Fact, fiction, and Cold War paranoia come together in the U.S.’s narco novel

Guest Post by Fred Venables

In 1971, Dr. Richard Blum, a psychologist who had served as a scientific advisor for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), was asked to conduct a secret U.S. investigation into drug trafficking and state police corruption across northern Mexico.

Based on his experiences, Blum published The Mexican Assassin. The book has been largely forgotten, with good reason. However, despite the absurdities of the plot, which is loosely constructed around the mysterious kingpin of Magdalena de Kino, José Luis Terán, makes the novel a surprisingly revealing read.

The Mexican Assassin, 1978, published by Blum under the pseudonym Hartshorne.

The Plot

Set in the fictional town of Madre Dolorosa in Sonora, the opening chapter introduces Pedro, an assassin who murders the repulsive and deeply unpopular local police chief, Moctezuma Garcia Flanagan. Then, we meet Father Camillo Terán, an aristocratic priest, who secretly heads a local guerrilla movement alongside a mysterious accomplice called Che.

U.S. agent Lee Barber is sent to investigate the assassination. He is told that Flanagan is the third police chief across Sonora to be murdered in a month and that the increased violence points towards a feud involving the local capo, known as Fernandez. Such speculation is fuelled by reports of a break-in at Fort Huachuca near the border, allegedly carried out by members of the Fernandez clan.

Barber arrives in Madre Dolorosa under the guise of Reverend Alfred York, described as a ‘Yankee madman’ carrying out research for a religious magazine in Connecticut. His eccentric and naive manner, alongside his obsession with funerals, earns him a peculiar, yet harmless reputation among the townsfolk allowing him to gather information innocuously. His first adventures take him to the local Church where he discovers a trapdoor and sees someone suspiciously place a cryptic note underneath a statue. Then, he learns of an ambush on a nearby garrison which killed two soldiers.

Through a radio communication system underneath his Oldsmobile Cutlass car, York receives a tip-off about aircraft flying in the area from his sidekick, Billie Hickock, who is stationed outside the town. This leads York to the nearby ranch of Francisco de Lemos (based on José Luis Terán). Suspecting that the land is being used to conduct a drug smuggling operation, the Reverend ends up meeting Don de Lemos, as well as his niece, Dolores Calles, whom York develops a romantic connection with.

Whilst struggling to put everything together, York survives an explosion inside the local cantina, later revealed to be carried out by the guerrilla organisation. After recovering, York meets Dolores again. She informs him about her lack of trust in the secretary employed by her uncle. After liaising with Hickock, York is told that the secretary is called Guillermo Perez and has a criminal background. York then learns that Don de Lemos has another sister who is married to Raphael Hernandez Calles, the Deputy Home Minister.

At this stage, York is battling multiple fronts. He becomes torn between his growing love for Dolores and his commitment to the investigation. Dolores herself becomes infatuated with York suspecting there is more to him than meets the eye. York is also frustrated by the outside committee co-ordinating his mission, who repeatedly refuse to carry out his requests. Meanwhile, he is yet to find any real evidence on Don de Lemos or his connection to the murder of Flanagan. To top it all off, two state policemen, purporting to investigate the guerrilla movement, have started to follow York around town.

His predicament gets dramatically worse. Firstly, Dolores inadvertently reveals that his cover has been blown after asking about why her uncle and his secretary mentioned York’s name in a business meeting. Secondly, the new police chief, Lieutenant Rosales, warns York there are rumours he is a Russian spy working for the guerrillas and that local bandits are chasing a bounty on his head. Rosales offers to find him a bodyguard for protection. Finally, he is unable to contact Hickock.

Alone, York sparks into action by changing his appearance to a dark-haired Mexican called Saturnino and returning to the trapdoor in the church. Here, he is almost caught out by the arrival of Che and his accomplices, who turn out to be the two state officers. Whilst hiding, Saturnino witnesses Che murder one of the men after an altercation. Saturnino then escapes to an outside vantage point where he sees the guerrilla leaders converge. After watching Father Teran, Che, and the other policeman, known as Manuel, bury their former associate, Saturnino overhears that the guerrillas are setting up camp by the gold mine on Don de Lemos’ ranch and that they intend to unleash a chemical weapon they have stolen from Fort Huachuca on Madre Dolorosa.

