Thread: AZ-Part II: Panic over lost drugs triggers a smuggler's trap

Part II: Panic over lost drugs triggers a smuggler's trap
by Dennis Wagner - Sept. 28, 2009 12:00 AM

In October 2006, Edgar Javier Enriquez joined hundreds of Mexican pilgrims in a 60-mile religious march, known as a "manda," begging God to deliver him from his troubles.

As the leader of a Phoenix drug-trafficking syndicate, Edgar had just lost a large shipment of cocaine. He didn't know who stole the drugs. But he knew that an "enforcer" for a Mexican drug cartel had been assigned to solve the mystery.

He also knew that if the enforcer could not hunt down the drugs, money and thieves, Edgar and his partner, who were selling the cocaine on behalf of the cartel, would be held accountable for the loss.

"We were screwed," Edgar said. "The drugs, they were a loan. They were fronted. So now we don't have money to pay it. OK, we're screwed because they're gonna say, 'How can 35 (kilograms) disappear?' "

In desperation, Edgar said, he joined the manda through northern Sonora, promising St. Francis that he would complete the prayerful trek from Nogales to Magdalena de Kino in return for a miracle.

The prayers were not answered.

So Edgar agreed to join the cartel's enforcer in a plot to kidnap and torture the one man who could tell them what happened to the missing drugs.

The day the cocaine was stolen, Edgar and his partner, Rodolfo "Rudy" Ochoa, were headed to Desert Ridge Marketplace in north Phoenix to meet a trucker, Ymer Orozco, whom they had hired to deliver the drugs to New York.

It was their first deal with Orozco, who had agreed to a fee of nearly $30,000.

Before the rendezvous, Edgar and Rudy were stopped by uniformed police in a patrol car for making an illegal turn. The pair were detained for pictures and fingerprints. When officers released them a short time later, they returned to Edgar's black Ford truck at the side of the road and discovered the drugs were gone.

They suspected that Ymer must have been part of the rip-off plot, somehow arranging for corrupt police to make the stop while cohorts raided the truck.

Ymer was, in fact, part of the heist. Police believed the heist would create confusion and panic in the drug ring and help them build a case.

Rather than conspiring with bandits or another cartel, Ymer was employed by Phoenix narcotics detectives as an informer, paid to infiltrate the criminal organization.


Will kill their family

Edgar maintained contact with the ruthless Pacific, or Sinaloa, Cartel through a pair of Arizona representatives. One was a drug-shipment arranger known as "El Profe," or The Professor. The other, he said, was a man named Luis Hernandez, identified in court papers as a former member of the Mexican military with special-forces training. Edgar said he was the stepson of a drug lord known as Segundo del Pacifico, the cartel's second in command.

They allegedly gave Edgar two weeks to find the drug thieves or pay off the debt.

Edgar said he tried to borrow on his house, but the loan was denied.

He and Rudy decided to deliver their remaining 13 kilos of cocaine to New York buyers, hoping the proceeds would mollify cartel leaders temporarily.

That plan also failed: Rudy was arrested on Sept. 26, 2006, as he arrived in Long Island with the drugs. (He later pleaded guilty to conspiracy, receiving a five-year prison sentence, according to court records.)

Back in the Valley, Edgar was alone.

"Hope was lost," he said. "I get a call from this guy, El Profe, . . . coming directly from his superiors in Mexico. I better be telling the truth, or whoever had their drugs, they were gonna kill them and their family. They are saying, 'Hasta el gato les vamos a matar.' " ("We will even kill your cat.")


A trap is set

Edgar said Luis began dogging him, so there was no recourse but to find Ymer and make him identify those involved.

Together, they set a trap, contacting the truck driver and claiming that a huge shipment of narcotics, 1,500 kilos, was coming from Mexico to be stored in a Valley warehouse. Edgar said he needed Ymer to deliver some of that load to the East Coast.

Ymer, who feared that he was suspected in the rip-off, saw the proposal as a clean way to exit his undercover job. If he set up another sting, police could arrest him along with the suspects, while seizing a cocaine stash worth upward of $30 million. Later, Ymer could be transferred to an out-of-state prison and then freed.

His handler, Detective David Duron, said he agreed to the operation only because Ymer refused to break off contact with the suspects and "was going to proceed irrespective of whether there was police surveillance and involvement."

Ymer arranged to meet Edgar on Oct. 6, 2006, at a truck stop on 59th Avenue at Interstate 10, and then follow him to a warehouse where the drugs were stored.

Detectives put a GPS tracking device in Ymer's diesel rig. They also installed a hidden device on Edgar's truck that morning while it was parked outside a Scottsdale deli.

But Edgar and Luis didn't use that vehicle. Before meeting Ymer, they switched to a Jeep Cherokee.

The two men ran several errands. Luis picked up a gun at his house and dropped off $10,000 cash. At a Target store, they bought batting gloves to protect their hands while throwing punches and adult diapers because that's what cartel henchmen in Mexico use to prevent messy torture sessions.

Said Edgar: "They don't want to deal with someone that's scared or crying and pooping on himself, you know."


http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... -day2.html

Part One:

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-172583.html