Source:   Chicago Tribune
Contact:    Jan. 5, 1998
Section:  sec. 1, page 14

ANTI-DRUG WAR CORRUPTS TOO MANY

OAK LAWN -  Again, in 1997, drug-war corruption took its toll on law
enforcement in Chicago and around the world.

Recently, three Chicago police officers were convicted of robbing suspected
drug dealers and stealing their drug-deal cash ($23,000) in a sting
operation. The Gresham District officers will be sentenced March 23, the
first day of another police-officer, drug-trafficking trial - involving
officers from the Austin District.

From a hemispheric perspective, the defilement of those charged with waging
the drug war is commonplace - an often hidden but inevitable cost of drug
war. The past year has witnessed arrests, charges and convictions for every
sort of drug-war debauchery, snaring men in and out of uniform.

Antonio Grace Mota, alias "The Cocaine King" and boss of the Brazilian leg
of the Cali-cartel drug route to Europe, bribed his way out of the Sao
Paulo's Carandiru jail in Brazil. In New York state, 11 guards from the
Metropolitan Detention Center were arrested for smuggling drugs into the
jail in exchange for bribes ranging from $100 to $1,000 a week.

Mexico's former deputy attorney general, Javier Coello Trjo, and Judicial
Police Commander G. Gonzalez Cadlerone were accused of protecting cocaine
shipments through Mexico. In February, after an American Drug-czar
briefing, Mexico's drug czar Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo was arrested for
taking bribes and allegedly tipping off drug chieftan Amado Carrillo
Fuentes to an inpending raid at Carrillo's sister's wedding.

In Mexico City in May, federal prosecutors, federal police and a military
official wer accused of stealing nearly half a ton of cocaine seized from
drug dealers. In Haiti, three policemen were arrested for stealing $700,000
from a woman's home during a police unit investigation of a drug drop, and
more officers were arrested there for burglarizing a police station to
extricate confiscated drugs.

The year also saw a Los Angeles city councilman arrested for cocaine
possession, a Dominican Republic ambassador accused of accepting $1 million
in bribes from drug traffickers while lobbying for the release of Colombian
drug entrepeurs, the arrest of the mayor of Cali for taking $200,000 in
capaign contributions from cartel kingpins and Detroit police officers
indicted for illegal raids and traffick tops allegedly concocted to steal
drugs, firearms and money.

Other 1997 drug-war abominations included reports that Mexican military
officiers copied computer files about anti-drug operations for drug
dealers, the arrest of a dozen federal agents from U.S. Customs and
Immigration and Naturalization Service (one agent allegedly accepting a $1
million bribe to allow a truck loaded with a ton of cocaine past his border
checkpoint), the kidnapping and torture of a member of the Tijuana drug
cartel by Mexico's former head of anti-drug intelligence to extract
information for a rival drug gang, the arrest of two Argentine police
officers for drug possession while inchile to extradite car thieves, and
the arrest of two Mexican drug-enforcement agency agents for failing to
report their seizure of a 1.6-ton shipment of marijuana in April.

The corruption of a steady stream of public officers and officials is too
high a price to pay for continuing a failed drug war that breeds disrespect
the law and its servants.

James E. Gierach