Former police captain: Juárez, Chihuahua state authorities took cartels' cash

And why again is Mexico such an unsafe place ?


El Paso Times
EL PASO -- A former Juárez police captain testified in U.S. District Court on Thursday that all police in Juárez and Chihuahua state were on the payrolls of drug cartels.

Jesús Fierro-Méndez, alias "Puma," testified that drug cartels paid the police agencies a monthly fee to protect the drug traffickers.

Fierro-Méndez took in the stand in the drug-smuggling trial of Fernando Ontiveros-Arámbula and Manuel Chávez-Betancourt.

"Any (cop) who did not want to be on their payroll still had to obey orders," Fierro-Méndez said. "If they did not obey, they would be killed."

The DEA arrested Fierro-Méndez in October 2008 on a conspiracy charge out of Indiana related to cocaine. He allegedly had a loaded AK-47 rifle and cocaine at his house when agents arrested him in El Paso.

Before his arrest, Fierro-Méndez testified, he was an informant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and kept the agency updated on drug cartel activities in Juárez.

Fierro-Méndez said Mexican kingpin Joaquin "Chapo" Guzmán authorized him and others in his organization to provide U.S. officials with information about the rival Vicente Carrillo Fuentes cartel.

That rivalry has led to more than 4,700 slayings in two years in Juárez alone.

Fierro-Méndez worked for the Juárez city police for 10 years and was a captain before leaving.

While he and others kept ICE informed of what Guzmán's competitors were doing in Juárez, they continued to smuggle drugs into the United States, he testified.