BODY ID'D AS DRUG KINGPIN'S

LAREDO -- Mexican authorities Tuesday identified the bullet-riddled body
found across the Rio Grande from Weslaco as that of reputed Nuevo Laredo
drug lord Dionisio Roman Garcia Sanchez.

Garcia's body was found on a ranch near Nuevo Progreso, a shopping and
entertainment mecca for winter Texans.

Stripped to his underwear, the 46-year-old Garcia had been shot six times in
the head and back, Mexican newspapers reported.

Law enforcement authorities theorized rival drug traffickers killed Garcia
and that his death may have been ordered by Osiel Cardenas Guillen, the Gulf
Cartel's reputed leader.

Garcia apparently had been staying for several weeks at a suburban Monterrey
home.

At least 15 men wearing black clothes and ski masks and carrying powerful
guns carried out a commando-style raid on the house early Monday, abducting
Garcia as well as two women and another man, authorities said.

Police later found the body of Garcia's bodyguard, Juvenal Sanchez Torres,
30, in the home, dead from gunshots to his face.

Two Monterrey police officers witnessed the pre-dawn assault but stood by,
as assailants identified themselves as members of the PGR, the federal
police force.

"It is very common, unfortunately, for federal agents sometimes not even to
identify themselves," Monterrey Mayor Felipe de Jesus Cantu told the
newspaper El Norte on Tuesday. "They do not advise us of their operations
unless they need our help."

Narco-trafficking is believed to be responsible for seven killings this year
in Monterrey, as well as dozens more along the border.

In Nuevo Laredo, 19 killings and as many disappearances have been linked
this year to narcocrime, including the January death of a city police
officer.

Authorities said they are bracing for another wave of violence as gangs
fight for business previously managed by Garcia.