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Special Report
DEA supervisor exposes cover-up of U.S. agents'
role in mass murder in Mexico
By Bill Conroy
Online Journal Contributing Writer
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April 1, 2005—DEA supervisor Sandalio Gonzalez hit a nerve when he fired off a letter in February 2005 to U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in El Paso, Texas.
Gonzalez' letter blew the whistle on the alleged cover-up of ICE agents' complicity in multiple murders in the Mexican border
town of Ciudad Juárez. The homicides were tied to an investigation into Heriberto Santillan-Tabares, who U.S. prosecutors claim is a top lieutenant in Vicente Carrillo Fuentes' Juárez drug organization.
Santillan has been charged with cocaine and marijuana smuggling along with five counts of murder—a crime that can get him a
death sentence in the U.S. justice system. His case is currently pending in federal district court in San Antonio, Texas, and is slated for trial in May.
A confidential informant, who allegedly had attained high standing within the Juárez organization, played a critical role in
snaring Santillan. The informant's name is Jesus Contreras, who is also known by the nickname "Lalo."
Between August 2003 and mid-January 2004, a dozen people were tortured, murdered and then buried in the yard of a house in
the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez. Contreras, according to sources, participated in many of those murders.
The informant's handlers, agents and supervisors with the El Paso office of ICE, were allegedly fully aware of Contreras'
complicity in the murders, yet did nothing to stop the killing for fear of jeopardizing the Santillan case and a separate cigarette-smuggling case that they were trying to make with the informant's help.
The Santillan case falls under the jurisdiction of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, who is considered to be "wired" into the
current Bush administration. Sutton, a former policy coordinator for the Bush-Cheney Transition Team, served as the Criminal Justice Policy director from 1995-2000 for then-Governor George W. Bush.
On Jan. 14, 2004, the door was blown wide open on the death-house operation in Juárez. That day, three people were tortured
and murdered, but not before one of them gave up an address to a marijuana stash house in Juarez. Santillan's operatives went to the house and banged on the door.
But it was the wrong door. It was not the home of a drug dealer, but rather of a DEA agent and his family. That knock on the
door set off a sequence of events that led to the agent and his family being confronted by Mexican police on the payroll of Santillan.
At the time, the corrupt cops didn't know they were dealing with a DEA agent, and if another DEA agent had not shown up at
the scene, the family might well have been in store for a trip to the death house.
Fortune was on the side of the agent and his family that day. They survived. But the lid was blown off of Santillan's
death-house operation, as was the fact that some officials with ICE and the U.S. attorney's office, in their zeal to make a case, had allowed 12 murders to occur under their watch and now had nearly cost
the lives of two DEA agents.
As a result of the agents' close encounter with Santillan's enforcers, DEA evacuated all of its agents and their families
from Juárez as a safety precaution. The Mexican government also dispatched some 80 federal agents to Juárez to investigate the situation.
Cat Out of the Bag
In the wake of the DEA agents' close encounter with Santillan's henchmen in Ciudad Juárez, DEA supervisor Gonzalez sent a
letter of protest to his ICE counterpart in El Paso.
Gonzalez is now claiming that DEA brass retaliated against him because the letter ruffled the feathers of Sutton, a big-shot
U.S. attorney in San Antonio.
The reason Gonzalez was persecuted for writing the letter is that it was seen as jeopardizing the Santillan murder case.
"The U.S. attorney's office cannot prosecute someone for murders that could have been prevented by the [U.S.] government,"
explains one law enforcement source.
In other words, Gonzalez' letter represents evidence that the government screwed up, and the U.S. attorney's office didn't
want that letter being thrown in their faces during a trial. As a result, Gonzalez was told to shut up, his work record tarnished in retaliation and the letter buried—until now.
The Letter
A copy of Gonzalez' Feb. 24, 2004, letter to John Gaudioso, head of ICE's El Paso division, was obtained through a Freedom of
Information Act request.
