October 15, 2006 - Dallas Morning News (TX) Cartel Figure Lashes Out Ex-Informant Held by U.S. Says Drug Corruption Is Rampant By Alfredo Corchado, The Dallas Morning News

Return to Drug War News: Don't Miss Archive

A former informant whose participation in drug-related murders in Mexico caused turmoil in the U.S. agency that paid him says that there were more killings than reported and that drug corruption extends into the U.S. and Mexican governments.

In sworn testimony and in response to questions submitted through his attorney, Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro, the man known as "Lalo," provided new details about his work as a drug cartel operative and as a U.S. government informant, and he claimed to have personal knowledge of extensive government corruption.

Mr. Ramirez also lashed out at his former U.S. employers, saying they are turning their backs on him after he helped them apprehend dozens of drug traffickers.

"With the names I provided they were able to arrest more than 50 people, and they took millions of dollars from drug proceeds from U.S. streets," he said. "In spite of that, I'm jailed here without any protection and without any guarantee that I will stay in the United States."

Mr. Ramirez, 35, is being held by the U.S. government at an undisclosed location in the Midwest, fighting deportation to Mexico, where he insists he faces "certain death."

U.S. authorities characterize him as a renegade informant whose independent actions led, in part, to the August 2004 killing of an El Paso man, Abraham Guzman, outside a hamburger restaurant in that border city.

Mr. Ramirez made his remarks in a written response to questions submitted through his attorney, Jodi Goodwin. He had agreed to speak with reporters from The Dallas Morning News, which first reported about his role in the cartel killings in March 2004; the Mexico city weekly magazine Proceso; the London Observer; and Narco News, an Internet blog, but prison officials transferred him hours before the scheduled interview.

He apparently was moved at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency he served as an informant for four years, Ms. Goodwin said.

Implicating Officers

Mr. Ramirez, in confidential memos to ICE, had described how he infiltrated Mexico's powerful Juarez drug cartel and on two occasions witnessed cartel-ordered assassinations and supervised disposal of the victims, including a U.S. citizen. The bodies were found in January 2004 buried in the yard of a Juarez home.

In his latest comments, Mr. Ramirez said the killings usually were carried out by night-shift Mexican police officers working for the cartel and using the nickname "La Linea," or The Line.

"Not all the victims were assassinated at the same house," Mr. Ramirez said. "Some were left on the streets.They would kill people all the time, people who were not buried in [the same house], but in other homes too." He said there were "many more" killings but did not elaborate.

Mr. Ramirez insists he played no direct role in any killing, but critics of his role with ICE have said he was not just a spectator, as agency officials have said.

Reports in The News about his role in the cartel killings rocked the El Paso office of ICE, where four special agents were investigated and two supervisors were transferred. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

"The U.S. government is afraid of Lalo's mouth," said Ms. Goodwin, "afraid that Lalo will tell the whole story, which will say that every step he took, every move he made, was with the full knowledge of his ICE handlers."

Mr. Ramirez says he would like to be placed in a witness protection program or sent to Europe.

On Aug. 5, 2005, a U.S. immigration judge granted his petition to stay, agreeing that he would face danger in Mexico. The U.S. government, which initially concurred, appealed that decision and now wants him deported.An appeals court overturned the judge's ruling, and Ms. Goodwin is now appealing that decision.

"Am I angry at the U.S. government?" Mr. Ramirez wrote. "No. I'm sad, hurt that after everything I did for ICE they now want to deport me back to Mexico to face a certain death."

ICE officials had no comment. Spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said The News' request for comment "was going through the normal review process" and no immediate response was available.

The agency's relationship with Mr. Ramirez was part of an ambitious undercover investigation aimed at snaring Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, then reputedly Latin America's most powerful drug lord.

Misconduct Allegations

Critics of the operation have asked whether ICE agents could have prevented some of the killings across the border, and exactly what and when the U.S. attorney's office knew about the killings.

Questions have been raised specifically about the roles of Johnny Sutton, the U.S. attorney in San Antonio, and Juanita Fielden, assistant U.S. attorney in El Paso.

Sandalio Gonzalez, former Drug Enforcement Administration agent in charge in El Paso, says Mr. Sutton ignored allegations of misconduct by ICE and Ms. Fielden that Mr. Gonzalez outlined in a lengthy memo to the U.S. attorney's office and the ICE chief in El Paso. He says Mr. Sutton instead used his office to retaliate against Mr. Gonzalez, who later retired.

"They were not interested in investigating the allegations in my letter; they were more interested in jamming me for writing the letter," Mr. Gonzalez said.

Mr. Gonzalez made his allegations against Mr. Sutton and Ms. Fielden through the Merit System Protection Board in 2004. The News obtained the document containing his allegation through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Calls to Mr. Sutton's office in San Antonio were not returned.Ms. Fielden's office referred questions to Mr. Sutton.

Two years ago, ICE ordered an internal investigation to restore confidence in the El Paso office. Its findings remain confidential, but top supervisors Patricia Kramer and Giovanni Gaudioso were transferred to Washington. Two other agents were temporarily suspended, and Mr. Ramirez's main handler, Raul Bencomo, remains on administrative leave.

According to court affidavits, the agents said they were not told of the killings beforehand.

