How far will the government go to prosecute its so-called War on Drugs? It will look the other way while one of its informants commits multiple murders. Then it will try to cover up its own complicity.
A few months ago I was privileged to speak with several whistleblowers from the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, which calls for protection from retaliation for national security government employees who report waste, fraud, abuse and other misconduct. I’ve covered many of their stories here in the past, but one of them sounded so outrageous, and got more complex the more I looked into it, that I finally just put it on the to-do list and vowed to come back to it later.
So this story is long overdue, and for that, I apologize.
Sandalio Gonzalez worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration for 32 years before he retired in January of 2005. As Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso, Texas Field Division, Gonzalez was working in cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel in Ciudad Juárez, just across the Rio Grande. The government had managed to get an informant, Guillermo Ramirez Peyro, also known as Lalo, recruited into the organization. But Lalo, it seems, was playing both sides. When he was arrested for smuggling marijuana in 2003, DEA dropped him as an informant, but ICE kept him on.
From here, the story takes a bizarre turn: A month later, Lalo “supervised” the August 2003 murder of Mexican lawyer Fernando Reyes in a house in east Juárez which would come to be known as the House of Death. But ICE kept using him as an informant, with approval from the highest levels of the U.S. government.
And they kept using him, even after he killed at least a dozen people, including El Paso resident Luis Padilla, in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
“There were at least 15 people that were killed that could have been stopped at the very beginning,” Gonzalez said. “Every indication is that they were allowed to occur in furtherance of a case, of a criminal case.”
Gonzalez alleges that ICE kept the informant on, and didn’t arrest his boss, Heriberto Santillan, because ICE and the U.S. Attorney, John Sutton, wanted to continue building their case against him. But DEA had said, prior to any of the murders, that there was already enough evidence against Santillan and he should be taken down. Later, Sutton would drop all of the murder charges in a plea bargain.
Gonzalez found out the informant was still active when an undercover DEA agent in Juárez barely escaped with his life when the cartel went looking for him to kill him. He wrote a letter (PDF) to his counterpart in ICE expressing his “frustration and outrage at the mishandling of the [Santillan] investigation that has resulted in the unnecessary loss of human life in the Republic of Mexico, and endangered the lives of [DEA agents] and their immediate families [in Juárez].”
And that’s when the retaliation began.
“DEA top management threatened me that if I didn’t retire, they would give me a bad evaluation,” Gonzalez said. He refused, and did indeed get a downgraded performance evaluation, so he filed a complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board.
“I had enough to where I was granted a hearing in my case where I had the right to question all these officials. Before that happened, they went ahead and settled the case.” Gonzalez retired, and immediately filed an employment discrimination lawsuit in federal court. His case is now being heard in federal court in Miami, Fla.
Lalo is now in federal detention facing deportation despite being granted asylum, a decision the government successfully appealed. “Now that they have no use for this guy, they’re trying to send him to his death, almost certain death,” Gonzalez said.
“When we have officials of both the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security willing to cover up multiple murders in order to protect political careers, I think we’ve reached the lowest end of the totem pole.”
Bill Conroy of Narco News has been covering this story virtually from the beginning, having written dozens of articles and obtained hundreds of pages of government documents under the Freedom of Information Act which tend to support Gonzalez’ allegations of employment discrimination and government coverup of one of its own informants participating in drug smuggling and murder. I highly recommend checking out his coverage to learn more about this case.
(Hat tip: Glenn Greenwald)
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Dec 11, 2006
BLOGical Thoughts » Monday, 11 December, 2006
anan@www.invalid
Dec 12, 2006
“Now that they have no use for this guy, they’re trying to send him to his death, almost certain death,†Gonzalez said.
He’s talking here about the guy who “killed at least a dozen people”. Where is the problem?
Michael Hampton
Dec 12, 2006
I suspect the problem is that he could testify against certain high-level government officials who allowed him to get away with those murders.
