Tijuana architect was an unlikely drug courier
SAN DIEGO -- Eugenio Velazquez doesn't fit the mold of the down-on-his luck, uneducated, underemployed courier who ferries drugs to the U.S. for Mexican drug cartels.
The dual citizen of the U.S. and Mexico belongs to Tijuana's elite, equally at ease on both sides of the border. He lives in a modest, suburban San Diego neighborhood and had a flourishing career designing some of the Mexican border city's most prominent buildings over the last decade, including its new main cathedral, an expansion of the Tijuana Cultural Center and the police headquarters.
Velazquez, 51, awaits sentencing Monday in San Diego for trying to smuggle 12.8 pounds of cocaine into the U.S. in a special lane for prescreened, trusted motorists. A drug-sniffing dog alerted inspectors to five packages hidden in the battery of his 2004 Nissan Quest at San Diego's San Ysidro port of entry.
Why would such a highly esteemed architect at the peak of his game risk so much?
Velazquez wrote U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan last week that criminals threatened to kill him and hurt his family in San Diego and Tijuana if he refused.
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