by Kelly Simmons and Ana Ruiz-Brown
Gunmen from the Tijuana based Arellano Félix drug cartel assassinated a top level drug enforcement commander in Mexico City last September using information supplied by the federal police in Baja California, according to a recent report in Reforma.
According to testimony by the assassins who were arrested in connection with Ernesto Ibarra Santes's murder, they were given information to aid them in the killing by members of the Federal Police (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR), the same force that Ibarra helped command.
According to a series of articles in Reforma, the Arellano cartel had long held animosity for Commander Ibarra because he was responsible for arresting one of the Arellano brothers, Francisco Rafael Arellano, in 1993. F. Rafael is the only Arellano family member in prison at the moment. In addition, Ibarra had reported that he also captured another brother, Francisco Javier Arellano, in March of 1994. However, F. Javier inexplicably escaped while in the custody of the State police, (Procuraduría Justicia del Estado, PJE) after he was captured during a shootout in which Ibarra's best friend, federal commander Alejandro Castañeda, was among seven people who died. The PJE countered that it was not F. Javier who was captured but another drug trafficker by the name of Ismael Higuera Guerrero and that there was no escape. Then on March 1st of last year, Ibarra coordinated an operation in Tijuana called "Operation Scorpion" (El Alacrán) to capture the remaining Arellano brothers. In the operation, which failed, hundreds of policemen and military personnel were used. The failure of the operation has been blamed on the allegation that corrupted police officers tipped off the cartel to Ibarra's plans.
Five days before he was murdered, Ibarra publicly announced the names of operatives in the Arellano cartel, denounced the family and contradicted claims by the PGR in Tijuana that the Arellano family was no longer operating there. In fact, he claimed at least one brother was still in the city and he vowed to hunt him down and capture him. Ibarra was apparently aware of the danger posed by the cartel and had a personal bodyguard of five hand-picked policemen with him at all times.
According to the testimony of those captured in Ibarra's murder, five gunmen associated with the cartel flew from Tijuana to Mexico City on September 15 and checked into a hotel to wait for nightfall. At midnight, the gunmen followed Ibarra's taxi in two vehicles and opened fire as they passed, killing everyone in the taxi. The details of Ibarra's whereabouts and his movements, the gunmen have stated, were supplied by members of the Baja California federal police force based in Tijuana.
The assassination appears to affirm allegations that the Arellano cartel has infiltrated or corrupted numerous branches and levels of Mexico's drug enforcement operations and law enforcement. Articles in the Washington Post and in Reforma report that the Arellano Felix family pays hundreds of Mexican law enforcement officials for protection, information and assistance in moving drugs overland and into the United States. The cartel allegedly has the illicit assistance of officials in the National Institute of Immigration, the National Institute to Combat Drugs, commanders and officers in the federal police force, and the state highway police which form a national network enabling the cartel to move huge shipments of cocaine through Mexico to the lucrative market in southern California. The Arellano family has allegedly forged an alliance with the notorious Calí cartel in Colombia, and with the assistance of agents of the Mexican military in Oaxáca, agents of the federal police at the Tijuana airport and highway police in the towns of Ensenada and Rosarito just south of Tijuana, the family moves tons of cocaine, worth tens of millions of dollars, to San Diego.
In response, the chief of the military regiment stationed in Baja California, Brigadier General Raul Acuña Garcia, has countered that the media reports of collusion by military personnel with narcotics traffickers is a sensationalist story. While not familiar with the details of the allegations reported in the Reforma story, General Acuña discounted the published reports. However, the military command stationed in El Cypres, Ensenada has recently begun operations in Tijuana to assist in drug enforcement.
It is estimated that Mexico's drug cartel families transport between 50 and 70 percent of the cocaine originating in South America for sale in the United States.
Sources: Reforma, El Norte, AP Report in El Paso Times