MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS THRIVE UNDER NEW TRAFFICKERS

When cocaine boss Amado Carrillo Fuentes died in July 1997 during plastic
surgery to disguise his identity, some analysts predicted the collapse of
his Juarez cartel, one of the hemisphere's premier drug-smuggling gangs.

But the four suspected cemeteries of Juarez cartel victims discovered last
week near the border city of the same name provide gruesome evidence that
Mexico's major drug gangs remain powerful and vicious threats to Mexico and
the United States. The key Mexican drug cartels, U.S. and Mexican officials
agree, have evolved constantly in recent years even amid a crackdown
against them. A new generation of younger traffickers, sometimes called
"narco-juniors," has added a cold, high-tech sophistication to the arsenal
of old-fashioned corruption and brutality that made the cartels so feared.

The narco-juniors are no less brutal, but "their human and material
structures are lighter, they disguise their merchandise, they move with
more discretion, they are better-educated, and they have more of an
entrepreneurial vision of their business," Proceso magazine said in an
August analysis of the new breed.

Thomas Constantine, who resigned recently as head of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, assessed the power of the cartels on ABC's
"Nightline" last week. He said the drug cartels in Mexico "are really more
powerful than the government. The reason I say this is they make hundreds
of millions of dollars, they kill hundreds of people, they are charged time
and again in U.S. courts, and they are never arrested." He added: "The only
conclusion I can draw is that they are operating in a sanctuary, and in
that sanctuary they are more powerful than the central government."

Richard A. Fiano, the Drug Enforcement Administration's current chief of
operations, agreed with that conclusion in testimony to a congressional
subcommittee in September. Mexico's four major cartels, he said, are in
many ways the 1990s versions of the mob leaders and groups that U.S. law
enforcement has fought since the beginning of the century.

"These international organized-crime leaders, however, are far more
dangerous, far more influential and have a greater impact on our day-to-day
lives than did their domestic predecessors," he said. "Their power and
influence are unprecedented."

The four major cartels, smuggling drugs ranging from marijuana to Colombian
cocaine and Mexican-grown heroin, dominate Mexican cross-border trafficking
to U.S. cities. The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that these
cartels provide 60 percent of the cocaine and 14 percent of the heroin
consumed in the United States.

The Juarez cartel is considered one of the two most powerful cartels. The
other is the Tijuana cartel, run by Benjamin and Ramon Arellano-Felix. A
third major cartel, run by Miguel Caro-Quintero, is based in Sonora in
northern Mexico. The fourth significant player, according to Drug
Enforcement Administration analysts, is the Amezcua brothers'
methamphetamine smuggling operation, based in Guadalajara. Three Amezcua
brothers are in custody and awaiting extradition proceedings that would
bring them to the United States for trial.

Some analysts still include the Gulf cartel among the major players, but
most say it has been broken up with the arrest of its boss, Juan Garcia
Abrego. Bitter fighting between the Juarez cartel and other bands for the
spoils of the Gulf cartel has led to constant killing in Tamaulipas and
other cities along the Gulf Coast.

That kind of violence also occurred within the Juarez cartel as well after
the bizarre death of Carrillo Fuentes. Despite the bloody succession
battles that followed the death of "the lord of the skies," the Juarez
cartel not only survived but spread its wings, establishing a formidable
operation in the resort city of Cancun.

That operation apparently even corrupted the governor of Quintana Roo
state, Mario Villanueva, who went into hiding in February on the day his
term ended. Mexican prosecutors said Cancun and the nearby Caribbean coast
had become a primary Juarez cartel gateway for drop-offs by high-speed
boats of Colombian cocaine.

Prosecutors have indicted Villanueva in what they call the "maxi-process"
against the Juarez cartel, which names more than 100 defendants, some in
custody and others on the run.

But arrest warrants and prosecutions don't necessarily mean convictions and
jail time for Mexican traffickers.

Fiano told the congressional subcommittee that the Mexican cartels'
"ability to avoid arrest and continue to ship drugs into the United States
is attributable to their ability to intimidate witnesses, assassinate and
corrupt public officials."

Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo argued last week that the discovery
of the purported cemeteries near Juarez showed that U.S. and Mexican
authorities were working together effectively and achieving some
breakthroughs against the Juarez cartel.

Madrazo has pointed to several high-level arrests of Juarez cartel figures
this year and a well-publicized crackdown on the organization's burgeoning
Cancun smuggling operation as signs of progress. On Wednesday, his U.S.
counterpart, Janet Reno, also lauded Mexico's attempts to fight internal
corruption and take on the powerful cartels.

Madrazo says that as many as 22 U.S. citizens are among the 100 persons
officially reported missing in Juarez in the mid-1990s, underlining the
cross-border nature of the threat.

The working hypothesis, Madrazo says, is that the graves contain victims of
the Juarez cartel.

The extent of the Juarez cartel's reach into Mexican life became clear last
year when officials disclosed that its leaders had nearly managed to buy a
Mexican bank, Banco Anahuac, as a conduit for money-laundering operations
of the cartel's profits. The deal was thwarted when regulators became
suspicious.

The international scope of the cartel was underlined Thursday when Juan
Miguel Ponce Edmonson, director of Interpol in Mexico, disclosed that
Argentine police had arrested suspected money launderers for the Juarez
cartel and had seized several properties. Ponce said evidence showed that
the cartel also had operated in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay at least until
Amado Carrillo's death.

While the Juarez cartel has suffered some substantial blows from Mexican
law enforcement initiatives, the Tijuana cartel of the Arellano-Felix
brothers appears to have survived relatively unscathed.

Constantine, testifying before Congress in March, described the Tijuana
cartel as "arguably the most violent of the drug-trafficking
organizations," but he noted that "the truly significant principals have
not been arrested and appear to be immune to any law enforcement efforts."