Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man Read online

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Martin Corona

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  DUTTON is a registered trademark and the D colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  has been applied for.

  Ebook ISBN 9781101984642

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

  Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the individuals involved.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Foreword

  PART ONE: SORROW

  1. The Letter

  2. Posole

  3. The Beach

  4. Gladiator School

  5. The Ones That Got Away

  6. Power Boosting

  7. Surenos Don’t Stoop

  8. A Chance in Hawaii

  9. Baby

  PART TWO: EDUCATION

  10. Big D’s Tickets

  11. Circus Circus

  12. Small Fish, Big Ocean

  13. The First Order of Business

  14. Mainline

  15. I Want to Kill Him

  16. The Hole

  17. Plastic Knives

  18. Real Great Dudes

  PART THREE: PROFESSION

  19. A Big Enterprise

  20. Bullet Hoses

  21. The Fat Guy

  22. Getting It Done Right

  23. Respect

  24. Wasn’t for Her

  25. Bad Karma

  26. Neglected Business

  27. “Are You Against Us?”

  28. Out of My Life

  About the Author

  Foreword

  Steve Duncan, Special Agent, California Department of Justice

  We got a multiple murderer, a brutal hit man who participated in many killings and murdered at least eight people himself. He had often left victims near death. He had destroyed families in the United States and Mexico. We got him. Martin Corona, an accomplished hit man for the extremely violent Tijuana Cartel, also known as the Arellano Félix Organization, signed a plea agreement created by the prosecutor and me. Corona then stood before a federal judge and pled guilty to cocaine distribution. He was sentenced to roughly twenty-five years.

  Wait! He pled to cocaine distribution when he was a multiple murderer and you’re good with this? Hold on now, there’s more.

  Corona was thirty-seven years of age. In the federal system, you do eighty-five percent of your sentence. In his case, 20.6 years. Corona would be released when he was fifty-eight years old. Corona was sentenced in October 2001 and would not be released until 2022.

  During intensive debriefings with Corona in 2001, he confided to our team that he had hepatitis C, a virus that is chronic and can lead to an early death. We feigned sympathy, but after we locked Corona back into his cell, we smiled. We truly believed he would die in prison. “Divine intervention,” I thought.

  Let me get to the facts.

  • • •

  It was September 1999 and my cell phone rang. As I answered, Bill Ziegler, a parole agent, cut me off and said, “Get your ass down here right now.” He explained that Martin Corona was in a vulnerable situation and it might be the time to break him. Ziegler’s office was in Oceanside, about a forty-five-minute drive from San Diego. I put down everything, grabbed my partner, California Department of Justice special agent Javier Salaiz, and we headed north.

  From 1992 to 1996, I was a member of the Violent Crimes Task Force—Gang Group comprised of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, San Diego Police Department, San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, US Marshals Service, San Diego County Probation Department, US Attorney’s Office, the District Attorney’s Office, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the California Department of Justice. I was deputized by the Drug Enforcement Administration to enforce the federal drug laws, or Title 21 of the United States Code. At the time, I was investigating members of the Logan Heights street gang and other Hispanic gangs working as assassins for the Tijuana Cartel.

  On May 24, 1993, at the Guadalajara International Airport in Jalisco, Mexico, Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo was shot and killed by enforcers for the Tijuana Cartel. It was a case of mistaken identity, as the enforcers believed that their drug rival, Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman Loera, was in the white Grand Marquis that the cardinal was being escorted in. About a dozen of the enforcers present were Logan Heights gang members. The Arellano Félix brothers, who headed the cartel, instantly became some of the world’s most wanted criminals, and Mexico wanted justice. Many of the enforcers were rounded up in the US and Mexico and sent to Mexican prisons to face charges related to the cardinal’s murder. In those days in Mexico, their system was described as Napoleonic and suspects were “guilty until proven innocent.”

  In 1995, the Arellano Félix Organization Task Force was created to target and dismantle the Tijuana Cartel. DEA agent Jack Robertson was the case agent of the Tijuana Cartel and he led the charge at the AFO Task Force. Jack had recruited me to assist in his investigation in 1993.

  The government of Mexico eventually dropped the charges on many of the gang members involved in the murder of the cardinal. So much for Napoleon. As the enforcers were released, many returned to San Diego and other parts of the US. An angry US Attorney, Alan Bersin, tasked one of his federal prosecutors to lead the prosecution against the enforcers in the Southern District of California. I was assigned as the case agent. We developed a federal Drug Kingpin case against David Barron, Corona, and ten enforcers and secretly indicted them in June 1997.

