The author is particularly indebted to one of the twenty-two indictees in the Aguirre case, erroneously charged and later exonerated during the height of the fast-moving events described in this volume. Copious documentation from the initial investigatory stage, the trial phase, and the aftermath was made available to the author, and, although not all of it was utilized, an effort to remain faithful to intent and content, whenever feasible, was forthcoming.

October Raids is comprised of anecdotal episodes, judiciously juxtaposed, many of which actually occurred as portrayed, others of which are somewhat dramatized to retain the authentic flavor of events characterizing the Aguirre Operation.(1)

In the manner of Dreiser, perhaps, and Steinbeck, although obviously the author cannot even remotely claim to reflect the stylistic achievements of these two accomplished artists, what may pass for "reportorial realism" within a postmodern framework has been, at very least, attempted.

During an intensive and eclectic period of literary training in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Colorado, California, New England, Algeria, Zaire and Congo-Brazzaville, the writer, born in Massachusetts, has developed something of an internationalist, academic overlay in tone and syntactical orientation. For this, if it may be misconstrued as pomposity, he apologizes profusely.

Indeed, this modest volume should appeal largely to those serious readers of slightly "exotic", yet thoroughly riveting prose centered on a compelling social issue. The injustices portrayed in October Raids expose contemporary, archetypal American phenomena which must be redressed if even a modicum of egalitarian decency, reflective of the Founding Principles of this Nation, is to be salvaged.

Nonetheless, it is indispensable to recognize that, although this text occasionally rises to rhetorical summits, points "colorfully phrased" are not to be construed as an attack on American values as a whole, or on the American system which, for all of its flaws and injustices, is still one of the more reasonable approaches to "public administration" devised by the Western mind.

The author remains grateful to all of his sources, the majority of whom must cloak themselves in anonymity, especially those in the Juarez / Las Cruces Corridor, and sincerely anticipates that the reader, once having fastened his seat-belt, may truly enjoy a singular experience within the very heart of the Borderland's sub-rosa narco-world of intrigue, graft and collusion, thrusting directly into the underbelly of the Southwest's power structure.

New Mexico has been swept up in a dramatic series of events throughout the last three years. Implications within judicial, financial and bureaucratic circles have been enormous. Involved is a particularly irrepressible form of human behavior: corruption. It would seem perfectly normal from a psychological perspective to anticipate that, if known criminals are susceptible to corrupt practices -- embezzlement, laundering, larceny and influence-peddling -- then, all things being equal, from a behavioral point of view, so too might a percentage of honest, above-board and otherwise perfectly decent professionals be tempted to dip into the trough of illicit funds widely available in the Land of Enchantment. And, indeed, why not? Tens of millions of dollars are flowing Northward in proceeds from questionable transactions. Temptation abounds and, as we all know, jobs, opportunity and profitable activity, all legitimate, are limited in these times of hardship. At least three other states are vying for a Spaceport, along with New Mexico. Major project activity, in terms of construction, infrastructural improvements or new industrial facilities, is unlikely to materialize on a large scale in New Mexico this decade. Dubious sources of funding, unquestioned by most astute businessmen, are, on the contrary, readily available.

This was the case as early as October 1988 when, four years prior to a series of arrests, a number of businessmen, store owners and entrepreneurs in Deming and Las Cruces elected to "turn a blind eye" to the source of funds which fed their families, paid their mortgages and sustained their professional and recreational activities. This scenario is occurring, of course, across the United States where the Anglo-Saxon work ethic and Judeo-Christian code of conduct have long since been considered by sociologists as belonging to the "First Ice Age" of societal values. Perhaps, therefore, we cannot really blame these men of Southern New Mexico where conditions of life are harsher than elsewhere. Children must be fed, schools financed and municipal officials paid.

The man at the center of this controversy, Gabriel "Coku" Aguirre, arrested in the Fall of 1992, along with a coterie of close associates, was a well-intentioned individual providing a "service for society" -- a service considered eminently legal in most of the world's nations -- and distributing profits to support business activity which could not have been sustained under the hard and fast rules of American capitalistic enterprise, controlled by the SEC, IRS, Ways and Means Committee, Statute after Statute, Ordinance after Ordinance. Indeed, Mr. Aguirre dealing in a commodity, marijuana, far less injurious than the principal substances imported through Medillin, Cartagena, and Cali, was able to amass several million dollars in proceeds, 1.7 million of which was actually buried, intact, in a local backyard!(2) His success was doubtless the source of considerable attention...and envy.

