URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n547/a06.html
Newshawk: Al Robison www.dpft.org
Pubdate: Mon, 1 Apr 2002
Source: Texas Monthly (TX)
Copyright: 2002 Texas Monthly, Inc.
Contact: http://www.texasmonthly.com/admin/feedback.php
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2062
Website: http://www.texasmonthly.com/
Author: Skip Hollandsworth
Bookmarks: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm
(Corruption)
http://www.mapinc.org/area/Texas
SNOW JOB
Two aggressive Dallas cops. One confidential
informant. Hundreds of pounds of cocaine. Fifty-three drug traffickers
busted. Sound too good to be true? It was.
By all accounts, 2001 was shaping up to be
a banner year for the Dallas Police Department's narcotics squad.
According to the buzz around headquarters, two aggressive undercover
cops, 34-year-old senior corporal Mark Delapaz and 31-year-old
officer Eddie Herrera, had found a confidential informant who
not only was able to get to the "mules," the Mexican
immigrants who brought drugs into the U.S. for major Mexican suppliers,
but also could arrange buys from some of Dallas' biggest Hispanic
dealers.
In May and June the young narcs made nearly
a dozen good-sized busts. In July their informant helped them
make one of the biggest seizures in the city's history, leading
them to a man whose Ford Escort was packed with more than 150
pounds of cocaine. Less than a month later, the cops and their
informant struck again, arresting two men in a van with a little
more than 169 pounds of coke.
It seemed too good to be true-and before
long it became clear that it was. In August a Dallas attorney
named Cynthia Barbare was approached by relatives of 35-year-old
Jose Luis Vega, who had been at work in an auto-repair shop when
Delapaz and Herrera arrested him for allegedly trying to sell
more than 56 pounds of cocaine ( they said the drugs had been
found in a duffel bag on the seat of an unlocked car at the garage
). Although Vega's relatives tearfully told Barbare that he was
an honest, hardworking mechanic who had come to the U.S. to make
a better life for himself and his family, the police reports indicated
he had been caught red-handed. After his arrest, prosecutors from
the Dallas County district attorney's office persuaded a judge
to set his bail at $500,000. Barbare was going to be lucky to
plead out the case and get Vega released from prison in less than
fifteen years.
snip-
Read Complete Article Here
