Tijuana Crime Nears Crisis Proportions : Crime: Last week's execution-style murders of six suspected drug traffickers illustrate the wave of crime in the border city, brought on by drug rings, police corruption, rapid growth and immigration.

By SEBASTIAN ROTELLA

Feb. 16, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

TIJUANA — On a dangerous day in the life of a city that has become obsessed with crime, police last week found the bodies of six suspected drug traffickers dumped near rural highways.

The men had been beaten, tortured, garroted, shot execution-style--trademark work of drug “mafias” from the Mexican interior.

Baja’s visiting governor heard the news just after announcing progress in the investigation of the murder of a high-living state police officer, who was machine-gunned in his Corvette in front of his son. Suspects include policemen allegedly involved in the drug trade.

Meanwhile, a caller on a radio talk show railed about unsafe streets. Like many other longtime Tijuana residents (and many Southern Californians), he blamed the influx of migrants from all over Mexico.

“When I came to Tijuana, we didn’t lock our doors,” the man said. “When I came to Tijuana, we left money out on the front step for the milkman. We didn’t have to live behind bars in our houses, which is where we are living, instead of the criminals who should be behind bars.”

Tijuana crime has approached crisis proportions because of several factors, experts say. International drug rings increasingly use the Mexican border as a conduit to the United States. The police are bogged down by corruption, inadequate resources and poor training. Population growth is surging, and impoverished migrants drawn to the United States or Baja California’s comparative affluence often become crime victims or perpetrators upon arrival.

“More population brings more crime,” said Juan Jose Sanchez Gutierrez, an Army major who was recently appointed director of the Baja state judicial police in one of numerous command shake-ups.

A “wave of violence”--as the hard-charging local press dubbed it--has produced at least 27 homicides since Jan. 1. The pace for this city of at least 1.5 million far exceeds previous years, authorities say. In comparison, San Diego had registered 17 homicides as of Friday for a population of about 1.2 million.

As to the drug problem, Sanchez said: “Tijuana is the obligatory path to the drug market in the U.S. It’s not only a state problem, it’s a national and international problem. Unfortunately, Tijuana has become one of the most important cities in the world for the criminal underworld. It’s a shame, but it is also a reality.”

Already under public pressure, authorities took a series of extraordinary measures after the discovery of the six dead men--reputed members of a powerful drug cartel that also may be linked to the murdered police officer, Wenceslao Beristain Avila, and is based in the state of Sinaloa.

Twenty federal narcotics investigators were brought in from Mexico City to aid the investigation; there were promises of additional manpower and help from the federal government. Army soldiers were deployed at rural roadblocks to crack down on illegal gun possession. Federal, state and city police set up checkpoints and stopped suspicious people and vehicles.

And residents, who say their city had been a generally safe place to live despite a frontier-town image, kept waiting for results.

“Violence is almost natural in the border area,” said Victor Clark Alfaro, a human-rights activist and anthropologist. “In recent years, what we have seen are spectacular killings with gangster methods that we had not seen before. Unsolved cases have accumulated. . . . Criminals have gotten the message that there is a certain impunity.”

Eight of this year’s more than 27 homicides have been resolved, said Eduardo Rafael Diaz de Leon, state police commander in Tijuana.

Like Sanchez, Diaz de Leon is a youthful military man new to police work. He was assigned after the Beristain murder Jan. 9. Entrenched police corruption has been the target of reform efforts by Gov. Ernesto Ruffo Appel, who was elected in 1989 and has replaced top commanders with Army officers because of the military’s reputation for honesty and discipline.

“It is a difficult task,” Ruffo spokesman Gabriel Rosas Guzman said. “It has not advanced as fast as we would have liked.”

Crime could emerge as a potent issue in summer municipal and legislative elections against Ruffo’s National Action Party (PAN), which won the first opposition governorship in modern history from the nationally dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PAN’s image emphasizes law and order and governmental reform and effectiveness.

Candidates will have fodder in cases such as Beristain’s. The officer was said to flaunt expensive cars, flashy clothes and other luxuries that exceeded a yearly salary of about $6,000. Within days of his death, local newspapers reported what was not officially announced until last week: The murder was connected to drug trafficking that involved Beristain’s partner and other officers, who apparently turned on Beristain.

According to observers on both sides of the border, there are talented, dedicated investigators in the judicial police who could solve such cases. They have been stymied by lack of proper equipment and other resources, as well as other officers who appear to be on the take.

“Their investigations are blocked,” Clark said. “They are frustrated because they cannot do anything.”

Inadequate training and organization are fundamental problems, according to Tijuana Chamber of Commerce spokesman Miguel Ravelo.

“The police are not prepared to do their job,” he said. “We must professionalize the police.”

Although combat among drug cartels makes headlines, it does not have an overwhelming impact on the law-abiding, middle-class public--comparable to the effect of street gang shootings that are largely confined to Southern California ghettos, Ravelo said.

“It hurts in the touristic aspect,” he said. “Americans who follow the Mexican news think people are being killed in the streets every day. Tourists who don’t read the news come here very calmly and walk around the streets without problems.”

But Ravelo said fear is spreading to business people and neighborhood groups with the increase of crime in general--assaults, robberies, burglaries. The Chamber of Commerce has been holding public forums on the issue and encouraging the formation of neighborhood watches and other anti-crime initiatives, he said.

Tijuana’s huge migrant population undeniably contributes to crime, Clark said. This vulnerable, highly transient group foments social problems. Criminal groups rob migrants, engage in highly organized smuggling of illegal immigrants across the border, and control prostitution and petty theft that often involve migrant teen-agers.

It is nonetheless a mistake to place the blame wholly on immigration, Clark said. He thinks the root causes are Mexico’s economic crisis and ineffective law enforcement.

“It is not a coincidence that we see the violence escalating at a time of economic crisis in both countries,” he said. “That would be a phenomenon with many migrants or few migrants.”