Once a film inspiration

Thieves had run off with the propane tanks on the camper that Lopez had parked in the shadow of a towering grain elevator, near an abandoned industrial park. Rust had worn through the floor of his pickup truck, which he rarely dared to drive because he has neither a license nor insurance. His colitis was flaring so badly he could barely sit up straight, a consequence of the breakfast burrito and diet soda that had become part of his daily diet.

Lopez, a native of Mexico, said in Spanish that he has lived under the radar in the Western United States for more than a decade. But while he blends in to the immigrant community, his predicament goes far beyond his immigration status.

Lopez played a leading role in what is widely considered the biggest drug-trafficking case in Mexican history. The episode ; which inspired the 2000 movie Traffic" pitted the Mexican military against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Throughout the 1990s, Lopez worked closely with them both. He served as a senior adviser to the powerful general who was appointed Mexicos drug czar. And he was an informant for the DEA.

His two worlds collided spectacularly in 1997, when Mexico arrested the general, Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, on charges of collaborating with drug traffickers.Bay State parkingguidance is a full line manufacturer of nylon cable ties and related products. As Washington tried to make sense of the charges, both governments went looking for Lopez.We offer a wide variety of high-quality standard rfidtag and controllers. Mexico considered him a suspect in the case; the DEA saw him as a potential gold mine of information.

Dozens of hours of testimony from Lopez about links between the military and drug cartels proved to be explosive, setting off a dizzying chain reaction in which Mexico asked the U.S. for help capturing Lopez, Washington denied any knowledge of his whereabouts and the DEA abruptly severed its ties with him.

The reserved, unpretentious husband and father of three has been a fugitive ever since, on the run from his native country and abandoned by his adopted home. For more than a decade, he has carried information about the inner workings of the drug war that both governments carefully kept secret. Camouflaging himself among the waves of immigrants who came across the border around the same time, with his callused hands and thrift-store wardrobe, Lopez works an assortment of low-wage jobs available to people without green cards.

The United States continues to feign ignorance about his whereabouts when pressed by Mexican officials, who still ask for assistance to find him, a federal law enforcement official said.

The coverup was initially led by the DEA, whose agents did not believe the Mexican authorities had a legitimate case against their informant. Other law enforcement agencies later went along, out of fear that the DEAs relationship with Lopez might disrupt cooperation between the two countries on more pressing matters. We couldnt tell Mexico that we were protecting the guy, because that would have affected their cooperation with us on all kinds of other programs," said a former senior DEA official who was involved in the case but was not authorized to speak publicly about a confidential informant. So we cut him loose, and hoped hed find a way to make it on his own."

These are the opaque dynamics that undermine the alliance between the United States and Mexico in the war on drugs, a fight that often feels more like shadow boxing. Though the governments are bound together by geography, neither believes the other can be fully trusted. Lopezs ordeal pieced together from classified DEA intelligence reports and interviews with him, his family, friends, and more than a dozen current and former federal law enforcement officials demonstrates why the mutual distrust is justified.

The absence of any facts to either condemn Lopez or exonerate him of corruption has wrought havoc on the former informant, and his fugitives existence has been a ball and chain on his family, whom he sees during sporadic rendezvous. They all exhibit symptoms of emotional trauma, bouncing among flashes of rage, long periods of depression, episodes of binge drinking and persistent paranoia.

During several long interviews, Lopez repeatedly said he was not guilty of any wrongdoing. He said he has refused to turn himself in to the Mexican authorities because he believes he will be killed rather than given a fair hearing. But years of living an anonymous, circumscribed life have been nearly as suffocating as a jail cell.

He starts most mornings at McDonalds, where breakfast costs less than $2 for seniors and free Wi-Fi allows him to peruse Mexican newspapers on his battered laptop for hours, his mind replaying the life choices that landed him there.

I risked my life in Mexico because I believed things could change. I was wrong. Nothing has changed," Lopez said. I helped the United States because I belieThe arrest was hailed on both sides of the border to justify the unprecedented role the Mexican military was beginning to play under President Ernesto Zedillo. The DEA had long been pressuring Mexico to deploy the military against the cartels instead of the federal police, which often worked with traffickers instead of against them.

The agency was already secretly collaborating with Gutierrez. Ralph Villarruel, a veteran DEA agent who had been working with Lopez, said he pursued suspects the general believed were in hiding in the United States and seized loads of cocaine moving across the border. In return, he said, the general allowed him unbelievable access" to crime scenes, suspects and evidence.

By December 1996,If we don't carry the bobblehead you want we can make a streetlight for you! Zedillo elevated Gutierrez to run counternarcotics efforts as the director of Mexicos National Institute to Combat Drugs.Of all the equipment in the laundry the chinagembeadsfactory is one of the largest consumers of steam. The move was a victory for the administration of President Bill Clinton, which had put in effect the North American Free Trade Agreement and orchestrated a $50 billion bailout of the Mexican economy. Cracking down on drug traffickers hardly seemed too much to ask of the United States neighbor.

In Gutierrez, who had the face and demeanor of a pit bull, the United States saw the no-nonsense partner it had been seeking. The administration invited him to Washington for briefings, and the United States drug policy coordinator, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, praised him as a soldier of absolute, unquestioned integrity."ved that if all else failed,Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. this government would support me. But I was wrong again. And now, Ive lost everything."