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Throughout the fall, the secret investigation sparked by Felipe's allegations continued with a series of arrests and confessions. A top director of SIEDO, Miguel Colorado, was detained during a military operation. An official with the code name "Saul" said the Beltran Levyas were offering $10 million to help rescue Mochomo from prison. Yet another SIEDO official -- a man investigators called "David" -- confessed that he had been paid $120,000 a month to provide information to the cartels.
David described the situation inside SIEDO as so corrupt that top-level officials were using internal investigations as a way of discrediting or destroying others and protecting their own bribes.
It was at this point, just before Felipe's story broke in the Mexican press, that the federal police raided Conejo's party at the mansion. Garay, the police commissioner, had been suspected of corruption even before the bust. A few months earlier, dozens of banners known as narcomantas had been hung from traffic overpasses in 15 cities claiming that Garay was working for the drug lords.
Banners bearing the names of dirty officials have become a routine way for drug traffickers to out cops on the payroll of other cartels or to spread disinformation designed to cripple law enforcement with doubt and suspicion.
In late October, not long after the raid on the mansion, police busted "El Rey" (the King), a leading member of Chapo's cartel, in a shootout. At the presentacion, where drug traffickers are paraded in front of cameras, police displayed a gaudy array of gold plated automatic weapons that had been seized after the gunfight.
Rey's son and stepson, who were also captured, told police it was their father's men who had tipped off police about Conejo's party.
In other words, Chapo's man had set up Mochomo's main coke supplier, using the police as a means to destroy his rival's business.
The son and stepson's testimony also indicated that Garay and his subordinate, Edgar Bayardo, worked for the cartels.
The double whammy of Garay's corruption and Felipe's revelations sent the Mexican government into a free fall. Garay and Bayardo were both arrested. Ramirez, the head of SIEDO who effectively served as President Felipe Calderon's drug czar, was charged with taking $450,000 from Mochomo's cartel.