TOP DRUG SUSPECT FACES U.S. TRIAL

Mexico: Officials agree to extradite alleged meth-lab boss.

MEXICO CITY -- The chief of what's considered the world's biggest
methamphetamine trafficking network will be extradited to U.S.
authorities -- the first time Mexico has ever agreed to send a major drug
dealer to face charges in the United States, Mexican officials announced
Thursday.

Jose de Jesus Amezcua and his brothers Luis and Adan are believed to be the
forces behind a major network of labs and couriers that in recent years has
been taking over the California-based business of making and selling
methamphetamine, a stimulant known on the street as ``speed'' or ``crank.''

Elaborate network

In labs in rural Northern California and around Los Angeles, Amezcua
``soldiers'' allegedly have been mixing chemicals smuggled into the United
States from Mexico by migrant workers. Officials said the cartel then used
migrant laborers to carry the finished drug east to dealers, mostly in the
Dallas area and in North Carolina, where growing numbers of Mexican migrant
workers have settled in recent years.

``It's a shame that in this big group of very hardworking people, there are
a few wolves in sheep's clothing that are creating a significant
public-health threat,'' said a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Another member of the family, Francisco Amezcua, was sentenced to 14 years
in prison after he was arrested in Iowa in 1997 along with a Fresno man and
pleaded guilty to charges that he was setting up a methamphetamine
distribution network in Des Moines.

The Amezcua cartel, based in Guadalajara in western Mexico, is so dangerous
that U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno singled it out last fall in a demand
that Mexican authorities turn over drug dealers wanted north of the border.

The Amezcua brothers were arrested in June and cleared last fall of the
various drug and money-laundering charges in Mexico. But U.S. officials
requested that they be extradited to Los Angeles, where they have been
indicted on federal drug charges. Adan Amezcua, however, is jailed in a
state prison in Jalisco, where he is serving an 18-month sentence on a
firearms conviction.

Mexican government officials, however, said the transfer of Jose de Jesus
Amezcua may take a while, because the alleged trafficker has filed an appeal
of an extradition order that was signed last month but not made public until
Thursday.

Attorneys for Amezcua refused requests to speak with their client Thursday,
but in a rare interview, a Mexico City magazine quoted Amezcua last fall as
saying he was an innocent rancher, not a drug dealer.

``Damn gringos,'' Amezcua said to the weekly Quehacer Politico -- ``On
Politics'' -- about his pending extradition. ``When the gulf war started, I
went to the U.S. and signed up for the Army to fight. But they rejected me,
and this is how they repay me for wanting to help them.''

The deal for Amezcua comes just as the annual U.S. congressional debate over
Mexico's performance in the war on drugs heats up again. In March, President
Clinton is expected to send Congress a list of nations he believes are
cooperating in the fight against drugs. Congress will then vote on the list.

Failing to be certified could invite trade and aid sanctions.

Newly cooperative

Officials on either side of the border refused to link the Amezcua
extradition to the certification process, but in an interview this week, a
senior Mexican official said such cooperation is increasing between the
United States and Mexico. In 1998, some 20 suspects were extradited between
the two countries, more than double the number in 1997, said a senior
Mexican government official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity.
Accused cocaine cartel leader Juan Garc(acu)a Abrego was extradited to the
United States in 1996, but only after he was discovered to be an American
citizen.

Coincidentally Thursday, U.S. authorities in San Diego arrested a banker
wanted for orchestrating a multimillion-dollar bogus bank-lending scheme in
Mexico. Mexican authorities quickly filed an extradition claim for Ramiro
Silis Suarez.

``Mexico is changing greatly in the way we approach cooperation with our
U.S. counterparts,'' said Juan Rebolledo, Mexico's foreign minister for U.S.
relations and its point person on drug issues. ``But what the U.S. needs to
understand is that we're not doing this for the U.S.'s sake. We're taking
these actions because (drug criminals) are hurting Mexico and Mexicans.''

More-cynical Mexican drug analysts say this has become an annual ritual,
pushed by a certification process that ignores the massive drug consumption
north of the border.

``It's good to get these people off the street, but it is sad to see that
Mexican officials are dancing to the tune of Americans,'' said Jose Astorga,
a drug researcher in Mexico City. ``This time it was Amezcua, and it seems
the government will do this regularly now to stay in the good graces of
officials in Washington who do little to curb the country's appetite for
drugs.''