Following are some excerpts:
Dear Mr. Gaudioso:
. . . I am now writing to express to you my frustration and outrage at the mishandling of the [Vicente Carrillo
Fuentes drug organization] investigation that has resulted in unnecessary loss of human life in the Republic of Mexico, and endangered the lives of Special Agents of the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) and their immediate families assigned to the DEA Office in [Ciudad Juárez] Mexico.
There is no excuse for the events that culminated during the evening of January 14, 2004, and absent a complete and
logical explanation of these events, which led to the emergency evacuation of our personnel and their families in [Ciudad Juárez], I have no choice but to hold you responsible for this unfortunate
situation.
Rather than join with others in petty finger pointing, I will limit this letter to the following irrefutable facts:
This chain of events began when hired killers working for [Santillan] went to the residences of a DEA agent in [Ciudad
Juárez], and later caused local police to make a traffic stop of the agent's vehicle which at the time was occupied by the agent [and his family]. We must not forget this.
. . . On/about August 5, 2003, while working for your agency, the ICE confidential source identified as [Jesus
Contreras] participated in a murder in [Ciudad Juárez]. Shortly thereafter the actions of the CS [confidential source or informant] were misrepresented to Mexican authorities that were told via
official ICE correspondence that the CS had merely "witnessed" a murder and would soon be available to provide testimony to the PGR (the Mexican Office of the Attorney General]. The CS was in fact a
participant in the torture/murder of [Durango lawyer and suspected drug trafficker Fernando Reyes Aguado], as reflected in his debriefing report dated August 25, 2003, which clearly states that the
CS supervised the murder. . . .
. . . Following the August 2003 murder of [Fernando], ICE personnel and the prosecutor ignored well-founded
recommendations made by DEA agents to arrest [Santillan] and "take down" the case, thereby allowing at least [13] other murders to take place in [Juárez], in what can only be described as a display
of total disregard for human life, and disrespect for the rule of law in Mexico. Much of this, I'm told, to protect the drug case against [Santillan] and a [cigarette-smuggling] case in which the CS
is a witness.
. . . [Santillan] and the CS were allowed to continue their activities in Mexico following the August 2003 murder
of [Fernando], and on January 14, 2004, DEA agents and their families stationed in [Juárez] were and remain evacuated from their residences because hired killers working for [Santillan] tried to
identify two of our agents through your CS under the ruse of a traffic stop.
. . . Following the evacuation of our personnel in [Juárez], ICE agents, with your concurrence, refused to
immediately present the CS to Mexican federal authorities so that his testimony could be used as the probable cause necessary to arrest the corrupt police officials in [Juárez]. Your failure to
present the CS to Mexican federal officials resulted in a one-week delay before probable cause could be established to search for the dead bodies. These officials told our Attaches in Mexico that
they would not have had to wait to discover the bodies prior to arresting the corrupt officers. Now these dangerous killers are at large. To make matters worse, you would not allow the CS to call
[Mexican state police Commander Miguel Loya Gallegos, an alleged Santillan operative] so that Mexican federal authorities could arrest him for his participation in the murders. . . .
. . . This situation is so bizarre that even as I'm writing to you it is difficult for me to believe it. I have
never before come across such callous behavior by fellow law enforcement officers. The bottom line is that as a result of these actions, [Commander Miguel Loya Gallegos] and other murder suspects are
now fugitives. There was no logical reason to prevent the CS from calling [Loya] so Mexican authorities could arrest him. What is more important here, the safety of agent personnel and their
families, or drug and cigarette smuggling cases? [Santillan's] subsequent indictment for murders that occurred after August 5, 2003, that could have been prevented, is disturbing. . . .
Now, six months after the murder of [Fernando], the PGR has testimony from several members of [Santillan's] killing
circle. The PGR knows that U.S. authorities could and should have taken steps to stop these assassins. Both of our agencies have spent countless hours building trust and sharing sensitive information
without compromise with trusted counterparts in Mexico. However, the developments in this case have, to say the least, strained that relationship and set us back years. . . .
