UNDER INVESTIGATION, MEXICAN DISAPPEARS

Governor May Have Fled to Avoid Expected Arrest

MEXICO CITY, March 31 - A state governor who is under investigation
for alleged ties to Mexico's most powerful drug cartel has disappeared
just days before police were expected to seek his arrest for drug
trafficking and money laundering, according to law enforcement
officials here.

Gov. Mario Villanueva of the Yucatan Peninsula state of Quintana Roo
had been under police surveillance but apparently eluded the agents
who were tailing him, an official here said.

Villanueva's six-year term, during which he has immunity from
prosecution as a sitting governor, ends on Monday, and the Mexican
media and law enforcement officials suggested today that he may have
gone into hiding or fled the country to avoid arrest.

If Villanueva -- who is a member of the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) -- were to flee Mexico and evade charges, it
would be a stunning blow to the country's justice system. For decades,
corruption at the highest levels of Mexico's federal and state
governments has been well documented, but few have ever been held
accountable. Mexican officials have cited the year-long investigation
of the governor as a symbol of the democratic change shaking Mexico
and a signal that corruption is no longer being ignored within the
PRI, which has run the country for the past 70 years.

Officials in the governor's press office, noting they were besieged by
media inquiries, said they could not provide any information about
Villanueva's whereabouts, fueling speculation in the Mexican news
media that he was dodging investigators.

"If anybody knows where the governor is, please tell me," the state's
second-ranking official told the daily newspaper El Universal.

Villanueva has denied allegations of wrongdoing, most recently in a
press conference last week.

Villanueva has been the subject of an intense and unusually public
investigation by U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agencies into
allegations that he received millions of dollars in payoffs for
protecting drug cartel kingpins and their shipments during his
administration. In recent years, the Yucatan Peninsula -- and more
specifically Villanueva's state, where the internationally famous
beach resort of Cancun is located -- has grown into one of the main
transit points for Colombian cocaine being shipped to the United States.

The governor's apparent disappearance after failing to show up for a
scheduled round of questioning by federal law enforcement officials on
Tuesday capped weeks of jousting between Villanueva and his government
accusers.

Two weeks ago, in an hour-long speech to judges and lawyers in his
home state in which he criticized the government's investigation,
Villanueva provided some of the most detailed information yet of the
attorney general's case against him. Villanueva said investigators
allege that he permitted drug traffickers to use state-owned airport
hangars for loading and unloading shipments of drugs, maintained close
ties with the leaders of the country's most powerful drug mafia and is
a cocaine user himself.

Law enforcement officials from the United States, Mexico and other
countries also are investigating bank accounts in the names of
Villanueva, family members and friends that allegedly contain millions
of dollars, including one Swiss account with $73 million in
Villanueva's name, according to officials familiar with the
investigations. Other bank accounts in the United States, Mexico, the
Cayman Islands and the Bahamas also have been scrutinized.

Mexican authorities also are considering charging Villanueva with drug
trafficking, alleging that during his term as governor he was a chief
protector for the Juarez cartel, Mexico's most powerful drug mafia. In
recent years, the cartel has moved much of its operation to Quintana
Roo where alleged kingpin Ramon Alcides Magana runs the cartel's
activities, with help from Villanueva, U.S. and Mexican law
enforcement officials allege.

Under a law intended to protect elected officials from malicious
vendettas by political opponents, sitting governors have immunity from
arrest and prosecution unless they are first impeached by the lower
house of Congress. But rather than launch a politically charged
impeachment procedure, Mexican officials decided to wait until
Villanueva's term expired to attempt to prosecute him.

Law enforcement officials said they always were concerned about the
risk that he could flee before his tenure ends this Monday.

Last week, after a daylong interrogation by senior officials of
Mexico's federal anti-drug agency, Villanueva called a news conference
and told reporters, "I'll come away clear from this affair and all its
insinuations and accusations because they are baseless."

But Villanueva failed to appear Tuesday in Mexico City for a second
meeting with federal anti-drug investigators, instead sending a letter
reiterating his denials of wrongdoing. "He did not show up, even
though he signaled to us he would do so," Mariano Herran Salvatti,
chief of the federal anti-drug agency told reporters. "He himself is
rendering hollow his announcement that he would offer proof in his
defense."