miércoles, 29 de agosto de 2012

Un diputado más...


La Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador se dispone a elegir a un nuevo fiscal general de la república. El reto más importante de quien tome posesión será, sin duda y a pesar de la timidez con que el tema sigue apareciendo en la opinión pública salvadoreña, el crimen organizado. Los anillos de narcotráfico del Cartel de Texis en el Noroccidente, de Los Perrones y grupos derivados en el oriente y de las organizaciones de lavado y tráfico de armas en San Salvador y la Nueva Concepción deberían ser prioridades. Este fiscal contará con una herramienta muy importante, el centro de escuchas telefónicas, que hasta ahora apenas empieza a despegar después de mil atrasos en su instalación. Repito, la Asamblea Legislativa elegirá al fiscal general; por ese recinto, el del Legislativo, ya ha caminado, se ha sentado y se ha pulido el crimen organizado. Este post es solo un pequeño recordatorio de esas relaciones.


Wilber Rivera, diputado por la coalición de Conciliación Nacional y PES, suplente de Reynaldo Cardoza y sujeto a una petición de antejuicio hecha por la Fiscalía salvadoreña tras un incidente que involucra un intercambio de disparos, ha sido investigado por la inteligencia policial en relación con estructuras de crimen organizado. El nombre de este legislador chalateco se une al de otros dos diputados que, en los últimos diez años, dejaron en evidencia la porosidad de la Asamblea Legislativa salvadoreña ante la infiltración del crimen. Wilber Rivera, si las sospechas plasmadas en los informes policiales son ciertas, unirá su nombre a los de Roberto Carlos Silva Pereira y William Eliú Martínez. El segundo, preso y condenado en Washington, DC, por tráfico de drogas; el primero, preso en una cárcel de Arizona por delitos migratorios, aunque la información de inteligencia estadounidense, salvadoreña y guatemalteca es suficiente para determinar una duda razonable sobre la participación de Silva en la estructura de narcotráfico conocida como Los Perrones.

Wilber Rivera
 Silva y Martínez, agentes del narcotráfico que utilizaron la política apadrinados por miembros prominentes de partidos como ARENA, el PCN o el extinto PAN, se valieron de su inmunidad para llevar adelante sus negocios ilícitos; el primero acusado de lavar dinero, el segundo condenado por mover 36 toneladas de cocaína hacia los Estados Unidos. Hay, en la historia latinoamericana, varios precedentes sobre el maridaje entre política y crimen organizado, un guión de terror que tiene los mismos ingredientes de protección política, corrupción e impunidad.

Dice elfaro.net sobre las investigaciones en las que aparece mencionado Rivera:  “Wilber Alexander Rivera Monge es conocido como Hilander (sic), tiene antecedentes judiciales por lesiones de fecha 07MAR87”. Luego, en la nota, el periódico hace referencia a la relación de Rivera con el diputado Reynaldo Cardoza, a quien una investigación del medio vincula con el Cartel de Texis. Cardoza es un diputado propietario; Wilber Rivera es un suplente, igual que lo fue Silva.

El asunto, insisto, no es baladí: esos diputados forman y formaron parte del cuerpo que elige, entre otros, al Fiscal General de la República, el encargado por Constitución de investigar el delito. Dentro de poco, esa discusión volverá a abrirse en El Salvador, con todo lo que eso implica.

La protección a Silva Pereira.
Roberto Carlos Silva Pereira
El diputado del PCN ya estaba en los informes clasificados y en los mapas del crimen organizado que las agencias policiales estadounidenses tenían sobre Centro América a mediados de la década pasada. En 2005, una mesa interdisciplinaria del Gobierno salvadoreño –que incluyó a Policía, a los ministerios de Seguridad y Hacienda, a la Fiscalía y a la DEA de Estados Unidos– había identificado transacciones millonarias que el legislador había hecho desde sucursales bancarias de Usulután sin mayores explicaciones.
Uno de los ministros del ex Presidente Antonio Saca, el mismo que me reveló cómo la infiltración del crimen organizado en la Policía hizo fracasar un operativo de captura en contra del narcotraficante Chepe Luna en 2005, me contó sobre las primeras sospechas en torno a Silva Pereira:

-          “Después de lo del fracaso de Chepe Luna la mesa se redujo a su mínima expresión. Nos quedamos solo a nivel de ministerios, sin la Policía ni la Fiscalía, concentrados en temas de evasión, delitos relacionados al contrabando, elusión. Parte de los informes que recibíamos también daban cuenta de transacciones de dinero irregulares, o más bien, que saltaban a la vista por no ser comunes. Así fue como recibí un reporte sobre Silva Pereira, que entonces ya era diputado, y si no me equivoco iba para su reelección”. 

