“MIU is becoming a highly respected information bank on what these types of OC characters are doing down there,” says Coblantz of the New Jersey police. “Put it this way – on the Scarfo case, MIU has given us leads that we are still tracking down.”

While Nicky Scarfo was under the eye of MIU in Fort Lauderdale, two high-ranking members of his organization were in Philadelphia talking to the FBI and then to a grand jury. There were also 800 tapes of wiretaps. And from Fort Lauderdale came the MIU dossiers and indications that Scarfo was running the organization from Casablanca South. On Nov. 3, 1986, he was arrested while on a trip to New Jersey. A grand jury had indicted him and 17 associates for conspiracy and racketeering.

A day later in Florida, the casino issue was defeated at the polls.

Scarfo was released on bail and returned to Fort Lauderdale once more, but the grand jury wasn’t through. While he lay on the chaise longue behind Casablanca South, Scarfo’s empire was being quietly dismantled. He would face still another indictment.

On Jan. 7of this year, Little Nicky’s white Rolls pulled into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and the gray-haired, well-tanned man was dropped off at a charter airline’s front gate. Scarfo was traveling light – no bodyguard.

He went into the airport lounge for a drink before boarding. He didn’t know it then, but a couple of hours later he would land in New Jersey and the FBI and police would be waiting. Detective Drago had tipped them earlier that day after stopping Scarfo on his way to dinner. This would be the night that Scarfo would be jailed without bond for his second indictment.

Over at the bar, two men sat and watched Scarfo until he walked to the boarding gate. They followed and watched while he went down the loading ramp.

Maybe Nicky had a premonition. Maybe the back of his neck was burning. Whatever it was, something made him turn and look back as he got to the plane’s door. He saw a man standing at the other end of the ramp looking at him. It was a man Nicky had never seen before. Steve Raabe, detective from MIU, stepped out of character for that moment and smiled. Then he waved good-bye to Nicky Scarfo. A send-off from the Open Territory.

South of the border is no longer safe for criminals.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

December 13, 1987

Seven years ago, the body of first-grader Lisa Ann Rosales was found dumped in a ditch near her home in Pacoima. She had been sexually molested and strangled. The case was not an easy one for the Los Angeles Police Department – it took a tip five years later for

detectives to identify a suspect, and then they discovered that the man had fled to his native Mexico.

In previous years, the case might have ended there, with police thwarted because the suspect was beyond the reach of U.S. laws. The problem, which had long frustrated American law enforcement officials, was that Mexico refuses to extradite its own citizens to the United States for trial, despite the existence of an extradition treaty between the two countries.

But this time the case did not end. Detectives turned to a new squad in the LAPD, the foreign prosecution unit.

Six months after the Los Angeles detectives decided that they knew who killed Lisa Ann Rosales, Mexican authorities were handed a complete file on Luis Raul Castro, translated into Spanish, and were even told where he could be found. They took the case from there.

Today, Castro stands convicted in a Mexican federal court of murder. He is expected to be sentenced by the end of the year and could serve up to 40years in a Mexican jail.

“Before we had the foreign prosecution unit, people were literally getting away with murder,” said Lt. Keith Ross, supervisor of the unit. “The fact was we were not actively pursuing Mexican suspects that fled to Mexico. That has changed.”

The Rosales case is one of many examples of how Los Angeles crime means Mexican prison time since the four-member unit began working with Mexican authorities in 1985. Since then, 48Los Angeles cases – all but three involving murder – have been brought in Mexico. More than half the suspects have been captured, convicted and jailed there.

Scattered cases have been brought in other countries as well, including one in France.

“The first thing people ask is ‘Can you do that? Is that legal?’ ” Ross said. “The answer is that it is a legitimate means of prosecution that is available to us.”

But some legal observers question whether suspects should face Mexican justice for American crimes. They argue that Mexico ’s justice system affords defendants few of the protections of the U.S. system – most notably, defendants do not have a chance to face their accusers; the testimony of the American witnesses is delivered solely through documents.

“My first reaction is that it presents an enormous problem,” said Leon Goldin, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. “We are talking about the LAPD, acting as an arm of our government, using court procedures in Mexico that wouldn’t pass muster here in a moment.”

The record shows that the California law enforcement officials are almost certain to go home happy after bringing a case to Mexico. No case brought by the LAPD has yet to result in an acquittal.

It is a great contrast to the situation Los Angeles police faced when they conducted a 1984 study that prompted creation of the foreign prosecution unit.

In that study, according to Ross, police reviewed all outstanding murder warrants – cases in which a suspect had been identified, but no one arrested. Of 267 people being sought, about 200 had Latino surnames, he said.

“That gave us the strong feeling that a large number of suspects were fleeing to Mexico and finding sanctuary,” he said. “There was no department-wide procedure for tracking, arresting and prosecuting them.”

“There was a lot of frustration,” said Detective Arturo Zorrilla, noting that the attitude of most officers was, “Let’s file the case away and hope [the suspect] comes back across.”

In theory, prosecutors here could have sought extradition on any of the suspects confirmed as being in Mexico. The two countries have an extradition treaty that provides for Mexican citizens to be returned to the United States to face trial for serious crimes. But, a U.S. Justice Department spokesman said, “It has not occurred, ever.”

The refusal to extradite, officials said, is rooted in a firm belief in Mexican law that Mexican citizens who commit crimes outside the country should be prosecuted by Mexican authorities.

U.S. law, on the other hand, provides that U.S. citizens who commit crimes in other countries should be subject to prosecution there. (About half a dozen American citizens have been extradited to Mexico in the last decade to face trial, according to the Justice Department.)

The different approaches are reflected in a provision of Mexico ’s penal code that allows for the prosecution of foreign crimes. Although on the books since 1928, the provision was infrequently used until recently because other countries’ law enforcement agencies rarely brought cases to the attention of Mexican authorities.