Book Review: Martin Corona, Confessions of a Cartel Killer Part 2

Confessions of a Cartel Killer: Part 2

Steve Duncan, a California Justice Department special agent, was the first handler of Martin Corona, and wrote the foreword in Corona’s book, Confessions of a Cartel Hitman. Below are three excerpts from that foreword, followed by questions proposed to Duncan, by “J” and Chivis and his answers. Gratitude to Steve for giving his time, assuring we received the information we asked for.

Excerpts from Duncan’s foreword:

First excerpt;

We got a multiple murderer; a brutal hit man who participated in many killings and murdered at least eight people himself. He often left victims near death. He destroyed families in the United States and Mexico. We got him. Martin Corona, an accomplished hit man for the extremely violent Tijuana Cartel, also known as the Arellano Felix Organization. He signed a plea agreement created by the prosecutor and me. Corona then stood before a federal judge and pled guilty to cocaine distribution.  He was sentenced to roughly twenty-five years.

Wait!  He pled guilty to cocaine distribution when he was a multiple murderer and you’re good with that? Hold on now, there’s more.     

Corona was thirty-seven years of age.  In the federal system, you do 85% of your sentence.  In this case, 20.6 years.  Corona would be released when he was fifty-eight years old.  He was sentenced in October 2001, he would not be released until 2022.

During intensive debriefings with Corona in 2001, he confided to our team that he had Hepatitis C, a virus that is chronic and can lead to an early death. We feigned sympathy but after we locked Corona back into his cell, we smiled.  We truly believed he would die in prison.  “Divine intervention,” I thought.

It was September 1999 and my cell phone rang.  As I answered, Bill Ziegler, a parole agent, cut me off and said, “Get your ass down here right now!” He explained that Martin Corona was in a vulnerable situation and it might be the time to break him.   Ziegler’s office was in Oceanside, about forty-five minute drive from San Diego.  I put everything down, grabbed my partner, California Department of Justice special agent, Javier Salaiz and headed north.

Second excerpt;

The prosecutor and I constructed a plea agreement with minimal and vague information, charging Corona with 21 USC 841 (a) (1), distribution and submitted the plea to Corona and his attorney at the next interview.  After reviewing the document, Corona’s attorney saw how vague it was and wanted to know what we had on his client.  Our response was, “You came to us, we are not putting our cards on the table.”  I now believe that Corona wanted to cooperate no matter what evidence we had.  He was tired of the life and wanted to clear his conscience.  But my ego still likes to think we bluffed him.

Third excerpt;

“Over a period of sixteen months during Corona’s cartel hitman career, in three separate incidents, one family lost a son and a son-in-law and nearly lost two daughters, who were both shot in the head.  A nine year old girl witnessed her mother get shot in the head and her aunt three times, also in the head, by Corona, in San Diego.  A month later while visiting her father and grandfather in Tijuana, she witnessed Corona break into her father’s home, who then tied her up and her grandmother, and take her father upstairs and beat him to death with a sledgehammer.

In 2001, I contacted the two daughters,  [sisters] One victim was cooperative, but lost all recall of the incident, due to severe brain damage caused by three .45 caliber bullets to the head.  At the time of the shooting she just returned from Paris France, where she spent a year modeling for Mademoiselle Magazine.   Her sister, like most victims in this case, was reluctant to cooperate and had started a new life elsewhere and did not tell her new husband about her [previous] misfortune.  The little girl was sixteen years old and the mother refused to let me interview her.  She is thirty years old today but still gets upset when I attempt talking to her.

In 2015 I contacted her to let her know Corona was released from prison.  She asked me never to contact her again.

The majority of our victims in our experience refuse to confront their offenders, trying to forget their past.

In 1995, Corona and others entered a home in Tijuana, tied up the extended family, and groundskeepers and took a married couple upstairs and stabbed them dozens of times and left them dead in separate bedrooms.  In 2001, I found several of the family members who were present during the murders.  None would cooperate because they were afraid of cartel retaliation.  One brother did explain that the arrests were made and one of the groundskeepers was still in jail for the murders.  I explained that the subjects were identified and there was little chance of retaliation.  After months of trying to convince them to cooperate, they left my calls, and home and work visits unanswered.  The groundskeeper is probably still in jail for something he had nothing to do with.

