OFFICIALS END GRAVES SEARCH IN JUAREZ AREA

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican and U.S. officials have ended excavations of grave
sites along the countries' border after turning up only nine bodies,
Mexico's top prosecutor said Thursday.

Mexican police and troops, as well as FBI agents, began digging at four
ranches near Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, last fall.

The operation was revealed by a U.S. official in Washington who said an
informant had revealed the graves.

In Juarez, a group of families of missing people who disappeared during a
drug war in the city said there were more than 100 bodies in the graves.

The digging was called off Wednesday, Attorney General Jorge Madrazo told a
Mexican Senate committee.

Madrazo said witnesses are still being interviewed and that additional
digging could resume if more information is obtained about other graves.

Seven of the nine bodies have been tentatively identified and the
identifications indicated that they were killed by a drug-smuggling gang
headed by the Carrillo Fuentes family, said Jose Larrieta Carrasco, head of
the Mexican attorney general's organized crime unit.

Madrazo said five people have been detained in the case but he gave no
details.

Madrazo said all the victims were men, four in their late 30s and five more
than 50 years old. Officials declined to give the victims' identities,
saying they have yet to be confirmed. Authorities also did not say whether
Americans were among any of the victims.

Madrazo also said that a building on one of the ranches was a drug
laboratory and that agents found chemicals and equipment used to process
cocaine.

During testimony before the Mexican Senate on Thursday, Madrazo explained
why he asked for the help of up to 72 FBI experts in forensic investigations
and other criminal probes.

Some senators said the FBI presence violated Mexico's sovereignty or implied
that the Attorney General's Office was too incompetent to conduct its probe.