![]() ![]() ![]() Today, Lalo insists he never killed anyone, though court documents show he admitted being present during several murders he even acknowledged driving two victims to a Juarez house where he knew they'd be killed. Bencomo says his supervisors told him just to make sure Lalo didn't participate in any more killings. I took the recording and I told my supervisor that I didn't wish to be part of the case."īut Bencomo stayed on, and so did Lalo. "I had to go to the restroom and throw up. Former agent Bencomo remembers listening to the tape. In fact, Lalo secretly recorded the first murder - and admitted that he held the victim's legs while the man was being brutally strangled, suffocated and beaten with a shovel. Mexican law enforcement officials load a corpse found at the Juarez drug cartel's House of Death into a truck in January 2004.Īccording to documents obtained by NPR, Lalo kept his ICE handlers informed of the murders piling up in Juarez. He was climbing the ranks of the drug cartel and was becoming a trusted ally to Juarez's third in command. "That was the first incident that I ever came across that he was working both sides," Bencomo says.ĭrug smuggling turned out to be the least of Lalo's exploits. In hindsight, Bencomo says, the pot in the pickup should have been a warning sign. ICE kept Lalo on its payroll, and even worked with a federal prosecutor to get his drug charges dropped. The Drug Enforcement Administration blacklisted him. At a Border Patrol checkpoint, Lalo got caught smuggling more than 100 pounds of marijuana stuffed into the wheels of his pickup. 3 man in the Juarez cartel.īut as that investigation started, ICE's prized snitch came under suspicion. Now, with Lalo on board, agents set their sights on a Juarez kingpin known as the Engineer: Heriberto Santillan Tabares.īencomo says the agents were told that Santillan was the No. The El Paso Customs office (Customs later became Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE) had never gotten much recognition. I took the recording and I told my supervisor that I didn't wish to be part of the case.įormer ICE Agent Raul Bencomo, recalling listening to a tape recording that Lalo made of a murder I had to go to the restroom and throw up. ![]()
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