TWO FBI INFORMANTS AMONG MEXICO DRUG DEAD-REPORT

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The bodies of two Mexicans who worked as FBI
informants were among eight dead found during excavations of border sites
where drug gangs allegedly buried murder victims, newspapers reported on
Tuesday.

"The scientific tests done on the two bodies made it possible to identify
them as two individuals who collaborated as FBI informants in 1994 and 1995
in several operations that helped in the seizure of 18.5 tons of cocaine in
Mexican territory," Reforma newspaper said, quoting a "source close to the
investigation."

Hundreds of Mexican police and soldiers and 65 FBI agents have been digging
at four sites near the border city of Ciudad Juarez since early last week.

A jailed former Mexican police officer, who moonlighted as a hit man for
the Juarez cocaine trafficking cartel, led investigators to the mob burial
grounds along the border, saying he had participated in 80 killings.

A group that represents families of missing people in Ciudad Juarez and in
El Paso, Texas, just across the border, said dozens of people have
disappeared since the mid-'90s, possibly victims of the region's rampant
drug violence. Many relatives of the missing hope the investigation will
yield information about their loved ones.

Investigators unearthed two bodies on Monday, on a ranch called Santa
Rosalia, about 40 miles outside of Ciudad Juarez. Last week the digs
yielded six bodies, with tape binding their mouths and noses, at another
location, the La Campana ranch also outside Juarez.

Reforma newspapers said the two informants whose bodies had been identified
worked under the aliases "El Rojo" (Red) and "Marci."

The source cited by Reforma said the two were killed in early 1995 after
the seizure of a large cocaine shipment discovered in an airplane that came
from South America.

Another leading Mexican daily, El Universal, cited unofficial sources who
said the bodies had been identified as FBI informants.