MEXICO CITY — A drug-cartel enforcer told Mexican police that a rival gang infiltrated the biggest U.S. consulate along the border through a worker who helped get them U.S. visas, and that he ordered her killed for it.
A U.S. official rejected the claim Friday and said the motive for the slaying remains unknown.
The employee, Lesley Enriquez, was among three people connected to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juárez who were killed March 13 in attacks that raised concerns that Americans were being caught up in the drug-related violence raging in the border city and across Mexico.
Jesus Ernesto Chavez, whose arrest was announced Friday, confessed to ordering the killings, said Ramon Pequeno, head of anti-narcotics for the Federal Police. Pequeno said Chavez leads a band of hit men for a street gang tied to the Juárez cartel.
Enriquez and her husband were killed in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, as they drove toward a border crossing. Chavez also is accused in a nearly simultaneous attack that killed the husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate.
Pequeno said Chavez told police that Enri quez was targeted because she helped provide visas to a rival gang. A U.S. federal official familiar with the investigation said Friday that after the killings, U.S. officials investigated possible corruption involving Enriquez and found none. The official was not authorized to speak about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Officials with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City declined to comment.
U.S. Embassy officials previously said Enri quez was never in a position to provide visas and worked in a section that provides basic services to U.S. citizens in Mexico.
Enriquez was four months pregnant when she and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, were killed by gunmen who opened fire on their vehicle after the couple left a children’s birthday party. Their 7-month-old daughter was found wailing in the back seat.
