Camarena Case Figure Held on New Charges

Ruben Zuno Arce, a Mexican businessman facing federal perjury charges in a case related to the killing of U.S. drug enforcement agent Enrique Camarena, has been arrested on new charges in a sealed indictment authorities said Sunday.

The federal indictment containing the new charges against Zuno, 59, is expected to be unsealed today when he is brought before a U.S. magistrate, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Ralph B. Lochridge said.

Lochridge said Zuno had flown to Los Angeles to appear at a hearing in federal court. His perjury trial is set to begin Dec. 17 before U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi.

Zuno was arrested late Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport by agents of the DEA’s Operation Leyenda, which was created in 1985 to investigate the torture slayings that year of Camarena and his pilot in Mexico.

Zuno is a member of an influential Mexican family. His father was governor of the state of Jalisco, and his sister is married to former President Luis Echeverria.

Lochridge said he expected prosecutors to ask that Zuno remain jailed without bail at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center downtown, signaling a possible return of this summer’s acrimonious legal wrangling between Zuno’s lawyers and government lawyers.

For nearly two months Zuno was held without bail by a variety of federal agencies beginning Aug. 9 when immigration authorities held him as a suspected drug trafficker, which he denied, and later as a material witness in the Camarena killings.

He was finally indicted on perjury charges. In an appearance before the grand jury, Zuno denied knowing Rafael Caro Quintero and Ernesto Fonseco Carrillo, the alleged heads of a Guadalajara, Mexico, narcotics ring. Both are under indictment in Los Angeles in the Camarena killings and are imprisoned in Mexico awaiting trial on the same charges.

Federal prosecutors argued that if Zuno were freed, he would not return for his trial and that the Mexican government would not cooperate in his extradition. Zuno’s attorney contended the U.S. government abused its power and held his client without justification.

Zuno was freed on $200,000 bail in October on the condition that his travel to and from the United States be closely monitored by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.