This time the tipster ran into a blank wall. He learned that the sacks of marihuana were still stacked in the shed on Pena’s ranch. But that was all he could learn, except that in the past Pena had smuggled shipments of marihuana across the Rio Grande at a bend in the river about five miles upstream from the little West Texas town of San Ygnacio. When the water was low, the carriers were able to walk across the stream. If the river rose from sudden rainfalls, the marihuana was floated across the river on inflated inner tubes or on inflated rubber boats. In each case, an automobile was waiting at a designated spot to receive the contraband.
Ellis ordered a continuous surveillance of the river bend. For more than three months agents kept watch in relays, hiding in the mesquite near a small roadside park on top of a hill overlooking the sweep of the river. But the watches were fruitless. Each time Ellis inquired about the sacks of marihuana at Pena’s ranch, he was told they were still there.
In December, Ellis was reading the routine reports from New York of marihuana seizures that had been made in the city. These reports were circulated periodically to all agents-in-charge throughout the United States. There seemed to be nothing unusual in this particular batch of reports until Ellis came across an account of the arrest of one Wilfredo Fernandez, who had been caught with 16 pounds of marihuana in his possession. The line which drew his attention said that the marihuana was packed in one-pound lots in paper sacks which had been enclosed in plastic and sealed with adhesive tape. Ellis sensed that, somehow, Muno Pena had outwitted him, and the very thought enraged him. He sent a message to New York for more information on the arrest of Fernandez and where he had obtained the marihuana.
Fernandez, it developed, had been arrested in November for possession of cocaine. When his apartment was searched, agents came across the packaged marihuana. Fernandez sullenly admitted that he had bought it in Chicago from a dealer he knew only as “The Lawyer.” The Lawyer had taken him out on Lawrence Avenue, where they had met a man who appeared to be a Mexican, driving a stake truck with a green body. The Mexican had taken the marihuana from a large cotton sack—and then driven away. He had never seen the Mexican before and didn’t know where he lived.
“He was a skinny fellow about five feet eight tall, and he had black hair and a pale complexion,” Fernandez said. “That’s all I know.”
Ellis knew in his heart that this marihuana had come from Pena. And later he was to learn how cleverly Pena had outwitted him. Pena had stacked the sacks of processed marihuana in the shed on his ranch where any of the workers could see them as they passed by. But what the workers didn’t know was that one night Pena had removed the marihuana to a hiding place known only to himself and substituted other sugar sacks which looked identical.
One night Pena had taken the sacks to the river, where he met a confederate. They had carried the sacks across the river to the highway where the confederate had hidden his automobile, to which was attached a U-Drive-It trailer. The marihuana was stacked in the trailer and then covered with a mattress, a set of bed springs and a few household articles. These were lashed down with a tarpaulin over them—and then the driver headed north. To all outward appearances, he was a worker moving with his household goods from one job to another.
Ellis asked Chicago Customs agents to check on long distance telephone calls made in November by The Lawyer. And within a few days he received a list of names ranging from barkeeps to uncles, aunts, and cousins, horse track bookies, and pool parlor operators.
Meanwhile, agents in Laredo had been checking on Pena’s associates and on his family. They made a list of everyone known to have any connection, even casually, with Muno Pena.
It was when Ellis checked these two lists of names that he found there was one name which appeared on both lists. The name was Isuaro Garza. The agents’ information was that Garza was married to Muno Pena’s sister. Mrs. Garza and her three children lived in Laredo and maintained a home there. But Garza, for some months, had been living on the outskirts of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Occasionally Mrs. Garza and the children would drive north to spend a few days with Garza. They never stayed for long and always returned to their Laredo home. No one seemed to know what Garza was doing in Kenosha.