EX-OFFICIAL ARRESTED IN MEXICO

MEXICO CITY--After a two-year manhunt, Mexican federal police Thursday
night arrested a former governor suspected of protecting drug smugglers
during his term.

Mexico's attorney general said investigators from his office arrested
former Quintana Roo state Gov. Mario Villanueva while he was traveling in a
car in the Caribbean resort of Cancun with two other people, including a
former state judicial police officer, Manuel Jesus Kan.

Villanueva did not resist arrest, said Atty. Gen. Rafael Macedo de la
Concha. Villanueva had frequently moved in and out of the country during
his two years on the run, entering through Mexico's southern border, Macedo
said .

He said Villanueva would be taken to Mexico's highest-security prison
outside Mexico City.

Villanueva faces drug-smuggling and organized-crime charges.

The main accusation against him is that he used police to help protect drug
smugglers of the Juarez drug-smuggling organization. Villanueva has denied
the allegations.

After being questioned by Mexico's anti-drug czar and being summoned for
further testimony, Villanueva disappeared in March 1999, just days before
the end of his term as governor of Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located.