Marco DeHaro
Pablo Acosta’s chief enforcer, Marco Antonio Haro Portillo, who went by the name Marco DeHaro, had a penchant for “head shots” and became known as El Carnicero de Ojinaga — the Butcher of Ojinaga — for his many alleged killings.
His shooting of the sons of a rival drug trafficker led to a war of attrition between the two factions and a reign of narco-terror in Ojinaga. Assassination attempts on Acosta’s life in downtown Ojinaga and the final OK-Corral shoot out that left his chief rival dead are described in detail in the book.
Marco DeHaro was Pablo Acosta’s chief enforcer and was the gunman who started a drug war in Ojinaga by killing the son of Fermin Arevalo. This photo was taken shortly after DeHaro’s arrest in Odessa, Texas, on November 20, 1985, on cocaine, marijuana and heroin trafficking charges. (Photo courtesy of the Ector County Sheriff’s Department)
Typical of the drug traffickers, Marco DeHaro carried Mexican federal police and military credentials and reputedly had worked as an agent for Mexico’s Interpol. He was eventually arrested in the United States while preparing to receive a half-ton shipment of cocaine.
DeHaro figures prominently in the early chapters of Drug Lord that have to do with the murders and assassinations that erupted when Acosta’s drug faction feuded with the rival Arevalo drug organization over control of Ojinaga. In later chapters, DeHaro is important as an independent trafficker who operates under the protection scheme that Acosta enjoyed with Mexican authorities. He illustrates how the system worked: Under Acosta’s plaza, which was essentially a franchise to operate a zone that required Acosta to pay a percentage of his profits to authorities, DeHaro in turn had to pay Acosta a percentage of his profits — even though the padrino may not have had any personal involvement in DeHaro’s smuggling activities.