Drug Cartel Spy In U.S. Embassy in Mexico?

Investiga EU filtración en su embajada en México
Redacción El Universal on line, Miércoles 29 de octubre de 2008;

Afirman que la DEA está preocupada por las declaraciones de 'Felipe', testigo protegido que dio origen a la investigación de la infiltración del narco en la SIEDO y la embajada de EU
El Centro Nacional de Alerta Antiterrorista del gobierno de Estados Unidos dufundió que el departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos ya está investigando la infiltración de cárteles de la droga en la Embajada Americana en la Ciudad de México.
El reporte refiere una investigación publicada en el sitio del periódico Washington Post (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/10/the_us_state_department_is.html) la tarde del martes 28 de octubre, en que se presume que el sujeto infiltrado en la embajada conocido como "Felipe" pudo dar información delicada a un importante cártel de la droga.
La investigación surge luego que en México se confirmara que empleados de la SIEDO siguen un proceso penal por su relación con el cártel de los Beltran Leyva.
El Washington Post habla de la investigación publicada en el diario EL UNIVERSAL y explica que el martes por la tarde, en conferencia de prensa en Washington, Antonio Placido, el jefe de Inteligencia de la DEA, organismo de Estados Unidos a cuyo cargo está la lucha contra el narcotráfico, dijo que estaba preocupado por las declaraciones surgidas, especialmente las de "Felipe", como se identifica al testigo protegido que dio origen a la investigación sobre la penetración del narcotráfico en la Subprocuraduría de Investigación Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada y que obtuvo el trabajo en la embajada de Estados Unidos a través de la bolsa de empleo que la misión diplomática tiene en su página de internet.
Sin embargo, dijo que no podría confirmar si efectivamente se filtró a los cárteles de la droga información que posee la embajada de Estados Unidos en México sobre medidas contra el narcotráfico. sc

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Drug Cartel Spy In U.S. Embassy in Mexico?
POSTED: 05:47 PM ET, 10/28/2008 by Derek Kravitz
TAGS: Mexico, drugs, federal workers, intelligence
The U.S. State Department is investigating an allegation that an employee of the American Embassy in Mexico City passed sensitive information to a major drug cartel.
The report stems from a scandal at the organized crime unit of the Mexican attorney general's office, where 35 employees were accused yesterday of passing information about investigations to the Beltran-Leyva narcotics organization. The informants collected as much as $450,000 a month, The Associated Press reported.
A unnamed protected witness (who The New York Times said went by the alias "Felipe") also told authorities that he spied for the drug cartel on U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents while working as a criminal investigator at the U.S. embassy, according to El Universal, a Mexico City newspaper.
DEA intelligence chief Anthony Placido said at a Washington news conference today that he was concerned about Felipe's claims, but said he couldn't confirm that embassy information about drug-enforcement measures had been passed on to drug lords.
The revelations mark the "most serious known infiltration of anti-crime agencies" in Mexico since the 1997 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, then the country's top anti-drug chief. He is now serving 71 years in prison.
El Universal reported Monday that the alleged spy might have revealed details about the U.S. hunt for American drug suspect Craig Petties, who was captured in January after five years on the run. Petties has been accused of operating a multimillion-dollar marijuana and cocaine ring that stretched from Mexico to Texas, Mississippi and Memphis.

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U.S. Probing Possible Mexico Cartel Spies in Embassy (Update1)
By Viola Gienger and Jens Erik Gould
Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. authorities are investigating reports that a worker at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City passed information to a drug cartel, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.
"There's an ongoing investigation right now,'' Wood told reporters in Washington today. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration ``will certainly play a role'' in the probe, he said.
Wood said he couldn't comment further because the matter is under investigation. Mexico's attorney general's office says it has no information about any infiltration of the U.S. Embassy. There are no plans to investigate, as the matter is outside the Attorney General's purview, the press office said in an e-mail.
The U.S. has agreed to provide $400 million in aid this year to help Mexico tame violence related to organized crime and drug trafficking, which has resulted in more than 4,000 killings this year in Mexico. Mexican cartels have grown rich by selling $13.8 billion a year worth of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and amphetamines to the U.S., according to White House figures.
Liz Detter, deputy spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Mexico, declined to comment on the allegations, which were reported yesterday in Mexican newspaper El Universal.
Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said yesterday that employees at his office passed confidential information to narcotics traffickers in the worst case of infiltration of law enforcement by drug cartels in 10 years.
$450,000 Payments
Thirty-five employees of Mexico's organized-crime unit were each paid as much as $450,000 a month by the Sinaloa drug cartel for the information, Medina Mora said. Some employees had been passing on sensitive information since 2004. The technical director of the organized-crime unit has been arrested and is awaiting extradition to the U.S. for allegedly conspiring to sell cocaine in that country.

