VICTOR CORTEZ WAS A MINOR PLAYER IN CAMARENA PROBE

By Juan Montoya
New revelations by the supervisor of the operation investigating the torture and February 1985 death of DEA agent Kike Camarena that the CIA and the Mexican government were behind the crimes have spurred questions into the role of a Republican candidate for Cameron County Sheriff.

Victor Cortez, former chief of Internal Affairs and Public Integrity Unit with the Cameron County District Attorney's Office, said he was kidnapped, tortured and ultimately had to be rescued after he volunteered to join Operation Leyenda, headed by Supervisor Hector Berrellez to find those responsible for Camarena's death.

Operation Leyenda was formed in 1986 and Berrellez was named as its head.
Berrellez and former DEA official Phil Jordan are now alleging that CIA operatives killed Camarena trying to find out how much he knew of narcos and government offiicals' ties to the drug cartels.
Just recently, the two former DEA agents say two former CIA operatives had turned over Camarena to the Mexican narcos.

Their revelations came two months after Mexico's release of kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero from prison. Caro Quintero and two other high-level drug-traffickers had been sentenced to 40 years for their roles in Camarena's kidnapping, torture and murder.

They were not the only ones. Former CIA contract pilot Tosh Plumlee joined Jordan and Berrellez in making the allegations. Celestino Castillo III, another former DEA agent and author of "Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War," told LA Weekly that Jordan, Berrellez and Plumlee "are right on the money."
Cortez told a local daily that he had arrested Sergio Espino Verdin, an ex-commander of the Dirección Federal de Seguridad, the Federal Security Directorate, but that the Mexican government had released him and – after he himself was kidnapped and tortured – ordered Cortez out of the country as a person non grata.

Espino Verdin is still listed among the most wanted by the United States, as is Rafael Caro Quintero, the leader of the organization referred to in U.S. federal court records as the Guadalajara Narcotics Cartel.
Cortez said he was seized in a car and then found out the informant he was with had firearms in the trunk and the car they drove was not registered. On August 13, he was arrested by Mexican police, held and tortured, until his supervisor rescued him.

He told the local daily that from Mexico he was transferred to Tucson, Az., where he became an instructor and group supervisor and the was assigned to Quantico, Bolivia, San Antonio, Ecuador and California.
His last post when he retired from the DEA in 2008 was Miami. He returned to Brownsville, and worked for U.S. Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs in McAllen.

After Cortez was reassigned to Tucson, Berrellez went on to indict four cartel members. They were convicted in U.S. federal court in 1992. Ruben Zuno Arce, a wealthy Mexican businessman and son-in-law to former Mexican President Luis Echeverría Álvarez, was convicted of kidnapping, as were Juan Ramón Matta Ballesteros, a Honduran drug trafficker, and Juan Jose Bernabe Ramirez, a former Mexican policeman.

Javier Vasquez Velasco was convicted of murdering two American tourists in Guadalajara on the orders of druglords who mistook them for DEA agents.
Another man allegedly involved in the Camarena killing got off far easier: the doctor who was believed to have injected him with adrenaline to keep him coherent while being tortured – the doctor who'd been kidnapped in April 1990 by Mexican bounty hunters working on Berrellez's orders.

"The shit hit the fan because it was all over the news that this doctor had been kidnapped by the DEA out of Mexico," Berrellez, whose name was leaked as the orchestrator of the kidnapping, told LA Weekly.
In that article, it states that the Mexican government protested the kidnapping as a violation of national sovereignty and issued a warrant for Berrellez's arrest. They also demanded that Machaín be returned to Mexico. A district judge in Los Angeles dismissed the charges and ordered the doctor released.

Cortez is now running for Cameron County Sheriff based on his exploits in the Camarena investigation. But what were his actual, tangible accomplishments?
The man he captured is still on the loose as is Caro Quintero. He had to be rescued by his supervisor because he was careless and let himself get captured and had to be taken out of the country. And drugs still flowing across the border.

Now, with Berrellez's revelations that the whole thing had been orchestrated by the CIA and the U.S. government, it's clear that his role in the Camarena investigation was a relatively minor asterisk in the larger context.

For more on this story, click on links below:

http://www.laweekly.com/news/how-a-dogged-la-dea-agent-unraveled-the-cias-alleged-role-in-the-murder-of-kiki-camarena-5750278

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_24343140/ex-dea-officials-make-bombshell-allegations-about-kiki