There are two ways to get a piece of the action at any of the big drug markets along the border: pay off "” or kill off "” anyone who stands in your way. But to gain exclusive control of the most lucrative gateway of all, says a veteran U.S. drug cop, a drug cartel has to pay and kill " beyond where any have ever gone before."
As for murder, it has evolved from the cartel's last-ditch way to protect market share into its preferred means of communication. " [Druglords] rule by terror," says Errol Chavez, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's San Diego office. According to testimony from former associates, Ramón often rises in the morning announcing, "I feel like killing somebody today," then satisfies the urge in ways designed to build the legend, feed the fear. Trademarks include "the Colombian necktie" "” cutting an informant's throat below the chin, then pulling his tongue through the wound as he bleeds to death. Or suffocating a rival with a clear plastic bag over his head while a henchman named El Gordo (the Fat Man) bounces on his chest. But perhaps Ramón's favorite ritual is carne asada "” barbecue "” executing entire families and tossing their corpses on a bed of flaming tires, as he and his goons celebrate with tequila and cocaine.
But if the Arellanos have a weakness, it may be their failure to see that even the border's notorious criminal culture eventually has its limits. It's true that since the Wild West days, when Billy the Kid wintered in El Paso and Juárez, border natives have often been a law unto themselves "” a product of their historic, and justified, resentment of racist gringos to the north and haughty chilangos (Mexico City residents) to the south, who sneered at the border for being neither American nor Mexican enough. "That identity crisis and alienation grew into the violent face of the border," says sociologist Juan Manuel Valenzuela of Tijuana's Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Coupled with the region's poverty, it spawned a subculture of toughs, often called pachucos and cholos.
Via a multimillion-dollar monthly graft payroll and a string of chilling murders "” including that of a key rival's wife, whose head was reportedly severed and delivered in a box of dry ice "” the Arellanos realized their audacious goal: to own the coveted stretch of desert from Tijuana to Mexicali. During a 1992 summit of Mexican druglords at a Sinaloa ranch, they raised the fees charged to others for using their turf. In response, rival druglord JoaquÃn (Chapo) Guzmán sent gunmen to kill the Arellanos at a Puerto Vallarta disco. As bullets rained, the brothers escaped through a bathroom skylight (after struggling to shove Ramón through it). To retaliate, they targeted Chapo the following year at the Guadalajara airport "” and mistakenly killed Cardinal Juan Jesús Posadas Ocampo, who arrived in a car similar to Chapo's.
For a time, it looked as if the Arellanos had gone over the line. But after offering confession and begging forgiveness in a secret meeting with the papal nuncio, they simply stepped up the violence. They recruited hardened gang members from San Diego, as well as the bored sons of affluent Tijuana families "” a trigger-happy cadre known as "los narco-juniors." Mexican ex-military and police officers filled out their ranks of assassins and helped train new members. They imported not only guns but also heavy weapons from U.S. arms traffickers (they once threatened to fire rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey during a border visit) and assembled enough state-of-the-art surveillance equipment to know when even the lowliest dope trafficker is cutting a free-lance deal on his cell phone.
A few months ago, filmmaker John Carlos Frey asked 100 men at a Phoenix day labor center "” where migrants wait for jobs "” how many had worked in a crystal methamphetamine lab.
Gatekeeper Productions Adam Fields (John Carlos Frey) with Jose (Joe Pascual), who is cooking crystal meth.
"I'm not kidding," he said in an interview this week. "Ninety of these hundred men raised their hands."
Frey's film "The Gatekeeper" examines the hazards of crossing into the United States and the hydra of exploitation that awaits illegal entrants.
Proceeds from the 7:25 p.m. screening Saturday at Catalina Cinemas will benefit Humane Borders.
The picture, based on Frey's extensive research, follows an anti-immigration border patrol agent as he goes undercover as an illegal crosser.
During this borderlands-through-the- looking-glass-story, the agent, played by Frey, learns how entrants live. At one point, he's forced to work in a meth lab.
Bruce Springsteen donated his song "Sinaloa Cowboys" to the film about two brothers from the northern Mexico state who find work and death in a meth lab.
The situation "” illegal entrants cooking meth "” is common, Frey said. Meth manufacturers often seal labs to prevent telltale odors from escaping, Frey said. The workers inside are effectively trapped in a room full of poison.
"If you do work under those conditions, your life expectancy is six to nine months," Frey said.
Rated: R for language, violence (including a rape), sexuality and drug content
Cast: John Carlos Frey, Michelle Agnew, Anne Betancourt, Joel Brooks
Writer/director: John Carlos Frey
Running time: 103 minutes
Et cetera: In English, with Spanish subtitles
"The Gatekeeper" hits close to home, literally, for Frey.
Born in Tijuana, he moved to San Diego when he was 6 months old.
"Where I grew up was within eyeshot of the actual border fence," said Frey, 39. "So almost every night I'd see . . . 70 to 100 people running through my family's back yard, border patrol cars, helicopters with spotlights.
"I was always fascinated by this very strange stretch of property along the U.S.-Mexico border."
Crossing into the United States has become more and more dangerous. "San Diego and Texas have built up some pretty strong fences," Frey said. "Now everybody seems to be funneled in through the state of Arizona "” through the desert."
Frey himself struggled as he moved north "” to Hollywood, where he tried for three years to generate interest in his film.
"It wasn't a comedy. It wasn't a love story. It wasn't the kind of film that Hollywood tends to buy or make," Frey said. "There was not that much interest. So I sort of had to take the reins into my own hands to make the film."
Taking "the reins" meant taking out a second mortgage on his house and borrowing from family. But the film was made, and Frey plans to roll it out gradually into 30 cities. Tucson is the seventh city to get "The Gatekeeper."
Contact reporter Anthony Broadman at 573-4124 or broadman@azstarnet.com
Border Patrol agents of the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection in Alamogordo apprehended a woman late Thursday at a checkpoint after a hidden compartment containing 46 pounds of cocaine was found in the vehicle she was driving, said a Border Patrol release.
The 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier that was driven by 40-year-old Maria Rufina Bartez-Nava contained 38 separate bundles of cocaine, valued at approximately $1.4 million. The seizure took place at the traffic checkpoint on Highway 54, south of Alamogordo at approximately 8 p.m.
The seizure resulted as agents working at the checkpoint encountered the woman who pulled into the checkpoint. Agents became suspicious of the mannerisms of the driver and other indicators which were validated by a canine search. The canine alerted on the undercarriage of the vehicle.
A search led agents to what appeared to be fresh alterations to the rear seat platform. Further inspection revealed a false compartment just above the gas tank. Agents lowered the gas tank and revealed the contraband, discovering a total of 38 bundles of white powdery substance which tested later as cocaine. Alamogordo agents then contacted the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Las Cruces who assumed custody of the subject, contraband and vehicle.
Agents say Bartez-Nava is a citizen of Mexico who was born in Chihuahua. She faces charges of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. To date, agents in Alamogordo have made 253 drug seizures, valued at approximately $28 million.
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