cannabisnews.com: Worker at Mexican Consulate Apprehended at Border 





Worker at Mexican Consulate Apprehended at Border 
Posted by FoM on July 10, 1999 at 06:18:00 PT
Official held Phoenix post
Source: Arizona Central
A Mexican consulate worker arrested for drug trafficking in Nogales on Thursday is an administrator who previously worked for the Mexican consul general in Phoenix, officials said.
Pedro Victor Manuel Hortiguela-Garibay, 43, a native of Mexico City, was hired by the Mexican Consulate in Nogales in February after serving in the same capacity for about a year in the Phoenix consulate, said Roberto Rodriguez, the Mexican consul in Nogales. Hortiguela was arrested Thursday as he entered the United States through Nogales with 268.6 pounds of marijuana in his van. Mexican officials moved to dispel fears of broader corruption, saying Hortiguela was believed to be acting on his own. His arrest is the latest in a string of drug cases involving officials on both sides of the border. Hortiguela was suspended until his case makes its way through U.S. federal courts, and Mexican officials pledged to cooperate in the investigation. "We condemn it," Rodriguez said. "We do not accept these sorts of things, especially when both governments are working to fight corruption." Miguel Angel Isidro, Mexico's deputy consul general in Phoenix, called it "a very sad reminder of this threat that drug trafficking poses not only to U.S. authorities, but to Mexican authorities as well." A criminal complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Tucson said Hortiguela drove Thursday to a Nogales, Sonora, taco stand, where he met a friend. Hortiguela is alleged to have waited at the taco stand while his friend drove away, loaded the van with marijuana and returned. The complaint said Hortiguela "was to drive the van (back) across the border and park it across the street from the Mexican Consulate office in Nogales, Arizona, where it was to be picked up by another person." The van was registered to Hortiguela and had Arizona license tags. The van cleared initial inspection booths at the Grand Avenue Port of Entry, but a U.S. Customs Service drug-sniffing dog singled out Hortiguela's van as it moved past a secondary inspection point. Customs inspectors then found 27 bundles of marijuana under the seats. Customs spokesman Roger Maier said it was not immediately clear whether Hortiguela was working for a major drug trafficking organization or how frequently he had crossed the border. Jim Molesa, Phoenix spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said most smugglers moving large amounts of drugs through the Nogales area are operating under the auspices of a Mexican drug cartel headed by Miguel Caro Quintero. "You can't move loads through unless someone is sanctioning it," Molesa said. Rodriguez said Hortiguela did not have any consular duties, which involves representing the Mexican government and Mexican citizens in legal and immigration affairs within the United States. Rodriguez said the office does not handle any law-enforcement information or intelligence regarding narcotics trafficking. Hortiguela had passed a background check when he was hired by the Nogales consulate in February, Rodriguez said. He had no criminal record. Isidro said Hortiguela resigned "for personal reasons" from the Phoenix office and left on good terms. Maricopa County records show Hortiguela and his wife borrowed $99,898 last December to buy a house in Glendale. Isidro said he did not know whether they still owned the property. At the time of his arrest, Hortiguela was said to be living in the Nogales area. Mexican consular officials on Friday announced a review of all local employees. "The current incident is a reminder of the constant menace posed by narcotics trafficking and, as a consequence, corruption of Mexican and U.S. institutions," the statement said. In February, two current and one former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors were arrested in Nogales for accepting bribes to wave an estimated 20 tons of cocaine through the port of entry. All have since pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. A fourth inspector was charged with accepting bribes to approve immigration documents. Last month, a National Guardsman working with the U.S. Border Patrol in Nogales, Ariz., was arrested for trying to sell information about informers to drug traffickers. On the nearby Tohono O'odham Nation reservation, a former tribal judge was indicted last month on charges that she and her daughter-in-law spent four years trafficking hundreds of pounds of marijuana. Also on the border near where the judge lived, a U.S. Customs patrol officer searching for smugglers was fired on in March by members of the Mexican military who U.S. authorities believe strayed across the border into the United States. Mexican officials denied their military did anything wrong. U.S. law-enforcement officials suspect certain Mexican military units of aiding traffickers during their cross-border forays. In May, a south Tucson police officer was indicted on federal cocaine-trafficking and money-laundering charges. The constant threat of corruption led in 1997 to the creation of the Southern Arizona Corruption Task Force, which includes the FBI, DEA, Customs and the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. Pat Flannery can be reached at: (602) 444-8629 or at pat.flannery pni.com via e-mail.http://www.azcentral.com/news/0710potbust.shtmlConsulate Worker Arrested with Pot! July 9,1999http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread1967.shtml
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