr. Madrazo, said

that they were looking at that and thought they could reach a solution on that issue. Last night I received a call at home from the

attorney general of Mexico, and he indicated that he thought that

they could find a solution to that, but presently we don’t have any

type of an agreement.

Mr. BARR. Would these be things that we’re talking about, providing adequate protection for our law enforcement personnel, be

the sorts—and there are other ones—but would these be the sorts

of concerns that you believe should be taken into account in determining whether or not Mexico meets the criteria for certification?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I have tried and been successful to this point

in time, for 3 years, to indicate that I really don’t comment on certification. I provide kind of a fairly narrow parameter, law enforcement, how I see it, to people who are policymakers in this town,

and then I let them make their decisions on it. I give them candid,

confidential advice.

So the issues on certification, Congressman, I would have to request that I wouldn’t speak on what I think should be included in

certification, who should be certified, who shouldn’t be certified,

and what the status would be.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. I appreciate your background on the specific protection items, as well as the increase in the number of

agents down there. Can I presume or would you state that those

are important concerns, from DEA’s standpoint?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I think they are very important, Congressman.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman from Georgia.

I have a few closing questions I want to ask. Chief Kruhm, we

heard earlier, in the second panel, about ranchers who were concerned about their safety and selling off land or being intimidated.

Are you aware of that, and is it just in that area of Texas, or have

you heard that in other places, as well?

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Mr. KRUHM. That allegation has been made at various points

along the border, and we are working that issue jointly with the

Department of Justice and DEA. All of the Justice components are

working that issue, all along the border.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Warren, I see you nodding your head.

Ms. WARREN. Yes, and it’s not just Justice. The Department of

Treasury is helping us on that same issue.

Mr. SOUDER. Is some of it just fear because of what they are

reading, or do you have some concrete cases you’re actually pursuing, too, or are you not allowed to say that?

Ms. WARREN. We’re looking into it with grave concern.

Mr. SOUDER. OK. Mr. Constantine, I have a question about the

El Paso Intelligence Center. Should they not have known what was

going on with Gen. Gutierrez?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. They are really a movement and detection facility. Their job is to find out information about the movement of

narcotics into the United States and be able to, in some ways, provide information to either Customs people who are there, or the

Border Patrol, or Immigration. It’s a detection and monitoring program.

It would really be difficult to ask them to know information

about corruption, about an individual inside the military system of

the Government of Mexico. If they had the information or they

came across it in a wiretap, or if they came across it in some type

of an informant, they then could provide that information. But,

eventually, that would go to the head of DEA in Mexico City, who

would provide it to the Ambassador, and then there would be some

decision made on the part of the State Department.

But it’s not a designed role for the EPIC, the El Paso Intelligence

Center.

Mr. SOUDER. Is there any counterintelligence center that—since

you have to deal with different people, whether they be Governors

of territories or police of the defense—I mean, we have a case of

their person in charge of the drug issue who was on the payroll of

the cartels, whose staff person had already been busted once, in a

land where you’ve documented, and in your testimony you went

through and said—you didn’t get to read one of the written things

you have.

It would be akin, the assassinations, to three assistant U.S. attorneys, a special agent in charge of the DEA office in San Diego,

the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Houston, the chief

of police in San Diego. You see all these murders occurring, you

know your agents are at risk, you know that the country is at risk,

don’t we have any counterintelligence agency that’s trying to track

something like this? Where was the slip-up?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, we do have information on the issues

that you just talked about. We have units working, combined FBI

and DEA, out of San Diego, who are working in that gang out of

Logan Heights who access killers for the Arellano-Felix group. So

we have informants. We have wiretap information. We select information from those sources that we get across—but, you know, I

have to tell you that something doesn’t always happen the way

you’d like it to happen.

119

If an informant comes to us and said, ‘‘Look, the commandante

in such-and-such Mexican Federal judicial police is corrupt, and I

have this information,’’ and the informant is reliable in the past

and can be corroborated, we can do something with that information. Eventually, it will be put in an action group to try to make

an arrest or try to lead to some type of punitive action, criminal

or administrative.

Someone who is a General in the military, a sense that somehow

you are going to get that information, when all of their conversations, all of their meetings are taking place in the Government of

Mexico, not inside San Diego County or Los Angeles, where we

have the availability of wiretaps or we have the availability of informants—that’s where we get our intelligence information.

To get the information on an individual in Mexico, it would have

to come, for the most part, from a duly designated Mexican law enforcement institution or internal affairs operation of the military of

the Government of Mexico. DEA, just the nature of our role, would

not be determining that information. We just talked of 38 agents

in a country of 100-and-some million people. It’s just an impossible

task to ask them to find out that information. They don’t have the

tools available to them.

Mr. SOUDER. It’s hard for the average person—I mean, maybe

there are too many movies and TV, where the FBI and the DEA

and everybody finds people all the time. At the same time, you

have planes buzzing around, you’re getting tips. You’re getting tips

on boats that are coming in and along huge borders. You’re getting

tips on this person may be compromised; this person may be compromised.

