NPR: Confidential Informant Involved in Murders While U.S. Paid Him
Managing a high-ranking confidential informant must be among the most difficult, and perhaps even agonizing, responsibilities for a law enforcement officer. On one hand, the closer the informant is to a criminal enterprise’s power center, the more information he can provide. On the other, the closer he is, the more connected he is to the enterprise’s crimes.
National Public Radio has begun a three-part series on U.S. Customs’ (now called Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE) use of Guillermo Eduardo Ramiez Peyro, a member of a Mexican drug cartel, as an informant. Peyro, who goes by the nickname Lalo, initiated contact with ICE to become an informant. And he delivered, providing valuable pieces of intelligence. But there were also indications that Lalo was present during crimes, including murders, and may have played a role. He admitted that in one instance he “held the victim’s legs while the man was being brutally strangled, suffocated and beaten with a shovel.”
Now, in the aftermath of this saga, which has included a lawsuit filed against the U.S. government by the families of some of Lalo’s cartel’s murder victims, questions have been raised about whether this is an isolated incident in which U.S. customs agents did not follow internal guidelines – essentially letting an informant run wild – or if the agents could not have been aware of all that was happening across the Mexican border, or if the agents did alert their superiors to some of Lalo’s criminal conduct, and did not receive appropriate guidance – or some mix of all of those.
In any event, the piece is thought-provoking and sheds some light on the gray areas that exist as law enforcement agencies use criminals to fight crime.