Length: 7:43
LARGE (89.3 MB)
-----
SMALL (9.4 MB)
Rick Sanchez fills in for Campbell Brown and talks to Michael And former DEA agent Robert Strang about the shootout yesterday in Mexico that ended in the death of the head of one of the drug cartels.
RICK
SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.
Tonight, you're going to see one of the most
extraordinary shootouts that we've seen in a long
time, which results in the death of one of Mexico's
most notorious drug bosses. Some say he's the boss of
bosses. His name is Arturo Beltran Leyva.
Here's the video, by the way.
(VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: Are you hearing that? That's a luxury
housing complex in Cuernavaca. Let's keep listening.
(VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: It's outside of Mexico City. I hear the
police officers yelling. That means, "Don't move,
don't move."
Those are actually members of the Mexican Navy, by
the way, along with police who have moved in to take
on a cartel leader. Let's keep listening.
(VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: That's automatic gunfire you're listening
to. In total, six members of the cartel are killed
here.
So, what I want to do now is take this video and this
story apart with two people who know it from the
inside out.
Robert Strang is a former special agent for the DEA.
And Michael Ware, as you know, just got back from
this bloody border town of Juarez across from El
Paso.
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a charming
little place, Rick, yeah.
SANCHEZ: Charming little place indeed, right?
Bob, let me start with you. They call this guy the
"jefe of jefes," "the boss of bosses." How big is he?
ROBERT STRANG, FORMER DEA SPECIAL AGENT: Well, he's
certainly one of the major cartel leaders in Mexico.
And there are other bosses as big as he is. And you
know, as you know, Mexico is running the cartels
through the country and all through the United
States.
The Justice Department says now that these cartels,
including this one, are in 250 cities across the
United States. So, all the money that's being made
here in the U.S., it's crossing the border going back
to Mexico, and ultimately ends up with people like
him. And there's probably only about eight people at
his level across all the cartels. He's a pretty big
player.
SANCHEZ: Can he be replaced? Can you replace a guy
like this?
WARE: Well, it depends on what happens, doesn't it,
Bob. I mean, you can have a power struggle from
within. You can have other cartels come and try and
feed off the carcass or he can have a smooth
transition from one of his lieutenants. We're just
going to have to wait and see.
SANCHEZ: Let's look at -- can we look at some of this
video again? Can you play some of that video for me,
if you would?
I want to just show how big this operation is.
STRANG: Yeah.
SANCHEZ: And take into consideration, fellows, that
this effort has been going on for sometime now. Why
has it taken it this long -- taken them so long to
actually go in full force and do something like this?
Or do they do it and we don't know about it?
WARE: First, you've got to get the actionable
intelligence. Why haven't you found Osama bin Laden?
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: Yes.
WARE: It's the same thing.
STRANG: Rick, 14,000 people have died in the last 3
1/2 years.
SANCHEZ: Yes.
STRANG: Fourteen thousand because of this drug
cartel.
SANCHEZ: Because of Leyva. Because of Leyva.
STRANG: Look at this. Look at the innocent people
that got injured, the innocent people that got hurt.
Look at the kidnappings in our own country because of
this cartel. This is a huge, widespread problem. This
-- by the way, this just isn't a problem in Mexico.
This is a problem for us in the U.S.
WARE: I couldn't agree more.
STRANG: These cartels are running some of the biggest
organized crime networks in our cities, in our
country, as we speak.
WARE: In the United States. This is an American drug
war and it's being paid for with Mexican blood.
SANCHEZ: I don't see that. In fact, what I see is
that we are giving them the money because we're
buying the drugs from there.
WARE: You're giving them nothing. Exactly. Exactly.
SANCHEZ: That's what I'm saying. Well, that's what
I'm saying.
WARE: This is a war being fought to supply America's
demand for illicit drugs.
SANCHEZ: But where you're wrong, I believe is, the
violence has not poured over the border. We're not
seeing Americans...
WARE: Well, so what? What I'm saying, it's being paid
for in Mexican blood. Are they less than Americans?
STRANG: The violence is here because of what is going
on in Mexico. There's no question.
SANCHEZ: How so? How so?
STRANG: Look at the arrests.
SANCHEZ: But not direct violence from them.
STRANG: Yes.
SANCHEZ: We don't have cartel members coming into the
United States...
