Mexico's Crime Lords Run Empires From Prisons

by Diego Cevallos

(IPS) MEXICO CITY -- From behind prison walls, inmates direct drug-trafficking rings and organize extortion schemes, murders and kidnappings, like that of soccer coach Ruben Omar Romano.

"We are at the mercy of the criminals. Even when they're sent to prison, we're still not safe. This is shameful, and reflects a grave shortcoming on the part of the government authorities," Ismael Rodriguez, an academic specializing in security issues, told IPS.

Romano, coach of the popular Cruz Azul soccer club, was kidnapped in Mexico City on July 19 by a group of armed men in full daylight and in front of numerous witnesses. He was freed in a police raid on Wednesday after two months in captivity.

A federal prosecutor said his abduction was directed from inside a prison by Jose Luis Canchola, who is currently serving time for other kidnappings. A ransom of $5 million was demanded for Romano's release.

The Romano case is the latest in a string of events which seem to demonstrate that many Mexican prisons, even those classified as maximum security, are ruled by the inmates themselves.

There is evidence indicating that jailed criminals are able to remain active though the use of both cell phones and regular land lines.

In recent weeks, the Mexican police have waged a campaign through the media advising the public how to tell if phone calls involving threats or extortion have come from inside a jail.

There are 450 prisons in Mexico that house 190,000 inmates, and most are severely overcrowded. These include three maximum-security penitentiaries with a total population of 1,500 prisoners.

In January, following a contract murder committed in a maximum-security jail, President Vicente Fox pledged that the authorities would retake control of the prisons. The steps taken toward this goal included replacing a number of corrupt officials, establishing new internal procedures, and separating dangerous criminals from the general prison population.

The Fox administration said it would work with state governors and city governments to ensure order in the maximum-security prisons.

Public Security Secretary Ramon Martin Huerta, who was killed in a helicopter crash Wednesday, had assured the public over recent weeks that the country's jails were once again under the control of the authorities.

According to official government announcements, all of the available evidence indicates that the helicopter crash was an accident caused by bad weather. Nevertheless, there has been rampant speculation in the Mexican press that Huerta's death could have been the result of a "hit" ordered by drug traffickers from inside maximum-security jails.

A spokesman from the governmental National Commission of Human Rights, Guillermo Ibarra, urged the government not to rule out the possibility that the crash was intentional.

Huerta was traveling by helicopter from Mexico City to the La Palma maximum-security penitentiary on the outskirts of the capital, where he was to attend a swearing-in ceremony for new guards.

This year has been marked by an unprecedented wave of violence linked to drug trafficking rings in Mexico. Roughly 1,000 people have been murdered since January, including alleged members of rival drug cartels, police officers, lawyers and other officials.

Many of the victims had been blindfolded, tied at the hands and feet and tortured, and a number of the bodies had been burned, which is typical of killings by drug-trafficking rings, according to the authorities.

An alleged drug trafficker being held in the maximum-security La Palma prison was gunned down Dec. 31 by a fellow inmate. The authorities said the killing was a "settling of accounts" between rival cartels.

This murder was actually the third in La Palma last year. In May 2004, an inmate was strangled, while another was fatally shot in October.

In January, the bodies of six workers at a maximum-security jail in Matamoros, near the U.S. border, were found less than 800 meters from the penitentiary. All showed signs of having been tortured and subsequently executed.

This lack of control in Mexico's prisons is not a new phenomenon. In 2001, drug boss Joaquin Guzman, alias El Chapo, escaped from the maximum-security Puente Grande prison.

"If shocking things happen in maximum-security prisons, you don't have to be very intelligent to imagine what goes on in the rest of them," remarked Rodriguez, who teaches courses on "Security and the State" in Mexican universities.

The Attorney General's Office acknowledged in January that numerous drug cartel leaders have continued to operate from inside maximum-security facilities, and even admitted the possibility that these inmates could organize armed attacks on the prisons as a means of breaking out.

Romano's kidnapping demonstrates that despite the government's promises and assurances, "there are major problems in the jails that require more radical surgery," said Rodriguez.