Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Zetatijuanaarticle
Subject Matter: Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required
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Reporter: Zeta Investigations
After 20 years in prison, Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios, of the Arellano Felix cartel, won an amparo and his liberty. He was exonerated of a quadruple homicide of Federal Agents and a Taxi driver in Mexico City in 1996. Before a Judge had condemned him to 50 years in prison. Statements made against him by persons including Everardo " Kitty " Paez were declared void. "El Lobo" was imprisoned in three Federal Penitentiaries the last of which was Cefereso # 15 in Chiapas. (Otis: El Lobo was one of the infamous "CAF narco juniors", most cartels recruit from the poor and working classes, the narco juniors were sons of well to do families from Tijuana, the narco juniors sought power and status through a life of crime with the Arellano Felix clan).
In 2002, a Judge condemned him to 50 years in prison. He was imprisoned for 20 years in maximum security prisons like Altiplano, also in Tamaulipas and Chiapas. Today he saw Tijuana again, his city, where he had a relation with the Arellano Felix brothers, who he knew since his childhood.
The First Tribunal in Penal Matters of the Second Circuit, with residence in Toluca, Mexio State, conceded an amparo promoted by Miguel Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios and with it his liberty. The Judge of Guarantees left with effect the sentence for the homicides of four persons and associated crimes.
The protection of the Federal Judgment that arrived for the nicknamed "El Lobo" advertised the existence of illicit proof in the penal cause that was brought in 1996. He was accused of qualified homicide by the sub delegation of Federal Judicial Police in Tijuana. Ernesto Ibarra Santes, two of his colleagues and a taxi driver in Mexico City, as well as belonging to the Cartel Arellano Felix.
According to the ruling by the Judges by majority, not unanimously, " even when the crimes were credited, the responsibility of the claimant was not demonstrated in the commission of the crimes, as this was said in different statements of the co-guilty that were collected in violation of the right to an adequate defense".
For what was seen as criminal association, two of the magistrates arrived at the conclusion of that " it was not proven either the elements of the crime or the criminal responsibility of the complainant, because this was held with the statements of the co-accused and the public documentary, one of whom practised in the United States of America, whose demonstrative effectiveness was affected because they did not give notice of the availability of the assistance of counsel".
The start witness statement was given by a sicario of a criminal organization, Everardo Arturo Paez Martinez "El Kitty", detained by the PGR in November of 1997 and extradited to the United States at the start of May of 2001. "El Kitty" was involved in the assassination of the Federals.
In the divided judgment of the Superior Court, a Judge voted against the resolution and did not share in the majority decision. That judicial officer believes that there is a "collision of rights and a possible diplomatic conflict, therefore I think that the best thing is to request of the Supreme Court of Justice of the nation to exercise its power of attraction".
That is to say, the trial should not have been resolved in the court. Or in its defect, is pointed out the dissident Judge, it was possible to grant to amparo for "effects" and not the " plain and simple" judgment", as it finally happened. According to the Judge it was right to "outlaw those statements in which those persons were not made aware of their right to an adequate defense".
Doctor Santes
With the amparo obtained, "El Lobo" Hodoyan was freed of the accusation of the assassination of the Doctor Ernesto Ibarra Santes, a man seen as incorruptible, commissioned by the PGR to the plaza of Tijuana, to diminish the operations of the CAF. It was "El Yankie", as he was called the Commander in Chief of the State, of the then PJF and who was administratively called Deputy.
The death of the Doctor by profession, but a Policeman by vocation, happened on September the 14th of 1996, only two days after the arrest of the brother of Miguel Alfredo, Alejandro Hodoyan Palacios, who was eventually held at military installations and handed over to the DEA in the United States, to finally disappear, and to date his whereabouts are unknown.
Ibarra Santes had flown that morning to Mexico City to meet with the PGR. At the airport he took a taxi accompanied by two Federal agents, Israel Moreno flores and Juan Aaron Rosas Gallegos. When they were travelling down the Avenue Insurgentes on the corner of Gomez Farias, they were attacked with gunfire from different angles by an armed commando were waiting for them. The thee policeman died together with the taxi driver Juan Arturo Hernandez Lizarde.