El ministro no se equivocaba: a finales de 2005, Silva Pereira se preparaba para la campaña electoral de cara las legislativas de 2006, en las que correría, otra vez, como suplente del pecenista Elizardo González Lovo por La Unión. Antes de esa elección, ya el Gobierno de Saca tenía noticia del legislador.

-       "Llegó a mis manos un informe en el que decía que esta persona había movido 800,000 dólares desde una sucursal pequeña en Usulután. Eso no era común. No es común. Avisamos…”

-         - ¿A quién avisó?

-        -   A Capres (Casa Presidencial).

-         -  ¿Qué pasó? ¿Qué le dijeron?

-          - Nada. El señor se reeligió. Y ya ves todo lo que pasó después.

Partes de lo que pasó después se ha contado en la prensa salvadoreña. La Prensa Gráfica reportó ampliamente sobre la relación de Silva Pereira con el lavado de dinero y con la banda Los Perrones; y El Faro reveló la impactante conversación telefónica en que el otrora hombre fuerte del partido ARENA en San Salvador, Adolfo Tórrez, le pedía medio millón de dólares para interceder a su favor en tribunales y fiscalía; en pocas palabras, para comprar voluntades. Tórrez, según una resolución a la que la Fiscalía llegó en tiempo récord, se suicidó poco después de que Mauricio Funes juramentó como Presidente de la República. Muchos de los allegados del otrora hombre fuerte de ARENA en San Salvador, sin embargo, dudan del suicidio y apuntan a que Tórrez fue asesinado. Aquel año, 2009, escribí una larga crónica sobre las últimas horas del “Chele”. 

Roberto Carlos Silva Pereira se le había escapado a la policía salvadoreña en enero de 2007, dos meses después de que la Asamblea Legislativa lo desaforó. O mejor: el diputado suplente salió de su casa, resguardada por la policía, y nunca volvió. Sobre él pesaba una petición de antejuicio relacionada con corrupción y negocios ilícitos que vinculaban a un par de docenas de alcaldes de todos los partidos políticos en El Salvador. Silva se fue sin documentos a Estados Unidos, donde autoridades migratorias lo capturaron. Hasta hoy, sigue preso en Arizona. Su destino legal sigue siendo incierto: Estados Unidos ha decidido no deportarlo igual que a miles de salvadoreños indocumentados que viajan a diario en vuelos fletados de regreso a Comalapa. Tampoco ha avanzado la extradición solicitada por la justicia salvadoreña.

miércoles, 15 de agosto de 2012

Los amigos de Chepe Luna

Columna publicada el 15 de agosto de 2012 en elfaro.net

José Natividad Luna Pereira es un hombre que debe su éxito, y su libertad, a sus buenos amigos. Al final de la década de los 90, este hombre –hondureño o pasaquinense según la partida que presente– había convertido viejas rutas de contrabando de lácteos y armas en su feudo, uno que iba desde Barrancones hasta la Panamericana, desde las playas de La Unión hasta Santa Rosa de Lima, San Miguel y El Amatillo, uno que le permitió, la década siguiente, mover decenas de kilos de cocaína a Estados Unidos, según una corte de Nueva York y según datos de inteligencia de la DEA y de las policías de Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras y El Salvador.
Chepe Luna, como la mayoría de narcos en América Latina desde los días de Pablo Escobar y los hermanos Rodríguez Orejuela en Colombia, construyó su empresa gracias al balance adecuado entre plata y plomo. En El Salvador, pagó con su plata fiestas y jaripeos en Pasaquina e incluso fue candidato a concejal en ese municipio, según reconoció el ex alcalde pasaquinense Héctor Odir Ramírez en una entrevista en La Prensa Gráfica en julio de 2009. El ex alcalde Ramírez, de ARENA, fue quien le extendió una partida de nacimiento a Luna a pesar de que él ya tenía documentos hondureños.

La plata también le alcanzó para comprar informantes en el seno de la Policía Nacional Civil durante la administración del ex director Ricardo Menesses. Entre 2004 y 2006, Luna logró evadir cuatro operativos de captura. En al menos dos de ellos participaron agentes de la PNC, de la Fiscalía General, funcionarios de los Ministerios de Seguridad y Hacienda y oficiales de la DEA estadounidense como asesores. Dos ex ministros del ex presidente Antonio Saca me contaron, en varias conversaciones sostenidas entre 2008 y 2009, que esos operativos se caían porque, cuando todo estaba a punto, los equipos de inteligencia desplegados en las calles y las órdenes de captura firmadas, alguien, desde la Policía, le soplaba a Luna que iban tras él. Al final, Chepe Luna se fue a Honduras –no cabe decir que huyó: la misma inteligencia policial salvadoreña sabía, entre 2008 y 2010, que cruzaba la frontera con frecuencia–. 

