DRUGS-MEXICO: Army Deals Major Blow to ‘Gulf Cartel’

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Pilar Franco

MEXICO CITY, Apr 10 2001 (IPS) - The first major offensive against drug trafficking by the Mexican government of Vicente Fox led to the capture of one of the kingpins of the so-called “Gulf Cartel” of cocaine traffickers.

Gilberto García Mena, alias “El June”, was arrested Monday by army troops who found him hidden away in a tiny secret refuge behind the wardrobe in his bedroom, in the town of Guardados de Abajo, in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

García Mena, 47, one of Mexico’s most-wanted drug traffickers, was immediately flown to the capital, where he was interrogated until the early hours of Tuesday morning by the office of the prosecutor for crimes against health.

The secretariat of defence reported that the arrest followed 10 days of intense investigations, and a close search of García Mena’s opulent residence.

The arrest was the biggest blow dealt by the attorney-general’s office and elite army squadrons since the offensive on drug trafficking was launched amidst great secrecy by the Fox administration, in office since Dec 1.

The onslaught also led last week to the arrests of General Ricardo Martínez Perea, Captain Pedro Maya Díaz and Lieutenant Javier Quevedo Guerrero, who were put in the hands of military justice.

Also arrested were 21 members of the Gulf Cartel operations group headed by García Mena.

The secretariat of defence has not yet specified the legal situation of the three army officers Martínez Perea, Maya Díaz and Quevedo Guerrero.

It did report, however, the interception of 17 tonnes of marijuana and 183 kgs of cocaine as part of the action carried out in Tamaulipas.

Authorities said García Mena, who ran a cocaine smuggling business between Colombia and Mexico, was hidden for nine days in a sophisticated compartment in his bedroom.

The hideout was discovered after troops found an electric switch, from which a cable ran to the wardrobe in the main bedroom.

García Mena – the number two of the Gulf Cartel, which is headed by Osiel Cárdenas Guillén – had several days worth of food and water, a radio, cell-phone, oxygen tank and four firearms in his hide-out.

Several hundred army troops participated in the arrest operation, which was led by around 100 members of the attorney- general’s office. A heavy security detail of more than 100 troops accompanied García Mena’s transfer to Mexico City.

The army was drawn into the fight against drug trafficking in 1996 in an attempt to curtail increasing corruption among the police.

Found in the home of Roberto Gámez, a member of García Mena’s group who was arrested, were police reports from local and federal security agencies and the municipal government, along with communications equipment, firearms and ammunition, and marijuana seeds.

The attorney-general’s office has launched several probes against police, military and civilian authorities suspected of protecting members of the Gulf Cartel, whose founder, Juan García Abrego, was extradited to the United States during the government of Carlos Salinas (1988-94).

The authorities in charge of the anti-drug operation say they are not only prepared for a possible violent reprisal, but have also made it clear that they plan to track down government officials working in cahoots with organised crime.

The prosecutor on crimes against health, José Luis Santiago, said there was abundant evidence of ties between García Mena, federal officials, and municipal employees in Tamaulipas.

Residents of Guardados de Abajo said the town was run by García Mena as if it were his own private property. It was the trafficker who financed the few paved streets and services like potable water in the town of less than 1,000.

El June’s rise through the ranks of the powerful Gulf Cartel was the product of a brutal process of internal restructuring in 1995. One of those taking part in the power struggle were Hugo Baldomero Medina, alias “The Lord of the Trailer Trucks”, whose arrest left the path clear for Cárdenas Guillén.

García Mena spent two years in a maximum security prison in northern Mexico in the late 1980s, and is wanted for a long list of murders of his enemies.