***

J’s Question: Agent Duncan, I would like your insight in the way sicarios are now vs then, for example we hear corridos of the "commandos”, but in Tijuana, I don’t think they exist. It's primarily gunmen who are mostly addicts, or just killers. Obsolete is the training and special weapons courses, or covert groups. The shift into hiring addicts occurred in the mid 2000'sand mostly 2008, and how the dismantling of groups like Corona's crew ended with this.

Sicarios: Now versus Then

Answer: I will agree with Jay that the gunmen have become less sophisticated in Tijuana due to the dismantling of the Arellano-Felix Organization. When friction between the AFO and Chapo, Mayo, Guero and Amado came to a head on November 8,1992 with the ambush at Christine’s Disco in Puerta Vallarta, the AFO tasked David Barron-Corona with building up their security squads and recruited heavily from Southern California Street Gangs or Surenos. Barron himself was a Sureno from the Logan Heights Calle Treinta street gang and a prison gang member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang.

Barron was so well respected by these gangs due to his violent reputation and his contact with the AFO, he had all those gangsters on the California Streets and the prison system at his disposal. He used them for murders, smuggling, drug distribution, extortion, money laundering and collections in the US and Mexico. Ramon Arellano-Felix and Barron would hold rallies with their enforcement squads and promise a million dollars and a ranch to whomever killed “Chapo". 

These payments were made in front of the enforcers to encourage them to become more efficient and

click to enlarge

effective tactically and to wet their appetites for violence. The Arellano Brothers also had a loyal following from family and friends’ in Sinaloa and Tijuana. They too became part of the booming enforcer numbers patrolling the streets of Tijuana and Mexicali. Ramon Arellano, Barron, Fabian Martinez (“Tiburon”), Lino Quintana (forgot his real name) and Ismael Higuera-Guerrero (“Mael”) instilled fear within their ranks and ruled the plaza through narco-terrorism. They were self-centered monsters who got their jollies out of brutally killing people. Because their war with Chapo and Mayo exists to date, theAFO was organized to “police their plaza.” The organization was hierarchical and operated like a police force,  keeping the enemy out of Tijuana and Mexicali while dispatching hit teams to track and eliminate anyone associated with the enemy. It was this way from 1992 to the arrest of “Fernando Sanchez-Arellano in 2014.

The members of the organization were well-trained, well-equipped and well-paid. Then money and support became sparse. The AFO was only a shadow of its former self from 2008 to 2014 after the shootout between “Teo” loyalists and “Fernandito” on April 26, 2008 and the arrest of several top lieutenants in 2008 and 2009 to include Isaac Godoy-Sanchez(“Danny”), Saul Montes De Oca Morlett (“Siego”), Gustavo Rivera-Martinez(“Pancho”), Jose Manuel Lopez-Nunez (“Balas”), Manuel Ivanovich Zambrano-Flores (“Jimmy”), Ignacio Zazueta Rodriguez (“Pete”) and Adolfo Perez-Zambrana (“Sammy”). Jorge Briseno-Lopez (“Cholo”) was murdered sometime around August 2008.

From 2008 to present the AFO lost their leadership and resources. Although “Jimmy” and “Sammy” have been released, they continue their drug distribution and violence, but in a much more low-key fashion and under the umbrella of the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco.

Tijuana today is very different from a decade ago. Drugs still flow through the plaza, but much of it stops there for the population which now has a strong appetite for drugs like their neighbor in America.

Chivis’ questions

Question: Do you have an opinion of the recent prosecutions that have resulted in sweet deals? Myself, I see too many narco bigs, the worse of the worse, mass murderers, (technically, serial killers), being handled too soft, in prosecutorial treatment. I think of the time, funding and lives lost in the investigation process, and it sometimes appears to be a slap in the face of investigators. [and taxpayers] So much so my readers say even Chapo will cut a nice deal.

(Note: I did not read the email below,  but agree with Steve completely. However, although there are great federal prosecutors, of course, but in the narrow scope of drug trafficking crimes, I am not sure that anything has changed since Steve wrote his email below….)

Answer: “Chivis” you must have read my e-mail to the law enforcement community after the plea of Benjamin Arellano. The investigators were repeatedly frustrated by prosecutors not “swinging the bat” on prosecuting many AFO members. There were many great prosecutors in the Southern District and today’s leadership at the US Attorney’s Office is probably so much better than the last decade. 

Here is my email:

“Thank you for all the messages regarding last week's plea acceptance. However, I'm sure all of those who suffered through this case, are not happy with the plea and we were not apprised of this unilateral decision by our US Attorney.

