SUSPECTED DRUG RANCH YIELDS NINTH BODY

MEXICO CITY - Searchers have uncovered the remains of a ninth body
buried at ranches they believed were used by a major drug gang near
the U.S.-Mexico border, officials said yesterday.

The discovery reported by the Mexican Attorney General's Office was
the first in more than a week at the four ranches being searched by
Mexican troops and police and the FBI.

According to a news release issued in Mexico City, the skeletal
remains were found buried at Site No. 3 - one of four ranches near the
border city of Ciudad Juarez, where the searches are taking place.

On Tuesday, the Attorney General's Office said they have found more
than 1,000 gallons of chemicals used in processing cocaine, as well as
drug-making equipment and weapons, at the same ranch.

Mexican investigators also found cocaine grinders, metal presses for
compressing the drug, a drying system with reflectors, other
drug-handling tools and cartridges for Kalashnikov rifles.

Both American and Mexican officials said the killings are believed to
be connected to the powerful Juarez drug cartel, one of Mexico's
largest cocaine-smuggling operations until the 1997 death of its
leader, Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

A U.S. government informant had said that as many as 100 bodies might
be found.

Agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, left on the sidelines in
this case by the FBI, privately doubt the existence of burial sites
with high concentrations of drug-war victims.

"I wonder if people moved too quickly," said one Texas-based
official.

In a meeting with reporters just days after the digging began, Mexican
prosecutors said they were working with a list of 100 people -
including up to 22 American citizens - reported missing between 1994
and 1997.

Many of the missing were last seen in Mexican police custody, or being
hustled away by men wearing the black uniforms of federal police.

None of those disappearances has been solved, despite a task force and
four special prosecutors assigned to the case by Mexican officials.