Posted on 05/14/2009 6:49:54 AM PDT by faced
A highly trusted former deputy attorney general, who later became Mexico’s drug czar and was embraced by Washington until his death, is accused in a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration report of taking bribes from one of Mexico’s oldest narcotics trafficking cartels. Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, killed in November in a mysterious plane crash over Mexico City, is among three senior federal law-enforcement officials named in an April 21-page DEA briefing on organized crime and drug trafficking south of the border. Vasconcelos was never charged with a crime. The other two are being prosecuted by Mexico. The report, prepared as a primer on drug cartels, does not say when, or how much money was allegedly taken by Vasconcelos, who spearheaded counternarcotics efforts for President Felipe Calderon and had similar duties as deputy attorney general over fighting organized crime for Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox. He is alleged to have been snared by the Beltran Leyva organization, which the DEA report says is known to use bribery and assassinations to ensure its share of Mexico’s drug trade, and go “toe to toe” with larger syndicates. When contacted Wednesday, DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney, said the agency could neither refute nor offer a source for the highly charged allegation, which appears in the report as fact. The information was included without being fully vetted for release, Courtney said. The Calderon administration declined comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
A Mexican official taking bribes??? I’m shocked! SHOCKED!!!
I’m sure it’s only their side of the border. Yup.
I like to see us take a role in exposing their corruption, since they tolerate it.
The drug cartels can’t be shut down. There’s too much money involved.
The law of supply and demand doesn’t go away just because people wish it would.
I agree with your assessment.
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