MEXICO STRIKING BACK AT TOP DRUG CARTEL

Government Hunts For Brothers After Slayings Of 3 Agents In Tijuana

TIJUANA, Mexico -- To the delight of U.S. drug enforcement officials, the
Mexican government is conducting a major manhunt for the four brothers who
head Mexico's most powerful drug cartel, the Arellano-Felix organization. A
fifth brother is already serving time in prison.

The government also has arrested the organization's right-hand man, Ismael
Higuera Guerrero, identified by U.S. intelligence as "the most powerful
drug trafficker in the world."

In the wake of the torture-killings in April of three Mexican federal
agents in Tijuana, including an agent who shared intelligence witx the
United States, the government says it hopes to arrest the Arellano-Felix
brothers with the help of specially vetted police units.

Since the mid-1980s, the Arellanos have operated in Tijuana and the rest of
Baja California with impunity.

Today, investigators say, because of enormous government pressure, the
family is running scared. "We have been executing searches in Tijuana, in
Mexicali and in Ensenada with the idea of finding them," Atty. Gen. Jorge
Madrazo, who is leading the government charge, said in an interview in
Mexico City.

"We are watching the streets, with the help of the Mexican military, to see
which of these lines of investigation will lead to their capture."

The Arellano-Felix organization has a vicious and bloody history.

"No doubt it is the most violent and most politically connected [drug
cartel] in all of Mexico," said William D. Gore, special agent in charge of
the FBI's office in San Diego.

"They have been able to penetrate all levels of the Mexican government."

But Madrazo said he would not back down.

"Our people are fighting a clean, honest fight, and how [the Arellanos]
plan to respond is difficult to measure," he said.

"What I can tell you is that we are not scared. In this line of work, you
cannot operate with fear."

Last month, one of the attorney general's police units struck gold.

In an arrest the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration called "huge,"
Mexican authorities collared Higuera, the chief lieutenant of the
Arellano-Felix brothers. Also known as El Mayel, Higuera allegedly ran the
organization's day-to-day operations.

His arrest marked the second setback for the Arellanos this year.

In March, the authorities arrested Jesus "Chuy" Labra, identified as the
group's chief money man, at an American-style football game in Tijuana,
where he was watching one of his children play.

Because the organization is losing valuable elements of its infrastructure,
officials say, the Arellanos are vulnerable to arrest and to outside
competition.

"I think the Arellanos are more concerned now than in a number of years,"
said a U.S. federal prosecutor who specializes in intelligence on the
organization. "They realized they didn't have the type of intelligence they
thought they had. And they didn't have the people in places they thought
they had. They're just not sure."

Investigators said it is likely that the Arellanos, and, in particular,
Higuera, ordered the killings of the three Mexican federal agents in
retaliation for the Labra arrest.

One of the agents, Jose Luis Patino Moreno, had just been named by Madrazo
to help fight the drug war along the U.S.-Mexico border. He was considered
Mexico's top expert on the Arellanos, and their chief pursuer.

Officials on both sides of the border described Patino as a good agent.
Patino also was a friend of U.S. drug agents and was authorized to share
intelligence information with them.

When Patino and his partners were killed, they were investigating the
murder of an Arellano lawyer.

For security reasons, they were living in San Diego.

There is evidence that suggests Patino was tortured before he died.

Madrazo categorically denied the U.S. played a role in the Higuera arrest.

He said the greatest contribution the U.S. could make to the drug war in
Mexico is to decrease its national consumption of illegal drugs.

Madrazo said there was no link between the murders of the federal agents
and the arrest of Higuera, other than having moved police units into
Tijuana as a response to the slayings.

He said one of the units, made up of military and federal police, captured
Higuera on May 3 when they responded to a citizen's complaint about armed
men at a house in Ensenada, in Baja California, south of Tijuana.

U.S. officials say there was no such complaint but refuse to discuss the
case further. However it happened, Higuera's arrest has given U.S. drug
agents reason to rejoice.

In the past, U.S. law-enforcement officials have complained that the
Mexican cartels have come to dominate the multibillion-dollar world drug
trade--supplanting the Colombians--because of rampant corruption within the
Mexican government.

Madrazo, a former human-rights ombudsman who has been universally hailed as
a straight-shooter, sayd he has been working on cleaning up his own office.

"The attorney general's office is not like a supermarket, where you can
draw the curtains, close the door, arrange the merchandise, clean, and
afterward open again," he said. "We have to produce results and at the same
time be cleaning. It is very complicated work."

In the interview, Madrazo rejected the idea that, finally, Mexico is taking
action against the drug barons.

"I cannot tell you why, after so many years, they were arrested, as if
before there was no desire to arrest them," Madrazo said.

Madrazo insisted that during the six-year administration of President
Ernesto Zedillo, which ends this year, authorities have made progress in
the drug war.

He cited the capture of Juan Garcia Abrego, the leader of the Gulf cartel,
and the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the leader of the Juarez cartel.
Madrazo also cited the latest Arellano arrests.

"I think the results we have had make us optimistic," he said.

Madrazo's comments notwithstanding, some law-enforcement officials suggest
the Mexican government was forced to act to avoid further national humiliation.

Shortly after Zedillo visited Tijuana a few months ago to declare war on
crime and drugs, gunmen killed the city's police chief on his way home from
church. Zedillo took the assassination as a personal affront.

In the end, the Arellanos may be victims of their own success.Rather than
keep a low profile, the Arellanos frequented nightclubs in Tijuana, and
their pictures graced the social pages when they began operations in the
mid-1980s. They became friends with the city's rich and influential.

They also befriended San Diego street gangs, whose members later became
some of the Arellano-Felix organization's most trusted assassins.

In 1993, the organization's fortunes took a nosedive when gunmen working
for the group killed a Roman Catholic cardinal during a shootout with a
rival gang.

Since then, the Arellanos have been among the most wanted men in Mexico.

One of them, Ramon, 34, is on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.