“They (the ICE agents and U.S. prosecutor Fielden) couldn’t get rid of him (Lalo),
so they tried to control him, and they moved him from place to place, to
Albuquerque (N.M.) then to San Antonio (Texas), so no one could talk to him,”
one source says.
Then, the first hints of the informant’s role in the murders in Juárez hit the media
in the spring of 2004, and the cover-up went into full swing, according to sources.
The problem is that the informant Lalo had leverage because of what he knew.
He was demanding more money, sources indicate.
That’s what allegedly led one of Lalo’s ICE handlers, a high-level supervisor in El
Paso, sometime between March and June of 2004, to put a payment through to
him using a dead informant’s “source number,” which is a number assigned to all
confidential sources in order to keep their identity concealed.
Although it is not clear how much money was given to Lalo through this means,
sources indicate that it was discovered by someone at ICE headquarters in
Washington, D.C. The sources add that because the payment required
headquarters’ approval, the amount likely exceeded $50,000.
“The confidential informant (Lalo) said the government owed him money,” one
source says. “They decided they better pay him or he would start talking.”
And then, in August of 2004, for some reason that is not completely clear, the
informant Lalo was escorted by federal agents from San Antonio back to El Paso.
While in El Paso, Lalo arranged to pick up some money he claimed he was owed
by some unknown third party.
Lalo, though, didn’t go himself to pick up the money at the drop site – a
Whataburger fast-food restaurant in El Paso. Instead, he sent an acquaintance,
Abraham Guzman, a 27-year-old father of a two-week old baby. Unfortunately for
Guzman, the drop site was a set-up, and he was shot dead after thugs mistook
him for the informant Lalo.
In the wake of the shooting, according to law enforcement sources, a high-level
ICE supervisor in El Paso allegedly sent out the word to members of his staff that
no one was to cooperate with any investigation into the informant’s role in the
 |
 |
 |