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Mexican official: Drug spy says he leaked DEA info
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By E. EDUARDO CASTILLOThe Associated Press Monday, October 27, 2008; 9:07 PM
MEXICO CITY -- A major drug cartel has infiltrated the Mexican attorney general's office and may have paid a spy inside the U.S. Embassy for details of DEA operations, Mexican prosecutors said Monday.
The Drug Enforcement Administration's intelligence chief expressed concern about the alleged spy's claims, but said he couldn't confirm that the Embassy had been infiltrated, and that it was too early to pull out undercover agents for fear their identities may have been compromised.
Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said five officials of his Organized Crime unit were arrested on allegations they served as informants for the Beltran-Leyva cartel. He said there are indications other spies still work inside his agency.
The Embassy employee, who also at one time worked for Interpol at the Mexico City airport, is now a protected witness after telling Mexican officials in Washington that he leaked details of DEA operations to the cartel, an attorney general's official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The official said he was not authorized to speak on the record.

"We are not planning changing anyone at the embassy at this point," DEA intelligence chief Anthony Placido said at a Washington news conference called to celebrate Mexico's capture of Eduardo Arellano Felix, a leading member of a violent Tijuana-based cartel.
"Law enforcement work anywhere in the world, and certainly in Mexico, can be perilous," Placido said in response to a question about whether the infiltration endangered undercover agents. "Is it dangerous? Absolutely."
U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza congratulated Mexico for Arellano Felix's arrest in a statement late Monday.
He said the DEA and the U.S. Marshals provided information on Arellano Felix's whereabout to Mexican authorities which helped them locate him.
"This is another example of the positive results when U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agencies share information," Garza said.
The revelations of corruption inside the control centers of the U.S.-Mexican anti-drug effort were a major blow to President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug campaign, in which he has sent tens of thousands of troops and federal police across Mexico to combat violent cartels.
Calderon himself has long acknowledged corruption is widespread in police forces, and Placido said that with billions of dollars flowing to the cartels from U.S. consumers of illegal drugs, some corruption is inevitable on both sides of the border.
Monday's case represents the most serious known infiltration of anti-crime agencies since the 1997 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, then head of Mexico's anti-drug agency. Gutierrez Rebollo was later convicted of aiding drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes.
Despite the corruption, Mexico continues to arrest top smugglers. The latest came after a shootout with police and soldiers in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, where Arellano Felix had allegedly been running the cartel with his sister and a nephew since several of their brothers were arrested or killed.
In Mexico City, Assistant Attorney General Marisela Morales said two top employees of her organized-crime unit and at least three federal police agents assigned to it may have been passing information on surveillance targets and potential raids for at least four years.
One was an assistant intelligence director and the other served as a liaison in requesting searches and assigning officers to carry them out. The agents and officials each received payments of between $150,000 and $450,000 per month for the information, Morales said. All but one were arrested weeks ago.
The prosecutors' official said separatelly that the Embassy employee became a protected witness after giving details of his involvement to Mexican officials in Washington. It wasn't clear Monday whether he is under the protection of Mexico or the U.S. The official did not divulge what details the infiltrator allegedly passed on to the cartel.
The newspaper El Universal reported Monday that the man had worked as a "criminal investigator" at the embassy, had received at least $30,000 and may have revealed details about the DEA hunt for American drug suspect Craig Petties, who was later captured here. It cited unnamed sources.
The Beltran-Leyva brothers lead a cartel that once belonged to northern Mexico's Sinaloa confederation, the country's largest drug-trafficking group.
``We must follow more lines of investigation of people who, it seems, also obtained classified information,'' Medina Mora said. The investigation began with a statement by an anonymous person in Mexico's embassy in the U.S.
``To confront crime, we first have to remove it from our own house,'' President Felipe Calderon said today during a speech in Mexico City. ``That is precisely what we are doing.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net; Jens Erik Gould in Mexico City at jgould9@bloomberg.net Last Updated: October 28, 2008 16:17 EDT