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Investigations launched by the authorities arrived at the conclusion that the attack was orchestrated by the brothers Ramon and Benjamin Arellano Felix, who were disgusted at the persecution that he had initiated against them, and his discourse before the press, where he affirmed he was finished with them.
Among the suspect of the quadruple homicide were ex military Gerardo Cruz Pacheco "El Capitan, the gunman Francisco Cabrera Castra "El Piedra", and Miguel Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios. (Otis: also suspected was Fabian Martines Gonzalez "El Tiburon"). The first were apprehended months after by the PGR, and sent to Cefereso #1 Altiplano. El Lobo was captured in the United States together with Emilio Valdez Mainero "El Radioloco", they were extradited to Mexico in January of 1998 and also sent to Altiplano at Almoloya de Juarez.
In September of 2002, a Judge of the Federal Penal Processes in Mexico State found El Lobo, La Piedra and El Capitan guilty, and sentenced them all to 50 years in maximum security prison. On top of that El Lobo was given in total 176 years in prison including a fine of 17,500 pesos in compensation to the families of the dead taxi driver and relatives of the Federal policemen.
Emilio Valdez, who was also convicted of criminal association, was the first to leave Altiplano after three years. Immediately he devoted himself to a legal battle in Tijuana to recover the property seized at the time by the Federal Attorney General.
In Tamaulipas
Owing to events happening at Altiplano prison between members of the CAF and people of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, in 2004, Alfredo Hodoyan was sent to Cefereso #3 Santa Adelaida, in Matamoros, where he stayed for more than a decade.
The amparos promoted by El Lobo were constant, firstly because he wanted to return to Altiplano, after disciplinary sanctions restricting the sale of various products in the Federal prison shop.
The last years he spent in Tamaulipas were more tranquil. His amparos were more for the claim of rights than any punishments he was receiving. Thus, in 2009 when he was denied access to the delivery of documents related to his defence drafted by his lawyers, through the family. After that were a litany of complaints because he allegedly was not receiving sufficient quantity of food.
The penitentiary authorities responded to his demands by saying that the inmate Hodoyan was proportioned food sufficient in quality and quantity and that the food standards were supervised by a nutritionist, before and after their preparation.
Since his arrival at Matamoros prison, El Lobo had difficulties with the administrative authorities. He had an obsession to watch TV, and promoted such in his amparos. Since 2004 one was authorized and was taken to the prison by family members. He retained the right to keep his TV and received various TV's until 2011, when due to a disciplinary sanction, it was removed, along with his electrical socket, headphones and aerial.
El Lobo had ten days of punishment for disturbing the peace in the prison and failure to follow the instructions of the prison guards. He could not leave his cell during those ten days or receive visits from family or other inmates. His TV was removed for 6 months, during which time his conduct was being assessed. His alleged infringement was being naked in front of the other inmates, but before the disciplinary council he defended himself by saying after taking a shower, he had a fit of coughing and dropped his towel.
Months passed and his tv was not returned, while authorities monitored his behavior, to his dismay in 2013, the authorities denied his amparo and removed all of his electronic equipment.
In Chiapas
Owing to the closure of Cefereso #3 Noreste, in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, for remodelling, Hodoyan was transferred in November of 2015 to Cefereso #15 in Villa Comaltitlan, Chiapas. while other prisoners were transferred to other prisons in the country.
He now had a stay in a more tranquil prison, but as always he attempted to reclaim his rights and stimuli. In March of 2016 he complained that the prison authorities gave no response to his multiple requests, like authorizing his lawyers in the visits register.
In the Courts of Tapachula district he promoted more than a dozen amparos in the of "Lobo". In April past he claimed that the penitentiary personnel did not apportion him more food and liquids and did not enter judicial documentation, and that he lacked medical attention.
In June he promoted four amparos. He insisted about his lack of medical attention and inadequate food and drink, he was granted a protection of justice for proportioning of the medical diet that he required. Another demand was promoted for segregation and isolation, and more that he was denied the ability to exercise within his cell, and the usual refusal of authorities to allow him to watch tv. In this last request and in another he received permission to do outdoor exercise in an amparo granted by Judges.
