GRISLY FIND WON'T SLOW DRUG FLOW

A man is busted smuggling 137 pounds of marijuana in the fuel tank of his
pickup. The same day, across the Mexican border in Ciudad Juarez,
authorities begin digging up graves believed to hold the enemies of a
ruthless drug gang.

A day later, another man is caught at the border with 232 pounds of pot
under the floorboard of his van. At the grave site, body bags are being
loaded onto a truck, also destined for the United States. As the grisly
search for bodies unfolded last week on Mexican ranches outside Juarez, the
smuggling of narcotics across the border into the United States continued
uninterrupted.

Regardless of how many corpses eventually are unearthed, and what is
learned of their deaths, experts warned that the drug trade isn' t likely
to feel an impact. They say that won' t come without a renewed commitment
to bring down the men calling the shots -- and a decrease in Americans'
insatiable appetite for drugs.

" The final test of this will be not that you just find the bodies and not
that you find some low-level gunman, but that the leaders of these
organizations and the corrupt officials that work with them are arrested,
brought to justice and punished severely, " said Thomas Constantine,
retired head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

" That will be the test of whether or not this will be successful, " he
added. " And that will not be easy."

The joint U.S.-Mexican search at four sites around Juarez, a bustling city
of 1.3 million people, began after a former Mexican federal police officer
told the FBI that 100 or more bodies may be buried there.

Mexican Attorney General Jorge Madrazo immediately pointed the finger at
the notorious Juarez drug cartel, one of Mexico' s largest and most violent
gangs.

He noted that more than 100 people, including 22 Americans, had disappeared
in Juarez over the past several years, presumably at the hand of the
cartel, now headed by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.

Carrillo Fuentes, who assumed control of the gang after the 1997 death of
his brother, Amado, is among dozens of top drug lords and lieutenants
facing U.S. indictments that could lock them up for life.

But such prosecutions have been hindered by the failure of honest Mexican
officials -- and, more significantly, the unwillingness of corrupt
officials -- to round up and extradite the wanted men.

" We know who they are. We know what crimes they have committed. The
problem is that nobody can find them in Mexico, " Constantine said. " As
long as they exist in a sanctuary, we will be unable to bring these people
to justice."

Others note that even in the rare instance a cartel leader is caught, the
successful prosecution of one man alone is not enough to cripple
organizations that have a string of successors waiting in the wings.

Take the case of Juan Garcia Abrego, who after more than a decade of free
rein over the Gulf cartel in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville,
Texas, was captured by Mexican police in 1996 and flown to Texas for
prosecution.

The first international drug lord put on the FBI' s Most Wanted list,
Garcia Abrego was later convicted and given 11 life prison sentences.

His gang barely skipped a beat.

" There was a temporary disruption because of the power struggle, but the
amount of narcotics coming across the border has increased, " said Phil
Jordan, former head of the DEA' s El Paso Intelligence Center, which tracks
Mexican drug gangs.

The same thing occurred after the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who
molded the Juarez cartel into a thriving business that earned tens of
millions of dollars smuggling drugs through El Paso to Dallas, New York and
Chicago.

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

While smuggling activity dipped slightly during the turf war, the
organization quickly regrouped and has since even branched out into other
cities along the Texas border, Jordan said.

The discovery of the burial grounds outside Juarez, and Mexico' s
invitation to the FBI to participate in the excavation, " is a minor step,
" Jordan said.

" Those bodies cannot talk, " he said. " They have to allow us to go around
and pick up the big guys that can talk."

Despite the sporadic arrests, turf wars and leads, drug activity along the
border from Texas to California continues to blossom. In El Paso alone,
U.S. Customs seizures have soared from 40, 012 pounds of marijuana, cocaine
and heroin in 1990 to 269, 021 pounds in fiscal 1999. The DEA estimates 500
pounds of marijuana purchased in Juarez for $50, 000 can be sold for $400,
000 in U.S. cities like St. Louis.

Still, many are hopeful the horror of the Juarez graves will prompt Mexican
and U.S. officials to redouble their anti-drug efforts.

" I've always thought it would take some dramatic event to change the
dynamics of this situation, " Constantine said. " I am hoping that this is
so gross, so tragic, that all of the barriers will fall."