Here’s a guy in charge of the whole thing. Are you saying there

was nothing in the system that would have tipped—we have our

drug czar praising him. It’s embarrassing.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. We looked everywhere. There was no information that we could corroborate, from an informant, from an investigation. No investigation conducted. We had two anonymous notes,

over 6 years old, on the individual, that the agents at that point

in time couldn’t find any information to corroborate.

Let me say this, if he was a General in the U.S. Army, I think

we’d get him, and we’d be able to wrap him up pretty well. But we

are, again, talking about the limitations that we have inside another country.

Mr. SOUDER. Which I understand. I had asked you what kind of

information, and Congressman Mica and others asked you, do you

know—and we will ask him directly—but have you heard whether

Gen. McCaffrey gave any lists of DEA agents or anything else in

his discussion?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. I’ve talked with him since then. He’s indicated

absolutely not. There was indication somewhere along the line that

he had arranged the meetings and the briefings, that’s totally untrue.

What happened was, the attorney general from Mexico came in.

He was new; he asked for a briefing on what were the drug trafficking issues in the world. We gave him a briefing. It was very

general. It was like the testimony today. It was nothing even close

to the types of briefings I’ve given for members of this committee.

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Mr. SOUDER. That’s true of Gen. McCaffrey, too?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. He was not there. No, that was just the attorney general of Mexico.

Mr. SOUDER. But you don’t know whether he’s had any separate

meetings?

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Well, I’m sure he’s had separate meetings, but

he is not involved in operational activities, and he’s really dependent on DEA or the FBI to provide him with the information for a

briefing.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Warren, you made the statement about the extradition of the one related to drugs, who was a Mexican and an

American national, had dual citizenship. You said there was one

other case of an extradition of somebody who was just a Mexican

national. Was that drug-related or other issues?

Ms. WARREN. It was a child molestation case.

Mr. SOUDER. So, at this point, we don’t have any cases of extradition of a Mexican national only in drug issues?

Ms. WARREN. That’s correct.

Mr. SOUDER. In money laundering, how many arrests have been

done in money laundering? You outlined some of the things where

you hoped there was going to be progress. Have we seen any concrete evidence yet?

Ms. WARREN. They have a new law. They do not have their published regulations. Without current transaction reporting and suspicious activities reporting, it’s very hard to build investigations.

There are investigations being worked jointly with some U.S. agencies to try and build those cases down there. I know of no prosecutions to date, under their brand new law.

Mr. SOUDER. I don’t believe the scale of police corruption is even

in the same league, and I think that’s important, and we’ve attempted to clarify that. We have some money laundering problems

in this country, too, and obviously a lot of that money is going

through, and we’ll continue to follow that. So none of us are trying

to excuse anything that’s wrong here, because we’re going after it

as aggressively as we can.

Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Well, we’re coming to a closing of the hearing, and I

do want to extend to our DEA Director a continued invitation to

work with the subcommittee. Now, I sit up here as a frustrated

Member of Congress, because we want to do something about the

drug problem. To me, it’s our most serious national problem.

I mean, when you have 80, 90 percent of the crimes in our communities are drug-related, we’ve packed our jails. We have 1.8 million individuals in jail, and probably 75 percent of them are in

there because of some drug-related crime. It’s now affecting our

kids. Cocaine may be down, but it’s up among the youth. The same

thing with marijuana and methamphetamine and, most scary, heroin.

In the last 2 years, since we took control of the Congress, we

made a commitment to give each of these agencies whatever resources they needed, whatever resource you need in DEA, Department of Justice, the Border Patrol folks. This is just the beginning

of a new session of Congress. Whatever you need, we will get, but

when we come back, I want to hear that the prosecutions have inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Jun 27, 2002 Jkt 078859 PO 00000 Frm 00124 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 W:\DISC\41196 pfrm09 PsN: 41196
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creased, that the seizures, or whatever, the enforcement, you know,

is working. Whatever it takes.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to get Mexico’s cooperation.

If the President certifies them, there are some of the members of

the committee and Congress who may work for congressional decertification of that country. That’s how serious we think it’s gotten.

With 70 percent of the drugs coming through this channel now, and

what you told us here today, they are foot-dragging.

We’ve heard the comments about this rule is coming, this law is

coming, this training is coming, this enforcement is coming, and

the end of corruption is coming, and we don’t see it. So we will do

anything. We will meet with you night or day. We’ll give you whatever resources, if it takes hundreds of millions or billions, it will

be there. We want your advice and your counsel to make this work.

Finally, to our DEA Director, we met some real modern day heroes. Our subcommittee, when we traveled to South America, the

first 2 years I served in Congress, when their funds were gutted

and there was a different direction in policy—which isn’t your

fault, you just respond—some of those folks even took funds out of

their own pockets to make those programs work, and kept things

going, some of them back in the jungles, or wherever.

So they are real heroes, and we don’t want to detract from what

good work they have been doing. But we’re here to work with you.

We’ll be critical, if what you’re doing doesn’t work, but we do want

to hear from you.