La familia Flores Lazo, con Reynerio de Jesús a la cabeza, heredó parte del negocio. “Neyo”, como Chepe Luna, evadió a las autoridades salvadoreñas gracias a los orejas que había infiltrado en la División Antinarcóticos. Hasta que lo capturaron en Honduras. Como a Chepe Luna.
La plata de Los Perrones y Luna intentó también, según la inteligencia salvadoreña y reportes periodísticos, comprar apoyo político. Ahí está, como ejemplo visible, la llamada de Adolfo Tórrez y el ex diputado Carlos Silva Pereira, el escándalo que El Faro reveló. Tórrez está muerto. Silva, preso en espera de deportación en Arizona. La inteligencia salvadoreña habló, también, de dos pagos de entre 200,000 y 250,000 dólares hechos por Los Perrones a operadores políticos entre 2007 y 2009 para evitar la persecución policial, algo de lo que me hablaron, además de ex fiscales, agentes que trabajaron para los Flores Lazo
Los vínculos políticos de Luna y Los Perrones están, por hoy, traspapelados en los archivos que, en la Fiscalía, acumulan polvo. Ahí hay, por ejemplo, pistas que no se siguieron, como las reuniones que Óscar René Molina Manzanares sostuvo en su autolote con operadores políticos, de los que una testigo dio fe en declaración extrajudicial en su momento.
Hubo plata. Y plomo: al menos dos agentes salvadoreños uniformados que trabajaron encubiertos en estas organizaciones han muerto. La historia de uno de ellos, el agente Nahún, que murió en El Tamarindo, La Unión, mientras seguía el rastro a un kilo de cocaína que pertenecía a un policía vinculado a Los Perrones, me la contó otro agente encubierto en 2008. El plomo también ha servido para acallar adversarios, competidores.
 
Hasta 2009, ningún proceso contra oficiales de la Policía sospechosos de tener vínculos con Luna, Flores Lazo u otros de la banda que se ha conocido como Los Perrones de Oriente, había prosperado penalmente.  Fue hasta que la abogada Zaira Navas llegó a la Inspectoría General, durante la administración de Carlos Ascencio al frente de la PNC, cuando cuatro comisionados, cinco subcomisionados, un inspector y dos subinspectores vieron sus nombres en expedientes administrativos de investigación por sus presuntos vínculos con Chepe Luna o Los Perrones.  Hay, en esa lista, dos ex directores: “(hay) investigaciones iniciadas por faltas graves y muy graves en contra de Oficiales de alto nivel de la Policía, entre ellos el ex Director General, Ricardo Mauricio Menesses, a quien se le atribuyó responsabilidad por el supuesto fracaso de cuatro operativos diseñados para capturar al reconocido narcotraficante José Natividad Luna Pereira, debido a fuga de información mientras era Director de la Institución y vínculos con dicha persona”, dice en un documento oficial de la Policía.
La repuesta política en la Asamblea Legislativa a las investigaciones de la inspectora Navas fue una: persecución. La derecha, con votos de ARENA, GANA, PDC y PCN, formó una comisión especial que investigaría a la investigadora. Al final, la comisión se disolvió, Navas renunció tras cambios en el gabinete de seguridad y algunos de los oficiales mencionados volvieron a puestos importantes en la Policía.
Chepe Luna fue arrestado la semana pasada. Estuvo preso poco más de 24 horas. Es libre de nuevo. En los medios de comunicación hondureños y las redes sociales se reproducen, ya, interrogantes sobre cómo jugó la plata de Luna en esta ocasión. En El Salvador, ha resurgido la pregunta sobre los viejos amigos de Luna.
Hay, en América Latina, muchas historias parecidas a esta, en las que la corrupción policial y judicial, los sobornos, las muertes, son ingredientes fundamentales. La más famosa, la de Pablo Escobar Gaviria, el paisa que inventó el negocio y que también compró policías, pagó jueces y se fugó mil veces gracias a oportunos soplos.

viernes, 3 de agosto de 2012

The Texis Cartel (traducción)

 On May 16th, 2011, El Faro ran the story about one of the three drug trafficking rings that operate in Salvadoran territory. They called that story The Texis Cartel. The piece reveals the activities of a hotel owner that has managed to infiltrate the National Civilian Police and the Salvadoran political establishment in order to control an important path for cocaine illicit traffic in the Northwestern part of the country.

On June 26th, 2012, more than a year after that first piece and after having been victims of harassment and threats, El Faro reporters ran the second part of the Texis story, which they entitled "A councilman to get to the Texis Cartel". The electronic journal uncovers on that piece how a councilman of the Metapán municipality -the largest city under the influence of the Cartel- negotiated the sell of five kilos of coca to Police undercover agents. Another scoop: the ultimate goal of that police operation -ordered during the tenure of former PNC Director, Commissioner Carlos Ascencio- was José Adán Salazar Umaña, aka Chepe Diablo, identified by police intelligence as the cartel leader. After the councilman's arrest investigations of the Texis Cartel have stopped.