July past he claimed he had been held incommunicado and in November he promoted an amparo of guarantees not to be transferred to any other prison. This amparo judgment was pending, and the constitutional hearing was dated for January the 20th 2017, being a few days before the close of this edition he gained his freedom.
Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana
The following is not part of the original Zeta article and is some background info by OBFW from a New York Times article for Clarin on"who El Lobo" is, and some of his history prior to imprisonment.
when the man in the video tape started to reveal the secrets of the most violent gang of narco traffickers in Mexico, he could not hide his nervousness. Alejandro Enrique Hodoyan had been a junior member though well positioned in the organization of narco traffickers. He recounts form the centre of the scene and relates with a pausing voice how his brother and a circle of friends from infancy united into a criminal gang that killed dozens of policemen, Judges, rivals in the business of drugs and innocents.
Killing was a game for them, Hodoyan told Mexican investigators. They had no remorse, after killing someone, they would laugh and go to dinner. His testimony included in eight hours of video tape and more than 200 pages of transcriptions, is seen on some sides of the border as a step forward in the fight against narco traffickers in Mexico.
The Mexican functionaries said that his revelations already accelerated the renunciations against dozens of police officials accused of having links to the organization with base in Tijuana, headed by the Arellano Felix. Hodoyan, a North-American citizen who was born in San Diego, and lived the major part of his life on the other side of the border in Tijuana, was kidnapped, and detained illegally for eight days by officials from the Mexican Army.
After he told his family how he was tortured with electrical probes. North-American diplomats were advised about Hodoyan a short while after he was imprisoned, but they did nothing to help him. When his family reported him as missing, an anti-narcotics agent from the Embassy of USA defended their handling of the case by saying that Hodoyan had not complained at any time of being tortured before any American official in Mexico.
The story of the experiences of Hodoyan were collated from interviews with his family, US officials in Mexico and the Mexican Courts who knew him as an informant. In December 1996, the military who supervised his interrogation handed him over to the US appointed principal officer on drugs in Mexico, who was appointed partly because of his success achieved in the fight against drug trafficking using information supplied by Hodoyan.
Two months after, this official, General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was imprisoned accused of collaboration with Amado Carrillo Fuentes, El Senor de los Cielos, the fallen leader of the Juarez Cartel. The Mexican functionaries suspected that a grand part of the information extracted by the General was given into the hands of Carrillo Fuentes. Since then, the army increased its investigations into another thirty-three officials, including four Generals, on charges of corruption and narcotics.
The Hodoyan brothers were from a good family, they were not good candidates for a career for a life in crime. Their mother, Cristina, of 55 years was a devoted Catholic from a honourable Mexican family. His father, Alejandro Hodoyan Ramirez, 63, was a civil engineer very respected in Mexico.
The Hodoyans hoped to raise their children with the best of American and Mexican cultures. His three sons and only daughter were born in San Diego, but the family lived on the other side of the border in Tijuana, a city where drug trafficking, worth billions of dollars in recent years was an attraction, even for young people with good educations.
The Hodoyan children grew up in the discos of Tijuana where teens experimented with cocaine in the manner of wealthy young Americans. Mixing with Mexican gangs whose stars were rising in the sale of cocaine. One of the most rapid was Ramon Arellano, a gang known to members of the Hodoyan family in the high society of Tijuana.
It was summer, but Ramon had put on a Mink jacket and leather trousers. He wore a thick choker chain with a large gold cross encrusted with emeralds, said a Hodoyan relative, everyone was asking who he was. Mexican courts described Arellano as a compulsive murderer who killed for pleasure and who had been involved in more than 60 homicides.
He and his brothers began their careers as provincial drug dealers, but shot and bullied their way to seize control of drug smuggling along a western swath of the USA-Mexican border. One by one friends of the Hodoyans since childhood were drawn into the Arellanos circle of riches and violence.
