NAFTA BRINGS DIRTY MONEY WITH THE CLEAN

Drug Traffic And Corruption Spell Violence Along The Border

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Mexico -- San Luis, sprinkled with opulent
mansions and wobbly cardboard shacks, is a place of good tidings and
bad, of prosperity and plentiful jobs, of gangland hits and tragic
deaths.

The economy along the U.S.-Mexico border is booming as the North
American Free Trade Agreement approaches its five-year anniversary.
But business is also good for crooks, hit men and drug traffickers in
many Mexican communities here.

Leaders of this windswept town south of Yuma, Ariz., face tough
choices. They can stand up to the local drug barons and try to turn
San Luis into a free-trade haven. Or they can surrender to organized
crime's corrupting powers. Or they can do a little of both.

``Life is more difficult and complicated than ever,'' said Petra
Santos, a leader of the left-leaning Party of the Democratic
Revolution in San Luis. ``Corruption's a problem, but you can't go
around saying some guy's a criminal. That will cost you your life. So
people keep quiet.''

Crime is rising despite an unprecedented police and military buildup.
Traffickers are shelling out millions of dollars to buy off local
politicians, U.S. drug agents say. And they're also snapping up
legitimate companies to shield their sprawling smuggling operations,
according to a recent report by Operation Alliance, a task force of
experts from the U.S. Customs Bureau and other agencies.

According to the confidential report: ``Opportunities for traffickers
are significantly greater with NAFTA.''

Before long, some U.S. agents fear, legitimate businesses will become
hopelessly intertwined with illegal enterprises. Sorting out the clean
money from the dirty and the honest citizens from the thugs will be
next to impossible, they say.

``I hate to say it, but traffickers have become bigger and more
sophisticated than anyone town can deal with,'' said Richard Gorman,
special agent-in-charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration office
in Phoenix. ``Tremendous amounts of money are being dumped into a lot
of border towns.

``Vast amounts of wealth and money are involved,'' he said. ``This
isn't some street-corner trade we're dealing with. Drug-trafficking
organizations today are made up of the best people money can buy.''

Town boosters in San Luis, with a population of 198,780, wince at that
kind of talk.

But what few deny is that narcotics traffickers are vying for power
and influence all along the border. And to further their cause, they
hand out tens of millions of dollars in bribes every year, swaying
police and politicians in San Luis, Ciudad Juarez, Agua Prieta and
other towns, U.S. agents say.

In one case, the late drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes is suspected of
having given $4 million to the mayor of a Mexican town along the Texas
border, a 1997 U.S. intelligence report said.

Carrillo, known as ``Lord of the Heavens'' for his pioneering use of
aircraft in smuggling, died unexpectedly in July 1997 after extensive
plastic surgery at a Mexico City clinic.

His death triggered a flurry of gangland-style hits in Ciudad Juarez
and other towns as rivals battled for his turf.

Drug-related violence has increased along the border. In San Luis
alone, dozens of people, including a prominent journalist, have been
slain during the past two years. Alarmed, some residents are calling
for a strict curfew and federal intervention.

The town's curse -- and blessing with NAFTA -- has always been its
location on the flatlands of Sonora state. It's a natural gateway for
northbound trade. And for traffickers looking for a discreet spot to
land a plane, the possibilities are endless.

``We have the largest airport in the world: the desert,'' grumbled
Carlos Guzman, head of the San Luis branch of the National Chamber
of Manufacturing Industries.

Corruption is also a problem. Kent Alexander discovered that last
summer when he went to San Luis to train drug-sniffing dogs. Hours
after he arrived, his Belgian sheep dog found two tons of marijuana in
a truck at a highway checkpoint at 2:33 a.m.

After that, he said, authorities steered him and the dog away from
busy trafficking routes so they wouldn't stumble across any more shipments.

On Aug. 14, 1997, Alexander said, he fled the country, fearing he'd be
killed for speaking up about corruption. Before leaving Mexico, he met
with Benjamin Flores, then editor of La Prensa newspaper in San Luis.
Someone had just stolen nearly half a ton of confiscated cocaine from
the federal attorney general's office in San Luis.

Alexander said informants told him soldiers were responsible. Flores
said poking into such affairs was dangerous, but it was the editor who
was in peril.

Gunmen killed him the next day outside the newspaper's offices. The
29-year-old journalist's friends say he had many enemies and was once
sued over a story alleging that a top city politician built airstrips
for traffickers.

Flores' murder triggered much soul-searching. Townspeople named a
street after him. Children organized anti-violence marches. And
journalists began saying a prayer before hitting the streets, asking
God to ``allow my words to defend the noble causes of the people.''

But before long, residents say, it was business as usual. The killings
continued. One night, someone fired a shotgun blast into a
31-year-old, then stabbed him with an ice pick. His body was found in
a pickup truck parked along the very street named for Flores.

In the case of the stolen cocaine, authorities eventually arrested
more than a dozen people, mostly anti-drug agents and soldiers. It was
a glaring corruption case: Honest soldiers had seized the coke only to
have it snatched back by crooked agents.

Despite such episodes, authorities are undeterred, and the United
States is helping fund the fight with a record $16 billion in the
fiscal year starting in October.

``The future of San Luis Rio Colorado is promising,'' said Gustavo
Montalvo, the state economic development director.

As for crime, Montalvo said the clamor for safe streets isn't just in
San Luis or Mexico. ``If you were to go to the United States, you'd
see there are crime problems there, too.''

``Officially, drug trafficking doesn't exist in San Luis,'' Santos
countered. ``But you can't deny it's here. You see all these people
with three new cars every year and a nice modern house; you can't say
they bought all that legitimately.

``It just isn't possible.''

Checked-by: Patrick Henry