El 16 de mayo de 2011, el periódico digital El Faro de El Salvador publicó la primera entrega sobre uno de los tres grandes anillos de narcotráfico que operan en el país centroamericano, al que llamó el Cártel de Texis. La historia detalla cómo un grupo de narcotraficantes dirigidos por un empresario hotelero ha logrado infiltrar la policía y al estamento político salvadoreño para controlar una amplia zona de tránsito de droga en la esquina noroccidental del país.


El 26 de junio de 2012, más de un año después de la primera publicación y tras ser víctimas de acoso, amenazas y persecución, los periodistas de El Faro publicaron la segunda entrega sobre la organización de narcos, titulada "Un concejal para llegar al Cártel de Texis". Ahí, el periódico revela que un concejal de la alcaldía de Metapán, la ciudad más grande bajo la influencia del cártel, había intentado negociar la venta de cinco kilos de cocaína con agentes encubiertos de la Policía. Otra revelación: el objetivo último del operativo policial contra ese concejal, Jesús Sanabria, era José Adán Salazar, alias Chepe Diablo, identificado por la inteligencia de la PNC como el líder del cártel. Tras la captura del concejal, las investigaciones contra Texis se han estancado.
 

Traduzco aquí al inglés la primera entrega sobre el Cártel de Texis publicada por El Faro.


Calle de Texistepeque



The Texis Cartel

Three state intelligence reports and several high-level informants report that a large hotelier is allied with deputies, policemen, mayors and gangs in the northwest of El Salvador to make up the Texis Cartel, an organization that has managed to survive more than a decade of investigation by national and international authorities. It is a larger organization than Los Perrones, say those who have led this investigation for four months. They are described as drug traffickers operating in El Caminito, the shortcut that El Salvador provides to the international traffic moving South American cocaine to the United States. Corruption and violence open the road along the way.
Sergio Arauz, Oscar Martínez, Efren Lemus / Photos: Frederick Meza
elfaro.net / Published on May 16, 2011

