ARRESTS CALLED TURNING POINT IN MEXICAN DRUG WAR

MEXICO CITY - To their friends, they're hard-working cattle ranchers, humble
people who have been wronged.

But to American anti-drug agents, Luis and Jesus Amezcua are cutting-edge
gangsters who ran a criminal enterprise that spanned the globe.

"They are big timers," said Thomas Constantine, administrator of the Drug
Enforcement Administration, in an interview. "They were probably bringing in
hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And their arrest is very significant."

Mexican authorities captured the pair last week. Their Guadalajara lawyer,
Everardo Rojas, said they're innocent.

"The authorities are totally lying," he said in an interview. "There's not a
single piece of evidence my clients are drug traffickers. I'm thinking very
seriously of suing the DEA."

DEA agents allege that the Amezcua brothers are savvy drug lords who
controlled 80 percent of the American methamphetamine market. And they say
their arrest may mark a turning point in Mexican law enforcement. The
reason: Mexican authorities went after the Amezcuas on their own, against
the odds, showing what they're capable of doing.

"They had the information on where the suspects were. They set up their own
surveillance. And they made the arrests," Mr. Constantine said. "It was a
major accomplishment."

Taking down a mob boss might not seem like a big deal in some countries. But
in Mexico, where organized crime figures are often protected by layers of
corrupt police, government officials, bodyguards and hitmen, it's a
momentous occasion, said Phil Jordan, former director of the El Paso
Intelligence Center, jointly run by the DEA, FBI and other agencies.

"Under normal circumstances, Mexico won't go after this kind of criminal
unless you have a group of untouchable, elite agents doing it. You know,
Elliot Ness-type guys," he said. "These arrests are a good sign."

Mexico's drug gangs over the years have managed to buy off, intimidate or
murder scores of police officers, judges, prosecutors and politicians as
part of an enterprise thought to generate between $7 billion to $30 billion
per year, American agents say.

Outgunned, overwhelmed or compromised in the anti-drug fight, Mexican
authorities had not "captured any big traffickers without U.S. help for a
long time," Mr. Jordan said.

Relying heavily on U.S. intelligence, Mexican agents nabbed Gulf Cartel boss
Juan Garcia Abrego in January 1996.

Numerous other kingpins have also fallen, but only after Mexican authorities
have been pressured to take action - and not always for the right reasons,
Mr. Jordan said.

For instance, he said, they had little choice but to act after Catholic
Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas was killed in a hail of gunfire at a Guadalajara
airport. Officials concluded the cardinal died in the crossfire as hitmen
tried to murder a rival trafficker, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

But rather than go immediately after the hitmen, authorities tracked down
Mr. Guzman and threw him in jail. Some American drug-trade specialists
suspect the authorities were protecting the killers. And although most of
the shooters eventually wound up behind bars, some U.S. agents believe there
was more to the episode.

One of the next big traffickers to fall was Hector "El Guero" Palma in June
1995. But it wasn't because police were on his trail. He was captured only
after his Learjet ran out of fuel and crashed in Nayarit state.

Two years later, another reputed drug boss was put out of business, this
time because his own doctors killed him. Amado Carrillo Fuentes, a reputed
godfather known as "Commander Carrillo," died of complications after plastic
surgery in July 1997.

Many other alleged crime bosses remain at large, U.S. agents say. They
include Benjamin Arellano Felix, reputed head of Mexico's most violent gang;
Juan Jose Esparragoza, nicknamed "El Azul" for his blue eyes; and Miguel
Angel Caro Quintero, a Sonora businessman who denies U.S. drug allegations.

The Amezcua brothers, both from Tuxpan in Jalisco state, fell under
suspicion in the early 1990s, U.S. agents say.

Jesus "Chuy" Amezcua, 33, is the alleged leader, according to a 1997 DEA
report. A San Diego grand jury indicted him on drug charges in February 1993.

A Los Angeles County grand jury indicted his brother Luis, 34, on drug and
money-laundering charges in December 1994.

A third brother, Adan, 28, is not wanted in the United States but has been
jailed on weapons charges in Mexico since January.

After Adan's arrest, Luis Amezcua told a Mexico City newspaper that his
family was not mixed up in smuggling, and he accused Mexican authorities of
pursuing them to satisfy the Americans.

"The pressure's been growing for two years," he said.

The DEA alleges that the brothers started small, then built the world's
largest known methamphetamine-smuggling operation.

"They are very sophisticated," Mr. Constantine said. "They had the ability
to negotiate for ton-level quantities of precursor drugs, used to make
methamphetamines. Obviously we've had them identified for a long period of
time."

The use of methamphetamines, or speed, has soared in the United States in
recent years. In December, the DEA and other agencies broke up a
methamphetamine distribution ring and arrested 101 suspects in Dallas, Los
Angeles and other U.S. cities as part of Operation Meta. Agents alleged that
the Amezcua brothers were the ring's main source.

"Virtually every major methamphetamines trafficking investigation we've done
can be traced back to them," Mr. Constantine said.

"These two guys aren't mopes by any means," another DEA official said.
"They're major players. And seeing them arrested shows that if Mexican
agents want to, they can reach out and touch these guys. They've just got to
get past all the corruption.

"Then the trick is to keep them in jail and convict them."

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett