HIGH-RANKING MEXICAN DRUG AGENT REPORTED MISSING

A high-ranking Mexican narcotics agent in Tijuana has been missing since
April 10, the same day three other anti-drug agents disappeared in Baja
California, a U.S. government official said yesterday. The other agents
were later found dead.

The U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, identified the
agent as Felipe Perez Cruz, a Mexican army major who at one time headed the
Federal Judicial Police office in Tijuana.

"He is missing. We have been notified (by the Mexican government) that he
has been missing since then," the official said.

The United States has no independent evidence that Perez has disappeared,
the official said. "We're not confirming anything."

Word of Perez's disappearance comes on the heels of persistent reports in
the Mexican press - and firm denials by Mexican officials - that he is missing.

On Tuesday, Mariano Herran Salvatti, director of the elite Mexican
anti-narcotics arm known by the acronym FEADS, told Mexico City reporters
that Perez is back at work.

"We have directly confirmed and verified through the Secretary of National
Defense that Maj. Perez Cruz has resumed his (military) activities after
terminating his commission in Tijuana," Herran said. So far, however, Perez
has not appeared publicly since Mexican journalists first reported him
missing almost two weeks ago.

Attempts yesterday to contact Mexican justice officials by telephone in
Mexico City were unsuccessful.

Perez reportedly disappeared on the same day three members of FEADS, who
had been working closely with U.S. law enforcement agencies, vanished while
driving from San Diego into Tijuana.

The battered bodies of Jose Patino Moreno, Oscar Pompa Plaza and Rafael
Torres Bernal were found in a crashed sedan that had gone over a cliff near
the mountain town of La Rumorosa.

The Mexican federal Attorney General's Office later confirmed that the
three men had been slain and the crash of their Chevrolet Lumina had been
staged.

Patino, 48, and Pompa, 41, both were special prosectors for FEADS, while
Torres, 29, was a Mexican Army captain on loan to the agency.

They reportedly had been involved in the investigation that led to the
arrest in Tijuana last month of JesFAs Labra Aviles, who Mexican
authorities say is the "financial brain" behind Tijuana's notorious
Arellano Felix drug cartel.

They also were investigating the subsequent killing of Labra's Tijuana
attorney, Gustavo Galvez Reyes, whose tortured, smothered body was found in
Mexico City, a week after Labra's arrest.

The disappearance of Perez on the same day the trio vanished adds to
questions surrounding the deaths of the three FEADS officers.

Those questions deepened last week when the Mexican government revealed the
existence of a videotape shot by remote cameras at the Otay Mesa border
crossing April 10. It showed the FEADS agents crossing the border about
10:40 a.m., followed closely by a dark-colored Chevrolet Suburban.

Suburbans are the vehicle of choice for Mexican government officials and
high-ranking law enforcement officers.

Perez arrived in Tijuana in January 1997 to lead the Federal Judicial
Police under the regional command of Gen. Jose Luis Chavez Garcia, who had
been brought in to head operations in Baja California for the PGR, the
federal Attorney General's Office.

They arrived at a time when the Mexican government was giving its military
a much larger role in anti-drug efforts, and Perez - nicknamed "El Puma"
and "Yanqui" - was in the thick of it. They were reassigned to Mexico City
in December 1998.

Perez became a familiar figure around Tijuana in his green Chevrolet
Suburban, leading several high-profile arrests himself.

He personally collared Arturo "Quite" Paez, an alleged Tijuana
"narco-junior" who quickly rose to become one of the cartel's most trusted
figures. Paez is being held in Almoloya, a maximum-security prison near
Mexico City, and the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego is seeking his
extradition to the United States.

Perez also personally seized Amado Cruz, allegedly one of the cartel's
principal money launderers. Cruz is serving a four-year sentence in Almoloya.