1 1/2 TONS OF COCAINE HAULED IN BY DEA

Agent posing as trucker hired to move illicit cargo

LAREDO -- Federal drug agents were busy Friday tracing which international
drug cartel unknowingly hired an undercover agent to sneak 1 1/2 tons of
cocaine from Pharr to Houston.

The cache, valued at about $14 million, was wrapped in plastic bundles and
stashed in a tractor-trailer rig full of pineapples.

"It's the biggest seizure in at least 10 years" for the Drug Enforcement
Administration in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Barry Abbott, head of the
DEA field office in McAllen, said by phone.

The next step is finding out which of Mexico and South America's beseiged
drug cartels was responsible for getting the load to the Valley, Abbott
said Friday.

"I don't have a clue. We'd like to know," he said. "In theory, we'd like to
trace it back to the lab in Colombia."

Among the clues were letters "M" and "N" marked on the bundles, Abbott said.

The load is considered to be worth $14 million in the wholesale market
among major dealers in the drug world, but could be worth 10 times as much
by the time it's sold on street corners, according to authorities.

Agents seized the load late Wednesday night shortly after a DEA agent,
posing as a rogue truck driver, picked up the pineapple-covered load from a
group of alleged Rio Grande Valley smugglers, Abbott said.

Instead of heading to Houston, the agent drove the rig to a fenced U.S.
Customs Service compound where the trailer was searched and bundles were
found among the pineapples, Abbott said.

Two Pharr brothers, Jacobo Mendoza, 49, and Benjamin Mendoza, 44, were
brought before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dorina Ramos in McAllen Thursday where
they were ordered held on charges of conspiracy and possession of the
cocaine.

The seizure comes as Mexican drug cartels battle for control of turf left
by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who died in July of complications during plastic
surgery to hide his identity.

Fuentes, who was based in Ciudad Ju·rez, across the Rio Grande from El
Paso, was known as the Lord of the Skies for his use of large aircraft to
smuggle cocaine.

Meanwhile, Judy Turner, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Customs Service regional
headquarters in Houston, said authorities believe they have figured out who
is the new boss of the Texas-Mexico drug underworld, but they're still
struggling for confirmation.

"Right now, our best intelligence indicates there's a major power struggle
to fill the Amado Carrillo Fuentes void, and we believe we know who the
front-runner is," she said.

She would not elaborate.

Friday, April 10, 1998