ARRESTS OF 2 DRUG AGENTS IN MEXICO CRITICIZED

TIJUANA, Mexico -- In a new case raising friction between American and
Mexican law enforcement officials, two Mexican drug enforcement agents are
in jail here on kidnapping charges that might have been trumped up by
corrupt police working with traffickers.

The two Mexican agents, part of an anti-drug unit that works closely with
U.S. officials, were preparing to buy a ton of marijuana from Tijuana
traffickers as part of a buy-and-bust operation when they were arrested by
Baja California state police summoned by one of the traffickers.

The traffickers, a father and son, have made protection payments to the
state police who came to their rescue, according to testimony and Mexican
and American government documents in court files.

"The whole thing smells," said an American official familiar with the case.
Several U.S. officials portrayed the arrest as the latest example of how
pervasive corruption frustrates attempts to work with Mexican law
enforcement.

U.S. officials are perplexed because several Mexican Federal Police took
part alongside the state police in arresting men who are, technically, their
own colleagues.

Mariano Herran Salvatti, who heads Mexico's Federal anti-narcotics agency,
said in Mexico City on Thursday that he believes corrupt Baja state police
were seeking vengeance against the two federal agents because, since their
15-member intelligence unit arrived in Tijuana in early September, it has
made several large drug seizures.

Baja state police, who have visited the two agents in jail, have asked them
to name their undercover colleagues and commanders and to divulge the
addresses of their undercover offices, Herran said. The state police also
threatened to kill the federal agents, he said.

The commander of the Baja California state police, Alvaro Castilla Gracia,
insisted that the agents must stand trial, although he acknowledged that
circumstances surrounding their arrest are more consistent with an
undercover drug operation than a kidnapping.

Since the agents' arrest on Sept. 11, he said, other kidnapping complaints
have been filed against them. The two incidents for which the state
authorities provided dates occurred before the federal agents say they
arrived in Tijuana.

The two agents, Eligio Garcia Reyes, 29, and Nicolas Carrillo Jimenez, 24,
were recruited about a year ago into Mexico's elite anti-narcotics force,
the Special Prosecutorial Agency for Drug Crimes, known by its Spanish
acronym FEADS, as part of an effort to rejuvenate Mexico's discredited drug
enforcement agencies with honest young agents.

After passing lie detector tests and other examinations of their integrity,
they were trained in investigative and intelligence procedures by Drug
Enforcement Administration officers at an American training center in
Leesburg, Va., according to Garcia and American officials.

Checked-by: Don Beck