U.S. Imports Cartel Snitches From Mexico, Violence Follows

By Jeralyn, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 12:33:37 PM EST
Tags: informants, cartels, War on Drugs (all tags)

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The U.S. has been importing snitches from the Mexican cartels into the U.S., providing them with homes and new lives. Of course, some will be discovered. What happens next? Murder on the front lawn.

But in order to fight the drug traffickers, federal anti-narcotics agents have brought Mexican cartel members north of the border, to use them to gather intelligence and build cases.

ICE is arranging visas for them. And not playing nice with other law enforcement agencies, contributing to the violence: [More...]

"So this is how these people end up in our country," said El Paso police Lt. Alfred Lowe, the lead homicide detective and a 29-year veteran whose team made the arrests in the González case. "We bring them here."

ICE agents were uncooperative during the investigation, misleading El Paso officers by failing to provide accurate names, photographs of suspects and timely intelligence that might have helped solve the homicide more quickly. "We've never worked well with ICE," Lowe said.

On to the front lawn murder of cartel member Jose Gonzales, brought to America to rat out the cartel.

José Daniel González was living the sweet life in America. He bought the $365,000 two-story Mediterranean with the tile roof and swimming pool. He started a trucking company, was raising a family. But on a Friday night in May, he was executed in his front yard -- eight shots, tight pattern, close range.

Most unsettling for many, especially El Paso police officials, was that both González and the man accused of ordering his killing turned out to be ranking drug traffickers from the notorious Juarez cartel, as well as informers for the U.S. government.

The man charged with killing Gonzales:

Rubén Rodríguez Dorado, a Mexican citizen, was detained this month and charged with murder in the González case. Before he was a suspect, police detectives said, they were introduced to Rodríguez by ICE agents, who presented him as an informer who might be able to help on the case.

Rodgriguez bragged he was a hit man for the cartel. And look who he dragged into the Gonzales killing:

El Paso police arrested three American teenagers they said Rodríguez recruited to his crew: U.S. Army Pfc. Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18, who allegedly pulled the trigger; Chris Duran, 17, who drove the getaway car, according to the court papers; and a 16-year-old who police said did surveillance for the gang. Apodaca and Duran were charged as adults with murder. The name of the youngest teenager is being withheld.

How many more of these rats are here? No one knows.

Lowe said that during the investigation, ICE agents introduced local police to other federal informers. One man was a cartel assassin. "His role was very brutal in Juarez. But here he is, just another cooperating witness, and we thought, if this guy is living here, how many more of them are there?

And, as should be no surprise, many play both sides after they get here:

El Paso police said they have evidence that González continued to work with the cartel while he was a federal informer in El Paso. While Rodríguez was cooperating with federal agents, he was arrested and charged in May with trying to steal an 18-wheeler filled with flat-screen televisions.

I wonder, do the imported snitches get health care too? (/snark.)

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U.S. Imports Cartel Snitches From Mexico, Violence Follows | 12 comments (12 topical)

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Lemme get this straight... (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by kdog on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 01:19:43 PM EST

so the folks who risk their lives to come cut our lawns and wash our dishes get locked up and shipped back...and the lowest of the low who come to be drug-war informers get free houses and government protection.

What a country!

Alot of times (none / 0) (#8)
by jondee on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 07:21:44 PM EST

it's the lowest of the low working with the next lowest of the low to take care of the next lowest of the low.

The last person I personally heard throwing the word "snitch" around was an Aryan Brotherhood guy who was in need of distemper shots and his annual rabies vacination, so the word dosnt currently carry alot of moral force with me.


: Well my moms taught me... (none / 0) (#11)
by kdog on Fri Aug 28, 2009 at 08:39:43 AM EST

that no one likes a tattle-tale...and I don't defy my moms...no matter what the Aryans are up to.
Besides, even Aryan do*chebags need a code to live by.

Jeralyn, (none / 0) (#1)
by jeffinalabama on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 12:54:51 PM EST

What was that snitch website you mentioned sometime in the past few weeks? I thought I had saved it, but can't find it.

