The Denver Post

December 22, 2002 Sunday 1ST EDITION

River of death, deceit Story of government corruption,
drugs always makes interesting mix

BYLINE: Miles Moffeit , Denver Post Staff Writer

SECTION: BKS; Pg. EE-01

LENGTH: 1016 words



There's a dusty, invisible world thriving along the U.S.-Mexican border, and it's mostly
about drugs, government corruption and killing.
Sometimes the bodies are found tortured beyond recognition, wrapped in tapestries
bearing images of tigers. Sometimes they are riddled with bullets, and they are friends or
relatives of important people in the U.S. and Mexican governments. Sometimes they are
never found, buried somewhere along the killing fields between Juarez, Mexico, and El
Paso, Texas.


In 'Down By the River,' former police reporter Charles Bowden investigates the killing of
one of the recognizable bodies - the brother of a U.S. drug agent. In the process, he opens
door after secret door into modern-day outlaw Mexico, where the drug lords and the
government embrace one another, where the drug cartels have infiltrated or exert
profound influence over city governments, police, customs, even small towns in Texas,
where so much fear of death rules that culling the truth seems almost impossible.
'Without death, the business simply cannot function,' Bowden writes of the drug cartels
operating with the corporate sophistication of a General Motors. 'And in a business rife
with problems of industrial espionage - the constant danger of snitches - murder and
torture are inescapable business expenses.'
Bowden's brilliance is that, with nearly every chapter, you can't help but fixate on
strange, revealing details that you may have never heard but believed you should have
known or seen in newspapers. Like this one: 'The (Amado) Carrillo's organization has,
according to numbers compiled by Drug Enforcement Agency, killed six hundred people in
Juarez in the last twenty-four months.'
The aftertaste often is bewilderment, outrage, sadness. What has become of this country
across the border? How could our country allow this form of terrorism to happen?
It starts in a Kmart parking lot. Bruno Jordan was a clean, likable suit salesman in El Paso,
hoping to attend law school, when he's gunned down one night by what authorities soon
believe is a basic carjacking turned fatal. But, to surviving brother Phil Jordan, a longtime
DEA agent in Texas, it just doesn't make sense. To him, it could be much more: a warning
from drug lords to back off.
Jordan, working off only shreds of information, decides he must try to find out who ordered
his brother's death. He knows his investigation largely will be an act of vengeance.
But as we have discovered in other Bowden writings, simple acts of violence are never
simple. In his essay 'Torch Song,' which has achieved almost cult status, he plumbs
emotional depths many reporters are afraid to talk about. And 'Down By the River,' too, is
a parable for much larger issues about truth, justice, greed and conspiracy and how they
relate to the 'unofficial economy of the drug business' overseen by U.S. and Mexico -
situations our politicians are afraid to talk about.
Besides the unbelievable details Bowden uncovers surrounding Jordan's death, he reveals
these sobering facts: In Juarez, the Mexican town that sits across the border from El Paso,
at least 2,800 people have been murdered or raped or kidnapped or simply vanished since
1993. Within this zone of death reside many of the drug lords whose business brings
Mexico more money than oil and tourism combined.
Sometimes the drug lords' castles are within sight of DEA headquarters. Sometimes their
pets get loose. One lord, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, possibly the world's richest and most
powerful cartel leader before he apparently died in a botched plastic-surgery operation
several years ago, lived in a mansion near the border town of Juarez. He owned a
menagerie with tigers. One summer day in 1995, a tiger escaped and roamed the streets
of Juarez before it was captured.
Before long, bodies turn up, bound in duct tape and wrapped in cloths with tiger emblems.
Carrillo not only operated like a CEO in forging business alliances with other cartels across
Latin America, but he also has his own taunting style.
Carrillo's alleged connections with Carlos Salinas, Mexico's disgraced ex-president, are
explored by Bowden, as are his ties to police and banks. Around every corner, it
seems, Bowden leads us into a not-so-underground drug culture, exposing the deep
influence of Carrillo and other drug lords.
This is a place where truth is twisted beyond recognition, where bribes keep police and
politicians quiet. And this is a place where even the past president of Mexico appears
increasingly beholden to the cartels and, possibly, capable of murder. And somewhere,
within this enigma of a country, are answers to a suit salesmen's murder.
'Down By the River' coaxes plenty of outrage. Should we, for instance, be mad at
ourselves for stupidly accepting Mexico as a stable democracy while championing trade
deals that benefit the narcotics traffic? Or should we be mad at Mexico for its machine
of deception? As Bowden points out, much of the connections between the cartels and
Mexican government have been known for years, tucked into DEA files.
Bowden's writing, in the tradition of the best New Journalism, often crackles with poetic
brilliance. But the careening sweep of his prose can be, at times, abrupt. It's the literary
equivalent of the handheld camera - he introduces hundreds of characters and cuts into
hundreds of scenes, often with no transition.
In the end, though, the read pays off. 'Down By the River' should be tossed through the
window of every government official in Washington.
"There will be music and laughter, salsa will flavor the gunfire," Bowden writes in the
foreword. "Some will say none of this ever happened. But the ground is quaking and in the
hard cantinas the songs are spewing forth. Come, the dead are crawling out of their
holes."


TICKER: GM (NYSE) (55%);

INDUSTRY: NAICS336112 LIGHT TRUCK & UTILITY VEHICLE
MANUFACTURING (55%); NAICS336111 AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURING (55%);

COUNTRY: MEXICO (95%); UNITED STATES (94%);

STATE: TEXAS, USA (93%);

CITY: EL PASO, TX, USA (92%);

COMPANY: GENERAL MOTORS CO (55%);

SUBJECT: books CORRUPTION (90%); CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES
CRIME (90%); POLITICAL CORRUPTION (90%); TORTURE (90%); SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE
FORCES (89%); NARCOTICS
ENFORCEMENT (89%); INVESTIGATIONS (89%); SHOOTINGS (78%); CONSPIRACY (78%);
REGIONAL & LOCAL GOVERNMENTS (78%); LAW ENFORCEMENT (75%); INDUSTRIAL
ESPIONAGE (74%); TERRORISM (73%); UNOFFICIAL
ECONOMY (73%); CARTELS (73%); ESPIONAGE (69%); CITIES (68%); DEATH &
DYING (68%); CITY GOVERNMENT (68%); CARJACKING (60%); MURDER (58%); PARKING
SPACES & FACILITIES (50%);

LOAD-DATE: December 23, 2002

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Denver Post photo illustration

TYPE: REVIEW