Last Narco by Beith Malcolm

Author:Beith, Malcolm [Beith, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing
Published: 2010-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

Questions of Trust

For the US, knowing who to trust in Mexico has always been an extreme challenge. DEA agents say the major stumbling blocks are the finger-pointing between the two nations – Mexico, after all, is the supplier and the United States the consumer of drugs – and the endemic corruption in Mexican security forces, including the military.

Garcia Luna’s monopoly on power in the drug war has not helped international cooperation. There is no system of checks and balances on intelligence shared. The DEA’s Chief of Intelligence, Anthony Placido, said, ‘I’m not naive enough to say it’s impossible that Garcia Luna or anyone else is corrupt, but we don’t have a smoking gun at DEA, and I’m sure Calderon would root it out. It’s absolutely being investigated, but it’s a dead end.’

In order to do its job, the DEA has to put its money on someone – and take some risks. On one occasion it picked Victor Gerardo Garay, an AFI agent with close ties to Garcia Luna. An immediate superior of Antonio Garza’s, Garay had shown himself both willing and able to go after the narcos. The DEA supplied him with information. He would help them take down their mutual foes.

These included some of the biggest names in the business. The DEA sent him phone numbers it had been tracking and other useful information on Eduardo Arellano Felix; shortly after, the drug lord was nailed in Tijuana.

‘He was a guy who got it done,’ said one DEA agent of Garay. ‘He was great.’

The two had come to know each other on a social level – they had barbecues at each other’s homes and travelled together – and over time had built a rapport. The DEA man had his suspicions – he’d worked in the business for too long, seen more than his share of betrayal – but at his core, he trusted Garay.

On 19 October 2008, however, a few days after a raid on a party at a mansion in Mexico City that had led to the arrest of eleven Colombians, two Mexicans, an American and a Uruguayan, the red flags went up. Prior to their arrest, the narcos in question had been throwing an almighty bash at the mansion, which boasted swimming pools and private games rooms decorated in the height of kitsch. Faux stalactites hung from the ceiling in one room; a knight in armour stood watch in the corner of another. The narcos had a private zoo, too, with two lions, two tigers and two black jaguars, among other animals. Thirty prostitutes had been invited to join the party.

Garay, who had led the raid, took his DEA counterpart back to the site, to show off the spoils of war.

Except there were none, the DEA agent recalls. The house had been cleaned from top to bottom since the raid a few days before; there was no evidence that anyone had held a party that had been busted apart by the police. There wasn’t one beer can or soda lying around.

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