Fabian Martinez Gonzalez, a grade school classmate of Alex Hodoyan younger sister grew up to become "El Tiburon", or the shark, He is accused of being one of the Arellanos most feared gunman and was wanted for murder in Mexico.
In Tijuana the Arellanos bought their way in the cream of society, in a normal situation, a family like the Hodoyans would never find themselves involved with traffickers.
And a little background from the New York Times on Ernest Ibarra Santes
Subject Matter: Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required
After 20 years in prison, Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios, of the Arellano Felix cartel, won an amparo and his liberty. He was exonerated of a quadruple homicide of Federal Agents and a Taxi driver in Mexico City in 1996. Before a Judge had condemned him to 50 years in prison. Statements made against him by persons including Everardo " Kitty " Paez were declared void. "El Lobo" was imprisoned in three Federal Penitentiaries the last of which was Cefereso # 15 in Chiapas. (Otis: El Lobo was one of the infamous "CAF narco juniors", most cartels recruit from the poor and working classes, the narco juniors were sons of well to do families from Tijuana, the narco juniors sought power and status through a life of crime with the Arellano Felix clan).
In 2002, a Judge condemned him to 50 years in prison. He was imprisoned for 20 years in maximum security prisons like Altiplano, also in Tamaulipas and Chiapas. Today he saw Tijuana again, his city, where he had a relation with the Arellano Felix brothers, who he knew since his childhood.
The First Tribunal in Penal Matters of the Second Circuit, with residence in Toluca, Mexio State, conceded an amparo promoted by Miguel Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios and with it his liberty. The Judge of Guarantees left with effect the sentence for the homicides of four persons and associated crimes.
The protection of the Federal Judgment that arrived for the nicknamed "El Lobo" advertised the existence of illicit proof in the penal cause that was brought in 1996. He was accused of qualified homicide by the sub delegation of Federal Judicial Police in Tijuana. Ernesto Ibarra Santes, two of his colleagues and a taxi driver in Mexico City, as well as belonging to the Cartel Arellano Felix.
According to the ruling by the Judges by majority, not unanimously, " even when the crimes were credited, the responsibility of the claimant was not demonstrated in the commission of the crimes, as this was said in different statements of the co-guilty that were collected in violation of the right to an adequate defense".
For what was seen as criminal association, two of the magistrates arrived at the conclusion of that " it was not proven either the elements of the crime or the criminal responsibility of the complainant, because this was held with the statements of the co-accused and the public documentary, one of whom practised in the United States of America, whose demonstrative effectiveness was affected because they did not give notice of the availability of the assistance of counsel".
The start witness statement was given by a sicario of a criminal organization, Everardo Arturo Paez Martinez "El Kitty", detained by the PGR in November of 1997 and extradited to the United States at the start of May of 2001. "El Kitty" was involved in the assassination of the Federals.
In the divided judgment of the Superior Court, a Judge voted against the resolution and did not share in the majority decision. That judicial officer believes that there is a "collision of rights and a possible diplomatic conflict, therefore I think that the best thing is to request of the Supreme Court of Justice of the nation to exercise its power of attraction".
 |
| Benjamin and Ramon Arellano Felix |
Doctor Santes
With the amparo obtained, "El Lobo" Hodoyan was freed of the accusation of the assassination of the Doctor Ernesto Ibarra Santes, a man seen as incorruptible, commissioned by the PGR to the plaza of Tijuana, to diminish the operations of the CAF. It was "El Yankie", as he was called the Commander in Chief of the State, of the then PJF and who was administratively called Deputy.
The death of the Doctor by profession, but a Policeman by vocation, happened on September the 14th of 1996, only two days after the arrest of the brother of Miguel Alfredo, Alejandro Hodoyan Palacios, who was eventually held at military installations and handed over to the DEA in the United States, to finally disappear, and to date his whereabouts are unknown.
Ibarra Santes had flown that morning to Mexico City to meet with the PGR. At the airport he took a taxi accompanied by two Federal agents, Israel Moreno flores and Juan Aaron Rosas Gallegos. When they were travelling down the Avenue Insurgentes on the corner of Gomez Farias, they were attacked with gunfire from different angles by an armed commando were waiting for them. The thee policeman died together with the taxi driver Juan Arturo Hernandez Lizarde.