Part I: The reports and the informants
The pick-up's old engine seems to complain about the burden of more than a dozen white sacks crammed into the narrow bed of the vehicle. Maseca flour, say the markings on each sack. It is the first of two vehicles crossing a narrow concrete bridge, across the dividing line between Honduras and El Salvador, a border where there are no checkpoints or questions.
"Aren't you going to check it? Check it!" A visitor to the area says to the two soldiers who are the only ones keeping any kind of eye on this transit point and have been surprised by a plainclothes policeman.
The soldiers defend their indifference
 "There are many cars and people. We can't check them all one by one," says one of the soldiers in a quiet voice, as if accepting the reprimand.
That point is called San Fernando, a poor and small town in Chalatenango that has a handful of houses, a church, a diner, a small school and no police station. The role of police and customs agents is fulfilled by two short men dressed in olive green and military caps. Each one has an M-16 and a smile that welcome visitors. They greet every passing car at the edge of town. No questions or procedures.
 "There's not a cop in sight, and at night it is even easier to get through," says the officer who surprised the soldiers of Sumpul Command, the military force responsible for the blind spots on the Salvadoran borders.
The soldiers he has told off are accustomed to seeing trucks, pick ups and all kinds of vehicles pass by freely.
This is the blind spot of San Fernando, Chalatenango, where the cocaine road known as El Caminito begins.
San Fernando is a wide open door, where people and goods alike go freely on toward Honduras, and people and goods enter freely from Honduras too. At the San Fernando border they rarely check whether products such as these bags of Maseca actually contain what the label claims. There are trucks loaded with goods, Honduran children who come to San Fernando to study, guns, bags of flour and other bags that also contain a white powder, but a very different substance: cocaine. San Fernando is the beginning of the Salvadorian route which moves some of the cocaine from South America towards the United States.
This is where, according to three different intelligence reports that were the basis for this investigation, you enter the territory of "Chepe Diablo," (meaning Chepe the Devil, in English) the drug lord of the West, the head of one of the country's largest cartels and one of the wealthiest drug traffickers in the north of the State of Santa Ana. "Chepe Diablo ", according to police intelligence officials and various security department personnel, is one of the three founders of the Texis cartel. His real name is José Adán Salazar Umaña.
Salazar Umaña is a folksy 62-year Salvadoran known in four different social worlds: tourism entrepreneurs know him as a hotel owner, people from the soccer world know him as the boss of the first division soccer team Metapán and chairman of Salvadoran soccer's First Division, in the livestock sector he is known as a prominent rancher, and in the public security sector and in secret reports by the state he is described as a "businessman, rancher and drug trafficker".
The police, the army and the District Attorney’s Office know about Chepe Diablo. Intelligence reports obtained in this investigation clearly state that he is one of the leaders of the cartel that controls the route that starts in San Fernando. The road runs south to Dulce Nombre de Maria, where it turns to the west, passing through Nueva Concepción and reaching the town of Metapán, in the upper left corner of the map of El Salvador, which borders with Guatemala. This drugs route is currently close to achieving a promotion with the opening of a highway, the Northern Longitudinal Highway. The police investigating Salazar and his group call the cartel's operational area the Northern Cocaine Route or El Caminito.
The report that initiated the investigation is dated March 22, 2000, and El Faro got hold of it in December last year. It contains data collected by police investigators and is titled "Metapán Case", number 003/00. During our reporting other documents were added from between 2008 and this year. The investigations cover three presidential terms, those of Francisco Flores and Antonio Saca of Arena, and Mauricio Funes of the FMLN. The police investigations have been conducted under the direction of five directors of the National Civil Police (PNC): Mauricio Sandoval, Ricardo Menesses, Rodrigo Avila, Francisco Rovira, José Luis Tobar Prieto and Carlos Ascencio.
The drugs passing through San Fernando come mostly from the Atlantic coast of Honduras, and reach Honduras mainly at two sites. By sea, speedboats from Colombia cross the empty Caribbean off Nicaragua and make short stops until they reach the Honduran border region of Gracias a Dios. By air, light aircraft land in the Honduran jungle region of Olancho or on the border between the two countries marked by the River Coco. The drugs move on by cutting across central Honduras until arriving to the State of Ocotepeque, on the border with El Salvador, Chalatenango, and San Fernando.
San Fernando is the release point where the Honduran hand the baton to the Salvadorans, in a journey that is managed by Colombians and Mexicans. It is a highway that moves millions of dollars in profits for its leaders, who are disguised as businessmen, ranchers, mayors, policemen, gangsters, Coyotes and deputies. Each plays a role: the policemen bought by the narcos guard and transport the drugs, remove roadblocks, and give warning of any security operations; the mayors give building permits, formalize business deals and give privileged information, and in one case, even lead a group; the gang members kill and traffic in local markets; deputies give access to the upper echelons of power: and some judges and prosecutors make sure that any prosecution attempt is blocked by the weight of a very meticulous bureaucracy.
How much money is Chepe Diablo handling? In the past five years he has declared a revenue totaling more than $ 30 million. Only in 2008, the flagship year of the international financial crisis, José Adán Salazar Umaña declared to the Treasury more than $ 9 million in revenue from commercial activities.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that each year between 500 and 600 tons of cocaine cross Central America into the United States - at least since 2006. The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the National Civil Police have declared to international media and also directly to this newspaper that El Caminito carries a large percentage of the cocaine passing through El Salvador, which is the fashionable route today, being the main supply route for the cartels in Guatemala.