Saturnino then gets caught when he screams after a rat bites him. In the dark, the guerrilla leaders fail to recognize the man as York and decide to lock him in the tool shed. José, the gardener, discovers Saturnino and recognizes his wounds from the explosion. Perturbed as to why the Reverend has changed appearance, and has a gun, José feels obliged to help him.

After escaping, Saturnino changes his appearance back to York. Then, Rosales returns with a bodyguard called Pedro who is supposedly in town to collect an old debt. Slightly built, with olive skin and the tip of his nose missing, Pedro cuts an off-putting persona. He converses with York about a friend who sold abandoned babies to avant-garde intellectuals for cannibalistic purposes and another companion, allegedly the grandson of Madre Conchita, who evokes Aztec rituals to carry out assassinations as an art form.

Nonetheless, the arrival of Pedro at this stage is welcome, as is the unexpected return of Hickock. Dressed as an American hippie called Mark Walski, he explains that the radio communication system in his caravan was destroyed by a drunk driver. He informs York that Don de Lemos knows his true identity because the committee failed to put in place elements of his cover story. As a result, the secretary has travelled north to fetch their hitman. Walski then reveals that Raphael, the Deputy Home Minister, is actually a manipulative U.S. agent involved in narcotics. As a result, the committee have tried to sabotage the operation to avoid an embarrassing scandal as to why the branch had not realised this.

Accepting that their new objectives are to survive and protect the town from the impending gas attack, the agents begin to put the puzzle together. They realise that the Fernandez clan is a myth perpetuated by Don de Lemos and his brother-in-law, Raphael, to protect their business. However, when the guerrillas infiltrated Fort Huachuca, they implicated the Fernandez clan to cover their tracks. As a result, the agents realise that the guerrillas are attracting unwanted attention that could expose the drug trafficking operation.

Then, Dolores calls York explaining that a man, called Ramon Morales, was brought to the ranch in the middle of the night and that she overheard the secretary talking to him about killing York. After York reveals his true identity as an undercover agent and Dolores expresses her wish to marry him, she goes on to say that the hitman is missing a segment of his nose.

Once realising his bodyguard is really a hitman been sent to kill him, York quickly instructs Dolores to tell her uncle that the guerrillas are located on their ranch before confronting Pedro. The Reverend declares he is an undercover agent whilst Pedro confesses both to deceiving Rosales and murdering Flanagan. The former police chief thought representatives from the Interior Ministry were attempting to take over from Don de Lemos and tried to capitalize on the situation without realising the two parties were in consortium. Pedro and Barber then agree to disappear the fictional York without actually killing anyone. However, as the two left their hotel apartment Barber betrays Pedro shooting him dead.

Afterwards, Barber steals a body from the mortuary before disfiguring and disguising the corpse in order to pretend the contract on York had been carried out. Then, he changes his appearance back to Saturnino and works with his partner, Walski, to capture Che and Manuel. Having changed disguise once more, they take the two guerrilla leaders to the hacienda of Don de Lemos where they are looking to exchange the assailants for Dolores before the military advance on the guerrillas camped on the ranch.

Together, they break into the house only to find Dolores arguing with Don de Lemos, Raphael, and Guillermo. Eavesdropping on the conversation, the agents overhear the traffickers confess to their involvement in narcotics and that York has been killed. However, the agents are found after a giant scorpion begins to crawl on Hickock forcing him to make a noise.

Correctly suspecting Barber and Hickock are American agents, Raphael decides to kill them and then frame them as guerrilla invaders in order to increase his chances of being promoted to Interior Minister. Dolores suddenly recognises Barber and pleads with her uncle to not follow through with the plan. She then calls on General Sanchez and Luis Sigua, who are preparing the military attack, to reason with her uncle. Unmoved, Raphael points his gun at Barber. Dramatically, Dolores intervenes only for Raphael to shoot and murder her instead.

With the military leaders as eyewitnesses, Raphael is sent to prison for murder where he is joined by Don de Lemos after their smuggling operation is exposed. As for the agents, they manage to escape after agreeing to hand over Manuel, who was executed alongside Father Teran and the remaining guerrilla fighters. However, the agents are intrigued by Che. After taking him back to the U.S., they realise he is a KGB agent called Grigor Kuzmanich sent by the Soviet Union to stage a revolution in Sonora.

