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DE RUEHME #6043/01 3392113
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R 052113Z DEC 07
FM AMEMBASSY MEXICO
TO RUEHXC/ALL US CONSULATES IN MEXICO COLLECTIVE
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9792
INFO RUEHWH/WESTERN HEMISPHERIC AFFAIRS DIPL POSTS
RUEHUB/USINT HAVANA 0098
RUEAHLA/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RHMFISS/CDR USNORTHCOM
RHMFISS/CDR USSOUTHCOM MIAMI FL
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MEXICO 006043 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA/MEX, INR, INL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/05/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON MX
SUBJECT: DEPUTY SECRETARY NEGROPONTE HAS CORDIAL MEETINGS 
SENIOR MEXICAN SECURITY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS  
MEXICO 00006043  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Charles V. Barclay. 
Reason: 1.4 (b),(d) 
 
¶1.  Summary:  On October 30, Deputy Secretary Negroponte, 
Assistant Secretary of State Tom Shannon and party met heads 
of Mexico,s Secretariats of Gobernacion (Interior) and 
Public Security, as well as with Mexico,s Attorney General. 
 All three GOM officials outlined steps the Calderon 
administration is taking to improve law enforcement efforts 
in Mexico and more effectively confront Mexico,s narcotics 
cartels.   They expressed appreciation of the USG,s 
commitment to strengthen law enforcement cooperation through 
the Merida Initiative.  Ambassador Negroponte told his law 
enforcement interlocutors that president Bush was personally 
committed to boosting our joint efforts against narcotics 
trafficking and that his administration would work to secure 
congressional support for the initiative in coming weeks. 
End Summary. 
 
Interior Secretary, Staff Discuss New Intel Center 
 
¶2.  (C) Ambassador Negroponte,s first meeting was with 
Secretary of Government Ramirez Acuna, CISEN Director 
Guillermo Valdes Castellanos, and Deputy Secretary of 
Population, Migration, and Religious Issues Florencio Salazar 
Adame.  Ramierz Acuna and his officials expressed their 
desire to advance law enforcement cooperation with the U.S. 
and stressed the importance of the Merida Initiative. 
CISEN,s Valdes informed the U.S. visitors of the GOM,s 
plans to construct a multi-agency intelligence center ) 
along the lines of the USG,s EPIC (El Paso Intelligence 
Center).  Ramierz Acuna explained that the project falls 
under the umbrella of &Platform Mexico8 which will 
establish real-time interconnectivity between all levels of 
police and prosecutors and generate a single, unified 
national crime database.  The intelligence center would be 
located at SSP headquarters, but CISEN will take the lead in 
information-gathering and analysis. 
 
¶3.  (C)  Valdes emphasized that counter-terrorism was a very 
important aspect of the Merida Initiative.  In this regard, 
he noted that recent years there had had been between 20-30 
cases of no-flight alerts on travelers of interest coming 
into Mexico.  Valdes explained that subjects in these cases 
are usually detained, interrogated, and deported.  Ramirez 
Acuna stressed, however, that there have only been two cases 
during the Calderon Administration, where the subjects were 
suspected terrorists.  Valdes also noted a pattern of Arab 
nationals entering Mexico on Venezuelan passports and of 
Iranians entering with Nicaraguan passports.  For these 
reasons, the GOM is working to build up security on the 
southern border and establish ties with the Terrorist 
Screening Center in Washington. 
 
 
Secretary for Public Security Outlines Proposed Police Reforms 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  In an follow-on meeting with Genaro Garcia Luna 
(Secretary for Public Security),  Deputy Secretary Negroponte 
asked for details on what the GOM was doing in police reform 
and other aspects of law enforcements, to help him &fill in 
the blanks8 in preparation for future questioning regarding 
the Merida Initiative. Garcia Luna provided an extensive 
summary of steps already being undertaken by his secretariat 
to improve law enforcement in Mexico and outlined the 
challenges facing police in Mexico.  Ambassador Negroponte 
emphasized the need for good coordination among police 
elements,   and noted our commitment to helping Mexico meet 
its current security challenges. 
 
¶5.   (SBU)  Garcia Luna began by outlining SSP,s drive to 
improve federal policing, starting with the addition of 
10,000 new federal police it intends to add to the current 
17,000; SSP wants to build the force to an eventual 35,000 
police.  It is also upgrading federal prisons, he said, and 
plans to build a &super maximum security8 prison that will 
allow it to isolate cartel members from their support 
networks.  Finally, SSP is engaging civil society to 
establish performance benchmarks and create a &social 
basis8 for law enforcement.  State consultative councils, 
composed of business, NGOs and civic leaders will help make 
SSP locally accountable in each state. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  The Public Security Secretary said that ambitious 
reform proposals awaiting Congressional action will provide 
the means for professionalizing all 350,000 federal, state 
and local police forces.  The reforms will help his 
secretariat establish standard methods, processes and systems 
in every jurisdiction. 
 