  Barron, a Logan Heights gang member and Mexican Mafia prison gang member, had become a top enforcer for the Tijuana Cartel after his heroics at Christine’s disco in Puerto Vallarta in November 1992. As an escort for the cartel’s top brass, he got them safely out of the disco as Chapo’s troops attempted to ambush and kill them. After the dust settled, Benjamin Arellano Félix, the cartel’s leader, personally assigned him to head the cartel’s enforcement arm, and Barron began to recruit his fellow gang members from San Diego. Barron was a “one percenter,” a term we use in law enforcement for the gang leaders. Barron, like other one percenters, was charismatic, aggressive, and ambitious.

  In November 1997, Barron was killed while he ambushed and shot a Tijuana newspaper editor. We unsealed the indictment and arrested several of the enforcers who were in the US. With the long sentences ea
ch was exposed to, we received their cooperation, and the prosecutor and agents were soon able to debrief several defendants who pled guilty for their parts in the murder of the cardinal. Every defendant mentioned Corona as a member of the “Death Squad,” a special group of cartel enforcers with tactical ability. They had all witnessed Corona being paid $15,000 to $25,000 for murders. Corona was put at the top of the list for the second round of indictments.

  So a year or so later, Javier and I went into an interview room, where I met Corona for the first time. I was direct. I told him that I was preparing to indict him and that I knew he was a high-level enforcer for the Tijuana Cartel. Corona did not mention any violence but did admit guarding stash houses for the cartel. We also spoke about family, fishing, and the beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains, for which we shared a fondness. After a couple hours of conversation, I told him he had a decision to make: “Cooperate with the government or go to jail for the rest of your life.” He responded that the statute of limitations was up for his drug activity and he no longer worked for the cartel. I told him there was no statute of limitations for murder.

  Months later, Corona’s attorney contacted me and said that Corona wanted to cooperate.

  As I entered the interview room at the US Attorney’s Office, a handcuffed and leg-chained Corona was seated across the table with his attorney. Corona began to talk about his recruitment and violence with the Tijuana Cartel. However, his attorney stopped him and said he wanted to know what the charges would be. The prosecutor called for a break, and we went into her office to discuss the evidence we had on Corona. I explained that I still had witnesses who spoke of several murders for which he was paid and that he could still be facing indictments based on the cardinal murder federal conspiracy case—but that was not a sure thing.

  The prosecutor and I constructed a plea agreement with minimal and vague information charging Corona with 21 USC 841(a) (1), Distribution of Cocaine, and submitted the plea to Corona and his attorney at the next interview. After reviewing the document, Corona’s attorney saw how vague it was and wanted to know what we had on his client. Our response was, “You came to us and we are not putting our cards on the table.” I now believe Corona wanted to cooperate no matter what evidence we had. He was tired of the life and wanted to clear his conscience. But my ego still likes to think we bluffed him.

  I have sat through many debriefings and heard many stories of murder from cartel leaders and gang members. The suspect typically minimizes and qualifies the killings and often blames someone else. Martin Corona didn’t do that. For the next year of weekly debriefings of Corona, I heard the actual killer and planner of several murders in the US and Mexico describe, in detail, how he and others savagely murdered people they deemed the enemy. We were able to find all but one of the bodies.

  Corona testified to each murder in federal grand jury, oftentimes crying as he recounted the details to the jurors. He identified several other enforcers involved in those murders who were still walking the streets. His testimony assisted greatly in the indictment and subsequent prosecution and sentencing of many upper-echelon Tijuana Cartel members.

  For years I continued to follow up on Corona’s murders. I kept in touch with Corona too. He sent letters of apology to his victims and their families and has shown unflagging remorse. I respect Corona, but he can never know the depth of the damage he did to these victims and their families. It is heartbreaking to see the damage to each extended family unit and the way the misfortune continued after they were touched by Corona and the Tijuana Cartel.

  Over a period of sixteen months during Corona’s cartel hit man career, in three separate incidents, one family lost a son and a son-in-law and nearly lost two daughters who were both shot in the head. A nine-year-old girl witnessed her mother get shot in the head, and her aunt three times in the head, by Corona in San Diego. A month later, while visiting her father and grandmother in Tijuana, she witnessed Corona break into her father’s home, tie up her and her grandmother, and take her father upstairs and beat him to death with a sledgehammer.

  In 2001, I contacted the two daughters. One victim was cooperative, but had lost all recall of the incident due to the severe brain damage caused by three .45-caliber bullets to the head. At the time of the shooting, she had just returned from Paris, France, where she spent a year modeling for Mademoiselle magazine. Her sister, like most victims in this case, was reluctant to cooperate and had started a new life elsewhere and did not tell her new husband about her misfortune. The little girl was then sixteen years old and her mother refused to let me interview her. She is thirty years old today and still gets upset when I try talking to her. In 2015, when I contacted her to let her know Corona was released from prison, she asked me never to speak to her again. The majority of victims in our experience refuse to confront their offenders and try to forget about their past.