Dr. Richard H. Blum.

In reality, Blum’s actual experience in Mexico was chaotic on its own right. According to Douglas Valentine (The Strength of the Wolf), Blum discovered how members of the U.S. Customs service informed established traffickers about possible clients north of the border in return for information on lower-level associates. The BNDD sent a special inspections unit to confirm his findings only to stumble across a guns-for-drugs scheme being used by the CIA to monitor rebel groups in Mexico and their foreign connections. In response, the CIA allegedly disclosed information about Blum and his clandestine unit to drug traffickers in Mexico. To make matters worse, members of the BNDD suspected that Blum was actually looking to expose their own corruptive practices and one agent, known as the ‘Fat Mexican Assassin’, was handed a contract to murder Blum. Needless to say, his operation was abandoned.

Whilst the book fails to divulge much about the real José Luis “Perico” Terán, this does not come as a surprise given his elusive character. Despite being touted as Sonora’s biggest trafficker at the time, he was never caught, and U.S. authorities never even managed to photograph him.

Artist’s impression of José Luis Terán, this was the closest depiction U.S. authorities obtained. Nicknamed “Perico”, he was a respected businessman. Born sometime in the early 1930s, he was described as a slender man with bushy-hair who enjoyed the finer things in life. He was said to drink Cognac and own a collection of cars, including a Blue Ford Mustang. Yet, he was rarely seen in public and always travelled with bodyguards.

What we do know about Terán is that he was originally a fayukero (goods smuggler) before expanding his business into marijuana and heroin during the late 1960s. Terán took control of Magdalena de Kino just as the city emerged from relative obscurity after the remains of Eusebio Francisco Kino, a celebrated Jesuit missionary who died in 1711, were discovered. As government investment was piled in, the city became a tourist destination with thousands taking an annual pilgrimage to visit the renovated church and central plaza in honour of Father Kino. At the same time, Terán transformed the region into the stolen-car centre of Northern Mexico and the headquarters for his criminal empire.

Photo of the house belonging to José Luis Terán in Magdalena de Kino. He installed ventilation stacks to help cultivate opium poppy plants for heroin.

However, his influence extended across the state into various municipalities including Ímuris, Santa Ana, Nogales, Cucurpe, Querobabi, and even Ciudad Obregón. Across these areas, he had at least twenty-six warehouses and numerous airstrips. Most of his products were flown out from locations near Magdalena such as Tasicuri, San Lorenzo, and San Ignacio, before landing in Yeso, New Mexico. The shipments then arrived in Tucson where they were then transported as far as New York. He also transported narcotics on land at the border-crossing in Nogales where he had associates who lived in a neighbourhood called the “Doper’s Row” (In Blum’s book, de Lemos flies Pedro in from Nogales where he lives with a block of fellow assassins)

Aerial image of the Tasicuri airstrip owned by Terán

One of the 26 warehouses belonging to Terán.

Terán’s family were important to him both in a personal and business sense. Supposedly, he had three daughters from a previous marriage and two more with his girlfriend, Minerva. His sister, Norma Fernandez, was married to Eduardo Gallegos whose brother, Oscar Montano, became Terán’s bookkeeper. Meanwhile, Terán held property under the name of his other sister, Estela Dosanmontes. Terán’s father, Pepe, three brothers, Arnullo, Roberto, and Laera, as well as his cousin, Alejandro, were well-known throughout Magdalena and had an active role in managing daily operations.

This allowed Terán to consolidate and extend his network of clientele. He formed a strong partnership with Arnoldo Fontes Valle, who specialised in heroin and had contacts with American pilots. Fontes Valle was nicknamed ‘Caro de Queso’, or ‘cheese face’ after his face was disfigured in a car accident (he perhaps influenced Blum and the character of Pedro). Additionally, Terán regularly travelled into La Mesa where he worked alongside a relative of arrested smuggler and local celebrity Rafael Ruiz Perralta (known as ‘Pata Larga’).

