EX-GOVERNOR ACCUSED OF SHIELDING TRAFFICKERS

MEXICO CITY -- After a two-year manhunt for one of Mexico's most wanted
fugitives, federal police on Thursday night arrested a former governor
suspected of protecting drug smugglers during his term.

Mexico's attorney general said investigators from his office arrested Mario
Villanueva while the former governor 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 Attorney General Rafael Macedo.

He credited the arrest to the work of his staff since President Vicente Fox
appointed him to the post six months ago and to collaboration between
Mexican and U.S. authorities.

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

Villanueva, who faces drug-smuggling and organized-crime charges, is the
highest-ranking Mexican official to face a drug-related investigation while
in office.

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

Villanueva denied the allegations, saying they were motivated by political
rivalries.

After being questioned by Mexico's drug czar and being summoned for further
testimony, Villanueva eluded a police and disappeared on March 28, 1999,
two weeks before the end of his term as governor of Quintana Roo state,
where Cancun is located.