April 12, 2009
Why does the Justice Department want an informant killed?
Have you heard about the informant who helped bust the notorious House of Death down in Mexico? That's the place where corrupt cops murdered anyone the drug lords deemed a threat, burying the bodies in the suburban backyard, covered with lime to dissolve the corpses.
If Bill Conroy's account is accurate, this informant, while working undercover for ICE, participated in the murders of at least 11 people.
All that aside, when the assignment was done and he could emerge from the shadows, this informant, essentially a walking corpse south of the border thanks to his having turned on the narco bosses, could at least look forward to refuge in the U.S. for his service, right?
Not so much.
According to Conroy's report, the U.S. government is trying to deport him back to Mexico, all the while acknowledging that this is a death sentence. But that's the point, for Ramirez Peyro is an embarrassment to DEA, ICE and the Justice Department, the last "loose end" (as Conroy calls him) in a cover up drenched in blood and corruption.
The House of Death murders, which occurred between August 2003 and mid-January 2004, took place in Juarez under the watch of the Bush administration, as did the cover-up of the U.S. government’s complicity in those murders — orchestrated at the highest levels of the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The informant, Ramirez Peyro, a former Mexican police officer, while working as an informant for ICE, assisted a cell of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug organization in carrying out those murders. That cell was headed by an individual named Heriberto Santillan-Tabares, who was eventually arrested in the U.S. on murder and drug-trafficking charges, but later negotiated a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney overseeing the case, Johnny Sutton. The plea bargain resulted in the murder charges against Santillan being dropped, and he was handed a 25-year prison sentence.
After participating in the first murder and informing his ICE handlers of that fact, the informant Ramirez Peyro was authorized by ICE and the Department of Justice, including Sutton’s office, to continue on his mission — resulting in at least 11 more murders and the near assassination of a DEA agent and his family.
This all played out despite the fact that U.S. Attorney Sutton (a “dear friend” of former President Bush who remains in office as of now under the Obama administration) had enough evidence to close out the investigation against Santillan several months prior to the first House of Death murder. Instead, Sutton chose to allow the informant to continue his bloody work — for which the U.S. government paid Ramirez Peyro some $220,000.
And when Gonzalez, at the time the chief of DEA’s office in El Paso, Texas, sought to expose the U.S. government’s complicity in the needless carnage, via a memo drafted and delivered to Sutton in February 2004, rather than investigate the charges, U.S. Attorney Sutton chose instead to use his connections within the Department of Justice to retaliate against the whistleblower and assure his message was silenced. And to this day, the cover-up continues — with the silencing of the informant Ramirez Peyro one of the few remaining loose strings.
It's a fascinating read.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 12, 2009 10:17 PM
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Comments
sutton is also the fellow who presided over the railroading of ramos and compean, the border patrol guys sent to prison. he must be quite a guy.
i wonder if he ever did any bad stuff that *didn't* make the news??
Posted by: ici chacal at April 12, 2009 10:39 PM