THE BORDER REPORT

This is a bit of a mystery, one I don’t know the answer to yet. But asking questions is half the reason this Web site exists.

Was last week’s release of a Border Patrol agent’s alleged killer a gross error by the Feds or some sort of secretive backroom negotiations?

The accused killer of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in western Arizona was freed by a Mexican judge after that judge received no requests from the U.S. for the accused’s extradition or arrest.

Border Patrol agent Luis Aguilar was involved in the chase of Jesus Navarro Montes out in western Arizona. The Feds have said Aguilar was laying down a spike strip when Navarro’s Hummer slammed into him.

Navarro then ran into Mexico. On many levels, a cut and dried tragedy, a U.S. official killed, a young man lost in the system. Aguilar, 32, was a six-year veteran of the Border Patrol.

Then things started happening.

Consider:

In late January, a wanted narco-fugitive, Macedonio Guerrero, turned himself in to Customs and Border Protection at the Yuma port of entry. According to sources familiar with the investigation, Guerrero said he was surrendering in Aguilar’s death.

At the time, my Customs sources believed Guerrero had been driving the Hummer that struck Aguilar. But Guerrero was turned over to FBI and disappeared from the system.

Within hours, however, a second man, Navarro, would be arrested by Sonoran State Police in Ciudád Obregón.

Meanwhile, up in Mexicali, where Guerrero lived, the Mexican military was storming Guerrero’s houses, silent as always, not answering any questions from Mexicali reporters.

News of Navarro’s arrest sparked applause in Washington D.C., even the Border Patrol gave grudging commendations to the Mexican law enforcement agencies who dragged Navarro back to Mexicali.

The story went away, as these stories do, resurfacing last week when a Mexican judge released Navarro from prison.

Homeland Security Sec. Michael Chertoff disseminated a public statement, saying, “we are shocked and appalled,” at Mexico’s decision.

Maybe he ought to be inquiring a little deeper before he starts with the Mexico-bashing.

For its part, Mexico says the U.S. never placed an extradition request for Navarro. For six months, while he languished in his cell, the Mexicans waited for the Americans to file the paperwork and nobody ever did.

So what happened? Were the Americans being inept, almost stupidly so, by not doing their job in a high-profile murder case? Very, very, very likely.

Or were the Mexicans being arrogant, giving the gringos just enough time to get their act together, then dumping Navarro after a six-month deadline? Possible, but unlikely.

Or something else?

Where’s Guerrero in all this? Where’d he go?

The man was wanted by the DEA’s Yuma Office on marijuana trafficking charges. Guerrero was arrested in February 2003 in Yuma and pleaded guilty in federal district court in San Diego to possession with intent to distribute marijuana, but did not appear for sentencing, federal court records show.

He was one of two fugitives in a DEA nationwide drug bust, Operation Imperial Emperor. The bust resulted in 400 arrests in early 2007. Guerrero was not one of those arrested.

Twists and turns and more twists. Guerrero was one of two fugitives in Imperial Emperor. The second was a Francisco Olivares Arvizu.

That name is interesting. if it’s the same guy, and all three of his names match, the Yuma man was a key informant in an FBI corruption sting in Arizona that resulted in more than 70 arrests of federal and state agents, soldiers, prison guards and airmen.

Most of the guilty parties received grossly reduced sentences after the U.S. Attorney’s Office refused to take their cases because 11 of the 70-plus had participated in the rape of a prostitute in a Las Vegas hotel room – along with Olivares.

It says something about the law enforcement system when a guy like Olivares, wanted on actual drug trafficking charges, is flipped to entice public officials who may or may not have been prone to taking a bribe in the first place.

Lots of names, lots of twists.

I’ve noticed that the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI had nothing to tell reporters, declining comment on every question related to the Navarro’s release.

I am going to assume a few things here.

I’m going to assume the Feds have Guerrero in custody and that’s why they never cared about Navarro.

I have to assume that because I also have to assume that there is no way the U.S. is cutting a backroom deal with a narco-trafficker accused of murdering one of its own agents.

It’s simply not possible.

Right?

– Michel Marizco

Read the original stories of Guerrero’s arrest here and here.

Read the stories about Operation Lively Green here and here.