Feds chase proceeds, assets of drug family

By Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

The U.S. government is going after the drug proceeds and assets of an El Paso-Juárez drug-smuggling family, asking for $10 million and the forfeiture of three El Paso residences, officials in the U.S. attorney's office said Thursday.

Officials said the $10 million was derived from the criminal activities of Hector Leonel Marquez Ramos, his sister-in-law Diana Marquez, Horacio Fernandez and others who conspired to smuggle thousands of pounds of marijuana to the Midwest in the past several years.

Diana Marquez was found guilty Wednesday of drug conspiracy and money laundering charges. She is a former Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission toll collector at the Bridge of the Americas and the wife of alleged ringleader Mario Alonso Marquez Ramos, who is on the run.

During closing arguments this week, her lawyer, Ray Velarde, sought to depict her as a neglected wife who was kept in the dark of her husband's affairs.

"This guy is a macho in the family; he lives for himself," Velarde said. "Diana is only a second thought."

But prosecutors listed a long series of large checks by Fernandez to Diana Marquez and of deposits she made to a Mexican bank account that were inconsistent with the $18,000 a year she said she made working in a booth at the bridge and inconsistent with the $37,000 Fernandez said he made as a real estate agent in San Antonio.

"The money coming in did not match the money coming out," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose Luis Acosta. "The only consistent source of money for the Marquez family has been drugs."