WASHINGTON — As a high-ranking U.S. anti-drug official, Richard Padilla Cramer held front-line posts in the war on Mexico's murderous cartels. He led an office of two dozen agents in Arizona and was the attache for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Guadalajara.
While in Mexico, however, Cramer also served as a secret ally of drug lords, according to federal investigators.
Cramer allegedly advised traffickers on law enforcement tactics and pulled secret files to help them identify turncoats. He charged $2,000 for a Drug Enforcement Administration document that was sent to a suspect in Miami by e-mail in August, authorities said.
"Cramer was responsible for advising the [drug traffickers] how U.S. law enforcement works with warrants and record checks as well as how DEA conducts investigations to include 'flipping subjects,' " or recruiting informants, a criminal complaint says.
DEA agents arrested him at his Arizona home Sept. 4. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in Miami said Wednesday that she could not comment but said that cases begun with complaints usually go before grand juries. A decision on an indictment in Miami is expected soon, according to a federal official who requested anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.
Cramer's duties as the ICE attache in Guadalajara included serving as a liaison with Mexican police. But the investigation revealed that he worked for "a very high-level drug lord," the federal official said. In a dark twist on the trend of former federal officials going into private consulting, the 26-year government veteran became a full-time advisor to traffickers after retiring from ICE in January 2007, the complaint says.
A trafficker "convinced Cramer to retire . . . and begin working directly for [him] in drug trafficking and money laundering," the complaint said. Cramer continued to sell secret documents that he obtained from active U.S. agents, an aspect of the case still under investigation, the official said.
The charges underscore the corruptive might of the cartels, which have bought off Mexican politicians, police chiefs and military commandos. Drug lords have corrupted U.S. border inspectors and agents to help smuggle cocaine north. In 2006, the FBI chief in El Paso was convicted of charges related to concealing his friendship with an alleged kingpin.
