Mexican drug lord-turned-informant gives glimpse into brutal world

19:54 Mexican drug lord-turned-informant gives glimpse into brutal world 0 Comments

Police and federal agents pulled the car over in a suburb north of Denver. An FBI agent showed his badge. The driver appeared not startled at all. "My friend," he said, "I have been waiting for you." And with that, Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela stepped out into the arms of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Over the next several days at his ranch in Colorado and an FBI "safe house" in Albuquerque, the Mexican cartel chieftain was transformed into one of the FBI's top informants on the Southwest border. Around a dining room table in August 2010, an FBI camera humming above, the 34-year-old Miramontes-Varela confessed his leadership in the Juarez cartel, according to 75 pages of confidential FBI interview reports obtained by The Times/Tribune Washington Bureau. He told about marijuana and cocaine routes to California, New York and the Great Lakes. He described the shooting deaths of 30 people at a horse track in Mexico and a hidden mass grave with 20 bodies, including two U.S. residents. He told them he had seen plenty of "violence and suffering." He told agents he was desperate to trade his knowledge for government protection. He wanted a new life for himself and for his wife and three daughters. A week later, Miramontes-Varela pleaded guilty in federal court in New Mexico to a minor felony as an undocumented illegal immigrant in possession of a firearm. Then he disappeared, almost certainly into the federal witness protection program.