AJ
Dec 12, 2006
Sounds just like a movie
Tell Gonzalez to sell his story and make enough money to disappear
AJ
Dec 12, 2006
so many people die by drugs or because of the drug cartel every day
12 is not really a lot when compared to the greater good
i know the article states they had enough info to shut this part of the cartel down but i doubt they’d just let it go on if they did indeed have enough to make their case.
it’s not like they don’t care about lost lives – but sometimes they are required to look away for the greater good, for the end goal.
thatgirltasha
Dec 12, 2006
“so many people die by drugs or because of the drug cartel every day
12 is not really a lot when compared to the greater good”
What in the hell?? Greater good for the greater number and all that?
“it’s not like they don’t care about lost lives – but sometimes they are required to look away for the greater good, for the end goal.”
Communists and Fascists and Nazis the world over are so very proud of your enlightened comments, AJ.
-Tasha
Socialism...
Dec 12, 2006
If people wan’t to fuck up thier lives with drugs thats thier business but to protect a man who killed 12 people and to protect those condoning it is an atrocity. Also, if we could stop this “war on drugs” and legalize the shit perhaps we’d have a couple less cartel and smuggling deaths a year iopposed to the “Necessary” murders to save a few people from themselves…
Also, I understand the negative connotations behind facism and communism and the just plain hateful nature of nazism to promote a stigma on the first two is terrible. Commies have done loads of bad things and so have facists but neither are intrinsicly bad. Look at the Sandinistas or the EHAK both are far left socialist communist resistance movements but look at the U.S. backed governments they’re resisting. Was Somoza better than the communists that took over and eventually started peaceful elections then gave up power peacably? Don’t let stereotypes be enforced and don’t let this asshole get off with murder…
Dec 12, 2006
Prime News Blog » Blog Archive » xmen fanfiction rogue return U.S. Government officials cover up murder to save political careers
Dec 13, 2006
America In Danger - The Blog » U.S. Government officials cover up murder to save political careers
Dec 13, 2006
Cartoons Fans Lounge » Blog Archive » x men uncensored U.S. Government officials cover up murder to save political careers
Henry the Eighth
Dec 13, 2006
Tasha nailed it, AJ you are truly an idiot. The greater good, where did you hear that, a public school?
Tasha
Dec 14, 2006
“. . .where did you hear that, a public school?”
LOL
-Tasha
Bur$atil
Dec 16, 2006
Dope, Inc. Read and see who is controling the narco money.
And who use ilegal narcotics, finance terrorist all over the globe.
Globalizacion is part of laundry crime money. And we are so blind.
Bur$atil
Bur$atil
Dec 16, 2006
Dope,Inc.
Bur$atil
Dec 16, 2006
Free people, free market. But pay a lot of taxes. This is the biggest jokes of all.
Bur$atil
Dec 16, 2006
Pay more for oil, more for food, more taxes, more for Social Security, privatize social security, pay more, hey be FREE people and FREE market.
Oil just 63 a barrel. Is FREE world. Commodities are over the trillions, the deficit with China is huge, the war is over 1/2 trillions, but today nothing is FREE. And the war on terrorism and narco traffic is costing all the TAXPAYERS a fortune.
Free what???? Please.
Bur$atil
Dec 16, 2006
World Wide Word of Stupidity. War in Irak, taxes, oil, inflation, revaluation of YUAN, more use of ilegal drugs for people around the world, our kids in America watch bad things on TV promoting drugs.
We live in the age of Stupidity.
Where is the longes narco border in the world? Well, you know.
Where the use of ilegal drugs is huge? Well, you have the answer.
Wake up call, no use of ilegal drugs. Stop the crime.
USpace
Mar 04, 2007
Good one, terrible story. I would think the MSM would want to talk about this to embarrass the Bush Admin.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe wants
all alcohol illegal…
increase black market profits
corrupt more law enforcement
.
km
Mar 16, 2007
how many people die from the drug called ice?
Max
Jul 08, 2007
““Now that they have no use for this guy, they’re trying to send him to his death, almost certain death,†Gonzalez said.
He’s talking here about the guy who “killed at least a dozen people”. Where is the problem?”
First off – he didn’t actually do the killing, though he did assist.
Where the problem is – is that he was being paid by the federal government while this was going on – and they KNEW it was going on – which makes them complicit in the murders.
And the DOJ people involved have all been PROMOTED.
More at