Alleged spy inside embassy may have gotten DEA details

By E. Eduardo Castillo
ASSOCIATED PRESS

October 28, 2008

MEXICO CITY – A major drug cartel has infiltrated the Mexican attorney general's office and may have paid a spy inside the U.S. Embassy for details of DEA operations, Mexican prosecutors said yesterday.

The Drug Enforcement Administration's intelligence chief expressed concern about the alleged spy's claims, but said he couldn't confirm that the embassy had been infiltrated. He said it was too early to pull out undercover agents for fear their identities may have been compromised.

Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said five officials of his Organized Crime unit were arrested on allegations they served as informants for the Beltrán Leyva cartel, which is based in Sinaloa.

Medina Mora said there are indications other spies still work inside his agency. About 30 other members of the Organized Crime unit have been fired.

Among the Organized Crime unit officials arrested were Fernando Rivera Hernández, an assistant intelligence director, and Miguel Colorado González, a liaison in requesting searches and assigning officers to carry them out.

The embassy employee, who also at one time worked for Interpol at the Mexico City airport, is now a protected witness after telling Mexican officials in Washington that he leaked details of DEA operations to the cartel, an attorney general's official said on condition of anonymity.

“We are not planning changing anyone at the embassy at this point,â€