Drugs the Big Catch

When police in the Pacific resort town of Puerto Vallarta received the call, it sounded like a routine office robbery at the local bus depot. But when the thieves took refuge in a nearby house guarded by armed men, the police called in the army and state troopers. What they found when they finally stormed the house resulted in Mexico's biggest assault to date on the international narcotics business.

That, at least, is the way the story is being told by some Mexican officials. All that is known for certain is that 24 people were arrested, including, it is believed, members of various Mexican police units. The most important catch, however, was Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, 60, known as El Padrino, or the Godfather. He is reputed to be Mexico's leading drug trafficker and a prime suspect in the kidnap-murder of U.S. Narcotics Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar.

The Reagan Administration, which has complained strongly about Mexico's apparently laggard efforts to catch the murderers, was quick with praise. The arrest came only five days after the capture in San Jose, Costa Rica, of another Mexican drug kingpin, Rafael Caro Quintero, 29, who had fled shortly after the murder of Camarena and his Mexican pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar. Caro Quintero was deported to Mexico and last week was charged in a Mexico City court with drug trafficking, arms smuggling and criminal association. Authorities have not yet determined whether he is to be charged with murder.

Camarena, an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, was helping block the narcotics pipeline from Mexico into the U.S. when he and his pilot disappeared on Feb. 7. Last month their battered bodies were found in plastic bags on a ranch outside Guadalajara.

According to Mexican officials, Fonseca told them last week that he had seen Camarena and Caro Quintero at the ranch the day after the kidnapings. Fonseca said that he and Caro Quintero were angry with the agent over a police and army raid on a plantation in Chihuahua, owned by the two drug dealers, in which 8,000 tons of marijuana were burned. Fonseca added that the intention had been to question Camarena and offer him a bribe. He also claimed that he was too drunk to talk to Camarena until the next day, when Caro Quintero allegedly told him, "Well, see if you can still reach him, because he is no longer speaking." The agent, Fonseca explained, had been brutally beaten, but was still alive. "Now you have done it!" Fonseca said he screamed. He < claimed that he slapped Caro Quintero and called him a pig.

Caro Quintero has denied any part in the kidnapings and killings. When he appeared in court in Mexico City last week, his arms and right shoulder showed faint marks, which he said were the result of police beatings. In his confession, which he alleged had been obtained through torture, Caro Quintero said that he had bribed Mexican police and government officials with more than 1 billion pesos ($4.3 million) over the years. He revealed that he had paid a police commandant in Jalisco 60 million pesos ($261,000) for allowing him to take a private jet out of Guadalajara a few days after the kidnapings. The drug dealer estimated his income at about $400 a month--but he admitted to owning twelve houses and 36 luxury cars, the latter intended as police bribes.

In another major drug-connected case last week, U.S. agents in Miami arrested Elijio Briceno, 47, onetime Minister of Energy and Communications in Belize, the former British colony on Mexico's southern border. Briceno was charged with conspiring to smuggle more than 1,000 pounds of "controlled substances," including marijuana, into the U.S. Drug agency officials said that Briceno was a major marijuana supplier in his country and was visiting Miami to collect a down payment on a consignment.

Despite its small size (pop. 200,000), Belize ranks fourth among marijuana exporters to the U.S., behind Colombia, Mexico and Jamaica, according to U.S. officials. Briceno was charged in the same courtroom in which, four weeks ago, Norman Saunders, Chief Minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and two other government officials of the British territory were charged with drug smuggling.