It is disturbing to state, from an exclusively juridical point of view, that Mr. Aguirre and associates were, although on the margins of legitimacy by U.S. standards,(3) and perfectly legal by other standards, (4) actually deemed "criminals" by overly zealous Government Agents, a manifestly unfair characterization. Drawn into this "criminal network", however, were others...who, realizing that the War on Drugs was being lost, decided to profit at the potential expense of the lives of their professional associates, all D.E.A. or Law Enforcement personnel!

One Agent of the D.E.A., as readers of New Mexico's major newspapers are aware, a Mr. John Garza, was known to have leaked information concerning the October raid to intermediaries within the distribution network. Mr. Daniel Maynes, then employed at the Blue Moon Bar & Grill in Radium Springs, was of pivotal importance in determining the nature, magnitude and extent of the complex series of indictments, arrests and trials which have intrigued -- and concerned -- the people of New Mexico for some three years. The stakes were high, and the corruption among high-placed officials endemic.

This is the story, behind the scenes, of what actually transpired, the deals cut, the white-washing, the dynamics of protection, of power, of greed. The price New Mexicans, and all Americans, are being asked to shoulder, because of police corruption, judicial malfeasance and abuse of power, is not only exorbitant, but intolerable.

The use of drugs to alter feelings is certainly not new. Opiates, and less potent substances, have been in use throughout the Orient for roughly -- psychologists and sociologists acknowledge -- 5000 years. The American Indian and, in contemporary times the modern adolescent have extensive histories of drug utilization. Additionally, psychotropic or neuroleptic substances are consumed in religious ceremonies, along with alcohol in the form of wine. It is widely accepted that the use of relatively innocuous marijuana, the substance involved in the generation of millions of dollars in revenue by Mr. Aguirre throughout Southern New Mexico during a 3 or 4 year period, is reported to be as high as 30 or 40% in junior high school and 80% or more at the college level. When compared with alcohol, nicotine and caffeine, the dangers of marijuana, in most surveys given to high school students, are considered "high" by only 13% of the students.(5)

Surely, in light of radical changes in American societal standards, both among the nation's youthful and adult population, the on-going persecution, and prosecution, of traffickers must be eliminated. While laws remain on the books forbidding the cultivation of cannabis, money -- unfairly considered "illicit" -- will continue to be generated on a sub-rosa basis. Perhaps under these circumstances, it is financially to everyone's advantage that the sale of marijuana remains illegal! The judicial apparatus profits, the population is served, and distributors profit in the short and medium term, even if they are subject to investigation and possible incarceration. But there is a flip-side to this coin as well.

Our existing laws -- unevenly enforced -- could destroy the lives and careers of countless hundreds of thousands of professionals, young and upwardly mobile. If evenly enforced -- an impossibility -- prisons would be bursting at the seams, and society would grind to a halt as virtually 80% of college graduates were removed from professional duties around the nation. Police and law enforcement authorities at all levels would be paralyzed by the investigation of petty offenses, and major hard-core criminals would go undetected, to the public's detriment. This unhappy scenario, described here in hypothetical terms, is actually materializing, in part, as our manuscript goes to press.

In essence, the dynamics of these laws could affect the welfare of an entire generation, threatening (whichever path is chosen...legalization or illegalization) the continuity of American society as we have known it during the Post-war Era.

In modern times, most users of marijuana live at home and consume cannabis more frequently, and more regularly, than so-called "curious, one-time" experimenters. The market in New Mexico, throughout the Southwest and across much of the U.S. and Canada, is vast and cuts clearly across class lines.

Furthermore, the role of television and the mass media is crucial in the promotion of the drug-oriented, jet-setting, fashionable lifestyle sought by the country's youthful generation. How can a great country create, sustain and promote a double standard? By overtly publicizing the merits and advantages of conforming to group behavior, on the one hand, and passing legislation against the very activity being publicized, on the other, young people are being sent a destabilizing message.

On a more damaging plane, families are being torn apart by conflicting values as well. Bonds of trust are weakened by confusion and uncertainty. Indeed, it is very important to develop a society where standing legislation reflects honestly the values being practiced.

If all of this were true, if marijuana were accepted, perhaps through benign neglect of the law on the part of enforcement authorities, the Aguirre trial might not have occurred. Months, in fact years, of litigation would have been avoided and millions of dollars -- taken out of the hands of businessmen who were recycling the proceeds into the community -- might still be in the private sector, stimulating job growth and building lives. As it is, this cash is either stashed in Chihuahuan towns, in clandestine refrigerated warehouses, preventing actual rotting of tens of millions of dollars in twenties, fifties and hundreds, or in government coffers awaiting reallocation for expansion of the bureaucracy.

It is crucial to appreciate that, given the history of marijuana usage, its widespread popularity, its medical advantages and relative availability, this particular commodity is not the one which should have been targeted in the October 1992 indictment.

