[narconews] Conroy: Mexican Cop, Now in El Paso Hospital, Is a Marked Man
 
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:25:12 -0600 (CST)


February 11, 2008
Please Distribute Widely

Dear Colleague,

In recent weeks and months there has been a spike in violence related
to the drug trade in Juarez, Mixico that has, for the most part, not
spread over the border into Juarez' US-sister city, El Paso, Texas.
However, this changed after a two-day offensive by the drug cartel
against Mexican law enforcement officials, after which Mexican state
police commander Fernando Lozano Sandoval was brought to El Paso's
Thomason Hospital after being shot several times in his SUV on the
evening of January 21. Veteran investigative reporter Bill Conroy
writes how this action is worrying El Paso residents who feel that
Lozano's presence has thrust them into the "front lines of narco-
trafficking turf war."

Conroy reports:

"...It may well be officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) that have put El Paso in that position. ICE sources
tell Narco News that Lozano is an ICE informant who was marked for
assassination because narco-traffickers in Juarez believe he tipped
off U.S. law enforcers to the location of a stash house in the El
Paso area that contained more than five tons of marijuana.

"...ICE sources point out that if this was a properly run operation,
then ICE should have assured security was in place on the first night
of Lozano's arrival at the El Paso hospital, for the protection of
their informant and El Paso citizens. The fact that hospital
officials had to make the calls to arrange that security is evidence,
the ICE sources claim, that ICE command in El Paso was not clued into
Lozano's alleged status as an informant.

"...If Lozano was working as an undocumented informant for an ICE
supervisor, then the memo makes it clear that relationship was
outside the bounds of standard agency regulations. In addition, in
such a case, ICE sources contend Lozano could not have been paid for
his service without violating the rules governing informants.

"'And a professional informant does not work for free. They do not
take those kinds of risks for nothing,' an ICE source says. 'So what
was Lozano getting in exchange for being an informant?'"

Read the rest of how the drug cartels turf war has spilled over into
US soil online at Narco News:

http://www.narconews.com

Also fresh on Narco News are reports on two lawsuits related to the
proposed building of the wall along the border of US and Mexico, one
of border residents suing Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff,
and the other where Chertoff is suing two Universities on the Texas-
Mexico border to build a wall through their campuses. Find the
articles at Narco News:

http://www.narconews.com

 From somewhere in a country called Amirica,

David B. Briones
Webmaster
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com
webmaster@narconews.com

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