MEXICAN AGENTS FOUND DEAD IN BAJA

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Three Mexican special agents were found dead in
Baja California state, their bruised and battered bodies possibly left
as a warning message by the powerful drug cartel they were
investigating, authorities said Wednesday.

Mariano Herran Salvatti, head of the anti-drug unit at the attorney
general's office, said the deaths may have been a message to
authorities from the powerful Arellano Felix Brothers' cartel to ``not
to mess with their territory,'' which includes Baja California and
three other Pacific Coast states.

Herran Salvatti said the battered bodies of the agents were found
Tuesday evening in their white Chevrolet van, which had overturned on
an embankment along the Rumorosa Highway that links the border city of
Tijuana with Mexicali, the state capital of northern Baja California.

The highway runs just south of the Mexico-U.S. border.

The agents were identified as Oscar Poma Plaza, 48, and Jose Luis
Patino Moreno, 47, and Cap. Rafael Torres Bernal, for whom no age was
given. All three were members of Herran Salvatti's unit and had been
probing the activities of the Arellano Felix cartel.

The cartel is considered one of the largest and most violent in
Mexico.

The exact cause of death was unknown pending an autopsy, but the
bodies bore no signs of having been shot, he said.

Herran Salvatti said the three agents were gathering evidence against
Jesus Labra Aviles, 50, who is suspected of being a major figure in
the drug cartel.

Labra was recently placed under house arrest on a court warrant
pending formal charges for racketeering, drug trafficking and money
laundering.

Gustavo Galvez Reyes, his lawyer, was found dead March 15 in Mexico
City with his hands and feet tied and a plastic bag covering his head.

The agents' apparent slayings are the latest in a series of apparently
drug-related homicides in Mexico in recent weeks.