REMAINS OF TWO MORE PERSONS FOUND ON MEXICAN BORDER RANCH

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Investigators uncovered the remains of two
more people yesterday near the border with Texas and New Mexico,
bringing to eight the total number of bodies found in a search for the
alleged victims of a powerful drug cartel.

Mexican authorities and FBI agents have been digging on four ranches
near the border city of Ciudad Juarez after receiving a tip from a
former Mexican federal police officer that as many as 100 bodies -
apparent victims of the Juarez cocaine cartel - could be buried there.

The remains of the two people found yesterday were located at what
investigators described as site No. 2, one of two areas where
investigators have focused their most intensive efforts.

At the Rancho la Campana, about 10 miles southwest of Ciudad Juarez,
authorities previously had unearthed the remains of six men, all
buried together. Some of the men had been bound and gagged.

Both U.S. and Mexican officials said the killings apparently were
connected to the powerful Juarez cartel - Mexico's largest
cocaine-smuggling operation, led by Amado Carrillo Fuentes until his
death in 1997.

Carrillo Fuentes molded the Juarez cartel into a thriving business
that earned tens of millions of dollars smuggling drugs through El
Paso, Texas, to Dallas, New York and Chicago.

When he died in 1997 after plastic surgery meant to hide his identity,
a bloody power struggle ensued between his brother Vicente Carrillo
Fuentes and a faction of the cartel aligned with the Tijuana-based
Arellano Felix gang.

While the smuggling activity decreased slightly during the turf war,
the organization quickly regrouped and has since branched out to other
cities along the Texas border, drug experts said.

Also yesterday, Mexican authorities said they found almost 8 tons of
cocaine on a fishing boat in a joint operation with the U.S. Coast
Guard.

"The seizure is the second-biggest of the year as much because of the
tonnage of cocaine as the way the operation was done, coordinating
Mexican and U.S. authorities," the Attorney General's Office said in a
statement.

The drugs were found on a boat flying the Mexican flag in the Pacific
Ocean, 210 miles west of Mexico City, on Friday and Saturday, the
government said.