Posted on Thu, Jan. 17, 2008
Ex-Mexico state police chief, 13 others on trial in drug case
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
The Associated Press

McALLEN, TEXAS -- Duffel bags filled with bricks of cocaine were toted into court Wednesday by police officers testifying in a federal drug-smuggling case against Carlos Landin Martinez and 13 co-defendants.

One after the other, police officers from San Juan, Pharr, Edinburg and Mission described encounters with people named in the government's case and the booty they recovered in 2006.

Landin, 52, is accused of running a drug-smuggling operation for the Gulf drug cartel while also working as the Tamaulipas state police commander in Mexico from 2005 to 2007. He is charged with 10 counts of drug smuggling, conspiracy and money laundering.

Wednesday's testimony from police and from a man who prosecutors say worked several layers below Landin in the cartel did not directly connect Landin to the crimes. Landin's attorney, Oscar Alvarez, asked the witnesses whether they had seen Landin commit a crime or even seen him outside the courtroom. The answers were consistently "no."

Co-defendant Luis Martinez Robledo received more attention Wednesday. Prosecutors say Martinez, a mechanic from Reynosa, was a cross-border courier for drug proceeds.

San Juan police officers described stopping Martinez for a traffic violation in October 2006 and finding more than $27,000 in cash.

Martinez pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and illegal possession of the money.

Earlier Wednesday, federal jurors listened to hours of phone-tap recordings.

Landin and Martinez sat impassively as recordings of calls placed by government witness Ricardo Muniz sketched a world of nicknames, drug and money exchanges, and pervasive paranoia about government planes listening from above and tapped phones.

Some of the 2006 calls referred to a man nicknamed Maestro, or teacher, who ferried drug proceeds across the border to Landin's operatives in Mexico, prosecutors said.

Maestro is Martinez, prosecutors said.

Martinez's attorney, Jim Grissom, disputed that claim. "Those tapes are garbled," Grissom said. "We will replay them for a witness who will testify that that is not Luis' voice."
http://www.star-telegram.com/state_news ... 15629.html