Mexico finds crime-fighters were aiding drug cartels
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO Associated Press
Oct. 27, 2008, 12:46PM

MEXICO CITY — Mexican prosecutors said today that employees of the federal Attorney's General's Office worked for a drug cartel, passing sensitive information to traffickers in the worst known case of drug infiltration of law enforcement in a decade.

Similarly, another Mexican official says a drug spy is claiming he infiltrated the U.S. Embassy and leaked DEA information to the Beltran-Leyva cartel.

The official says the man worked for Interpol at Mexico City's airport and at the U.S. Embassy and is now considered a protected witness. It is unclear if he is under Mexican or U.S. care.

The official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.

The official says the man gave the information to Mexican Embassy officials in Washington. His statements are being investigated.

El Universal newspaper reported today that the man had worked as a "criminal investigator" at the embassy and had received about $30,000.

The U.S. Embassy had no immediate comment.

The man reportedly worked for the Beltran-Leyva cartel, the same organization that allegedly employed at least five agents of Mexico's Attorney General's Office for Organized Crime.

Employees of that unit charged with fighting organized crime allegedly were paid by members of the Beltran-Leyva cartel to pass along information on federal investigations of their organization and other traffickers.

Two top employees of the organized crime unit and at least three federal police agents assigned to it may have been passing information on surveillance targets and potential raids for at least four years, the unit's head, Assistant Attorney General Marisela Morales, told a news conference.

One of the officials was an assistant intelligence director and the other served as a liaison in requesting searches and assigning officers to carry them out.

All but one of the officials has been arrested.

The agents and officials received payments of between $150,000 and $450,000 per month for the information, Morales said.

The case represents the most serious known infiltration of anti-crime agencies since the 1997 arrest of Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, the head of Mexico's anti-drug agency, who was later convicted of aiding drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who has since died.

The Beltran Leyva brothers are one of the groups that make up northern Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, the country's largest drug trafficking confederation.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said that investigations were continuing to see whether any other informants had infiltrated prosecutors' offices.

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