MEXICALI DUPLICATES ANTI-DRUG TEAM CONCEPT

TIJUANA -- A team of state and federal agents charged with capturing
lower-level drug dealers has shown such promising results in Tijuana that
the concept is being duplicated in Mexicali.

Tijuana's "Agencia Mixta" is credited with the capture of 83 drug dealers
over the past eight months. The 16-agent team was formed after last year's
shooting of police chief Alfredo de la Torre Marquez, when the various law
enforcement agencies pledged to work more closely with each other.

This week, government officials introduced a new team of 12 agents in Mexicali.

"We pledge to make this agency function with honesty and openness," Baja
California Governor Alejandro Gonzalez Alcocer said in a news release.

The teams aren't responsible for tracking down the big fish of the drug
trafficking world, such as the Arellano Felix brothers, who are said to
control most of the major drug routes from Baja California into the United
States.

"They (teams) will combat drug dealing among those who sell smaller
quantities of drugs, such as those who sell near schools or in houses,"
said Raul Gutierrez, a spokesman with the attorney general's office in Tijuana.

People found with larger quantities of drugs, such as more than a half-kilo
of marijuana, will be turned over to the federal attorney general's office,
Gutierrez said. That office specializes in higher-profile drug-related
investigations.

The work done by Agencia Mixta is significant, said state attorney general
spokesman Enrique Tellaeche, because it allows federal and state police to
exchange information and to strike a blow against the most common kind of
drug violence.

"The small-time drug dealers are the ones who are the cause of much of the
general crime," Tellaeche said. "They cause the robberies, the drug
addiction among our young people, and the violence in general."

The force is not to be confused with another multiagency task force, the
Base de Operaciones Mixtas, which comprises local, state and federal police
and the military. That group, formed in March, looks for drugs, guns and
stolen cars at random checkpoints.

Agencia Mixta focuses on long-term investigations leading to the capture
and prosecution of suspected drug dealers.

The Tijuana team has conducted 306 investigations leading to the capture of
the 83 people, according to the state attorney general's office in Tijuana.
The team also has confiscated 11 guns, six cars, 71 kilos of marijuana, 523
grams of cocaine, 726 grams of heroin and 881 grams of crystal.