Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers by Roberto Saviano Page B
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Authors: Roberto Saviano
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partners since 1979, due to the cordial relations between El Mexicano and Félix Gallardo, today we can conclude that the two agreements were one and the same, and that this is one reason why the two cartels grew so much stronger in the region during the 1980s.
In 1983, Barry Seal was arrested while transporting cocaine from Colombia to Florida. The CIA were not about to endanger their entire operation to defend Seal, and so the pilot turned to the DEA, offering information about the Medellín Cartel in exchange for immunity. For the first time ever, the US anti-drug agency saw a precious opportunity to learn about the inner workings of this nefarious Colombian cartel and to destroy it from within. Agent Ernest Jacobsen, of the DEA’s Florida office, became Seal’s handler.
The DEA files
In August 1985 at its offices on 8–61 Calle 38, in the heart of the Colombian capital, Bogotá, the DEA wrote a graphic report on the growth of drug trafficking in Mexico during the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid, from 1982 to 1988.
It’s a small file of yellowing pages that looks as if it will fall apart if you so much as look at it. On the outside is written in block capitals: “STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL,” then “Brief report, updated to August 1985, on links between Latin American narco-terrorists.”
Latin America was ablaze with drug scandals. The pages of the DEA report reek with blood, corruption and impunity. The list of names of prominent Mexican politicians, past and present, is invaluable for understanding the long history of impunity.
In the beautiful Peruvian city of Lima, the Villa Coca scandal had just erupted. 12 The clues left by the trade attaché at the Mexican embassy in Peru, Ricardo Sedano, pointed to three top-level Mexican officials who were then protecting drug traffickers. The DEA found in the debris at Villa Coca the remains of a private telephone line from Sedano’s home to the laboratory that blew up. The report moves from establishing Sedano’s links with the Peruvian trafficker Reynaldo Rodríguez, to qualifying the narco-terrorist connections in Mexico: since the elimination of guerrilla leaders such as Lucio Cabañas, an accord between Mexico and Cuba prevented more local outbreaks. Instead, “terrorists” from other Latin American countries who had obtained political asylum enjoyed protection from state security forces. Among the police chiefs, politicians, and traffickers in league with the Peruvian Reynaldo Rodríguez, the report singledout three important political figures at the heart of the networks traced by the DEA: Sergio García Ramírez, Victoria Adato Green, and Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios.
The anti-drug agency was keeping a close watch on Mexico’s attorney general, Sergio García Ramírez. The DEA document also makes detailed observations on Victoria Adato. She began her career as a deputy public prosecutor in Mexico City, and ended up as a full member of the Mexican Supreme Court (SCJN). She was especially tainted by her family connections. Her brother-in-law, Manuel Ibarra Herrera El Chato, as head of the PJF had promoted Armando Pavón Reyes, who got 60 million pesos from Rafael Caro Quintero El Príncipe “to let him escape to Guadalajara airport.” Her other brother-in-law, Arturo Ibarra, was said by the DEA to run a money laundering operation in Tijuana, involving ghost companies and currency exchange outlets.
As for Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, the report alluded to a 1984 Interpol dossier showing that President López Portillo, Attorney General Agustín Alanís, and Under Secretary of the Interior Gutiérrez Barrios all were thoroughly cognizant of the facts behind the 1981 Tula River massacre, in which thirteen Colombians were killed “for belonging to a different narcotics gang,” the report said. It also noted that Gutiérrez Barrios had brought off a massive electoral fraud in the mid-term elections of 1985.
The era of Escobar and Félix Gallardo comes to an
In 1983, Barry Seal was arrested while transporting cocaine from Colombia to Florida. The CIA were not about to endanger their entire operation to defend Seal, and so the pilot turned to the DEA, offering information about the Medellín Cartel in exchange for immunity. For the first time ever, the US anti-drug agency saw a precious opportunity to learn about the inner workings of this nefarious Colombian cartel and to destroy it from within. Agent Ernest Jacobsen, of the DEA’s Florida office, became Seal’s handler.
The DEA files
In August 1985 at its offices on 8–61 Calle 38, in the heart of the Colombian capital, Bogotá, the DEA wrote a graphic report on the growth of drug trafficking in Mexico during the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid, from 1982 to 1988.
It’s a small file of yellowing pages that looks as if it will fall apart if you so much as look at it. On the outside is written in block capitals: “STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL,” then “Brief report, updated to August 1985, on links between Latin American narco-terrorists.”
Latin America was ablaze with drug scandals. The pages of the DEA report reek with blood, corruption and impunity. The list of names of prominent Mexican politicians, past and present, is invaluable for understanding the long history of impunity.
In the beautiful Peruvian city of Lima, the Villa Coca scandal had just erupted. 12 The clues left by the trade attaché at the Mexican embassy in Peru, Ricardo Sedano, pointed to three top-level Mexican officials who were then protecting drug traffickers. The DEA found in the debris at Villa Coca the remains of a private telephone line from Sedano’s home to the laboratory that blew up. The report moves from establishing Sedano’s links with the Peruvian trafficker Reynaldo Rodríguez, to qualifying the narco-terrorist connections in Mexico: since the elimination of guerrilla leaders such as Lucio Cabañas, an accord between Mexico and Cuba prevented more local outbreaks. Instead, “terrorists” from other Latin American countries who had obtained political asylum enjoyed protection from state security forces. Among the police chiefs, politicians, and traffickers in league with the Peruvian Reynaldo Rodríguez, the report singledout three important political figures at the heart of the networks traced by the DEA: Sergio García Ramírez, Victoria Adato Green, and Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios.
The anti-drug agency was keeping a close watch on Mexico’s attorney general, Sergio García Ramírez. The DEA document also makes detailed observations on Victoria Adato. She began her career as a deputy public prosecutor in Mexico City, and ended up as a full member of the Mexican Supreme Court (SCJN). She was especially tainted by her family connections. Her brother-in-law, Manuel Ibarra Herrera El Chato, as head of the PJF had promoted Armando Pavón Reyes, who got 60 million pesos from Rafael Caro Quintero El Príncipe “to let him escape to Guadalajara airport.” Her other brother-in-law, Arturo Ibarra, was said by the DEA to run a money laundering operation in Tijuana, involving ghost companies and currency exchange outlets.
As for Fernando Gutiérrez Barrios, the report alluded to a 1984 Interpol dossier showing that President López Portillo, Attorney General Agustín Alanís, and Under Secretary of the Interior Gutiérrez Barrios all were thoroughly cognizant of the facts behind the 1981 Tula River massacre, in which thirteen Colombians were killed “for belonging to a different narcotics gang,” the report said. It also noted that Gutiérrez Barrios had brought off a massive electoral fraud in the mid-term elections of 1985.
The era of Escobar and Félix Gallardo comes to an
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