The Texis Cartel's drug traffickers work as free agents in the international cocaine market: they are the suppliers of the Gulf Cartel, the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas ... Whoever pays gets its services and has the way open to El Caminito, which ends at the Salvadoran border town of Santa Ana, adjacent to the Guatemalan State of Jutiapa, a well-known bastion of drug traffickers in that country.
During four months of research, El Faro visited El Caminito and spoke with policemen, soldiers, mayors, government secretaries, police commissioners, intelligence sources and investigators who have worked for the DEA. These are the results and the evidence. These sources often requested anonymity. They all know of the Texis Cartel and they all know of Chepe Diablo and his partners.
"The road that starts here spreads money. Did you see those two soldiers?" asked The Detective, one of the key sources that guided us.
The Detective is a police investigator who has participated in anti-drug operations in collaboration with agencies like the DEA, to which he is one of the leading information providers. We reply that we did see those two soldiers.
"They are content with nothing: a plate of food, $ 10 Dollars...
"We're surprised: anything could happen here, and anytime.
"It's an open nozzle. Did you see those bags of flour? It could have been cocaine and nobody asked anything.
The first clue of the Texis Cartel reached us in December 2010. A close adviser of former President Antonio Saca approached us to give us information about what he called "a large case" that has never been resolved by the authorities.
"This is not new, the file is with the DEA, the National Civil Police (PNC), even the District Attorney’s Office. Ask for yourselves and you will see that I'm not lying," he said.
- And Saca knew about this? We asked.
"Ha, ha, ha, everyone knows this, it comes under the responsibility of The Perrones."
The Perrones are a gang that police began investigating in 2003 and which ended up falling apart in 2008. When the authorities began to track drug dealers in the east of the country, they had already been following the tracks of the Texis Cartel for at least two years.
The theory that this contact explained to us in a cafeteria on December 15 of that year was that the growth of the Texis Cartel and its professionalism over the past 10 years was such that prosecuting it is an almost impossible challenge for the Police, who do not find a strong ally in the District Attorney’s Office.
"Until it seriously affects the interests of the Yanks, the traffic will continue," he predicted.
That first report was 60 pages long, with maps of clandestine landing strips, records with general data about the leading members of the cartel, and sketches showing the locations of the businesses of the people investigated.
This first report mentioned the main partners of Chepe Diablo: Juan Umaña Samayoa, mayor of the municipality of Metapán, and a prominent politician from the right-wing National Conciliation Party (PCN), and Roberto Antonio Herrera, aka El Burro (which means The Donkey in English), former president of the Livestock Fair of Santa Ana, whom the FBI and the DEA have been targeting for at least five years.
In early February 2011, when distrust of a report that didn't even say who had written it began to transform into certainty and into some concrete clues, a senior police officer confirmed to us that José Adán Salazar Umaña, Roberto Antonio Herrera and the Mayor of Metapán were running criminal activities. He said that according to the police, the report was true, and that it even fell short in terms of the extent of the network. This was told to us by a police commissioner, who we call The Commissioner.
Weeks passed and one day The Commissioner turned up with a folder under his arm. He gave us the Second Report, one produced by police intelligence, one with an author's name confirming what was written in the First Report and going into more detail about the members of the network and their way of operating.
The days passed and the talks continued until one day The Commissioner was accompanied by a man in civilian clothes. That day, The Commissioner introduced us to The Detective.
"He knows about the topic you want to investigate, he is reliable and he is in the field," he told us by way of introduction.
The Detective, from that first meeting, began to discuss in detail the role of each member of this hidden cartel, explained its dimensions and put a voice to the reports.
"Look, all these drug dealers have a general manager, there are more people higher up. In the west these people are. Now, each one has a network of people. Behind every head is a network of 'family', people you trust. Chepe Diablo alone has more than 50 people and each person has others, he doesn't get his hands dirty anymore.
Although the police as an institution refused to cooperate with our investigation, our informants decided to give the green light to open up to our questions and requests for information: but it soon became necessary to find other sources. We could not run the risk that the First Report also came from the police, which would give us a case based only on information from a source. However, talking was very difficult for the officials we went to. José Adán Salazar Umaña is a name that we heard about from all our sources, but he is still free despite years of investigation. He is a very well-protected narco, they said. What would I get out of talking?, they seemed to be wondering, because the attitude of many who remained silent was that of someone who has something on the tip of their tongue, but shuts his mouth and keeps quiet.
One day, one of our key sources, who we call The Officer, decided to listen to us, and collaborated throughout the entire investigation. He is one of the commanders on security issues in this government, a right-hand man of President Mauricio Funes.
The first meeting went on as had been agreed: only us and him, no tape recorders. We mentioned José Adán Salazar Umaña, known as Chepe Diablo, and The Officer nodded; we mentioned Juan Samayoa, mayor of Metapán, and Roberto "El Burro" Herrera, as key partners, and he nodded again; the Texis Cartel, the Cartel of Chepe Diablo, the cartel of El Caminito, the Northern Route, and The Officer nodded. Nod, nod, nod ...
­"Yeah," he said finally, naturally, without excitement. "All this sounds familiar. Let me find out a bit more. Let's meet next week."
During that week we made an attempt with a police chief who, after hearing our presentation, initially kept silent. The week passed and we met with The Official, who was holding some sheets of paper stapled together.
"So you got some information?"
"Yes, it's here," he said, tapping his index finger to the file, and then silence again.
"What does it say there?"
