ALLEGED PIONEER OF MEXICO-U.S. COCAINE TRADE FOUND SLAIN

Latin America: Killing of 'top-echelon drug trafficker' prompts fears of
gang blood bath.

MEXICO CITY--An alleged godfather of the Mexican drug trade was executed
and his body abandoned near the Texas border, prompting fears of a blood
bath between rival Mexican drug groups, officials said Friday.

U.S. officials called Rafael Munoz Talavera a pioneer of the Mexico-to-U.S.
cocaine trade. They had earlier predicted that he would replace the
country's No. 1 trafficker, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who died in July 1997
after plastic surgery to hide his identity.

Authorities discovered Munoz Talavera's body at dawn Thursday, slumped in
the back seat of a 1985 Jeep Cherokee that was parked in a middle-class
neighborhood of Ciudad Juarez, which borders Texas. He had been shot four
times in the head and heart, and his hands were bound, said a spokesman for
the state prosecutor's office in Chihuahua. The body was identified by
family members Thursday night, said the spokesman, who declined to be
identified.

"I don't think there's been a larger drug trafficker documented--at least
in terms of the actual seizure of cocaine, or the actual documented
deliveries that he accomplished," said Assistant U.S. Atty. Glenn
MacTaggart in San Antonio. MacTaggart unsuccessfully sought Munoz
Talavera's extradition to the United States to stand trial on drug charges.
He said the Mexican had imported 200 tons of cocaine in 1988-89, including
a 21-ton shipment, the biggest U.S. drug seizure ever, discovered in a
warehouse in Sylmar.

Munoz Talavera, 45, was convicted of drug charges and served about 2 1/2
years but was released on appeal in 1996. Since Carrillo Fuentes' death,
U.S. and Mexican officials say, Munoz Talavera had been trying to take over
the Ciudad Juarez-based drug organization, one of Mexico's most important.

More than 65 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez in infighting among
drug gangs since Carrillo Fuentes' death.

However, Munoz Talavera was the first major figure among them. Phil Jordan,
former head of the El Paso Intelligence Center, a U.S. government
anti-narcotics facility, predicted that the slaying would prompt more
violence in drug centers like Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana.

"Any time you eliminate a top-echelon drug trafficker [like] Munoz
Talavera, who was a major-league player in the takeover of Amado Carrillo
Fuentes' empire, you're going to have more bloodshed," he said.

Officials in Chihuahua, where the killing occurred, had made no arrests as
of Friday. Both the Mexican attorney general's office and the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration declined comment.

Munoz Talavera was based in Ciudad Juarez but apparently knew his life was
in danger there. Last December, he sent a letter to Mexican President
Ernesto Zedillo complaining of "a group of criminals in the city that wants
to kidnap members of my family." The criminals want "to pressure me because
they think I'm competing in their dirty business," he said in the letter,
which he also ran as an advertisement in local newspapers.

U.S. officials say Munoz Talavera pioneered the use of Mexico as a
transshipment point for Colombian cocaine bound for the United States.
Currently, more than half the drug reaching U.S. users is believed to cross
Mexico.

In his letter, however, Munoz Talavera described himself as a "simple,
hard-working man" with no connection to drugs.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson