Former drug cartel leader sent back to Mexico

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Associated Press
Published: Friday, April 10, 2009 4:05 PM CDT

EL PASO — A former to lieutenant in Mexico's Gulf Cartel was deported to Mexico on Friday morning, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement officials said.

Jose Manuel Garza Rendon, 56, was released from the Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos on Tuesday after serving a nearly nine-year federal prison sentence for a drug conviction. He was immediately taken into ICE Custody.

Friday morning he was handed over at the border to authorities in Ciudad Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. ICE officials said Garza is wanted in Mexico on charges of organized crime, attempted murder, and possessing firearms used exclusively by the Mexican army.

Garza was indicted by a U.S. grand jury in 2000 along with 11 other cartel leaders, including purported boss Osiel Cardenas Guillen.

Garza turned himself in to U.S. authorities in South Texas in 2001 and court records show he made a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy with intent to distribute marijuana. The charge stemmed from a failed attempt to collect on a load of nearly a ton of marijuana delivered to Houston.

It is unclear from the records if Garza gave federal agents any useful information about his associates.

Cardenas, Garza's one-time boss, was extradited to the U.S. last year and is expected to stand trial on drug and other charges later this year in Houston.

ICE officials said Cardenas and nine others are named in the Mexican warrant charging Garza.

The Gulf Cartel is considered one of the most violent and ruthless drug organizations in Mexico.

Lee Morgan, a retired customs agents who spent much of his career investigating Mexican cartels, said Garza is likely to be targeted by the cartel while in a Mexican prison.

"History is probably going to repeat itself and he's probably looking at the worst of circumstances," Morgan said, adding that cartels have a history of killing informants and rivals inside Mexico's prisons. "I doubt very seriously that he's going to survive. They can reach out to him in a Mexican prison almost as easily as they can reach out to him on a Mexican street."

Garza's whereabouts Friday afternoon were unknown.

A spokeswoman at Mexico's Attorney General's office did not have any information on whether he was detained again in Mexico.

http://www.lmtonline.com/articles/2009/ ... 183179.txt