BRAZEN DRUG DEALERS FRUSTRATE MEXICO, U.S.

Officials Accused of Protecting Them

For several months this year, a Mexican army lieutenant trained by the CIA
was leading the most sensitive anti-narcotics investigation in Mexico. He
was pursuing tips that he believed tied a powerful drug kingpin to the
governor of the Yucatan state that includes the lavish beach resort of
Cancun and its $2 billion tourist industry.

On June 2, as the lieutenant pulled up to a traffic light during a midnight
surveillance operation, he was surrounded by local police, dragged from his
car and tortured for several hours by henchmen of Ramon Alcides Magana,
known as El Metro, the most powerful drug trafficker on the Yucatan
peninsula, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials.

When CIA and Mexican military authorities received word of the kidnapping
- -- which occurred while the lieutenant was tailing Alcides Magana --
Mexico's defense secretary dispatched armored vehicles to surround the
Mexico City house of the alleged drug trafficker's wife, threatening to
open fire unless Alcides Magana released the lieutenant.

The lieutenant -- a member of a secretive, CIA-trained and organized
Mexican anti-narcotics intelligence unit at the vanguard of the American
anti-drug effort in Mexico -- was freed. But the same night as his
abduction, according to Mexican law enforcement officials, his office was
robbed of all the documents that supported his investigation, including
explosive details of allegations that one of El Metro's main protectors is
Mario Villanueva Madrid, the governor of the Yucatan state of Quintana Roo.

"Quintana Roo has become the first narco-state in Mexico," said a U.S.
official familiar with both U.S. and Mexican anti-drug investigations in
the state.

The kidnapping incident underscores not only the expanding reach and
brazenness of Mexican drug traffickers, but the increasing frustration of
investigators in both countries, who complain that their probes are being
blocked by some of Mexico's highest-ranking elected officials.

The incident -- and the allegations that Mexico's most powerful drug cartel
has the protection of a state governor -- also is likely to figure in
whether the United States recertifies Mexico in the coming months as a
cooperative partner in the fight against drugs, according to officials in
both nations.

The White House is required to make that determination annually.
Decertification would be enormously costly to Mexico in terms of
international prestige as well as U.S. financial assistance. Over the past
several years, however, the White House has resisted pressure from the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration to withhold certification from Mexico, one
of the United States' largest trading partners.

The Yucatan peninsula is one of the biggest drug trafficking gateways to
the United States, with Mexico's most powerful drug mafia, the Juarez
cartel, recently establishing a massive base of operations in the state of
Quintano Roo, known for the Cancun resort's luxury hotels, fine beaches and
posh restaurants.

At least four Mexican anti-drug agencies and the DEA have investigated
charges that the Juarez cartel receives protection at every level of
government in the state, including the local police, the Mexican military
force assigned to the region, and Gov. Villanueva.

Villanueva, whose term expires in April, has denied that he has connections
to drug trafficking and has blamed the allegations on political enemies in
both opposition parties and his own ruling party.

"His position has been very clear," said Roberto Andrade, the governor's
spokesman. "He has demanded the proper investigations be made. He says that
he is clean."

The 50-year-old governor is under investigation by Mexico's federal
attorney general, organized crime unit, military narcotics intelligence
unit and anti-drug agency, which several weeks ago conducted an hours-long
voluntary interrogation of the governor, according to Mexican law
enforcement officials. No formal allegations have been made by any of the
organizations and no charges have been filed against Villanueva.

"Knowing and proving are two different things," said a U.S. official
familiar with the ongoing investigations.

Mexican authorities are investigating bank accounts in the Cayman Islands,
the Bahamas and Mexico that authorities believe are controlled by
Villanueva and may have links to drug proceeds, according to an internal
Mexican law enforcement document obtained by The Washington Post.

"We're getting the feeling that delivering Villanueva's head on a platter
may be a prerequisite for certification," said one Mexican official.

U.S. and Mexican investigators are focusing on allegations that Villanueva
was paid to protect trafficking operations. Last month, federal authorities
dismissed the entire private security force at Cancun's international
airport for allegedly allowing cocaine shipments from South America to
transit the airport.

U.S. and Mexican officials said that state police as well as military
troops assigned to Quintana Roo routinely permit passage of drug shipments
that arrive on the beaches by boat, at clandestine airstrips and overland
though neighboring Belize and Guatemala.

"Everyone there is bought and paid for," said a U.S. official familiar with
the Yucatan operations. "The state police guard the drugs and put it into
trucks filled with chemicals or acid that is hard to check. It is protected
by the highway patrol and the military all the way up."

Said another U.S. official, "It's President Vicente Carrillo Fuentes in
Quintana Roo."

Vicente Carrillo Fuentes is believed to have taken over the operations of
the Juarez cartel since his brother, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, died after
complications from plastic surgery 18 months ago.

With the Yucatan peninsula the gateway of least resistance for drugs
transitting Mexico en route to the United States, the Juarez cartel's
Quintana Roo-based senior lieutenant, Alcides Magana, has become
increasingly powerful within the mafia, according to Mexican and U.S. law
enforcement officials.

Alcides Magana, a former federal policeman and Mexican army officer, began
his drug career as a bodyguard for Amado Carrillo Fuentes and reportedly
was given the Cancun region as a reward after saving Carrillo Fuentes from
a much-publicized assassination attempt in a Mexico City restaurant several
years ago, according to U.S. authorities.

Alcides Magana has wooed dozens of former police and military officers and
soldiers onto his payroll. They include a former senior federal prosecutor
from Quintana Roo, according to Mexican authorities.

In recent weeks, the federal attorney general's office has seized four
five-star hotels and two dozen houses, condominiums and other properties
allegedly owned by members of the cartel in Cancun. Several multi-ton
cocaine seizures also have been highly promoted by the attorney general's
office as evidence that Mexican authorities are cracking down on drug
operations in Cancun.

But U.S. authorities, particularly anti-narcotics officials involved in
making recommendations on the drug certification of Mexico, say they are
dismayed by the impunity with which the cartel and its leaders operate in
the Cancun area.

One U.S. official recounted a disturbing incident just days before the
CIA-trained lieutenant was kidnapped in June.

Three U.S. officials were dining at a Cancun restaurant when Alcides Magana
and two other major Yucatan drug traffickers were seated at the next table.
One of the Americans slipped out of the dining room and telephoned his
contact in the Mexican military in the hope they would arrest the
traffickers. He was told the military unit was tied up on another case and
could not respond, according to the U.S. official's account.

The traffickers, their bodyguards spread strategically inside and outside
the restaurant, finished their meal and departed quietly, the U.S. official
said.

"Seizing hotels and houses doesn't do much for anyone," a U.S. official
said. "They knew where [the traffickers] were, and knew that we knew that
they knew where the traffickers were. So all this is just going through the
motions."

Another U.S. official noted, "What is worrisome is that after the
[kidnapped lieutenant] was released, enforcement against Alcides Magana
virtually ceased."

Molly Moore reported from Mexico City and Farah from Washington.

Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company

Checked-by: Pat Dolan