CARTEL HOLDS ONTO POWER DESPITE DEATH OF LEADER

MEXICO CITY, Nov. 29 - The Juarez cartel remains the most powerful drug
mafia in Mexico despite predictions by Mexican and U.S. law enforcement
officials that the death of its leader more than two years ago would lead
to the breakup of the organization.

U.S. authorities estimate that more than half of the cocaine that enters
the United States through Mexico is moved by the cartel.

While Ciudad Juarez, which shares a border with El Paso, Tex., is the
primary headquarters and trafficking center of the cartel, the organization
has reorganized into three main cells since the death of Amado Carrillo
Fuentes following plastic surgery and liposuction in July 1997.

His brother, Vicente, has taken control of the organization, which operates
key cells in the western city of Guadalajara and the Yucatan resort of Cancun.

While mid-level distributors and traffickers hired by the Juarez cartel
have helped build Ciudad Juarez's reputation as perhaps the most violent
city on the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border, the cartel's leaders
rewrote the code of behavior for drug mafia kingpins.

Amado Carrillo Fuentes eschewed the flashy lifestyle of his predecessors,
who frequented restaurants in the company of television soap opera stars,
pop musicians and sports figures, instead living a relatively low-key
existence behind high-walled compounds. He reportedly threatened the lives
of Ciudad Juarez newspaper editors who tried to publish photos of him.

Juarez cartel leaders have avoided arrest by providing millions of dollars
in bribes to Mexican police and army officials in return for protection for
their personnel and drug shipments.

Agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration frequently cite the
Juarez cartel as less prone to indiscriminate violence than its chief
competitors, the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix brothers.

Even so, in the aftermath of Amado Carrillo Fuentes's death, Ciudad Juarez
suffered an unprecedented spurt of violence, mostly between Vicente
Carrillo Fuentes's faction and lesser leaders who tried to challenge his
authority, as well as between mid-level associates who tried to renege on
payments owed the cartel.

The cartel always has used murder and the threat of violence to discipline
traffickers who lose drug shipments or attempt to abscond with the cartel's
drugs or money.