Investigations launched by the authorities arrived at the conclusion that the attack was orchestrated by the brothers Ramon and Benjamin Arellano Felix, who were disgusted at the persecution that he had initiated against them, and his discourse before the press, where he affirmed he was finished with them.
Among the suspect of the quadruple homicide were ex military Gerardo Cruz Pacheco "El Capitan, the gunman Francisco Cabrera Castra "El Piedra", and Miguel Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios. (Otis: also suspected was Fabian Martines Gonzalez "El Tiburon"). The first were apprehended months after by the PGR, and sent to Cefereso #1 Altiplano. El Lobo was captured in the United States together with Emilio Valdez Mainero "El Radioloco", they were extradited to Mexico in January of 1998 and also sent to Altiplano at Almoloya de Juarez.
In September of 2002, a Judge of the Federal Penal Processes in Mexico State found El Lobo, La Piedra and El Capitan guilty, and sentenced them all to 50 years in maximum security prison. On top of that El Lobo was given in total 176 years in prison including a fine of 17,500 pesos in compensation to the families of the dead taxi driver and relatives of the Federal policemen.
Emilio Valdez, who was also convicted of criminal association, was the first to leave Altiplano after three years. Immediately he devoted himself to a legal battle in Tijuana to recover the property seized at the time by the Federal Attorney General.
In Tamaulipas
Owing to events happening at Altiplano prison between members of the CAF and people of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, in 2004, Alfredo Hodoyan was sent to Cefereso #3 Santa Adelaida, in Matamoros, where he stayed for more than a decade.
The amparos promoted by El Lobo were constant, firstly because he wanted to return to Altiplano, after disciplinary sanctions restricting the sale of various products in the Federal prison shop.
The last years he spent in Tamaulipas were more tranquil. His amparos were more for the claim of rights than any punishments he was receiving. Thus, in 2009 when he was denied access to the delivery of documents related to his defence drafted by his lawyers, through the family. After that were a litany of complaints because he allegedly was not receiving sufficient quantity of food.
The penitentiary authorities responded to his demands by saying that the inmate Hodoyan was proportioned food sufficient in quality and quantity and that the food standards were supervised by a nutritionist, before and after their preparation.
Since his arrival at Matamoros prison, El Lobo had difficulties with the administrative authorities. He had an obsession to watch TV, and promoted such in his amparos. Since 2004 one was authorized and was taken to the prison by family members. He retained the right to keep his TV and received various TV's until 2011, when due to a disciplinary sanction, it was removed, along with his electrical socket, headphones and aerial.
El Lobo had ten days of punishment for disturbing the peace in the prison and failure to follow the instructions of the prison guards. He could not leave his cell during those ten days or receive visits from family or other inmates. His TV was removed for 6 months, during which time his conduct was being assessed. His alleged infringement was being naked in front of the other inmates, but before the disciplinary council he defended himself by saying after taking a shower, he had a fit of coughing and dropped his towel.
Months passed and his tv was not returned, while authorities monitored his behavior, to his dismay in 2013, the authorities denied his amparo and removed all of his electronic equipment.
In Chiapas
Owing to the closure of Cefereso #3 Noreste, in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, for remodelling, Hodoyan was transferred in November of 2015 to Cefereso #15 in Villa Comaltitlan, Chiapas. while other prisoners were transferred to other prisons in the country.
He now had a stay in a more tranquil prison, but as always he attempted to reclaim his rights and stimuli. In March of 2016 he complained that the prison authorities gave no response to his multiple requests, like authorizing his lawyers in the visits register.
In the Courts of Tapachula district he promoted more than a dozen amparos in the of "Lobo". In April past he claimed that the penitentiary personnel did not apportion him more food and liquids and did not enter judicial documentation, and that he lacked medical attention.
