VICTIMS' KIN EXPECTED TROUBLE

Sudden appearance of riches in Ensenada hinted of drugs, danger

ENSENADA, Mexico --

Relatives of the 18-member extended family killed outside this sleepy port
in a drug-related payback say they saw the trouble coming several years ago.

Suddenly, young men with no visible means of support in this Baja
California community began tooling around town in fancy, new trucks. Small
airplane traffic increased. Fishermen were rumored to be hauling in more
than sardines at night.

As authorities turned up the heat on the Arellano-Flix drug trafficking
gang in Tijuana, the smuggling activity and violence so common in their
adopted hometown of Tijuana gradually began moving south.

And with that move came dangers never seen before in Ensenada, a Pacific
port in northern Mexico long known for tourism and fishing.

``We told him to get out of there,'' Ignacio Liera said of his brother,
Luis Jaime Liera, who was slain at the family compound in the nearby
community of El Sauzal. ``But he didn't move, because he didn't have enough
money.''

Luis Jaime Liera was not believed to be involved with drugs, but several
others living there were, including the apparent target of the Thursday
attack, brother-in-law Ferm(acu)n Castro. Castro miraculously survived and
remained in a coma Sunday.

Ignacio Liera and others Saturday buried seven family members at a funeral
attended by hundreds of people, simultaneously mourning the loss of their
loved ones and the quiet community they once knew.

There were two tiny caskets: one for a 1-year-old boy and another, still
smaller, for an 8-month-old fetus killed early Thursday. The gunmen, clad
in black, dragged the victims from their beds, herded them to an outdoor
patio and sprayed them with automatic rifle fire.

Authorities believe Castro headed one of a growing number of small,
independent smuggling bands that popped up in the region as the
Arellano-Flix brothers were forced to adopt a lower profile.

Experts believe that even before the gang's top enforcer, Ramon
Arellano-Flix, was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted List and indicted on
U.S. federal drug charges in fall 1997, members of Mexico's fastest-growing
narcotics organization were moving underground for survival.

Lieutenants in the Arellano-Flix organization, one of Mexico's largest and
most violent drug gangs, soon began charging smaller groups for the right
to move drugs through the region.

While the small groups had indirect contact with the Arellano-Flix
organization, they never became part of its structure, authorities said.

Ensenada's geography made it a perfect drug shipment point for U.S.-bound
drugs: miles of deserted coast on the Pacific and Gulf of California, and
hundreds of square miles of desert for clandestine landing strips.

``This is an efficient corridor. Sometimes they come up through the gulf
and ship over dirt roads to the Pacific, or from the Pacific to the gulf.
They land drugs in planes. They stand offshore in ships, and small boats
bring the drugs into shore,'' said Gen. Jose Luis ChE1vez, the
representative of the attorney general's office in Baja California state.

All of the massacre victims were local residents. Castro is a Pai Pai
Indian from the mountains farther south on the coast.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan