Mexico: Interpol Official Involved with Narcotics Trafficking
November 20th, 2008This reminds me of The Technology Secrets of Cocaine Inc., which is one of the all-time-must-reads. I managed to find my ancient commentary on that piece.
Via: CNN:
A vicious turf war between drug cartels and Mexican authorities that has left as many as 4,300 dead so far this year may have caused a breach in the internal security systems of Interpol, the international police organization.
Interpol, which is based in France, announced Wednesday it is sending a team of investigators to Mexico to investigate the possibility that its communications systems and databases are not being used for legitimate law enforcement purposes. The prospect was raised after the arrest of the top official working with the agency in the country.
Ricardo Gutierrez Vargas, director for International Police Affairs at Mexico’s Federal Investigative Agency and the head of Mexico’s Interpol office, was placed under house arrest Sunday, the attorney general’s office said Tuesday.
More than 30 officials have been arrested since July in connection with the anti-corruption Operation Limpieza, an ongoing investigation into information leaks by law enforcement officials to drug traffickers, said Niverda Amado, a government press secretary in Mexico City.
Gutierrez can be held for up to 40 days while authorities “obtain sufficient evidence to determine his probable responsibility,” the attorney general’s office said in a news release.
Rodolfo de la Guardia Garcia, a former top official at the Federal Investigative Agency, also is under 40-day house arrest. He was arrested October 29.
Mexico’s Interpol office, or National Central Bureau, is staffed and run by the Federal Investigative Agency.
Mexican officials did not offer specifics on their investigation other than to say that Operation Limpieza, which means “Operation Cleanup,” is aimed “against public servants who give reserved information to people not authorized to have it.”
All this for drugs that were legal everywhere up until a few decades ago, not causing any more harm generation by generation than they had caused for the thousands of years that they have been used. Made illegal and in a couple of generations they constitute a health and crime epidemic. All together now: DUH!