¶7.   (SBU)  As an interim measure, he said, SSP was 
polygraphing federal forces under its control.   The 
secretariat is building the means to test 100,000 police per 
year and will eventually test all police in Mexico.  If 
approved, this massive restructuring will broaden: the 
authority of the federal police to investigate aggressively, 
to proactively prevent crime, harmonize police procedures and 
standards and, impose binding ethical standards on police 
officers. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The Deputy Secretary noted the importance of 
harmonizing policing across Mexico and asked about efforts to 
promote better coordination among forces.  Calderon,s push 
for reform, said Garcia Luna, demonstrated his commitment to 
break the law enforcement mold in Mexico whereby local, state 
and federal police elements have traditionally worked in 
isolation of each other, maintaining distant, often 
antagonistic relations at best.   The reforms would force 
police to work nationally in a coordinated manner, he said. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  Garcia Luna said that reforms that do not require 
changes in law are already being implemented, including the 
establishment of &Plataforma Mexico,8 the billion-dollar 
scheme for establishing interconnections between all police 
and prosecutors.  The system would replace existing obsolete 
UHF/VUF radio links and allow SSP to analyze criminal trends 
in real time.  Plataforma Mexico already reaches every 
Mexican state, said Garcia Luna, and by January would begin 
to extend down to the municipalities, eventually reaching 
¶2000. 
 
¶10.  (SBU)  To wrap up the meeting, the Deputy Secretary 
asked Garcia Luna for his take on the key security challenges 
facing Mexico.  In response, Garcia Luna described an illegal 
narcotics trade in great flux, with long-term regional 
monopolies breaking down, at a time when technologies and 
tactics were becoming more lethal and brutal.  The Calderon 
administration,s press against the cartels earlier this year 
engendered further violence, he said.   SSP,s key challenges 
are to &re-populate8 the entire police force across the 
country (breaking the grip cartels hold on local police in 
particular), restore public respect for law enforcement in 
Mexico and train and equip police forces to challenge the 
technological edge cartels have long maintained here. 
Garcia Luna noted that the support provided through the 
Merida Initiative would help provide the police the 
technological advantage now enjoyed by the well-funded 
criminal organizations they face. 
 
Attorney General Lauds Improved Law Enforcement Relationship 
and Outlines Its Results 
 
¶11.  (SBU)  The Deputy Secretary,s final law enforcement 
meeting on October 30 was with Mexico,s Attorney General 
Eduardo Medina Mora.  Media Mora was accompanied by Noe 
Ramirez, Deputy Attorney General for Organized Crime, Oscar 
Rocha, Special Advisor, Juan Sanchez Zarza, chief of analysis 
at the National Organized Crime Information and Analysis 
Center (CENAPI) and Enrique Rojo, chief advisor to the 
Foreign Relations Secretariat,s North America Affairs head 
Carlos Rico. 
 
¶12.  (SBU)  Medina Mora began by noting that he had just 
returned from the Mexican Senate, where he had updated 
Senators on the Zhenli case (the Chinese-Mexican now in U.S. 
custody for trafficking in methamphetamine precursor 
chemicals).   Not surprisingly, he said, the senators 
expressed great interest in the Merida Initiative.  PRI 
legislators, in particular, pressed him to explain why the 
GOM had not consulted them before announcing the initiative. 
As expected, PRD interlocutors were also critical.   The 
initiative offers them a useful political axe to grind. 
 
¶13.  (SBU)  The attorney general then expressed his gratitude 
to A/S Shannon and Ambassador Garza for their help in putting 
the Merida Initiative together and offered his hope that the 
U.S. Congress would approve the initiative soon.  Ambassador 
Negroponte replied that the U.S. will make a serious effort 
in congress to win support for he proposal.  He expected no 
serious resistance, but noted that Congress would not likely 
act until February or March of next year. 
 
¶14.  (SBU)  Medina Mora opined that, in his seven years of 
government service, the current USG-GOM law enforcement 
relationship was now at its best.   It was producing results 
he said:  DEA statistics showed that cocaine prices are up as 
well and purity is down ) testimony to better enforcement on 
both sides of the border.   An outstanding recent success was 
scored in the Zhenli arrest, and the confiscation of more 
than 207 million USD in cash.  The PGR had strong evidence 
against Zhenli and was working with DOJ, providing witnesses 
and evidence.  The GOM was preparing a formal request for his 
extradition. He said that the statue of limitations would 
endure for decades on the charges Zhenli faces in Mexico. 
 
¶15.  (SBU)  The Attorney General also outlined recent GOM/PGR 
initiatives and successes, such as the new ban on imports of 
methamphetamine precursor chemicals, and a recent 
record-setting cocaine seizure of 11.5 metric tons in one 
container.  (Embassy note: this amount was to be surpassed 
latter the same day by the seizure of 23.5 metric tons, a 
world record.)  He noted PGR has also had scored success in 
mapping out how drugs enter Mexico (determining that most 
comes via containers but that a new wave has begun entering 
via private airplanes filing otherwise legal flight plans). 
Proper review of both traditional and non-traditional 
conveyances is critical to staunching the flow of drugs, he 
said.  Mexico plans on dedicating much more attention to 
screening containers -- acquiring the technology to do this 
is an important component in the Merida Initiative. 
 
¶16.  (SBU)  Medina Mora ended the discussion by raising a few 
points of concern.  He noted that trafficking in marijuana 
was a critical secondary cash source for cartels and 
expressed concern with lax U.S. enforcement and prosecution 
of cross-border marijuana trafficking cases.  He urged the 
U.S. be more aggressive with regard to pursuing marijuana 
traffickers and noted the difficulty of prosecuting Mexican 
nationals deported for trafficking offenses since current 
U.S. practice is to hold seized contraband in the U.S. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Visit Mexico City's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/mexicocity and the North American 
Partnership Blog at http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/nap / 
GARZA