However, the main reason behind his success was corruption. Terán was covered from every angle. He was rumoured to be in league with Francisco Sahagún Baca and Francisco Luken Aguilar, the heads of the federal and state police in Sonora. At a local level, officials and politicians were paid off too. The police chief of Ímuris at the time, Santiago Sanchez, declared that he arrested two of Terán’s lieutenants only for the town mayor, Carlos Federico Vera, to revoke their orders. In a separate incident, Terán persuaded a local judge not to prosecute his brother, Laera, for killing someone who stole their marijuana.

There were also rumours that Armando Rebella, the police chief of Magdalena, was corrupt. However, Rebella complained that they only had two lieutenants and four policemen at their disposal to deal with Terán as well as the four other fayukero-turned-narcotraffickers active in the region. He also claimed Terán tapped into the local police offices in Magdalena, Santa Ana, and Ímuris meaning local officers were unable to communicate effectively.

Commander of the Federal Judicial Police, Francisco Sahagún Baca (left) and the head of State police, Francisco Luken Aguilar (right). During the early 1970s, they operated the drug trade in Sonora through extortion and murder.

Either way, Terán’s authority went unquestioned. Locals even suggested Terán could have the ayuntamiento (town hall) in Magdalena de Kino filled with marijuana if he so pleased and on a rare occasion his exports were seized by customs, jokes circulated that the official responsible would be transferred for making a mistake.

Nonetheless, things didn’t always go his way. The Mexican Treasury launced an independent investigation on Terán, even sending one of their agents disguised as an American hippie to keep tabs on him. On 18 June 1973, a joint operation of roughly forty Mexican and U.S. forces were sent to raid Terán’s offices in Magdalena de Kino. Following a tip-off, Terán narrowly escaped leaving behind a barrel of burning papers in the centre of his office. Fontes Valle, who had been drinking with Terán, also escaped, allegedly by dressing up as a woman.

However, the authorities did not leave empty-handed. They found a book of contacts which had details about various transactions and arrested eighteen suspects still on the site for “questioning”. They went on to close the Tasicuri airstrip and carry out further raids on four warehouses, one of which was connected to the house of Terán’s mother through an underground passageway. In total, they seized one ton of marijuana, twenty vehicles, to compliment the single ounce of heroin and copius amounts of pornographic material they found. They also discovered around $400,000-worth of contraband that included electric fans, televisions, radios, air conditioners, electric stoves, nylons, fridges and hot water heaters.

118 Avenida Obregon: Officials outside Terán’s office during the raid. The Lincoln Continental (left) was one of twenty cars seized. The joint task force was created by Enrique Cardenas Gonzales, the assistant secretary of the treasury, and Pedro Ojeda Paullada, the attorney general, alongside the involvement of U.S. authorities. Jose Brana, the head of enforcment for the Mexican federal customs service, and Ramon Herera Esponada, of the Federal Judicial Police, conducted the raid. Armando Rebella and Francisco Luken Aguilar were not informed. Francisco Sahagun Baca was involved, but mysteriously resigned from his position as head of the federal police on the eve of the raid.

At first glance, the event clearly disrupted Terán. An arrest warrant had been issued for him, many of his main associates had been arrested, and his key warehouses had been seized. Theoretically, his contacts were unlikely to work with him, or at least demand a higher pay off given the risk involved. He was also deeply unpopular as other traffickers were forced into restricting their activity amid so much attention.

However, his family continued to operate the business on their own whilst Terán remained hidden. Initially, he was rumoured to be staying in the mountains near Culiacán, Sinaloa, a common hideout for traffickers. However, there were also sightings of him in Guadalajara, Hermosillo, and even Spain.

On 11 August, his associate, Fontes Valle, was captured in Hermosillio which strongly indicated Terán was there too. Fontes Valle complained that he had protection, but was still transferred to Nogales. The local newspaper reported that he was suicidal because either Terán, or some worried politicians, were planning to murder him before he implicated them.

There were further reports that the U.S. Customs Service said Terán was last seen in Brazil. However, the agency refuted this stating that Terán probably planted this story to take attention away from him in Mexico.

Regardless of his whereabouts, Terán was never caught. In fact, he recovered and people began to see him back in Magdalena. Despite being a federal fugitive for over five years, he went on to become one of the most experienced traffickers in Mexico conducting activity across Culiacán, Guadalajara, and Nogales.

José Luis Terán in relation to other major heroin traffickers in Mexico, c.1979.