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News (Media Awareness Project) - Mexico: Wire: Rising Star In Mexico Cocaine Trade Killed
Title:Mexico: Wire: Rising Star In Mexico Cocaine Trade Killed
Published On:1998-09-11
Source:Reuters
Fetched On:2008-09-07 01:15:00
RISING STAR IN MEXICO COCAINE TRADE KILLED

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A man allegedly trying to become the godfather
of the Mexican drugs trade was gunned down Thursday in the northern
border city of Ciudad Juarez, state news agency Notimex reported today.

Rafael Munoz Talavera, described by the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) as an emerging drug kingpin, was found stuffed in
an armored pick-up truck in a suburb of the city, which has been hit
hard by drug violence recently, the news agency said.

The report could not immediately be confirmed.

Munoz Talavera's family had identified the corpse, Notimex said,
quoting Hugo Chavez, a spokesman for the state attorney general's
office in northern Chihuahua state.

Chavez said residents in the Juarez suburb of El Colegio reported an
abandoned vehicle with a body slumped inside early on Thursday to
police. Juarez lies across the border from El Paso, Texas.

U.S. officials said earlier this year that Munoz Talavera, whose age
was not widely known, was trying to replace the late Amado Carrillo
Fuentes at the helm of the so-called Juarez cartel, one of Mexico's
most powerful drug gangs.

``(Munoz Talavera) is a very capable drug trafficker and he is out
there trying to form alliances,'' one U.S. official said at the time.

Carrillo Fuentes, known as ``Lord of the Skies'' for his brazen tactic
of flying a plane from Colombia loaded with drugs, died during a
botched plastic surgery operation to alter his appearance in Mexico
City on July 4, 1997.

Shortly after his death, a deadly turf war broke out in Juarez that
claimed the lives of at least 60 people. Scores of bodies have turned
up in the trunks of cars with plastic bags around their heads.

Mexican authorities said Munoz Talavera appeared to be fighting other
lieutenants in the cartel for control.

U.S. intelligence officials also said Munoz Talavera was trying to
forge an alliance between the Juarez cartel and other cartels, notably
the bloodthirsty Arellano Felix gang in Tijuana, across the border
from San Diego, California.

Notimex on Friday described Munoz Talavera as a top member of the
Arellano gang, which is led by three brothers. One of the brothers,
Ramon, is on the FBI 10 Most Wanted List.

Munoz Talavera always denied being a drug trafficker. Late last year,
he took out full-page newspaper advertisements saying he was just a
``simple, hard-working person.''

Mexican and U.S. anti-drug officials, however, said Munoz Talavera was
closely linked to Carrillo's predecessor at the cartel, Rafael Aguilar
Guajardo, gunned down by rivals in a Cancun restaurant in 1993.

Munoz had already been caught and jailed the previous year and
received a 15-year sentence for drugs offenses. He was released in
1996 after serving just 3-1/2 years in a move that angered the DEA.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry
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