Also, our friends with the Border Patrol, whatever resources you

need. I know we gave you a net increase in this last year. This entire committee worked. Speaker Gingrich assigned Mr. Hastert initially as the liaison to the leadership, and now he chairs this subcommittee. So we, as a new majority, are committed to whatever

resources it takes in working with you.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for yielding to me and for allowing

me to make that statement. Thank you for a good hearing.

Mr. SOUDER. I see Chairman Hastert has joined back with us. Do

you have anything in closing?

Mr. HASTERT. Thank you.

I’m sorry, Tom and others, I make the apology for not being able

to be here. I was in another meeting, part of those meetings with

leadership and the Speaker, part of it was trying to get a commitment to make sure that we could move forward and make sure that

you have those things that you need to carry on. Again, my apology. I’ll read your testimony tonight, but I apologize for not hearing

it in person.

This War on Drugs is something that just is not something for

the TV cameras or the press. It’s about our kids; it’s about our communities, about our families. You’re on that front line. We want to

make sure that you have the wherewithal for the things that you

have to do.

We want to let you know that we’re in this fight, too, and we’re

in it to the end. That’s a commitment that we have on the whole

spectrum of drug enforcement, treatment, and working with Rob

Portman in trying to make sure that we work on both sides of this

issue and do the things that we have to do.

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I would just second John Mica’s statement. We know that the heroes are there, and we’ve seen the work that you do. We know the

jeopardy of what your troops and what your folks are into day in

and day out, and we just want to make sure that you have the

wherewithal to do the jobs that you have to do.

That being said, this is just the second in a whole string of probably 20-some hearings that we’re going to have in this area, and

we will look forward to working with you, meeting with you personally, carrying on that dialog so that we know things. If you have

a problem, we hope that you would give us a call so that we can

follow through.

Again, I apologize for not being here for a great part of this hearing, but sometimes you get strung out in many different ways. So

we appreciate it and yield back to our very able chairman.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Congressman, on behalf of all the agents that

you met who are heroes, and Doug’s people, and Mary Lee’s, your

support means a great deal to us. It gets kind of tough sometimes.

You feel like you’re pushing a rock. If you’re frustrated, you can

imagine how some of these kids are night and day. But the fact

that people in Congress take the time for these hearings and say

the nice things that you have said, we relay that, and it means a

great deal to us.

Mr. HASTERT. If I could, Mr. Chairman, one of the reasons I

think we understood better, we were very fortunate last year to

take a trip into the interior of South American countries where the

real work was being done. We had one of your able assistants,

Craig Chretien, with us a good part of that time. We saw and were

able to hear the stories first-hand of what goes on. That was very

helpful.

I make that invitation to all of you. When we can see what’s happening and put people and faces with actions being done, that

helps us do our job, as well. So we appreciate that effort.

Mr. SOUDER. We thank you for the many hours you spent here

this afternoon. It’s a testimony to your commitment that you’re

willing to come up here, on the more mundane side of this, but to

help educate us so we can make good decisions here and help,

through reaching out to others, through the media that’s here

today, and educate the American people.

It’s not a war that’s going to suddenly disappear; it’s going to go

on. It has to have every angle of it, and this is one of the important, critical angles, which is enforcement, and particularly as it relates to our decisions on certification and what blending of procedures we may do, and to call attention to the problems we’re having in the drugs coming in.

We are all hearing from our county sheriffs. It’s not an issue that

has passed us by at the local level, because 70 to 80 percent of all

the crime is drug and alcohol related. There isn’t a one of us here

who doesn’t have—young people are particularly the most dramatic, when you see kids shooting each other over the money that

they can make on drugs or in the car wrecks, and just stupid stuff

that we see when somebody gets high.

A combination, particularly, of marijuana and alcohol is potent,

but the heroin that we heard, in Florida, with the deaths, the crack

that we have in Fort Wayne that’s been a continuing problem. I

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know that many of the schools are getting more aggressive, but it’s

a sad commentary that my son, in high school, in a suburban high

school, that historically hadn’t had as much of a problem, now has

drug dogs going through.

Last week, he told me the story about he was not feeling well

and was in the restroom, and the teacher hauled him out of the

restroom into the room because the drug dogs were going through.

But, you know, he earlier had told me he couldn’t get into the restroom without smelling marijuana. Better to have drug dogs going

through than to have that problem. This isn’t just a low-income

problem or a high-income problem; it is pervasive in school after

school.

You are on the front lines, and we thank you. Because while we

have to have a demand reduction side, the fact is, in Fort Wayne

and other cities around this country, if the supply goes to huge levels and it’s flooded, and the prices drop down, and the purity is

there, and they mix it with different drugs, it is literally death to

so many young people that we have to try to reduce the supply

coming in, in addition to the demand reduction. Otherwise, it will

just overwhelm the poor teachers and those who are trying to

preach what’s right, because of the profits that are made.

In our foreign policy, we have to make decisions not just based

on money and what’s financially in the best interest of the United

States, but we have to realize we’re in a battle with a substance

that destroys our families and our kids.

I thank you, once again, for all your time.

Mr. CONSTANTINE. Thank you, Congressman.

Mr. SOUDER. With that, the hearing stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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