WARE: Yes, you do. You have kidnappings in El Paso.
You have murders.
STRANG: Two hundred fifty arrests by the Justice
Department and DEA this year alone. There's four
other major investigations going on right now. These
are arrests of Mexicans in the U.S.
SANCHEZ: But let me tell you how they do it. I read
this story recently in "Rolling Stone" that detailed
exactly -- and you can disagree with the story, but
I'll just tell you what the story says. It says they
use low-level operatives here in the United States.
Most of these people have no idea what's going on
with guys like Leyva. That's who they use to keep
themselves buffered from the higher-ups.
WARE: That's what al Qaeda does, too.
SANCHEZ: Is that true?
STRANG: Look, first of all, I don't -- "Rolling
Stone," what it says is partially true. But the
information that we have and the facts that we have
here in the U.S. is that these cartels at high levels
are putting people in the cities here that they can
afford to have arrested. People who are loyal to
them, people who can get the money back to them.
WARE: They're expendable.
STRANG: As soon as they make a big kilo or two kilo
sale of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine,
the money goes right back to Mexico. They have total
control over what's going on in almost every American
city.
SANCHEZ: That's an insane...
WARE: And America is doing virtually nothing.
SANCHEZ: That's an insidious way of dealing with it.
WARE: America is doing virtually nothing.
SANCHEZ: Why?
WARE: Well, the number of DEA agents in Central
America, for example, you know...
SANCHEZ: Colombia has more than any, right?
WARE: Well, it begins in Colombia. It begins in
Colombia, transships through Central America. It's
banked in Panama. The distribution is now through
Mexico. We're seeing the power shift.
In Central America, what's the total number of DEA
agents? I think there's more DEA agents in Albany,
New York than there are in Central America.
STRANG: Well, look...
SANCHEZ: Why is that?
STRANG: Well, because, first of all...
WARE: How much are we spending? They're making
billions and we're throwing a couple hundred million
at the problem.
SANCHEZ: Bob, he raises a good point. Why isn't there
more of an emphasis in places like Mexico to protect
us from that border?
STRANG: Mexico is priority for our government.
Calderon has been cooperating with the U.S. We've
been providing them with assets, with resources, with
agents, training.
WARE: Token, token.
STRANG: Let me tell you -- but we've been giving a
lot of support.
WARE: And how institutionalized are the cartels in
the political life of Mexico?
STRANG: No question. We helped dismantle the cartels
in Cali, Colombia, in Medellin, Colombia.
WARE: Yes.
STRANG: Are we working with Mexico now for the first
time since Calderon was elected?
WARE: Yes. Can you run for president in Mexico
without a cartel backing you?
STRANG: Calderon did. And he's getting them now,
isn't he? We're getting there.
WARE: El Chappo seems to be doing OK.
STRANG: We're doing OK.
SANCHEZ: And let me ask you this one final question
before we go.
As we look at this video, will we then see more
nationalized efforts, the federales as we call them,
going in and making these kinds of operations,
because usually you'd think somebody in the
government, like you say, would pick up the phone and
say, "Hey, Leyva, guess what, these guys are coming
to get you, you better make a run for it." Nobody
called this guy. They got him.
STRANG: They got him. And we're going to hopefully...
SANCHEZ: What does that said?
STRANG: That says that somewhere we got a break. That
says somewhere the government in Mexico was able to
get through and attack these high-level operatives.
This is from wiretap information, it's from
informants.
SANCHEZ: Are we helping them? Is your agency...
STRANG: My former agency is working very closely with
the Mexican government. We are providing them with
the training, with the financing, with the resources.
That's how this was done.
WARE: But has the dynamic changed, even with his
removal from the landscape? The profit incentive is
still there.
SANCHEZ: Well, let's see.
WARE: Will this change the war?
STRANG: Let me say this. You can't let this go on in
Mexico. It's a border with the country.
WARE: Exactly.
STRANG: There's so much going on there. I worry about
people coming in across the border, explosives,
drugs. It's too close to home.
WARE: So when are we going to commit to this problem?
That's the question.
SANCHEZ: Let's talk about next time, gentlemen.
Thanks so much for being with us.
WARE: Good onya, Rick.
STRANG: Thanks, Rick.
SANCHEZ: Michael, Bob, appreciate it as usual. A good
lively discussion.