Features
THE BATTALION Page 9
TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1981
Wood death sparks enforcement efforts
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^ Narcotics are a big, violent business in Texas
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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
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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. ”
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