Benjamin Arellano-Felix was the head of the Tijuana Cartel and the most culpable  for their reign of terror. After the acceptance of a 25-Year Plea last week, Benjamin Arellano-Felix, the head of one of the most violent drug cartels ever and responsible for thousands of deaths will someday walk out of prison. 

Among the many AFO members before him who were apprehended, extradited  and prosecuted, he received the least amount of time. 

Why? The US Attorney’s Office wants the case to go away. Too many witnesses, evidence, heartache and ultimately their prosecutors on the case are afraid of trials. The US Attorney gutted the task force focusing on the AFO and replaced the experts with agents much less committed to the case. Our new US Attorney, Laura Duffy, for which I had asked several professional agencies to recommend, for the US Attorney position to Barbara Boxer, took a dump on many of us who, we thought, were friends and loyal teammates. 

She made decisions affecting our careers, without having the human decency to advise us first. Because I strongly believed in her, I feel very betrayed. I feel even worse for the many victims,witnesses and law enforcement officers who have been so adversely affected by these monsters. 

What we can do as a law enforcement community is to express, in the most appropriate ways, our distaste for the way this plea was handled by the US Attorney's Office and anyone who approved of this decision. Ultimately this unilateral decision made by Duffy will make our jobs more dangerous and sends a message to all victims that their lives and safety are not worth much. 

Thanks, but please, no more congratulatory messages.”

Question:  I wrote an intro for J’s review. In it I highlighted two hits, the sisters, and the cardinal. I wrote that martin shot the cardinal under direction of Barron. But now I am not so sure because Martin was in custody at the time. Can you clarify?

Also which city were the sisters shot, where were they living? Was it Imperial Beach or Chula Vista?

Answer: The sisters were from San Ysidro. They ran a money exchange on San Ysidro Boulevard. They were both attractive. The recipient (Victim #2) of 3 .45 rounds to the head was striking and still is despite her injuries.

The sisters lived in Chula Vista and took their receipts from the money exchange to licensing at the San Diego Police Department. The sisters were targeted because their brother (Victim #1) was murdered in 1994 at the request of Ramon Arellano. In 1994, Ramon ordered Barron to kill Victim #1. Victim #1 and Ramon was dating women from the same family. After the murder of the cardinal, Ramon went into hiding and could not go to the bars anymore. Victim #1 took both sisters to the clubs and Ramon got upset and ordered his murder. When Victim #1 did not show up for work, the sisters went to his home in Playas and found their dead brother stabbed dozens of times and bashed in the head with a VHS Recorder.

When police arrived they explained that Ramon was behind it. The police told Ramon.

Ramon instructed Barron to have the sisters killed. Barron instructed Corona and his brother-in-law, Marcos Quinones-Sanchez (“Pato”), to assemble a crew and to kill the sisters like their brother.

Bat Marquez

Shortly before Christmas 1994, they attempted to kill the sisters; however, two of the enforcers were stopped and arrested by police a block short of the money exchange where Victim #2 and Victim #3 were working.

Two of the assassins, Jose Albert “Bat” Marquez and Steven “Nemo” Ochoa [ below right] were arrested driving a stolen vehicle with the above evidence. 

Marquez is currently serving a life term in federal prison and was extradited in 2007 on a federal indictment charging he and Gustavo Rivera-Martinez with cocaine and marijuana distribution. Ochoa’s burning, headless corpse was found years later in a Chula Vista alley.

In January 1995, the two sisters were shot as they were driving northbound

on Cypress from their money exchange.  Corona took two other enforcers, Augustin Salgado and David Castanon-Velarde, to kill the sisters. 

They blocked the alley with a Chevy Truck purchased days before by Corona, Slagado and 2 of Barron’s sisters. 

Shortly after the shooting, Castanon and Salgado were arrested in Tijuana, but gave false names. They were lying in wait to kill a police official.

Corona was directing the murder attempt, on the instructions of Barron.

Corona and the Cardinal

I asked Steve to clear up which is true, did Corona shoot and kill Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo.  As the story goes, on the orders of Barron, Corona traveled to Guadalajara airport, where El Chapo was and shot at the capo, but missed, hitting the cardinal instead.  He is widely attributed to have pull the trigger, even today while some media outlets are reviewing this book.

Answer: Corona was in US custody before the murder of the Cardinal.

If you missed J's review use this hyperlink to access the post