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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 14, 1981)
Features THE BATTALION Page 9 TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1981 Wood death sparks enforcement efforts /ai _ ^ Narcotics are a big, violent business in Texas ree yean® face is antij ;r,” hesaii ibility'forai Hers have 1. "Lastya d airlines are, thefij-i United Press International heavylosetil H an g> n g on the wall of U.S. theentirs Attorney Ed Pvrado’s San An- states, and' tonio °ff* ce * s a framed close-up its, impo! photograph of a black Lincoln certain sec Continental with a windshield r reliant i hood mutilated by bullets. ,]y regresr ‘ ^he picture is a graphic remin der— as if Prado needed a remin der — that fighting drug traffic in South Texas is definitely a hard ball proposition. The photo was , given to him by James Kerr, a for- MJ 4 mer assistant U.S. attorney with a M /jdrug-busting reputation, who was lucky enough to survive the day light attack in November 1978 that pis attributed to the narcotics smuggling community. P' The John H. Wood Federal t Biiilding in San Antonio — se- — n(,t) w eurcd by sophisticated electronics —: is another reminder. Wood, to contra Jqjo^ as “Maximum John” be- ent ettorti 0 f his unmerciful courtroom lie contra a pp roac h to narcotics offenders, agreemet was s hot in the back and killed by a d. TmniB|P er outside his apartment six new cent mouths after the Kerr attack, bilitvofaii! The courthouse has been re- presenti nanie ^ * n honor of the judge, but the grand juries investigating the sUying have been virtually lasting 5 awareol monumen ts in themselves, having issued no indictments in their 2- year-old investigation, p' When Rep. Henry B. Gon zales, D-Texas, heard about the attacks on Kerr and Wood he was upset but not totally surprised. A month before Kerr was fired on from the back of a stolen van, Gon zalez had been concerned enough about the audacity of Texas traf fickers to warn that public officials b might be endangered. S “I had said, I’m afraid that no thing is going to be done until we have an eventual attack on a law ations or enforcement agent,’” Gonzales said two said from his Washington office. “I uprising; said, ‘It’s going to take an FBI for actio agent or a district attorney or its. somebody like that before the im- iing veil punity(oftrafifickers)is revealed.’” The task is# "There’s no question in my icm in tha: mind that every month that goes trained by the danger of it becoming ty, (but) another Jimmy Hoffa case is grea- table. ter and that is an absolute confes- will bee sion of incapacity to do anything at present about it,” he said, ients andara '“This was an attempt to intimi date the judiciary. It’s defiance, hat disrupt’s a challenge, a dropped gaunt- itentialfor let, and it pains me to see we re that limited to control it. ” the Narcotics agents and federal itate, Cor prosecutors have a formidable loyees, he Opponent. The dope industry in idayofuir Texas is so large authorities have ut the difficulty getting a handle on its largest si; magnitude. represents *' “There’s no way to even esti- 1,000 workt'Diate the dollar amount but it’s g, an AF'easily in the multimillions,” said 1 the strikAssistant U.S. Attorney Wayne r state a; Speck, who calls smuggling and ling the Dfilegal manufacture of drugs a etions wilF ^monumental business in South state uriiTexas.” the Metro® Marijuana remains Texas’No. 1 ission, wilt drug import with cocaine second ion overhand Mexican heroin making a ies, resen comeback after a two-year slack latrol. period following a poppy erradica- tion project, said Walter McFar land, commander of the Depart ment of Public Safety’s narcotics I division. I Cl So With a 900-mile border with 0 Mexico and hundreds of sparsely I P°P u l ate d square miles in West Illy Texas to land marijuanaand cocaine-laden airplanes, Texas is a virtual playground for smugglers. McFarland said Drug Enforce- econonii men(: Administration statistics in- °f the ^ dicate air smuggling has declined worldwide except in Texas, where ustry, reifAl ^ as increased. :belowin»' Texas is even more inviting to the latestf smu gg lin g rings and organized crime because federal agents have concentrated their efforts and tivity 21 p*' funding on the Florida coast. Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, is trying to get the Coast Guard more cut ters and airplanes to patrol the Texas shore. “It is clear that if Congress ex pects the Coast Guard to play an effective role in combatting illegal drug traffic we re going to have to either give them more resources or reduce their responsibilities in other areas,” he said. Money and well-placed con nections also have fed the Texas narcotics trade and brought orga nization and sophistication. Where smuggling operations once were led by one or two chieftains, they now are divided into several smaller rings under well- insulated, wellsupported leader ship, said Lt. Bobby Simpson of the Austin Police Department’s organized crime division. “They’re starting to get some power within the banking com munity,” he said. “Although it’s not necessarily in Austin, we’ve known of several people in the banking business who got their start running drugs.” “There’s quite a bit of the leadership that is from out of state,” McFarland said. “There are Colombians and Cubans com ing in and buying property and boats, moving out of Florida this way. There’s a big