DRUG CARTEL DRAWING LINE AT BORDER, BUT FOR HOW LONG?

Until the Arellano Felix drug cartel took it over, Tijuana seemed a long way
away from where most San Diegans live. But since the morning of April 10,
the two cities have become neighbors under siege.

On that day, three Mexican drug agents who had been plotting with U.S.
agents against the Arellano brothers were tailed in San Diego on their
return through the Otay Mesa border gate. Their bodies were later found in a
ravine near the Tecate-Mexicali highway.

Intercity linkages grow uncomfortably obvious. The Arellano gang moves drugs
through San Diego for the U.S. market. Arellano corruption focuses on making
their Mexican staging areas into their playpen. But border violence is
difficult to contain along one side, no matter how tactically the Arellanos
may strew their corpses.

Members of San Diego gangs are linked with some of the 70 or more Baja
murders attributed to the Arellanos. The DEA is withdrawing agents from
Mexico. The United States has filed a 10-count indictment against the
Arellanos. The State Department posted a $2 million reward for information
leading to their arrests. This is no longer just Tijuana's problem.

Yet the joint action required of the two nations to fight off the Arellanos'
reign is a supreme test of will between two federal governments, both now
involved in presidential elections and their inevitable exploitation of
issues.

A major barrier is the little-known Brownsville/Merida accord of Feb. 15,
1999, linked by some to NAFTA, which restricts the work of U.S. agents in
Mexico.

It is described bluntly by Vince DelaMontaigne, who retired two weeks ago
after 22 years with the FBI (to become NFL security agent with the
Chargers). He worked undercover for eight years as the United States brought
the La Cosa Nostra mob to its knees, but he calls the Arellano gang "the
most violent organization I have ever met."

"Since Brownsville, we can't send undercover people into Mexico. We can only
use agents after we tell Mexican authorities what we're doing. (These days),
if we do that, we get agents immediately killed."

DelaMontaigne gave a harsh, insider's view of this drug war when he spoke
Wednesday to an audience of 140 hosted by the philanthropist John Carlson:

The United States is "spending literally billions of dollars to fight this
drug traffic, which comes through San Diego in truckloads and is stored in
stash houses before moving out across the nation. It's cocaine, marijuana
and meth. We have taped conversations with drivers who've been paid $50,000
to $100,000 per truckload. We have 12 times successfully seized many tons.
We have indicted 19 drivers, six of them in Mexico. Mexico takes them back.
They may serve prison time but the drugs keep moving.

"The Arellanos contract it all through Tijuana. They are protected from
seaports and airports all the way up to the border, in trailer trucks with
false compartments. I saw over a ton of drugs in a long pipe that extended
the length of the trailer. They send money south along San Diego freeways,
going through the line with millions of dollars hidden. I've seen a
two-foot-wide pipe the length of the truck, stuffed with $100 bills.

"If anybody else is doing drugs in Tijuana, they're paying rent to
Arellanos. Some aren't paying enough and end up dead. Others refuse an
Arellano bribe and somebody in their family ends up dead. The Arellano gang
moves openly in convoys, with maybe two Tahoes in front and three Suburbans
bringing up the rear, and a lot of AK-47s in the middle.

"We set out to test the depth of corruption once with a piece of paper
involving one of the brothers who was at Scripps Clinic for skin grafts.
Within 30 hours that piece of paper was in the hands of his organization in
Tijuana, verbatim, including the code names I'd used.

"Now we are fighting with their encryption devices. There's light at the end
of the tunnel, but it's a long tunnel."