MEXICAN OFFICIALS IN DISPUTE OVER SUSPECT'S ESCAPE

TIJUANA -- Keystone Kops, corrupt cops -- or simply a case of poor
communication?

Less than a month after President Vicente Fox urged Mexicans to work
together to foil drug traffickers, a very public battle has broken out
between the Mexicali municipal police and the Baja California State
Attorney General's Office.

It all started at 5 p.m. Monday, during a high-speed chase through the
streets of the Baja California state capital.

The pursuers, five members of the military in an unmarked Volkswagen Jetta,
were chasing a suspected major drug trafficker, Gilberto Higuera Guerrero,
alias "El Gilillo," who allegedly was fleeing in a late-model Dodge Ram.

The chase came to an abrupt halt when nine Mexicali police cars stopped the
Jetta and its occupants.

In doing so, they "prevented the capture and facilitated the escape of a
leading member of the Arellano Felix drug cartel," the Attorney General's
Office said.

Valuable minutes were lost while the soldiers, out of uniform but armed
with an arrest warrant and guns, argued with the police, the Attorney
General's Office said. When the chase resumed -- with the municipal
officers' support -- the Dodge Ram was abandoned, and Higuera was nowhere
to be found.

"Totally unfortunate," the Attorney General's Office said in a communique.

Higuera is the brother of Ismael Higuera, alias "El Mayel," former
operations director of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel. Ismael
Higuera is being held at Mexico's maximum-security Almoloya prison, and
Gilberto Higuera Guerrero is believed to have inherited some of his duties.

Mistrust and disagreements among the various police agencies operating in
Baja California are nothing new. In years past, state and federal police
have had a particularly acrimonious relationship. In 1994 in Tijuana, a
shootout between state and federal agents left five dead; it later was
disclosed that the state agents were protecting a drug trafficker.

Since last year, state and federal investigators have made a concerted
effort to work together, conducting joint investigations of minor drug
dealers. State, federal and municipal officers, and the military have been
cooperating at random checkpoints to search for drugs, guns and stolen cars.

Gen. Rigoberto Castillejos Adriano, commander of the Second Military Zone,
yesterday told Mexicali's Notivisa-Channel 3 that the municipal police's
actions involved no deception or bad intentions.

"It was simply a confusion," Castillejos said.

Mexicali Mayor Victor Hermosillo staunchly defended his police officers,
saying they simply were maintaining public order. The soldiers, speeding
down city streets, "were carrying weapons and had no identification . . .
that would allow one to suppose that they are part of a military or
government entity," Hermosillo said.

"There is no reason that the Attorney General's Office should make an
accusation on a matter in which they had no participation," he said.

Although Gilberto Higuera Guerrero escaped, authorities did catch Miguel
Angel Fernandez Loera, 36, one of the Dodge van's alleged occupants.
Fernandez carried credentials identifying him simultaneously as an agent of
the federal Attorney General's Office; the anti-drug unit, FEADS; and the
Baja California Attorney General's Office.

Enrique Tellaeche, spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office, said
Fernandez is suspected of participating in kidnappings in Baja California;
he has been turned over to federal authorities and is in Mexico City.

The state now wants to know how Fernandez obtained a state police
identification, Tellaeche said, and whether the municipal police could have
been protecting him and Higuera.

"We don't know, but that could be part of the investigation," Tellaeche said.