By Olivier Acuña
For many years I was involved in investigating how drugs were being smuggled into the United States, and of course my work began in Culiacan, Sinaloa, the cradle of the vast majority of traffickers in Mexico. I was working on a major story that was to be published by Associated Press in agreement with Nico Price, who still works for AP and who was the Mexico City Bureau Chief for many years. I will be periodically writing stories I gathered when I lived in Sinaloa. There are many instances when fiction actually surpassed reality and I will be telling my readers about it. This period was between 1999 and 2006, after which I was kidnapped, tortured and thrown in jail falsely accused of many crimes, including triple aggravated murder. I was completely exonerated of all charges 28 months later.
The ransacked building you can barely see to the left was home to my family and I in the very dangerous Juntas de Humaya neighborhood in Culiacan
MEXICO CITY (Mexico Tribune).- I knew that sooner or later my adventure into the underworld of crime would backfire on me, but in the meantime adrenaline was rushing through my body as I met lower level drug lords and was invited to their parties and many times by chance was able to see how they operated.
One day I was driving my car in Juntas de Humaya, a squalid but intensely dangerous neighbourhood in violent Culiacan. I had a friend there called Jorge Burgos.
When I first met him, he introduced himself as an Agricultural Engineer, but this façade soon became obviously false. I soon found out he was the local cocaine, heroin and methaphentamine dealer.
He covered a vary wide sector and when a few months later he began confided more and more in me, he had no problem boasting about the range of his activities and the amounts of drugs he sold each day.
In fact, one afternoon we were drinking a few beers in front of his home when he received a telephone call. It was from the head doctor of the Sinaloan Delegation of the PGR – Federal Attorney General, comprised of federal prosecutors and federal police agents.
– Hey, Olivier can you please come with me?
– Sure, I responded.
He wanted me to accompany him to the headquarters just outside Culiacan to deliver a package to the doctor and some federal agents.
Along the way he explained that he had been lucky to meet some federal agents that introduced him to some very important PGR officials that offered him protection in exchange for a monthly compensation that included money and cocaine.
“It is really a fucking great deal, because they let me know if I have been reported by anyone and they tell me if someone is asking that an investigation be initiated against me and they help me take care of competition that arises in my area,” he told me.
To say the truth, I was not a bit surprised, since all my investigative reporting had already shed proof that organized crime existed only because high government officials in all sectors and all levels were permitting it.
When we arrived at the PGR, a person in a white robe approached Jorge Burgos vehicle to receive a bag of cocaine and 10,000 pesos, equivalent to about $1,000 usd at that time.
About a week later, I again was driving pass Jorge’s house and since it was a dirt road in terrible condition vehicles were forced to be driven slowly.
There was joke about this issue were neighbours would say this is a first rate neighbourhood because you can only drive in first gear.
Anyway, I saw at least six Suburban vehicles in front of Mr. Burgos house and there were at least 30 heavily armed men. I noticed they had official badges attached to their belts.
Jorge saw me and yelled out requesting a park my car and join in. At first, I thought that this time for sure he was busted, but when I saw him grinning and laughing with a beer in his hand, a realised I was wrong.
I walked inside his home and was offered a plate with carne asada – barbecued meet –, tortillas and salsa and of course a beer.
I could hear the men talking in distinctive Mexico City accent. Yes, I forgot to say that the accents are distinctively different throughout the country.
Jorge introduce me to the “Commandante”, who was apparently well into his drinking and snorting. He noticed my accent was also not local, but didn´t give it much more consideration.
He then began to tell Jorge with disregard to who I might be or simply feeling it did not matter because he was so powerful that his group was looking for an ideal candidate to take over a marijuana smuggling route from Nayarit – the next state south of Sinaloa – to the border town of Tijuana.
“I can offer this person a very large supply of high-quality marijuana at 120 dollars a kilogram and protection to transport it all the way to Tijuana for only 100 dollars more,” he said. “What happens after it gets there is not my concern.”
At this point it was clearer to me that the Government was in fact in charge of organizing and regulating the drug trafficking industry in Mexico. I still was not at all surprised.
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