  In 1995, Corona and others entered a home in Tijuana, tied up the extended family and groundskeepers, and took a married couple upstairs and stabbed them dozens of times and left them dead in separate bedrooms. In 2001, I found several family members who were present during the murders. None of them would cooperate because they were afraid of retaliation by the cartel. One brother did explain that arrests were made, and one of the groundskeepers was still in jail for the murders. I explained that we had the subjects involved identified and there was very little chance of retaliation by the cartel. After months of trying to convince them to cooperate, they left my telephone calls and home and work visits unanswered. The groundskeeper is probably still in jail for something he had nothing to do with.

  In January 2003, one of the uncooperative brothers was kidnapped in Tijuana. In February 2003, I began receiving calls from his wife, who had also been uncooperative. Nevertheless, I helped her all I could.

  In April 2003, I received credible information that the kidnap victim had been killed by members of the Tijuana Cartel. Once the information was corroborated, I broke the bad news to his wife. She refused to believe me and stated that her husband had run off with his “sancha,” or mistress, after receiving a large inheritance. She continued to call me, telling me that she was being followed. Many times, I would respond to her house in San Diego to appease her, but I knew she was becoming delusional. After several months of trying to help her, I let her calls roll over to voice mail.

  On August 10, 2005, I saw an article in The San Diego Union-Tribune detailing the murder-suicide of the wife and her two young sons—who had witnessed their father’s kidnapping. San Diego Sheriff’s officials found the bodies the day before.

  There are other stories of continued misfortune in the lives touched by Corona and the Tijuana Cartel.

  • • •

  In the spring of 2014, Corona was released from federal prison.

  He had told me he wanted to talk to law enforcement and the public to educate them on gangs, organized crime, and violence. So we put him to work, and he was a big hit telling his story to police officers all over the country. They saw the sincere, respectful former assassin humbly spill his guts and they appreciated his effort.

  Corona, now free, has spent the majority of his life in prison. Most guys like him do not make it in society. I wish him the best and hope that he can make it through the internal struggle he has to deal with. This book, this testimony, is a step in that struggle. It is now your turn to be the judge.

  PART ONE

  SORROW

  1

  The Letter

  I was in Sandstone Federal Correctional Institution in Minnesota. It’s a low-security facility that houses mostly nonviolent offenders—white-collar criminals who commit their robberies with gold-plated pens and computer spreadsheets and snake their way through the SEC systems with the hope of getting away clean.

  In addition to the financial hustlers, crooked politicians, and their bagmen, there were also people like me at Sandstone—confidential witnesses who tes
tified in court against their former criminal associates. We weren’t white-collar guys.

  Some people call Sandstone and places like it White-Collar Country Clubs. And in some ways, that’s accurate, at least compared to the supermax facilities. At least in Sandstone. You don’t have the hard-core gangsters, the unrepentant racists, the cold-blooded killers, and the various sociopaths that could go off without warning like a stick of dynamite. You don’t have to fight for your life.

  In my case, I’d like to say it was doing easy time. But it wasn’t. The real prison I inhabited wasn’t Sandstone. It was my own conscience. It was the guilt. Although I’m now technically free, I still carry my prison with me. There’s no escape from this one. There’s no crashing through the wall or even receiving a pardon. In every legal way, I’ve paid my debt, done my time, and fulfilled all the obligations of testifying against the people who sent me out to kill. But the freedom that most people take for granted, the freedom of an easy conscience, is something that I’ll never again experience.

  My handler at the time, Steve Duncan, was one of the first people in law enforcement who I could talk to and not feel like he was just trying to get some more information out of me for his case. By 2008, I’d spent a lot of time with him. He spent time with my parents and helped to get them someplace safe out of the reach of the Arellano Félix assassins.

  One day I asked him if it would be okay for me to try to write a letter to the survivors of the people I killed and the ones who survived my attempt to murder them. He thought about it for a while and then said he thought it was a good idea. Not that it would reduce my sentence or get me any better deal with the US Attorney. That was all behind me at that point. My deal had been made. I knew I would be getting out of prison by a certain date and there was nothing I would get out of this except, hopefully, to communicate my sense of remorse to the people I wronged.

  There’s no manual on how to do this. I started and stopped a number of times. And I tore up the first few tries because it literally made me sick to think of the harm I’d done. But those people deserved . . . something.