Gunfight Part 1

I awakened that morning with a knot in my stomach and the feeling that doom surrounded me. I shook the feeling off initially but as the day wore on I KNEW that trouble was in store for me ahead. Sure enough later that day I received a call from a Mexican Aduana Officer (combination immigration/customs officer) who wanted to speak to me in person about a problem he had. I told him to meet me at my office where we could talk in private. He agreed to meet me there, and fifteen minutes later he entered my office, I greeted him cordially and invited him to sit down.

He took a seat in a chair and by his mannerisms I could tell he was distressed by something and he was having a difficult time telling me. I decided to wait until he felt ready to talk and so I ignored him while shuffling papers on my desk. After a short time he told me, "Everyone tells me that I can trust you, someone has burglarized my house and taken some of my property!" I kept silent until he went on, and he continued with," Well, there may be a little problem because there was some money taken also, a lot of money!" I finally figured out what his problem was, he was afraid that I would turn him over to U.S. Customs because he had crossed the border with more than $10,000 in cash in his possession without declaring the money to American authorities.

The Mexican Aduana had special permission to live in the United States, claiming that there was no available housing for them in Palomas, Mexico and because the Mexican people hated them because they were so corrupt, they literally feared for their lives in Mexico. The Aduana made the equivalent of about $3.60 an hour on their jobs and so to make up the difference they charged truck loads of equipment and produce and items of all kinds to cross the border into Mexico. I have seen a truck driver pay as much as $10,000.00 to cross a load of farm equipment from the U.S. into Mexico. Most Aduana were rich from the "mordida" (the bite) that they illegally extracted from almost anyone transporting good and equipment into Mexico.

This particular Aduana Officer was the nephew of the Aduana Commandante in Juarez, Mexico and it was well know that he could do no wrong, because of his relation to the "Boss" in Juarez. This man was born in east Los Angeles and had given up his American citizenship to gain the Aduana job. I knew of one occasion where he was reprimanded by his immediate supervisor at the Mexican Port of Entry at Palomas and two days later the supervisor was transferred. I finally extracted from him that $65,000.00 in cash (mordida) was stolen from him, some antique heirloom gold jewelry worth more than the cash and a 9mm pistol.

I assured him that I was not a federal agent and so I didn't care about the cash and he uttered a sigh of relief. He was also quite worried about the 9mm pistol because it was an issued duty weapon and if it was not found he would be in trouble. He and I then returned to his home and I began a forensic investigation of the crime scene there. The perpetrators of this burglary had broken a window into his bedroom while he was working and helped themselves to the valuables inside, most of it being located in a briefcase in plain sight.

While I was in the middle of the investigation I received a telephone call from the Commandante De Policia Municipal, Palomas, Mexico. He told me that he had two suspects in the burglary I was then investigating in jail in Palomas as we spoke. He also said that they had been caught with some of the gold jewelry belonging to the Aduana Officer, trying to trade it for sex in a local brothel in Palomas. He told me their names and I knew them well. They were local "mulas", the ones that the cartels hired to physically pack the drugs across the U.S./Mexican and then take it to stash houses in my little town.

This was great news to me and now I just hoped that I could get to them before the drug cartel killed them, fearing that they might snitch off the stash houses to me in return for gaining their freedom from the Mexican authorities.