U.S. SAYS CARDENAS KILLED HIS WAY TO TOP

"You lost my load. You're a dead man and so is your family."

That threat, and one made five months later in a face-to-face showdown with
U.S. agents in Mexico, led the U.S. government yesterday to put a $2
million bounty on Osiel Cardenas Guillen in a major campaign to dismantle
his organization.

Authorities in Mexico and the United States say Cardenas is a new breed of
drug don who murdered his way into the upper echelons of Mexico's narcotics
elite and has no qualms about threatening U.S. drug agents with death, on
either side of the border.

Yesterday, U.S. agents raided Cardenas' American safe houses from New York
to Texas.

By evening, nearly 60 alleged members of the organization had been picked
up "and that figure is changing hourly," said Michael McManus, a spokesman
for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Another 37 were still being sought.

Agents had already picked up 82 alleged members of the Cardenas drug ring
during the past year. Some of them were operating in Los Angeles and San
Diego, the territory of another Mexican drug cartel -- the Arellano Felix
organization, based in Tijuana.

Since they began focusing on Cardenas, agents have seized more than $10
million in cash, nearly 10,000 pounds of marijuana and more than 11,500
pounds of cocaine.

Seven additional suspects and Cardenas are still being sought in Mexico.
Washington sent eight provisional arrest warrants yesterday to Mexico City,
the first step in seeking their extradition.

Cardenas faces a separate indictment in Mexico on charges of drug
trafficking, racketeering, money laundering and attempted murder.

Among Cardenas' nicknames in Mexico is "El Loco," the crazy one. Tracing
his rise to power among Mexico's drug kingpins may well explain how he got it.

He allegedly started out as an associate of Juan Garcia Abrego and Amado
Carrillo Fuentes, two of Mexico's biggest drug barons in the mid-1990s.

When Garcia was caught in 1995 and Carrillo died following plastic surgery
two years later, their cartels fell into disarray. Cardenas allegedly
stitched together the remnants of both groups into a new cartel with him at
the top -- and murdered anyone in line ahead of him.

"After (Garcia) Abrego went down, a man named Salvador Gomez Herrera was
emerging as the new boss," said a U.S. drug agent familiar with Cardenas.
"In 1999, (Gomez) was assassinated. His body was left out in the
countryside for the dogs.

"Four other victims, all Gomez's buddies, were found inside a truck, all
blindfolded and shot to death.

"With these people out of the way, Cardenas became el jefe, the chief."

But el jefe was in for a rude welcome. The DEA, the FBI and Customs, which
had been hammering away at the Garcia and Carrillo cartels before Cardenas
took over, had already turned their attention to him in separate operations.

When one of the undercover officers caused one of Cardenas' marijuana loads
to be picked up by Customs, Cardenas was enraged. Not content to have an
underling threaten the undercover officer, Cardenas did it personally.

"On June 9, 1999, Cardenas himself called the officer, (still) believing he
was a marijuana smuggler, and threatened to kill him, his wife and his
family," said U.S. Customs spokesman Dean Boyd in Washington.

"We did a voice analysis on the tape. It was him."

The undercover officer, a local Sheriff's deputy on loan to Customs, was
hurriedly relocated, and federal agents intercepted an alleged Cardenas
gunman looking for the deputy's house.

Five months later, Cardenas personally led a squad of gunmen in Matamoros
as they surrounded an FBI agent, a DEA agent and a Mexican drug informant
in broad daylight at the largest intersection in the city.

This time, Cardenas knew he was threatening U.S. officials, Boyd said.

"Cardenas told them, 'This is my territory, not yours. Get the hell out of
here,' " he said.