MIAMI _ A notorious government informant in the long-running war on drugs now faces drug charges himself after being snared by one of the oldest tricks in the book _ a sting.
The undercover operation unfolded at a Hialeah home and at La Carreta and Dunkin' Donuts in Miramar, leading to the arrest of Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez-Peyro during what prosecutors say was an attempt to buy five kilos of cocaine for $120,000 from someone who used to be in his line of work, a confidential source for the feds.
Ramirez-Peyro, who long ago was revealed to be a former paid informant for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was suspected of helping a Mexican cartel carry out a series of grisly murders in the early 2000s in a case dubbed the "House of Death."
Ramirez-Peyro was a former Mexican police officer who joined the Juarez cartel and rose through the ranks of one of its cells. He became one of the cell leader's lieutenants in managing the drug organization, including a house in Juarez that was used as a torture and killing chamber implicated in at least a dozen deaths, according to the online publication Narco News.
Despite the allegations, Ramirez-Peyro never faced charges related to the "House of Death." He was detained for several years in federal immigration facility but ultimately avoided deportation to Mexico, where he claimed he would face certain death at the hands of the cartel.
Ramirez-Peyro, arrested in South Florida during the sting operation this spring, is being held at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami after a magistrate judge refused to grant him bail because he's considered a flight risk.
In a detention order, the judge cited a potentially long prison sentence, along with "the strong evidence against him, the defendant's Mexican citizenship, his connections to Mexico and the Mexican cartels, the immigration detainer on the defendant, the multiple identification documents the defendant was carrying, and the defendant's lack of connections in the Miami area."
Ramirez-Peyro's defense attorney, Christian Dunham, with the federal public defender's office, declined to comment on Tuesday. His client faces charges of conspiring to possess and distribute five kilos of cocaine.
ICE's office in El Paso, Texas, where Ramirez-Peyro once worked as an informant, did not respond to a request for comment.
In March and April, Ramirez-Peyro met with an FBI confidential source to arrange to buy the cocaine load during recorded meetings at La Carreta and Dunkin' Donuts in Miramar, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. For a few of the meetings, he was accompanied by an accomplice identified only as "Pollo" in court papers.
According to an FBI criminal complaint, he made a down payment of $20,000 and then arranged to pay another $50,000 _ cash that he held at a Hialeah home and showed to the FBI informant _ for a pickup of the cocaine load at La Carreta's parking lot.
But before he got there, Miramar police pulled him over and FBI agents swooped in.
"As Ramirez-Peyro was driving to (La Carreta) ... he was stopped by the Miramar Police Department," according to the criminal complaint. "Miramar Police Department subsequently recovered $50,000 from the car. That was the same money Ramirez-Peyro had shown to the (FBI informant), and that (he) intended to use to purchase the five kilograms of cocaine from the (confidential source)."
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