In June he promoted four amparos. He insisted about his lack of medical attention and inadequate food and drink, he was granted a protection of justice for proportioning of the medical diet that he required. Another demand was promoted for segregation and isolation, and more that he was denied the ability to exercise within his cell, and the usual refusal of authorities to allow him to watch tv. In this last request and in another he received permission to do outdoor exercise in an amparo granted by Judges.
July past he claimed he had been held incommunicado and in November he promoted an amparo of guarantees not to be transferred to any other prison. This amparo judgment was pending, and the constitutional hearing was dated for January the 20th 2017, being a few days before the close of this edition he gained his freedom.
Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana
The following is not part of the original Zeta article and is some background info by OBFW from a New York Times article for Clarin on"who El Lobo" is, and some of his history prior to imprisonment.
when the man in the video tape started to reveal the secrets of the most violent gang of narco traffickers in Mexico, he could not hide his nervousness. Alejandro Enrique Hodoyan had been a junior member though well positioned in the organization of narco traffickers. He recounts form the centre of the scene and relates with a pausing voice how his brother and a circle of friends from infancy united into a criminal gang that killed dozens of policemen, Judges, rivals in the business of drugs and innocents.
Killing was a game for them, Hodoyan told Mexican investigators. They had no remorse, after killing someone, they would laugh and go to dinner. His testimony included in eight hours of video tape and more than 200 pages of transcriptions, is seen on some sides of the border as a step forward in the fight against narco traffickers in Mexico.
The Mexican functionaries said that his revelations already accelerated the renunciations against dozens of police officials accused of having links to the organization with base in Tijuana, headed by the Arellano Felix. Hodoyan, a North-American citizen who was born in San Diego, and lived the major part of his life on the other side of the border in Tijuana, was kidnapped, and detained illegally for eight days by officials from the Mexican Army.
After he told his family how he was tortured with electrical probes. North-American diplomats were advised about Hodoyan a short while after he was imprisoned, but they did nothing to help him. When his family reported him as missing, an anti-narcotics agent from the Embassy of USA defended their handling of the case by saying that Hodoyan had not complained at any time of being tortured before any American official in Mexico.
The story of the experiences of Hodoyan were collated from interviews with his family, US officials in Mexico and the Mexican Courts who knew him as an informant. In December 1996, the military who supervised his interrogation handed him over to the US appointed principal officer on drugs in Mexico, who was appointed partly because of his success achieved in the fight against drug trafficking using information supplied by Hodoyan.
Two months after, this official, General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was imprisoned accused of collaboration with Amado Carrillo Fuentes, El Senor de los Cielos, the fallen leader of the Juarez Cartel. The Mexican functionaries suspected that a grand part of the information extracted by the General was given into the hands of Carrillo Fuentes. Since then, the army increased its investigations into another thirty-three officials, including four Generals, on charges of corruption and narcotics.
The Hodoyan brothers were from a good family, they were not good candidates for a career for a life in crime. Their mother, Cristina, of 55 years was a devoted Catholic from a honourable Mexican family. His father, Alejandro Hodoyan Ramirez, 63, was a civil engineer very respected in Mexico.
The Hodoyans hoped to raise their children with the best of American and Mexican cultures. His three sons and only daughter were born in San Diego, but the family lived on the other side of the border in Tijuana, a city where drug trafficking, worth billions of dollars in recent years was an attraction, even for young people with good educations.
The Hodoyan children grew up in the discos of Tijuana where teens experimented with cocaine in the manner of wealthy young Americans. Mixing with Mexican gangs whose stars were rising in the sale of cocaine. One of the most rapid was Ramon Arellano, a gang known to members of the Hodoyan family in the high society of Tijuana.
It was summer, but Ramon had put on a Mink jacket and leather trousers. He wore a thick choker chain with a large gold cross encrusted with emeralds, said a Hodoyan relative, everyone was asking who he was. Mexican courts described Arellano as a compulsive murderer who killed for pleasure and who had been involved in more than 60 homicides.
He and his brothers began their careers as provincial drug dealers, but shot and bullied their way to seize control of drug smuggling along a western swath of the USA-Mexican border. One by one friends of the Hodoyans since childhood were drawn into the Arellanos circle of riches and violence.