He went silent for a few seconds. He put the sheets on the table, put his cell on the pages and looked at us.
"Do you know what you are getting into?" he asked, his expression serious. "Here I have some information, but I want to know if you know what you're getting into, because they send people to kill... that's how they operate. If you mess with them, they deal with you. It's no joke."
We said we knew. We told him that we had been hearing the same phrase, worded differently from other people for weeks. He picked up his phone, opened the pages and read us some generalities.
"They operate in the so-called Northern Route ... they have international links with Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico ... the Police of Metapán protects them... they also protect themselves through hired assassins...
He made it clear that he could not give us the document. We were so insistent that in the end we came to an agreement. The Officer would prepare a report based on the questions we asked.
"Maximum nine questions," he warned us. We gave him 13, hoping he'd make the effort to answer them all.
Weeks later, The Officer gave us his answers. It was the first time we spoke of the Secret Report, which is how he referred to the document.
During those days we started to see more of The Detective. We were able to get at least five meetings with him. The Detective does not take into account isolated incidents, but complex plots that usually end with the name and last name of a politician or businessman in the country.
Playing devil's advocate, we asked him "Where do you get this information?" during one of our last meetings.
"I tell you something: until last year we had an informant who drove the car of one of the major criminals in this country, one of the brains in money laundering... I can't tell you any more."
The Police have detectives who don't spend much time caged in offices. It is a network of over 400 informants spread across the country who look, listen and follow persons sought by the National Civil Police (PNC) or the DEA, because often both institutions work together.
That was the origin of the reports that came into our hands. The First and Second Report agreed on one thing: who are the most important and most active members of the Texis cartel. Chepe Diablo, the Mayor of Metapán and El Burro are mentioned in both. The Reports have pictures of them together, at parties, at rodeos... and also show that they maintain a close relationship, that they are in touch with each other and coordinate their operations.
What kind of operations are coordinated by the cartel leaders? The reports illustrate this with facts. On Saturday night, May 8, 2010, for example, José Adán Salazar Umaña held a meeting in one of his six hotels. The appointment was in the hotel Tolteka, located at the entrance to the State of Santa Ana. He arrived in an SUV. At the meeting were Roberto Herrera, El Burro, a lawyer who the police and the cartel know as El Sapo (The Frog in English), and another cartel member who is nicknamed El Men, who had come on behalf of a money laundering specialist and who is being monitored and pursued by the Police and the DEA.
The Detective said that at the meeting, Chepe Diablo recommended that key members of the organization should avoid carrying firearms. He argued that it was inappropriate, as it was best to buy protection from the National Civil Police (PNC) and the military. To implement the recommendations he urgently proposed creating a special fund for the payment of bribes to police chiefs and military officers.
The spies had done a good job. El Burro, for example, is a man for whom the police have a record for seven criminal sentences in El Salvador, from less serious crimes to fraud and carrying, possessing and using weapons of war. This El Salvadoran citizen also has U.S. citizenship. In that country, in California and Texas, he has been arrested seven times for possession of weapons, attempted robbery, possession of a stolen vehicle, and aggravated assault with a weapon, for which he was sentenced to five years probation and a fine of 500 dollars.
On Tuesday January 18 this year at 6:42 pm, a fax marked "URGENT" arrived at the offices of Interpol in San Salvador. The message explained that two federal agencies of the United States were looking for El Burro. One of them, said the text, would not ask for extradition and the other had not yet confirmed if it would. Therefore, Interpol in Washington asked: "Please advise if your country knows the location of the aforementioned for purposes of arresting him if the decision of the second agency is positive."
A month later, Salvadoran police chased him and arrested him. The next day, La Prensa Grafica reported the fact on its cover: "Drug-trafficking suspect arrested in the West." However, they only held him for a few hours. There was some confusion between the Salvadorans and the Interpol agents in Washington. Finally, none of the two federal agencies of the United States requested extradition, so there were no grounds to detain El Burro.
In 2010 the police officers following the case in El Salvador delivered an exclusive report on El Burro, which proves that in El Salvador he has contacts at the highest level. For instance, some stories: between January and February 2010, investigators reported seeing him in a meeting at his hacienda El Rosario, in Santa Ana. He was accompanied by Police Commissioner Fritz Gerard Dennery Martinez, director of the Anti-Narcotics Division of the country. There were also people from Guatemala and Mexico at the meeting. Three of these people were later proved to be members of the Mexican cartel Los Zetas. A joint report, prepared for the present administration of the Ministry of Security and Justice, explained with greater detail the involvement of the senior official.
"He is involved with the drug traffickers operating in the West ... He has been reported by several witnesses to have received large sums of cash and also vehicles. He also provides information and clears traffic routes in western El Salvador for the criminal organization. He has participated in several meetings with El Burro and other drug traffickers from the west at the Hacienda El Rosario, located on Texis Street in Metapán," says the document.
Of all the policemen linked by the documents to the Texis drug cartel, this was the only one that created doubts in two senior police chiefs we consulted. Despite indicating no knowledge of his meetings in El Rosario, both justified Martinez, saying he is one of the key men in the fight against drug trafficking in the west of the country.
