BIG SMUGGLER OF COCAINE IS ARRESTED, MEXICO SAYS

MEXICO CITY, June 13 -- One of the biggest drug suspects in Mexico, who
officials say smuggled billions of dollars of cocaine to the United
States under the protection of a Mexican governor, has been arrested
after years of impunity, the attorney general's office said today.

The suspect, Alcides Ramon Magana, a former federal police officer,
was one of 12 people listed as "drug kingpins" by the United States.
He was captured on Tuesday night at a telephone booth in the southern
city of Villahermosa, drawing a pistol and then dropping it when he
realized that he was surrounded and outgunned, officials said.

Investigators here and in the United States said Mr. Magana had helped
to move tons of cocaine from Colombia through the Yucatan Peninsula to
the United States. His base, the investigators said, was in and around
Cancun, the resort town in the state of Quintana Roo on the Caribbean
coast.

The officials said Mr. Magana operated under the protection of Mario
Villanueva, governor of Quintana Roo from 1993 to 1999. Mr. Villanueva
was arrested 20 days ago, after two years as a fugitive, and faces
charges of cocaine conspiracy in Mexico and the United States.

An indictment unsealed today in New York jointly charged Mr. Magana
and Mr. Villanueva with conspiring to smuggle 200 tons of cocaine into
the United States from 1994 to 1996. That quantity is worth roughly $2
billion, wholesale. The indictment said Mr. Magana arranged to pay
Governor Villanueva half a million dollars for every shipment of
cocaine transported through Quintana Roo.

It said that six years ago Mr. Villanueva met Mr. Magana's agents and
discussed the delivery of 1,100 pounds of cocaine to an airstrip in
Belize, just south of Quintana Roo. The cocaine was loaded by
unidentified co-conspirators -- now, it would seem, government
informers -- "onto an airplane owned by the Office of the Governor of
the State of Quintana Roo," the indictment said.

The arrests in Mexico and indictments in the United States, in close
conjunction, suggest that the authorities in both countries are
sharing information and coordinating investigations to pierce the
syndicate once known as the Juarez cartel, one of the biggest in the
world, and that Mexico's law-enforcement institutions are becoming
less corruptible than in the past.

The chief of the New York field division of the United States Drug
Enforcement Administration, Felix Jimenez, said in an interview that
as governor Mr. Villanueva was paid a $500,000 bribe for every 500
kilograms of cocaine shipped through his state. If that is so, he
would have been paid tens of millions of dollars over the years. "I
don't think people know the magnitude of this case," Mr. Jimenez said.

He said the arrests showed that the government of President Vicente
Fox was "very serious about cooperating with the United States, about
dealing with the drug problem and corruption."

" We can share information," Mr. Jimenez added, "but if a government
doesn't want to do anything with it, that's the end."

For at least four years, officials said, Mr. Magana had managed to
avoid capture despite moving openly and freely in and out of Cancun.
All the while, the officials said, he ran import and export operations
for the biggest branch of the international cocaine cartel built by
Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known in Mexico as the Lord of the Skies, for
his use of aircraft to smuggle cocaine. Mr. Carillo Fuentes is
believed to have died after a botched plastic surgery and liposuction
in 1997.

Mr. Magana, too, had taken steps to alter his appearance, according to
Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha. He had lost a lot of
weight, shaved his beard and may have also had cosmetic surgery, but
his fingerprints remained the same.

Mexican and American officials say Mr. Magana became a valued member
of the cartel while still a federal police officer.

"He didn't join law enforcement with the best intentions," one
official said. "He was very helpful, as a cop, to some of the people
in the Amado Carrillo Fuentes organization."

A Drug Enforcement Administration profile calls Mr. Magana "one of the
most significant drug traffickers in Mexico" and "a key member of the
Juarez Mafia" that Mr. Carillo Fuentes led. In that profile, every
vital statistic about Mr. Magana, save for the color of his eyes, is
listed as unknown.

Jailed outside Mexico City today, Mr. Magana faces longstanding
charges here of racketeering, drug trafficking, weapons possession and
money laundering -- how much money remains to be seen -- as well as
conspiracy charges in New York that carry a life sentence.