Fabian Martinez Gonzalez, a grade school classmate of Alex Hodoyan younger sister grew up to become "El Tiburon", or the shark, He is accused of being one of the Arellanos most feared gunman and was wanted for murder in Mexico.
 |
| Fabian Martinez Gonzalez "El Tiburon" |
In Tijuana the Arellanos bought their way in the cream of society, in a normal situation, a family like the Hodoyans would never find themselves involved with traffickers.
And a little background from the New York Times on Ernest Ibarra Santes
The 50-year-old Ibarra had taken over the notoriously corrupt Tijuana federal police force just 29 days earlier and quickly became an outspoken critic of corruption among his own troops. He was the sixth senior law enforcement official from the city to be gunned down under mysterious circumstances this year.
The series of high-profile slayings has highlighted the growing violence of the Mexican drug wars. But it also has fueled conspiracy theories that government officials and rogue law enforcement agents -- as well as powerful drug lords who have long controlled the gritty city just south of San Diego -- may be involved in the murders.
None of the six killings has been solved. Ibarra, an 11-year veteran of the Mexican federal police force, was a classic example of a police officer with enemies on both sides of law. As a result, the circumstances of his death were all the murkier. They were compounded by government reports that $50,000 in cash was found in one of his suitcases in the trunk of the taxi.
Was Ibarra murdered by the nefarious Tijuana drug cartel? Or was he set up by disgruntled members of his own force? Was he a crooked cop on the take, like so many of the colleagues he criticized? Or was the cash planted by police who seized the bullet-splattered taxi? Considering police failures to solve the previous five murders of Tijuana law enforcement officials, it is unlikely that these questions and others raised over Ibarra's assassination will be answered.
Ibarra charged into his new Tijuana job last month criticizing his own force and contradicting his bosses before the local press, a sin that recently landed a former Tijuana law enforcement official, Ricardo Cordero Ontiveros, in jail.
"Police had become so corrupted that they weren't just friends of the traffickers, they were their servants," Ibarra told the Tijuana reporter for the Los Angeles Times in an interview two days before he was gunned down Saturday morning in Mexico City, where he was scheduled to meet with his bosses at federal police headquarters.
Ibarra's allegations echoed those made two months earlier by Cordero, who had worked for the federal attorney general's office in Tijuana before his resignation last year. Days after Mexican and international newspapers published Cordero's remarks, he was jailed in Tijuana on charges widely considered to be punishment for his outspoken views.
Ibarra, who began his Tijuana posting on Aug. 16 after a nationwide purge of more than 700 allegedly corrupt federal agents, saw half of his 120-member force fired in his first few days in office: some as a result of the mass dismissal, others as a result of his own housecleaning.
The Tijuana police commander also was vocal in promoting himself as an enemy of the leaders of the Tijuana drug cartel run by the Arellano Felix brothers, considered the most violent, powerful drug mafia in Mexico along with their biggest rival, the Juarez cartel.
Ibarra had directed a police sweep of four houses purportedly owned by the Arellano Felix brothers on Thursday, two days before he was killed. The four properties were seized along with 170 pounds of cocaine and 11 pounds of marijuana, according to government statements.
He had labeled Tijuana the cartel's "sanctuary," in contradiction to statements by federal officials senior to him that the Arellano Felix brothers no longer operate in Tijuana.
A common thread connecting all six Tijuana law enforcement assassinations has been their involvement in drug investigations. But another, more political motive has been given for the deaths of some of the five previous victims. Several of them had taken part in investigating the country's biggest unsolved murder, the March 1994 assassination of presidential heir apparent Luis Donaldo Colosio in Tijuana.
The case has raised as many conspiracy theories in Mexico as the assassination of John F. Kennedy provoked in the United States. Many Mexicans believe the murders of some of the investigators were part of a government coverup to whitewash the clumsy Colosio investigation. CAPTION: DANGEROUS PROFESSION: TIJUANA, BAJA LAWMEN
Three murders of police officers this year have led many Mexicans to believe that they are connected to a coverup of the flawed investigation of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio s assassination in March 1994.