Drug Czar Linked To Drug Lord Mexican Authorities Fire, Arrest Official For Taking Payments

The Mexican government fired and arrested the country’s highest ranking anti-drug official late Tuesday after 10 weeks on the job, alleging he had provided protection for a drug kingpin in exchange for money and other bribes.

The dismissal of army Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo - a career officer who was named director of the National Institute to Combat Drugs to weed out corruption - represents yet another blow to Mexico’s long-troubled anti-drug campaign. Moreover, it comes just two weeks before President Clinton is to certify whether Mexico is a reliable ally in the joint war on drug trafficking. Decertification would trigger U.S. economic sanctions against Mexico, its partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexican Defense Secretary Enrique Cervantes Aguirre said an investigation into Gutierrez’s activities began Feb. 6, after authorities received a tip the new drug czar had moved into an expensive apartment in Mexico City whose cost seemed beyond his lawful means.

Cervantes said an investigation revealed the apartment was provided by an employee of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the purported leader of the Mexico’s Juarez drug cartel.

Carrillo Fuentes is widely known here as “The Lord of the Skies” because he is said to have pioneered the use of Boeing 727 aircraft to transport shipments of as much as 15 tons of cocaine from Colombia to northern Mexico, whence it is sent to the United States by various means.