The First Report explains that El Burro and his allies operate numerous networks. For example, it says that Salazar Adán José Umaña has at least 41 people and 19 vehicles in his cocaine distribution network both domestically and internationally. It also explains that the network operates in five areas of the country: Metapan, Merliot City, Apanteos Prison, La Esperanza Prison (Mariona) and Apopa. This report has the number plate of each vehicle, the tax identification number (NIT) and the name of each of the people on the network. Internationally, the two reports agree, as do The Detective and The Commissioner, that the Texis cartel operates as an independent organization in Latin American cocaine trafficking. They are not lieutenants of the powerful Mexicans or Colombians who resurface after their years of crisis. They become employees of anyone who pays them, passing on the goods for whoever has the money.
The route starting in San Fernando is the most important link that El Salvador brings to the whole Latin American cocaine traffic that travels to the United States.
The reports range from general information to particular details. For example, an attachment to the Second Report includes the type of functions performed by El Burro within the organization. The Annex says: "On June 12, 2009, El Burro coordinated the shipment of 40 members of the MS gang to receive military-type training from the Los Zetas Group in the area known as La Laguna del Tigre, under the jurisdiction of the State of Peten, Guatemala; of the 40 gang members, 12 were from El Salvador, and the rest Hondurans and Guatemalans."
Information about the alleged relationship between gangsters and Zetas at that Lagoon in Guatemala was published in national media and even in some foreign media such as the BBC.
On July 14, 2010, police spies followed El Burro to the restaurant Lover's Steak House in Santa Ana, and what they heard there what was later written down in the 45-page report devoted to this character and his connections. He met with three guests: the police commissioner Victor Manuel Rodriguez Peraza, head of the Delegation of Santa Ana, the Deputy Inspector Nataly Pérez Rodríguez and Patricia Costa de Rodriguez, former governor of the State. She was alternate deputy for the right-wing Arena party but ended the period 2006-2009 in the leftist FMLN. In March this year she stepped down as governor to be a candidate for mayor of Santa Ana for the Arena party. At the meeting, El Burro spoke of the problems that Commissioner Mauricio Arriaza Chicas, western regional manager, was creating by refusing to cooperate with the organization for cocaine trafficking and cattle raising. Two senior police officers not involved in the preparation of this document said they knew about the collaboration of the former governor with the organization. The document said that the former official offered to negotiate the transfer of Arriaza Chicas.
"He's getting stupid, we must find a way to remove him," declared El Burro.
The document also mentions that at another meeting dated July 25, 2010, just days after the previous one, this time at the restaurant El Ganadero in the Livestock Show at Santa Ana, El Burro delivered "a roll of bills" to Commissioner Peraza and the Deputy Inspector Pérez Rodríguez.
The reports, confirmed by people in the police who were guiding us, described El Burro as a man of the highest-level contacts within the police. And this did not only refer to recent contacts, like the Commissioner mentioned above, who had been appointed to the job just five months before, El Burro handed him the roll of bills as described.
 "When José Luis Tobar Prieto was director of the Police, El Burro used him as a connection for some activities," says the report's attachment detailing the connections of El Burro. Tobar Prieto was director of the PNC until mid-2009.
In another police report attachment, which was prepared for the headquarters of the Ministry of Security and Justice, Tobar Prieto reappears as someone who was associated with organizations of drug trafficking and money laundering activities while he was director of the institution.
The First and Second Reports grew in importance when our sources added more official communications of the Police to those files. Both are rich in specific facts, but left some gaps that only the answers to the 13 questions that we made to The Official could give us the answer at that time.
Two weeks had passed since our last meeting with The Official. He had promised to think and decide if he would answer our questions, and we went to hear his decision. We waited half an hour until someone told us that The Official was busy in a meeting, but that he wanted to say something to us. We entered his office. He didn't let us say a word. He was really pressed for time.
"Look, I already warned you, you know what you are getting into here. I can't give you the document but you have half an hour to get from it all the information you can, "he said, and immediately threw on to a table a document marked "Secret" on every page. For the first time we had to ourselves a report that didn't come from the police, the Secret Report from one of the institutions of the Security Department, that had the answers to our 13 questions with intelligence data, and ranged from the identities of the trusted men of Chepe Diablo to which officials support him and a description of the system of storage and transportation of the cocaine.
 When leaving the office of The Official we had, for the first time, the three reports that form the basis of this investigation. We analysed and compared them and got routes backed by maps, matching names of police officers, deputies and mayors, and links to murders and gang members. Afterwards we corroborated all the information, going twice along the Caminito and visiting other parts of the country, which allowed us to talk with military in the field, former policemen frustrated by the border dynamics of cooperation, and tax inspectors. We also studied business records, tax returns and reports included in the international arrest warrants.
Those identified as the ringleaders of the cartel are entrepreneurs immersed in the market for grains, livestock, soccer officials, hotel owners... The latter business, hotels, did shine a light on Chepe Diablo. It was that way that a tax official began to notice his financial bonanza and become suspicious. This former prosecutor of the Financial Crimes Unit had known about José Adán Salazar since 2003.
"He's a man who looks like an accountant. His office was in the basement of the Capital Hotel in San Salvador. His hotels have never been full, and that is a very well-known way to launder money: engaging in services that no one can see," said the former prosecutor.
"But he wasn't formally under investigation?" we asked.
"Let me explain: he has always been suspected of laundering money, but I'd be lying if I told you that someone was working correctly on this here, because to do this you have to have a green light. And getting him into court is entirely a different issue."

Extracto de informe de inteligencia sobre Cártel de Texis