THE KING'S COLLAPSE

U.s.-Mexican Drug Cops Snare A Big One

Americans have flocked to Cancun, on the tip of Mexico's Yucatan
Peninsula, for years, turning the once sleepy city into a trendy
resort rivaling anything in the Caribbean for vacations.

Now, it turns out, Cancun was also a center for cocaine trafficking
between Colombia and the United States.

The arrest 10 days ago of Mario Villanueva, former governor of the
state of Quintana Roo, looks like the end for the jet-setter who
fancied himself the king of Cancun.

Held in a Mexico City-area jail, Villanueva is under indictment in New
York and, if extradited, would become the highest-ranking Latin
American official to face U.S. drug charges since Panamanian ruler
Manuel Noriega was brought to the United States 12 years ago.

Last month, making good on a promise, Mexican President Vicente Fox
turned over Everardo Arturo Paez Martinez to U.S. authorities after a
favorable ruling by the Mexican Supreme Court. Prior to Paez, a key
member of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel, Mexico
routinely turned down U.S. extradition requests.

No more. "If he is extraditable, then he will be extradited," Fox
said about Villanueva on his weekly radio address. "What we are
going to achieve is justice. What we are going to end is impunity."

Villanueva has admitted he accepted bribes and kickbacks from
Canćun developers and contractors, but he has denied
connections with drug trafficking.

The New York indictment charges that Villanueva worked for a Ciudad
Juarez cartel, helping to smuggle 200 tons of cocaine -- with a street
value worth billions of dollars -- into the United States between 1993
and 1999, when he served as governor of Quintana Roo. He was in hiding
for two years before being arrested.

Rafael Macedo, Mexico's attorney general, attributed the arrest to
close cooperation between Mexican and U.S. drug enforcement of-ficials
since Fox's inauguraion six months ago. Mary Jo White, the U.S.
attorney for New York, called the cooperation "unprecedented."

A five-year investigation by U.S. drug enforcement officials led to
the arrests that, as the indictment charges, led directly to
Villanueva. The former governor, a member of the long-ruling PRI,
which lost the presidency to Fox last year, says he is a victim of his
political enemies.

Former PRI governments had protected Mexican traffickers from
extradition on dubious constitutional grounds. In only six months,
Fox's more vigorous approach is showing results not obtained under the
PRI in decades.