REPORTED DRUG CARTEL BOUNTY HAS BORDER PATROL NERVOUS

Border Patrol officers in West Texas are strapping on bulletproof vests
because of a reported $200,000 bounty on federal agents offered by the
Juarez, Mexico, drug cartel, an agency spokesman said yesterday.

"We're not being alarmists - the threats are serious," said Jorge Swank, a
public affairs specialist with the U.S. Border Patrol in Marfa, Texas.

"We're just making sure our officers are aware and exercise extreme caution
. . . (and) we're making sure they're on the lookout," Swank said.

Swank would not provide any specifics on the alleged bounty, which was
outlined in an internal Border Patrol memo cited in a report by an El Paso
television station. The report claimed the bounty was offered by the Juarez
cartel and extended to all federal agencies with a presence on the
Southwest border.

Other federal law agencies would not confirm the bounty by the Ciudad
Juarez-based cartel, which operates just across the border from El Paso.

"Basically, we're not acknowledging that or commenting on it at all," said
FBI agent Andrea Simmons in El Paso.

Swank said agents in the Marfa sector, a remote area that includes 420
miles along the Rio Grande, are seizing more narcotics as drug traffickers
shift operations to areas with limited enforcement. Since October, agents
in Marfa have seized $104 million worth of marijuana, cocaine and heroin,
he said.

"All indications are the Border Patrol strategy is working," said Swank,
referring to containment operations along the border in San Diego, El Paso
and the Rio Grande Valley. "The only places the drug traffickers and alien
smugglers will push to are Del Rio and Marfa."

In El Paso, Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier said death threats by drug
traffickers have occurred before.

"We have had in the past some reported threats made by various drug
cartels, and the last one was issued a couple of months ago," he said.

"At any rate, we do not dismiss these allegations, and we always make
agents in the field aware of any kind of intelligence" relating to death
threats, Mosier said.