LIST TARGETS DRUG TRAFFICKERS

CRIME: The People And Businesses Named By The Clinton Administration Would
Have U.S. Assets Frozen.

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration is trying to put the financial
squeeze on the world's biggest drug kingpins, but there are fears that
innocent people and businesses could get caught in the wringer.

The administration is required by today, under legislation approved last
year, to provide Congress with a list of what it considers to be the top
foreign drug traffickers.

Those on the list - and their foreign business associates - would have their
U.S. assets frozen in most cases. Americans would be barred from doing
business with them.

"We're hitting these people (traffickers) where it really hurts," said Rep.
Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence.

However, civil libertarians are concerned that assets will be seized before
foreign companies have a chance to defend themselves. Some companies fear
they will be penalized for unwittingly doing business with traffickers.

And Mexico is wary of the new law, known as the Foreign Drug Kingpin
Designation Act. Though supporting its goals of fighting traffickers,
Mexican leaders worry that the list could become politicized and influenced
by Mexico's critics in Congress, creating a "scandalous political
atmosphere," Juan Rebolledo, Mexico's undersecretary of foreign relations,
said in an interview in Mexico City.

Sen. Paul D. Coverdell, who sponsored the legislation, said he expects that
the "angst" about the list will calm down after its release.

"I know the list will be very conservative, probably by and large people
already under indictment in the United States," said Coverdell, R-Ga. "It
will not be a long list."

A senior administration official said the first part of the list - the names
of major drug traffickers - was being reviewed Wednesday by President
Clinton in Lisbon, Portugal, where he was meeting with European Union
leaders. Those names will be released today, and the traffickers' assets
will be frozen immediately, the official said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.

The other part, naming the traffickers' business associates, was being
prepared by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, but
it was unclear when it would be made public.

The list could contain names of suspects who have been publicly identified
before, such as Alejandro Bernal Madrigal of Colombia and the Arellano Felix
brothers in Mexico.

Naming business associates has raised greater concerns. TMM, a giant Mexican
shipping company that has long fought rumors linking it to drug trafficking,
hired a Washington firm to lobby on its behalf.