MEXICAN DRUG GANGS STILL RUNNING RAMPANT

Daring Matamoros Jailbreak Latest Sign

Mexico -- On the dusty outskirts of this border town, a brazen jailbreak
recently unfolded that seemed scripted by Hollywood.

Spilling from late-model Suburbans, pickup trucks and even a Humvee
military vehicle, nearly 50 armed men dressed like Mexican soldiers or
federal police officers with black ski masks, dark combat fatigues and
bulletproof vests converged on the Santa Adelaida prison at 2 a.m.

They flashed false credentials and a forged court order and told jailers
they were there to take custody of four inmates and transfer them to
another prison. They entered without firing a shot, took the prisoners and
then vanished onto the narrow roads outside the rural prison.

The daring jailbreak capped a bloody year of drug killings and kidnappings
in and around Matamoros. It was the second such jail escape in six months
and a clear indication that drug-trafficking gangs remain rampant in the
region and authorities appear powerless to stop them.

Today, nearly two weeks after the Dec. 27 break, all four inmates remain at
large and the identities of their liberators are unknown. Officials admit
they don't have a lot of answers, but they have plenty of suspicions. Among
them is the belief the jailbreak was the work of a drug cartel.

"For our part, we don't know who they were," insists Mario Catarino
Mendoza, the assistant director of the Santa Adelaida prison. "The only
thing we can say is it was a group who had an interest in them (four
inmates), but for what reason we don't know."

Matamoros, the birthplace of the infamous Gulf of Mexico cartel drug
trafficking ring in 1984, remains a city where criminals operate with near
impunity. Despite some success by President Vicente Fox in cracking down on
narcotics trafficking and corruption, Matamoros residents witnessed a
violent 2002, with multiple jailbreaks, assassinations and kidnappings.

Even those who cover crime in Matamoros can fall victim. In March, the
editor of El Imparcial, one of the city's crime gazettes, was shot to
death. Many believe it was a hit related to his detailed coverage of those
benefiting from drug trafficking.

The Dec. 27 jailbreak "wasn't the first, and it won't be the last in
Matamoros," observed Sam Soto, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration office in Brownsville.

One veteran U.S. law official believes an operation of the magnitude
mounted at Santa Adelaida smacks of involvement by the Matamoros-based Gulf
cartel. Now headed by former Mexican federal police agent Osiel Cardenas,
the cartel exerts control over criminal activities along a wide swath of
Mexican states on the Gulf Coast.

"I can tell you two things," said the U.S. official, who asked not to be
identified. "One, you can't do anything without the blessing of Osiel
Cardenas, and two, he's about the only one who would have that kind of
armament, manpower and access to the uniforms."

Why the inmates were removed also remains a mystery. No one knows whether
the inmates were removed by friends or enemies.

"In Mexico, anything is possible," said a local drug agent.

The four escapees were Bellania Flores Montellanos, a 30-year-old woman
awaiting a sentence for murdering a Mexican police commander; Enrique
Gonzalez Rodriguez, serving a 10-year sentence for drug trafficking; Manuel
Alguicides Garcia, sentenced to 15 years for bribing an official and
carrying an illegal firearm; and Daniel Perez Rojas, serving a nine-year
sentence for gun violations.

Although the crime has not been solved, the jailbreak has had ramifications.

The prison warden has been replaced and remains in Mexico City, where he is
being questioned by the attorney general's organized crime division. More
than 20 prison guards who were on duty at the time of the breakout have
been detained during the investigation, Mendoza said.

Mendoza said he does not believe the guards were involved.

The jailbreak also has affected guards who were not at the prison that
night. At least four Santa Adelaida prison guards have resigned, prison
workers said.

One jailer, Graciela Contreras, admitted she and other guards have been
worried and afraid since the breakout.

"I tell my friends there is danger wherever you go," she said.

Santa Adelaida has 2,298 inmates, a population 30 percent over capacity
because federal convicts are being sent there instead of other crowded
federal prisons, Mendoza said.

If recent history is any guide, the Santa Adelaida breakout might not be
solved quickly, and even if it is, it might not stay that way.

After all, authorities have never found the couple who were kidnapped in
June from their Matamoros money exchange house, located a few blocks from
state police headquarters.

Police did swiftly track down a suspect and captured him after a gunbattle
in city streets. He was taken to police headquarters, but later that day a
group of nearly 30 heavily armed men -- wearing ski masks, black fatigues
and bulletproof vests -- burst into the police station, sprayed the place
with machine-gun fire, and freed the suspected kidnapper.

The June breakout remains under investigation, and prison officials remain
optimistic it will be solved.

"I feel, if the investigation follows its course, the people (will be
recaptured)," Mendoza said.