"What's clear is, Lalo will haunt us for a long, long time," said an ICE official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Right-Hand Man

Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro is a native of Mexico City and a former highway police officer in the southern state of Guerrero. In the late 1990s, he turned to the drug trade, developing schemes to help smuggle cocaine into the United States. In 2000, he started working as a U.S.-paid drug informant. He says that he earned $224,650 over a four-year period and that ICE still owes him $200,000 for various cases.

For an agency eager to bring down Mr. Carrillo Fuentes, Lalo was a major find. He was the right-hand man of Heriberto Santillan Tabares, considered a top operative in the Juarez cartel.

Among the scores of traffickers he helped bust was Mr. Santillan, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in a plea bargain with U.S. prosecutors. In the deal, murder charges against Mr. Santillan were dropped.

Mr. Ramirez said he played the role of drug trafficker to help the U.S. government dismantle the cartel. He said he was in constant contact with his American overseers, talking to them three or four times a day. He said he occasionally briefed other U.S. agencies, including the FBI, the DEA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

El Paso FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said, "We don't confirm or deny whether we talk with certain people or whether we had any briefings with those people." ATF did not return calls seeking comment.

Mr. Gonzalez said DEA agents met with the informant for briefings but were not told of his role in the killings.

Mr. Ramirez also alleged, in the responses through his lawyer, that some U.S. Customs inspectors and some members of the DEA had links to the drug cartel.

He said he turned over to his minders recordings of conversations in which Mr. Santillan talked about connections between the cartel and the "three letter" agency -- which he took as a reference to the DEA -- and the fact that "Vicente Carrillo Fuentes had absolutely no worries about the DEA."

David Monnette, DEA spokesman in El Paso, said: "We hold our workforce to the highest ethical standard, and we regard the ethical performance of duty as our first priority. We take very seriously any allegation of misconduct, abuse of position, or criminal action, and we continue to ensure the fair and impartial administration of justice and uphold the integrity and reputation of our outstanding workforce."

Mr. Sandalio, the former El Paso DEA chief, said: "That's entirely possible that the cartel had a hook in DEA. I'm not going to sit here and tell you there is no corruption in our government. Obviously there is."

'They Knew Everything'

Regarding the Abraham Guzman case, Mr. Ramirez denied that he engaged in any freelancing that would have resulted in that slaying.He said that while he was in protective custody in San Antonio, his supervisor, Mr. Bencomo, implied that he should return to the border to help on a case involving a corrupt customs inspector.He said he was told the agency needed him to collect $25,000 owed to the inspector. Mr. Ramirez said he instead sent Mr. Guzman, who was shot to death.

"They knew everything," he said. "For them to say I acted on my own is false."

Mr. Bencomo's attorney, Mary Stillinger, rejected that version of events. "That is absolutely not true," she said. "Agent Bencomo had no idea he [Lalo] was coming to El Paso. He was specifically told not to do that."

In his written responses, Mr. Ramirez also rejected assertions Ms. Fielden made in an affidavit that it was only in late January 2004 that she knew the extent of the informant's role in slayings in Juarez. And he said that far from telling him to stop participating in such criminal activity, his ICE handlers had only one request: that he not tape any future killings.He said he had used hidden microphones to record cartel activities.

The former U.S. informant also impugned authorities in Mexico, saying he worked with corrupt local, state and federal officials, as well as members of the military.

"The Mexican government, the police, the military," he said. "They are the cartel."

In a sworn statement dated Aug. 11 and filed in federal court in Bloomington, Minn., Mr. Ramirez said he was told that the office of the Mexican president had an arrangement with a cartel. He said that Mr. Santillan "explained to me that President [Vicente] Fox took the position to arrange, consult with, the cartel from Juarez. ... He was going to attack the enemy cartels, being from Tijuana and from the Gulf, and then the cartel from Juarez would be operating ... without the government being ... on top of them."

Mr.Ramirez said he personally made arrangements with Colombian drug traffickers to transport drugs with the help of the Mexican navy and federal agents.

The Mexican government flatly denied the allegations.

"Obviously there is no substance to what this man is saying," said Ricardo Cabrera, assistant to the government's top organized crime investigator, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos. "We have been lauded by the U.S. government for our continuous fight against all drug cartels. This person is saying these things, making allegations of corruption, to save his case and fight deportation to Mexico."

Attorney: ICE Prevented Interview

The former U.S. drug informant who is the subject of this report was moved to an undisclosed location shortly before he was to be interviewed by a group of U.S., Mexican and British reporters.

Jodi Goodwin, the attorney for the former informant, Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro, said he was moved because Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. government agency for which he had worked, didn't want him to talk with the media.

She said ICE was angry that her client had appeared in a news report in August on WFAA-TV (Channel 8). She said that Mr. Ramirez didn't know he was being interviewed or taped for a television report and that a hidden camera was used.

Michael Valentine, WFAA executive news director, denied that. "We never had a hidden camera," he said. The WFAA reporter, Mark Smith, couldn't be reached for comment. ICE declined to comment on the reason Mr. Ramirez was moved.

For the latest drug war news, visit our friends and allies below

We are careful not to duplicate the efforts of other organizations, and as a grassroots coalition of prisoners and social reformers, our resources (time and money) are limited. The vast expertise and scope of the various drug reform organizations will enable you to stay informed on the ever-changing, many-faceted aspects of the movement. Our colleagues in reform also give the latest drug war news. Please check their websites often.

The Drug Policy Alliance

Drug Reform Coordination Network

Drug Sense and The Media Awareness Project