DRUG CARTELS FLOURISH IN MEXICO

Staff And Wire Reports

MEXICO CITY - Drug cartels operate in about 90 percent of Mexico -- and a
good portion of that includes Colombian drug lords in the nation's capital,
a high-level law enforcement official confirmed.

Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, chief of the Mexican Attorney General's
Special Unit Against Organized Crime (UEDO), said the Mexican cartels have
refined their operations to avoid the territorial disputes of the past and
employ the means necessary to carry out their criminal activities.

"Colombian cartels carry out all sorts of operations, financial
transactions, and drug movements," he stated. Until recently, Colombian
drug lords operated in Mexico through Mexican organizations.

Santiago Vasconcelos said in the Mexican newspaper El Universal that all
Mexican drug organizations operate from the nation's capital and that the
Juarez Cartel covers the most territory, with operatives in 15 states,
almost half of the 32 that make up the country.

The Tijuana Cartel, run by the Arellano Felix brothers, covers 11 states
and the Valencia Mendoza Cartel exists in four.

The Colima Cartel, run by the Amezcua brothers, one of whom was arrested
recently, has operations in eight states, according to UEDO.

UEDO does not totally dismiss the Gulf Cartel, whose boss, Juan Garcia
Abrego, was arrested in a suburb outside Monterrey in 1996 and extradited
to Houston, where he was sentenced to life in prison.

According to information provided by the attorney general's office, Osiel
Cardenas, successor to Garcia Abrego and who is wanted by Mexican and U.S.
authorities, still maintains close relations with the Juarez Cartel to
transport drugs from Colombia to the United States.

"The Gulf Cartel is not over with, there are still people (who work for
it); we have to remember that the great leader whose name is Osiel Cardenas
... is the strongest visible individual that we have seen until now,"
Santiago Vasconcelos said.