Witnesses: Cartel boss smuggled from the shadows

McALLEN — Even as he earned accolades for his work as a homicide detective, Carlos Landín-Martinez allegedly managed a massive drug-smuggling organization with tentacles that stretched as far as Florida, witnesses testified Tuesday.

The man federal authorities have identified as the Gulf Cartel’s second-in-command of Reynosa operations led a double life, they said — working officially to fight crime in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas while actively committing it on the side.

As testimony began Tuesday in the second day of Landín-Martinez’s trial on drug trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering charges, prosecutors outlined the segmented but tightly organized system through which he allegedly guided cocaine and marijuana into the United States and then received payments from their sale.

Five witnesses who participated in either bringing drugs from Reynosa to the United States or smuggling the proceeds back across the border took the stand. Each pointed to Landín-Martinez as their leader.

However, none of the men who testified Tuesday — many of whom face criminal charges of their own — could directly link the former Tamaulipas state police commander to criminal activity that they had personally witnessed.

“They told me many times who was the boss,” said Francisco Camacho Barajas, a low-level smuggler, in Spanish. “It was Carlos Landín — El Puma.”

THE CONSPIRACY

Landín-Martinez and 13 co-defendants face criminal charges specifically linked to several drug- and currency-smuggling busts between January 2005 and January 2007.

Of those in custody, six have pleaded guilty and are cooperating in the government’s case. Three, including Landín-Martinez, have pleaded not guilty.

McAllen police arrested Landín-Martinez on July 14, when an off-duty agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spotted him shopping for watermelon at an H.E.B. supermarket on North 10th Street, south of Nolana in McAllen.

Tuesday’s testimony outlined a complex criminal organization that kept its low-level members in the dark about the overall scope of operations even as it insulated those at the top from direct links to drug trafficking.

“The money works in a chain of command,” said Ricardo Garza, a low-level smuggler in the organization. “You’ve got to pay for your services; you’ve got to pay for your supply. It works like that all the way to the top.”

The group relied on middle-men like Jose Moncerrat Narvaez, 43, who testified Tuesday that he received drug shipments sent across the Rio Grande by a man named Juan Oscar Garza-Alanis.

Using rafts, cars and even an underground drainage pipe connecting the river to a 23rd Street manhole in Hidalgo, men like Narvaez were responsible for guiding the drugs to a designated drop-off point.

His employees usually took drug shipments from the river to the parking lots of McAllen businesses like McDonald’s, H.E.B. and Delia’s Tamales.

From there, another organization under Landín-Martinez’s alleged umbrella would pick up the drugs and take them to stash houses across the city.

Ricardo Muñiz, of Edinburg, ran one such operation. He told jurors Tuesday that he managed a group of smugglers that would then take the drugs past checkpoints in Falfurrias and Sarita in hopes of selling them to markets in the interior United States.

Once the sales were made, his couriers would return with money that would be paid to Garza-Alanis, who worked directly for Landín-Martinez, in Reynosa, Muñiz said.

FLAWED WITNESSES

Throughout the day’s testimony, Landín-Martinez kept his head held high, avoiding eye contact with his former associates.

But so far, few of the government’s witnesses said they have ever even met the alleged drug trafficker let alone witnessed him participate in the organization’s business. Even so, almost all identified him as the leader of the operation.

Narvaez, a former Rio Bravo municipal police officer, considered Landín-Martinez a friend and even had a special chair placed in his home to accommodate the portly Tamaulipas officer’s girth.

But while Narvaez said he had general knowledge of Landín-Martinez’s drug smuggling activities, he did not testify Tuesday on any specific incident in which he had witnessed him commit a crime.

Landín-Martinez’s defense attorneys — Oscar R. Alvarez and Eric Jarvis — continuously hammered this point, asking each new witness if they had personal knowledge of any of the nine counts alleged in a federal indictment.

The duo also took issue with the extensive criminal backgrounds of many of the day’s witnesses, who offered their testimony as part of plea deals with prosecutors.

Muñiz, the Edinburg-based smuggler, is one of Landín-Martinez’s co-defendants in the case. He pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in December.

Narvaez, the former Rio Bravo police officer, has been linked to the Meza brothers smuggling ring led by former McAllen police officer Francisco Meza-Rojas. Narvaez told the court he wasn’t expecting a reduced prison term in exchange for his cooperation in the case but would accept it if one were offered.

But Camacho, the lowest-level smuggler who testified Tuesday, offered the most telling response when asked why he only decided to come forward when it helped his own interests.

“When one is in the drug business, one is afraid of many things,” he said in Spanish. “Most of all … death.”