MEXICO FINDS WANTED DRUG HIT-MAN

MEXICO CITY -- Police have found one of Mexico's most wanted drug hit men
exactly where they want to put him -- in prison.

Humberto Rodriguez Banuelos -- wanted in a 1993 shootout that killed a
Roman Catholic cardinal -- was awaiting trial under a false name in a
Tijuana prison, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The alleged top hitman for the Arellano Felix drug cartel, known as "La
Rana" -- The Frog -- had assumed the name Carlos Duran, had liposuction, a
facelift and a hair implant to fool police.

He had been in jail for three months facing separate murder charges before
prosecutors discovered his false name, date and place of birth didn't match
official records.

The detection was proof that police are hitting hard against all drug
gangs, said Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha.

"Neither the Arellano Felixes nor any other drug trafficker is getting
impunity," said Macedo de la Concha.

The administration of President Vicente Fox has dealt severe blows to the
remnants of the Gulf cocaine cartel in raids earlier this year, but had
failed to arrest any top members of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix gang,
Mexico's most violent.

The issue is a sensitive one, since Mexico's former top anti-drug official,
Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was arrested in 1997 for hitting hard against
the Tijuana gang -- in exchange for payoffs from a rival cartel.

The Frog was transferred Tuesday from his Tijuana jail cell to a federal
prison in the western Mexico city of Guadalajara.

Rodriguez Banuelos faces charges of homicide, drug trafficking and illegal
weapons possession in Tijuana, and organized crime, homicide and kidnapping
charges in Guadalajara.

He allegedly masterminded a 1983 assassination attempt against rival drug
lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, and participated in a 1993 shootout at the
Guadalajara airport in which Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo was killed
in the cross fire.