Investigation: Kicked out of Mexico for tracking drug cartels

06:29 PM PDT on Monday, August 31, 2009

By RANDY SHAW / KREM.com



SPOKANE -- A local man's ties to a unique computer program may have revealed dozens of dirty cops in Mexico, paid off by drug cartels.

KREM.com

"Mark" headed a team of computer experts that operated a program designed to track illegal pay-offs.

Most of the illegal drugs found on the streets of Washington, Oregon and Idaho come from Mexico. Violence associated with this trafficking has grown leaps and bounds.

Mexico claims it is doing what it can to stop it. But a man from Eastern Washington, recently involved in a secret mission to help Mexico track down and arrest offenders, is blowing the whistle on what happened to his project.

Because pay-offs reached all the way into the Office of the Mexican Attorney General, a special secret panel of computer experts was formed to help combat the problem, including "Mark" from Eastern Washington.

"Mark" tells KREM 2 News there were 15 people involved in the project from places like Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and the U.S.

Mark managed the project and helped put highly sophisticated system into operation near Mexico City.

"The system first started out looking at people's individual phone records, their bank accounts, their passport movements, movements throughout the states, and their associations," explains Mark. "It grabs that information from different data sources within the federal government."

It's looking for people getting payoffs from drug lords, including Mexican police and government officials.

"If a Federali is making 'x' number of pesos a week and he's got $250,000 in the bank we know he's getting that money from somewhere," says Mark.

The program was turned on, and it worked immediately, spitting out dozens of names of high ranking Mexican police. It quickly led to the arrests of 92 top ranking Mexican officials.

But one day later, Mark and the rest of his team were kicked out of their compound by Mexican Federalis. They were rounded up, taken to an airport and kicked out of the country.

They never got paid and all their hardware and special computer programs were left behind.

KREM 2 News spoke with Michael Saunders of the DEA headquarters in Washington, D.C., who confirmed Mark's operation in Mexico.

However, Saunders claims the DEA didn't know the group was kicked out of Mexico. When asked why the public wasn't informed of this, Saunders told KREM 2 News: "You'll have to talk to the State Department."

It was just discovered that a drug cartel member worked inside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Gang members have also infiltrated parts of the U.S. military. Mark fears sending a message to anyone might put him in danger, and he worries that the drug cartels may now have in their hands all of that secret information gathering material the group was forced to leave behind.

"I'm worried about sending an email because if they have cartel members at the U.S. Embassy, they might have a cartel member at the White House. I send an email, all of a sudden someone comes and shoots me," says Mark.

Mark is concerned the halt in operations has given drug cartel members time to closely examine what happened to them, and regroup

But a source even closer to the operation told KREM 2 News late this afternoon that a top level agency that reports only to the Mexican President took over the operation to keep it safer. That source says he expects the mission to start again in October.

www.krem.com