KIN, AGENTS FRUSTRATED AS JUAREZ HUNT FIZZLES

Families of missing people are reeling and some American anti-drug agents
are scratching their heads over recent denials by the FBI and Mexican
authorities that dozens of bodies might be buried at remote ranches outside
of Juarez, not far from the border with El Paso.

But odd twists and turns in criminal investigations are nothing new to
frustrated Juarez victims' rights activists accustomed to disappointment in
a city where brazen crime and graft are routine. After two weeks of digging
at two of four ranches that some officials initially called possible mass
grave sites that might hold as many as 100 bodies, remains of eight men
have been unearthed and are being studied by FBI forensics specialists in
El Paso.

And with Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo signaling that the digging
may end in two weeks, officials are now saying they're not sure how many
bodies they'll turn up. The total may be well below original estimates.

Mexican and FBI sources at first suggested that as many as 100 bodies might
be found - victims of a war between drug gangs over illicit cocaine supply
routes in Mexico said to be worth $10 billion a year.

A media crush ensued, dozens of FBI specialists were granted special
permits to work in Mexico, a special forensics lab was set up in El Paso.
Buoyed by the official ruckus, families of the disappeared began hoping
authorities could finally close ugly chapters in their lives.

But it soon became clear that scores of bodies might not be buried at the
ranches after all - souring hopeful families on the spectacle.

"The families are calling me, wondering what is going on, and I can't tell
them a thing," said Jaime Hervelles, who directs an El Paso group that has
tracked nearly 200 unsolved border area disappearances and kidnappings
dating back to 1994.

"If the authorities would stay with it and dig up all the ranches said to
belong to drug traffickers, and all the abandoned wells around Juarez, they
might turn up 100 bodies. But that could take years."

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.
"Everyone is jumping to conclusions and there is really nothing yet to
indicate drug-related burials at the scale they've advertised."

Madrazo was careful to point out that neither he nor the FBI ever issued an
official body-count estimate. Yet 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 from 1994 to 1997.