KEY SUSPECT IN TIJUANA DRUG CARTEL ARRESTED

Mexican Soldiers And Police Catch An Alleged Leader Of Arellano
Gang, Which Funnels Narcotics Into U.S.

SAN DIEGO--In what could amount to the most serious blow ever against
the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug gang, Mexican authorities on
Thursday announced the arrest of a senior cartel figure who they say
ran vast cross-border trafficking operations and directed the torture
and murder of rivals that serve as the group's bloody hallmark.

Authorities in Mexico City said Ismael Higuera Guerrero was arrested
Wednesday, along with his 15-year-old son and eight other people,
after Mexican soldiers and federal police raided a home along a scenic
highway near Ensenada, 65 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border.

About 30 soldiers and federal police, acting on an anonymous telephone
tip about an armed group firing weapons and creating a disturbance,
initially encountered gunfire from the home's rooftop, said Mariano
Herran Salvatti, Mexico's top drug prosecutor. After the officers
entered the ground floor and unleashed tear gas, Higuera and the
others surrendered without incident.

Herran called the arrest of Higuera, who was transferred overnight to
Mexico City, a "very important blow." The prosecutor also predicted
the eventual capture of the three fugitive Arellano Felix brothers who
sit atop the crime syndicate, perhaps the most potent and vicious of
Mexico's drug gangs.

"We are seeing the dismantling of the Arellano brothers'
organization," Herran told reporters in Mexico City.

Higuera faces a homicide charge stemming from the 1994 death of a
federal police commander at the hands of state police officers
allegedly acting under orders from Higuera. He also is charged with
drug trafficking. The arrest prompted U.S. officials late Thursday to
unseal an indictment in U.S. District Court in San Diego charging
Higuera with operating a continuing criminal enterprise and conspiring
to smuggle and distribute cocaine.

U.S. authorities hailed the arrest as a significant advance in
Mexico's on-again, off-again campaign against the Arellano clan. The
cartel, with tentacles reaching along Mexico's Pacific coast and as
far south as the state of Chiapas, controls a crucial corridor for
smuggling marijuana, cocaine and, increasingly, methamphetamines
across the U.S. border.

About 60% of cocaine entering the United States comes across the
southern border, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
estimates.

"The arrest of Ismael Higuera Guerrero on Mexican drug trafficking
charges represents a major victory for both Mexican and U.S. law
enforcement," said Donnie R. Marshall, acting administrator of the
DEA, in a statement issued from agency headquarters in Washington.

U.S. authorities describe Higuera as akin to the managing executive of
a sprawling corporate enterprise, overseeing daily operations as the
key link to Colombian cocaine suppliers and marijuana growers in
Mexico, arranging payoffs to corrupt political and law enforcement
officials and wielding an iron fist against rival traffickers from
outside and traitors inside the Arellano drug network.

"He may be the most important member of the organization. He's the
hands-on person," said one U.S. law enforcement official. "You can
have the chairman of the board of Xerox or IBM. But they're not the
ones getting things done."

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she hoped that Mexican
authorities "would be willing to extradite" Higuera.

Higuera rose in power as three Arellano brothers went underground
after the slaying in 1993 of Roman Catholic Cardinal Jesus Posadas
Ocampo in Guadalajara, U.S. officials say. The cardinal is thought to
have been caught in the cross-fire during a botched attempt by
Arellano hit men to kill a rival drug lord.

Higuera is suspected of ordering the 1994 assassination of reformist
Tijuana Police Chief Federico Benitez.

That killing followed a much-publicized shootout in downtown Tijuana
between federal agents and state police who were allegedly protecting
Higuera. The showdown claimed the lives of the federal commander and
three other people.

Some U.S. officials believe Higuera ordered the killings last month of
three Mexican drug agents who had been collaborating with U.S.
authorities in a new, secret hunt for the leaders of the Arellano group.

Ramon Arellano was named to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list in 1997 and
is the subject of a $2-million reward offer by the U.S. government.

Herran said no link has yet been established between Higuera and the
deaths of federal prosecutors Jose Patino Moreno and Oscar Pompa Plaza
and army Capt. Rafael Torres Bernal. Their bodies, bearing signs of
torture, were found April 11 near their car in a ravine off the
highway between Tijuana and Mexicali. U.S. officials said the group
was closing in on the Arellano leaders.

The Higuera arrest is the latest sign of an apparently stepped-up
effort by the Mexican government to crack down on the Arellano group
after months of little activity.

In March, Mexican soldiers made another blockbuster arrest--that of
Jesus Labra Aviles, a Tijuana businessman long reputed to serve as the
gang's financial mastermind. Labra, nabbed with lightning swiftness as
he watched an American-style youth football game at a Tijuana high
school, was transferred to Mexico City and remains under house arrest
in a hotel there.

Higuera was snared a day after Mexico's attorney general, Jorge
Madrazo Cuellar, vowed during a Mexico City memorial service for the
three slain federal agents to redouble the government's anti-drug efforts.

The high-profile arrests are seen by some analysts as an effort by
President Ernesto Zedillo to ring up some anti-crime victories before
his term ends later this year. Zedillo spoke out against the drug
traffickers during a visit to Baja California in February. But when
Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre Marquez was assassinated two
days later, many interpreted the killing as the drug lords'
response--and the spark for the current counteroffensive by the
federal government.

"It's a final offensive against the Arellano cartel," said Victor
Clark Alfaro, who runs a Tijuana human rights center and is
knowledgeable about the drug underworld. "Zedillo wants to end his
[term] with a spectacular action."

Clark noted that leaders of three other major drug cartels, based on
the Gulf Coast and in Ciudad Juarez and Guadalajara, have toppled or
died in recent years, leaving only the Arellano clan intact.

But he pointed out that in each case, new leaders have
sprouted.

"The cartels have an enormous capacity for reproducing themselves," he
said.

Peter H. Smith, who directs Latin American studies at UC San Diego and
has written on cross-border drug trafficking, said the recent turmoil
is an indication that Tijuana is now the focal point of the Mexican
cocaine trade and the Arellanos the supreme cartel.

"In some ways, they're paying the price for their supremacy," Smith
said.