increase of out- The dope industry in Texas is so large au thorities have difficulty getting a handle on its magnitude. of-state people moving into South Texas, West Texas and paying cash for big land purchases with no visible means of support. “That’s all organized, very organized, with legitimate businesses coming from dope money. They’re buying things like restaurants, motels, hotels, real estate businesses, clubs.” Authorities may have a bigtime dope financier in Mexican mil lionaire M alias Montemayor, whom federal officials have called a major heroin and cocaine sup plier for Chicago and Detroit. He is being held under $3 million bond in Brownsville for illegal firearm possession. The firearms were found in April when federal agents seized about $1 million worth of property from two lavish McAllen homes owned by Montemayor, who has been convicted of cocaine dealing and manslaughter in Illinois and heroin delivery in Mexico, and his brother. Because of a law allowing the confiscation of property bought with drug money, officials were able to take two homes and over $10,000 worth of jewelry, among other items. Because of his outspokenness, Gonzales has won no friends with his theory about the power and organization behind Texas’ narco tics traffic— businessmen and in dent. it to compel each otk® 5 PM Get your Xerox copies ON THE DOUBLE at Northgate, above Farmer's Market Inexpensive, High-Quality Copies On Our Xerox 9400 FREE COLLATING in most cases. We specialize in REPORTS and DISSERTATIONS. Also: Self-service copying, typing, binding, resume writing, editing, business cards, wedding invita tions, stationery. ONE STOP service for reports and dissertations. ON THE DOUBLE 331 University 846-3755 SUMMER HOURS: Mon.-Fri. 7:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Sat. 9-6 *. appropriate law enforcement. Without ready and plentiful financing and some degree of sanction, drug trafficking could never have thrived, he said. “The real, real organized crime moved into this racket about a year before the attack on Kerr, ” he said. “I do know that once your real organization moves in, you’ve got a big operation and it’s a corpo rate operation. Some of the fronts themselves don’t know they’re in volved. “There are high-level connec tions. It’s sophisticated, compli cated. The involvement of the business element of the highest nature in Texas goes back to the credit crunches because the very history of the beginning of orga nized crime, like the bootlegging when the Depression hit, is that they are the only ones with money in hard times. Same thing here. “Law enforcement agents must be given a chance but, in the first place, the budget cuts are ham stringing. Law enforcement agents on the local and state level, if given the resources, they’ll do what we ask them to do. “But on the other hand, there’s no question that if there are asso ciations on one plane by the chief law enforcement agencies with Federal agents have concentrated their ef forts and funding on the Florida coast. the most sophisticated aspects of the criminal population, we re going to have at best compomise law enforcement. “My contention is that as long as we have that cozy cheek-by- jowl arrangement (using criminals in investigations and for informa tion) and they tell us they can’t solve crimes unless they go to bed with the criminal, I say that’s tacit acceptance of crime.” Taking that theory even farther is Charles V. Harrelson, a con victed hitman who reportedly is the primary suspect in the Wood assassination. In a copyright inter view with The Dallas Morning News, Harrelson said corrupt nar cotics agents had the judge and El Paso attorney Lee Chagra killed because they were aware of their illegal dealings. “Lee had documented evi dence that there were corrupt DEA agents,” Harrelson said. “Lee had the evidence to bust the DEA wide open. I saw it and Lee told me that Kerr and Judge Wood knew about it. They tried to scare off Kerr and it worked. ” Charles Carter, chief of the DEA’s San Antonio office, said Harrelson’s claim was “hogwash” and an attempt to divert attention from himself and gambler Jimmy Chagra, Lee’s brother, who is serving prison time for operating a drug smuggling ring and also is a target of the Wood grand jury. Gov. Bill Clements hopes his efforts in the recently completed legislative session have given law enforcement sufficient new weapons to turn off the dope flow. When he took the governorship Clements made it clear that he intended to give authorities wire tapping capability to snare traf fickers — and he did just that. He also established the Texans War on Drugs Committee and named millionaire superpatriot H. Ross Perot to head it. Clements also got a bill that raises narcotics fines to $1 million. The wiretap measure, he said, would give the state an anti-drug climate that would send dealers rushing to other states. “No legislative session in mod ern history has passed more po tent, far-reaching laws to combat crime and the cancerous drug traf fic in our state,” Clements said after his anti-crime victory. To McFarland, a new public awareness is just as important as the Legislature’s legal help. “We feel we’ve got better pub lic support, ” he said, “and we feel we ll see more vigorous prosecu tion because of public sentiment. ” SPORTSHOES UNLIMITED" 800 Villa Maria Rd 779-9484 Across from Manor East GTE Touch Calling is easier to use. 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