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 Editorials | Issues | March 2007 
U.S. Informants Take Part In Murder And Drug Running in Mexico - 3
 Jesse Hyde - Houston Press
And then he makes a mistake, something that gives his handlers pause: He is arrested in June 2003 at a Border Patrol checkpoint in Las Cruces, New Mexico, with an unauthorized load of 100 pounds of marijuana. He explains to his handlers at ICE that he had identified a new target and hadn't had time to tell them first. The DEA office in Juárez doesn't buy this explanation and deactivates him as a DEA informant. But ICE, after a long conversation with the U.S. Attorney's Office in El Paso, decides it will keep using him. He is too valuable to get rid of.
The next month, the killing at the House of Death begins. They are in a bar in Juárez and they have been drinking, and Santillan tells Lalo they are going to "rip" somebody. Lalo takes this to mean an execution, and he is pretty sure Santillan is talking about this lawyer friend of Santillan's named Fernando Reyes, but he can't be sure. Something Santillan says makes him think the hit might be on him. So he informs his handler at ICE of the situation. (According to a later investigation by the DEA, this is the first time Lalo would advise his handlers at ICE of a murder before it took place.)
Two days later, on August 5, 2003, at 11 a.m., he helps kill Fernando Reyes. When he is debriefed that evening by his ICE handlers, he minimizes his involvement. He only held Fernando's legs down, he says. He initially thought the cartel was going to kill him, he tells his handlers.
That night, the U.S. Attorney's Office in El Paso is told of the slaying and of Lalo's participation. In the following days, El Paso ICE agents advise their management in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City of the murder. They give the green light to proceed with the investigation of Santillan and to keep using Lalo.
When word of the killing reaches the DEA office in Juárez, they recommend that ICE take down Santillan immediately. They also request the location of Fernando's body so they can help Mexican officials solve the crime.
But ICE ignores these requests and then blows off a meeting DEA had requested to talk about the murder. DEA, they believe, is too cozy with their Mexican counterparts. And there is no federal agency, no government office in Mexico that ICE trusts. You tell the Mexicans what's going on, and boom, targets you've been chasing for months go into hiding.
Throughout the fall and winter of 2003, the killing at the House of Death continues. The cartel comes up with a code word for the executions that occur there: carnes asadas, or barbecues. Lalo is often called to open the house for a carne asada, and when the killing is done, he is responsible for the burial.
On September 11, 2003, Lalo is in Chicago, helping ICE with another investigation, according to the DEA. While there, he gets a call from Santillan, who tells him he needs to open the house for a carne asada. Lalo calls Alex Garcia, who assisted in the murder of Fernando, and asks him to open the house.
At this point, ICE has a wire on Lalo's phone and Santillan's phone, so it is likely that they hear the conversation. Still, they do nothing to stop the murder that occurs that day.
When Lalo returns to Juárez, the killing continues. In November, two drug mules, Paisa and El Chapo, lose 70 kilos on the Free Bridge in Juárez. The load belonged to Comandante Loya of the state police, Santillan's nephew. So Lalo takes the two mules to the House of Death. Santillan shows up with Comandante Loya and another killer named Crooked Fingers. Lalo tells Paisa and El Chapo, "You have to take business with us seriously." The Comandante tells them to lift their shirts over their faces so they don't see the boss, who is going to arrive shortly. He begins wrapping tape over their heads, but they can still breathe. One of the men starts moaning, so the Comandante shoots him in the head, at which point the other tries to break free. The Comandante shoots him in the head, too.
And on and on it goes.
One arrives DOA in a black plastic bag. Two police officers carry him in. He is so fat they have to drop him in the kitchen; he doesn't fit under the staircase. Another is brought in with a rope around his neck. There was a third, the cops say, but he crawled under a truck, and so they shot him there and left him in the street.
Each time Lalo is asked to open the house for a carne asada, he will later say, he tells his handlers at ICE.
Meanwhile, the cartel is bringing in at least $10 billion a year from the distribution and sale of cocaine in places such as Dallas, Houston, Chicago and New York. The cartel's kingpin, Carrillo Fuentes, is said to be one of the richest men in Mexico. He has houses on both sides of the border, BMWs and Porsches and Lincoln Navigators at his disposal, fine jewelry and thick wads of cash bound in rubber bands.
He maintains his power in Juárez through violence and intimidation. It is a city of two worlds: In many of the slums, there is no electricity or running water. The houses are made of cardboard and old tires, and the dirt roads are full of stray dogs and barefoot children. And then there is the Campestre, the country club district, where the houses are built of brick and slathered in pink stucco and trimmed in gleaming white. They are guarded by ceramic lions and the air smells sweet, of cut grass and palm trees and flowers. Carrillo Fuentes and his band are of this second world.
Although many of them maintain houses on both sides of the border, they confine most of the violence to Juárez. The cartel spends a rumored $500 million a year in bribes to police and elected officials, and its control is complete: Mayors are not elected, judges are not nominated, police chiefs are not appointed without its blessing.
Across the river, they say, it is different. The police are not corrupt. The streets are clean, the houses are tidy and it is America. But sometimes, the cartel reaches across the border, into the schools and the churches and the small poor communities along the river. "You have to understand how it works over here," law professor Weaver says. "You go to a quinceañera or something, and you have the cousins over here who work for ICE or DEA, and you have the cousins over here that run for the Juárez cartel. Everybody here knows people who are running or are in the drug trade. It is a career progression or career aspiration, just like joining ICE or DEA would be."
A man named Luis Padilla lives in one of these towns. It is called Socorro, and it sits just miles from the Rio Grande, out where the mountains and hills of El Paso flatten into the desert and the hay fields and orchards are surrounded by barren stretches of dirt and sage. The son of migrant workers, Padilla was an athlete in high school, and he still carries himself with a quiet grace. He is very religious, they say, and a devoted family man.
On the morning of January 14, 2004, he leaves for work. He doesn't call at 9 a.m. to check in with his wife, which is unusual. Then he doesn't call at noon and she begins to worry.
His car is found at his parents' house. The keys are still in the ignition. His wife calls his work, a diesel repair truck shop. No, she is told, he never showed up.
And then her mind races. People are kidnapped in Juárez all the time. But these are drug runners, she says to herself, and Luis has nothing to do with drugs. He is a good man.
That day in Juárez, three men are taken to the House of Death. Before they are killed, one of them gives up the address of undercover DEA agent Homer McBrayer, who is stationed in Juárez.
At about 6 p.m. that night, hired killers show up at McBrayer's house. McBrayer is not home, but his wife and two children are. The killers ring on the doorbell for ten minutes straight. McBrayer comes home when his wife calls him, and the ringing stops. They pack their two girls in their car and head to El Paso.
But as they're leaving the subdivision, they are pulled over by a marked Juárez police car. Two cars then pull in front and behind them. A man steps out of each vehicle and stands behind McBrayer's car. McBrayer doesn't know it, but these are state police officers who belong to the cartel.
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