A wide variety of irregularities are to be noted in the preparation of charges, in the targeting of certain individuals, and not others, and in the intensity and brutality with which government officials ultimately enforced essentially unenforceable legislation. These irregularities must be recorded in this document in a detailed fashion, countering the illogical, biased and fractional approach adopted by Federal Agents.

Of particular note, of course, will be the underlying motivations, jealousies and prejudices of those officials who selected, pin-pointed and investigated defendants for this case.

Scattered clouds punctuated the horizon over Columbus on the evening of December 23, 1991, as the last glimmers of light reflected off scrub brush, mesquite and yucca, producing an ethereal effect of subdued pinks, yellows and pastel grays. Jack-rabbits posed almost classically against a backdrop of desert hillocks and arroyos. This was the land once invaded by Pancho Villa at the turn of the century, an untamed and still wild stretch of territory claimed, for traditional and historical reasons, by both the United States and Mexico. If Mexico has officially abandoned claim to her remote Northern territory, tucked into the "Gadsden Purchase", it is only for political reasons. In fact, the residents of the Borderlands are vehement. This is still Mexican soil, the land of ancestral toil, the land of forefathers revered and honored. And this territory is, in fact, treated by Mexican-Americans as legitimately theirs. Campesinos, Indios, Chicanos, Trafficantes, Braceros, Comerciantes and Patrones,(6) crossing all class lines, have an established stake in the rugged hills and badlands of the Northern Chihuahuan Desert, a land of mystery, intrigue and danger as late as 1995.

Across an uninterrupted panorama of outcroppings, dwarf pines, and flowering desert specimens of uncommon beauty and brilliance, an occasional gliding red-tailed hawk can be seen to swoop majestically, protective of its nesting grounds and vital space. Competition among predators for the elusive rodents and reptilian lifeforms of this arid landscape is fierce.

The flora and fauna of the Borderlands feature species and varieties as exotic as any far-off land; but the laws of nature prevail here, too. The aggressive species dominate and survive, while the less-able perish under harsh and unyielding conditions. Those who have spent their childhood in Southern New Mexico are aware of the massive clash between cultures, of the innate hostility and enmity which rose within the hearts of native Mexicans as their lands were conquered, bartered and squandered by White settlers whose values were so different, whose codes of conduct and social structure callously mirrored those of foreign lands, alien to the customs of the Southwest. This cultural distance was magnified as Wars were fought, as Mexicans and Americans alike died to establish borders and a national identity. Most of the treaties signed were disproportionately favorable to the United States, the conqueror, whose technology and sheer manpower brought the Mexican Armed Forces ultimately to their knees, after bitter and prolonged fighting. Even today, many Mexicans refuse to recognize and accept these Wars, Treaties and Pacts. Their Resistance takes the form of socio-economic warfare, surreptiously waged and intelligently disguised. The "warriors" of today are no less than narco-trafficantes, waging battle on the economic front for personal gain, but also for politico-historical reasons.

The small band of men, whose caravan of late-model, all-terrain Izuzus and Land Rovers negotiated the shifting sands of this seldom travelled dirt track east of Columbus, sheltered from sight by a line of intervening vegetation and craggy bluffs, was comprised of just such "warriors", equipped to deal with any contingency in the desolate badlands of the U.S.-Mexican Border.

The sun's rays were dipping impressively below the horizon as these seasoned smugglers adjusted their night-vision goggles and activated state-of-the-art, infra-red sensing devices, warning them, at distances of up to 2000 feet, of obstacles in the road or of the presence of intruding vehicles. The most advanced technology was at their disposal and, money being readily available, the most experienced of men were "on board", two of them former U.S. Marines trained in the use of night-detection devices, navigational technology, explosives and light weaponry.

Although U.S. Border Patrol Agents were within two miles of this clandestine smuggling route, newly forged by the Chihuahuan-based group after careful reflection and analysis of all crucial topographic factors, they were naively misled by planted misinformation from a normally "reliable" source and, as darkness settled over the valley, most of their vehicles, pale green Blazers, often plagued with mechanical flaws and shoddy maintenance work, were cruising lazily along the perimeter of a washed-out gully. The smuggler's caravan was, therefore, well beyond range of Border Patrol detection equipment. In times of increased activity along the Border, Agents sometimes used their Bell Jet Ranger helicopter, well equipped to detect movement in off-limits areas. Tonight, as the narco-trafficantes knew very well, the Ranger was circling over a blockade, widely publicized, in not too distant El Paso, striking fear, with its high-powered, carbon-arc beam, into the dozens of "mojados" who might be otherwise tempted to jump the border.