Here it is (none / 0) (#2)
by Jeralyn on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 01:11:15 PM EST

The Snitching Blog

: Thanks, I'll make sure to save it this time. (none / 0) (#6)
by jeffinalabama on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 02:18:32 PM EST

Can you say, "Operation PAPERCLIP" (none / 0) (#3)
by SeeEmDee on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 01:11:19 PM EST

As the US did in bringing in Nazis to 'fight' the Commies. What seemed to happen instead is that the US military and political system was infected with the kind of mindset that can allow for torture.

Don't we ever learn?

actually, the nazis (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by cpinva on Fri Aug 28, 2009 at 01:31:44 AM EST

brought to the US after wwII were, primarily, the scientists involved in developing the V1 & 2 rockets, and the first operational jets. as well, some were involved in german nuclear weapons research. they fought the commies by giving us a huge jump-start in the areas of long-range nuclear delivery systems, and jet propulsion.

these same people, headquartered at the redstone arsenal/NASA manned space flight center, in huntsville, al, were responsible, in large part, for the creation of NASA, and our subsequent gemini/apollo moon landing mission.

i don't think any of these guys had anything to do with torturing people, so i'm not real clear how they might have contributed to that mindset.

that's not to suggest none were true believers in the nazi cause, just that they had no direct/indirect association with the heinous activities the regime was infamous for.

it seems to me it would be only fair to establish a national "informant registry", modeled after the sex offender registries. i'd like to know if my family's lives might be in danger, because some government informant, who might be the target of killers, is living next door to me.

what does ICE or the FBI plan on doing, should some innocent family be killed, because a bomb is tossed into the home of an informant, which destroys half the neighborhood?

oops! just isn't going to be sufficient.


CP, ever heard of MK-ULTRA? (none / 0) (#10)
by SeeEmDee on Fri Aug 28, 2009 at 08:34:34 AM EST

The records of many of these imported Nazis were 'sanitized' (in no small part because of President Truman's directive that those being imported not be members of the NSDAP) in order to bring them to the US. This was especially true of those who had served in the SS...and been involved in human experimentation on concentration camp victims for scientific purposes. From which an enormous amount of physiological data regarding high-altitude flight was derived. But it doesn't excuse what was done to acquire that knowledge.

Many of those Nazis who were brought to The States were involved in that sadistic application of life sciences. And of that number, many of those were engaged in various attempts at what amounts to 'mind control', which our intel agencies and that of the Soviets were also keenly interested. The result of that was project MK-ULTRA. Very little of this program's records remain thanks to it being so horrendous that when the Church Committee was formed many of those records were destroyed. But enough survived to give a very clear view of what was intended...and how it was accomplished.

The methodologies of those Nazis were then incorporated into the operations of our intel organs, most notably the CIA. The cultural taint from that can be seen to this day in the rendition and torture scandals. The toxic fruit did not fall far from the tree where the poison seed was planted...


: yes, actually. (none / 0) (#12)
by cpinva on Fri Aug 28, 2009 at 10:05:09 AM EST

CP, ever heard of MK-ULTRA?
i believe that was the program that recruited dr. werner von braun, head of NASA's manned space flight program, from its start, until shortly before his death. he was in charge of the V-1 & 2 rocket program for the nazis.
ULTRA was the secret CIA program that slipped LSD into unsuspecting soldiers and fellow scientist's drinks, to see if it could be used to control their minds. none of the "mind control" programs, by us, the USSR, red china or north korea actually accomplished much, "the manchurian candidate" notwithstanding.
we'd know more, if helms hadn't ordered (illegally, of course) the records destroyed, to keep them out of congress' hands. but yes, you're correct, some of those recruited were nazi torturers.

This is classic behavior for Federal (none / 0) (#5)
by Chuck0 on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 01:20:05 PM EST

law enforcement agencies. This is how they've gone after motorcycle clubs, the mob (remember Sammy the Bull?) and others. They'll give a free pass to anyone if they'll snitch on someone else. I'm sure they would have put Madoff in witness protection if he was willing to snitch out someone else.

I blame Vic Mackey (none / 0) (#7)
by Makarov on Thu Aug 27, 2009 at 03:32:14 PM EST

They never should have given that immunity deal.