Sandalio Gonzalez
Special Agent in Charge
The Retaliation
In May 2004, three months after sending his House of Death protest letter to ICE supervisor Gaudioso, Gonzalez claims he was
threatened by the DEA's legal counsel. Essentially, Gonzalez was told that if he did not voluntarily retire from the agency by June 2004, he would receive a negative job performance rating.
Gonzalez deemed the threat as a reprisal for writing the letter to Gaudioso. In reaction, Gonzalez sent a letter to the U.S.
Department of Justice's Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, asking that his office investigate the retaliation he was experiencing due to his whistleblowing activities.
The Office of Inspector General declined to investigate Gonzalez' case, Freedom of Information Act records show.
Despite the inspector general's refusal to take action on his case, Gonzalez was not done fighting. He had no intention of
being forced out of the DEA for telling the truth.
In late August 2004, the DEA followed through with its threat to disparage his work record by giving him a negative job
review. A few weeks later, on Sept. 9, 2004, Gonzalez filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC).
Gonzalez asked the watchdog agency to investigate his case, claiming that he was being retaliated against for disclosing
"murder, gross mismanagement of a criminal case and [obstruction of] an investigation of a threat against the lives of a federal agent and his family."
The Office of Special Counsel replied to Gonzalez complaint on Nov. 19, 2004, and also declined to take up his case.
So, some nine months after his House of Death protest letter was sent to ICE supervisor Gaudioso and U.S. Attorney Sutton,
Gonzalez found himself running out of options in dealing with the resulting reprisal. Two major government watchdog agencies had chosen to hide behind legal loopholes to look away from the alleged
cover-up.
In addition, Gonzalez claims there was no end in sight to the retaliation he was facing from the DEA.
As a result, Gonzalez decided to turn in his gun and badge for good and on Jan. 8, 2005, he retired from DEA.
But Gonzalez is not through with this battle to clear his name and to expose the cover-up in the House of Death murders. In
February 2005, he took his case to another watchdog agency, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, the source of the Freedom of Information Act records for this investigative expose.
His case is still pending before the board.
The Soul Toll
To date, the known murder toll in the House of Death horror story stands at 15:
- A dozen people tortured, murdered and buried in the backyard of a house in Ciudad Juárez—including at least one U.S. citizen,
29-year-old Luis Padilla, who left behind a wife and three small kids.
- Two more people murdered by a House of Death operative (a corrupt state police commandant); they were killed in broad daylight the
day after a DEA agent and his family were pulled over in a bogus traffic stop in Ciudad Juárez and threatened by corrupt Mexican cops on the payroll of the Juárez drug organization.
- A 27-year-old father of a two-week old baby who was shot dead in El Paso after thugs mistook him for the informant, Jesus
Contreras, who is at the center of the House of Death murders.
All of these people had families who are forever scarred by these homicides, yet it seems the murders are little more than
statistics to the U.S. bureaucracies charged with perpetuating the war on drugs. How can that be?
How can the cold-blooded slayings of 15 people—the bulk of the killings carried out by an informant under the watch of
federal agents and prosecutors—be deemed an acceptable price for making a drug case?
Gonzalez doesn't believe it is acceptable, which is why he wrote his letter of protest. Now, he is paying the price.
"[Mexican officials] are upset for having been misled by ICE and because several Mexican citizens died unnecessarily as a
result," Gonzalez wrote to his DEA supervisors in a document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act request. "I had every right to express my outrage with the situation, and what I wrote to my
counterpart at ICE was the truth. . . .
"How does the truth jeopardize a federal prosecution?," Gonzalez adds. "Are we not supposed to tell the truth?"
Bill Conroy is a correspondent for Mexico City-based Narco News, which covers the drug war and democracy movements in Latin America.
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