DRUG CARTEL SMASHED, MEXICANS SAY

Crime: Authorities Capture Two Brothers Who Allegedly Ran Main
Methamphetamine Ring.

MEXICO CITY--Mexican authorities said Tuesday that they had smashed the
country's main synthetic drug cartel, dealing a powerful blow to
methamphetamine trafficking into California and other American states.

Mexico's top anti-drug official, Mariano Herran Salvatti, told reporters
that police arrested the suspected cartel leaders, Luis and Jesus
Amezcua-Contreras, and seized 125 properties and businesses that were being
used to smuggle the drugs and launder the profits.

The brothers are both wanted in the United States. Jesus, described by
authorities as the cartel leader, was indicted on drug-trafficking charges
in San Diego in February 1993, and Luis was indicted in Los Angeles in
December 1994 on methamphetamine and money-laundering charges.

The apparent breakup of one of the country's major drug-trafficking cartels
was a welcome victory for Mexican authorities, who have been embarrassed
and angered by last month's U.S. money-laundering investigation resulting
in the arrest of scores of suspects, including 26 Mexican bankers.

Mexico has protested furiously that U.S. Customs Service and Drug
Enforcement Administration investigators carried out the probe without
informing their Mexican colleagues and did clandestine undercover work on
Mexican soil. U.S. officials have apologized but said they had to maintain
complete secrecy during the probe.

Herran noted that U.S. officials had been kept informed of the Amezcua
investigation, and he said it was a demonstration of the effective
cooperation the two countries can achieve in the war against drug trafficking.

In Washington, DEA Administrator Thomas A. Constantine commended the
Mexican government for the arrests.

"The Amezcua brothers run the largest methamphetamine and chemical
trafficking organization identified by U.S. law enforcement," Constantine
said, "and the arrest and removal of these two key leaders should
significantly disrupt the established methamphetamine trade which is
carried out by organized crime leaders in Mexico."

The Amezcua brothers, including Adan, the alleged third leader of the
cartel who was arrested in Mexico in November, began their careers working
as smugglers for the Colombian cocaine cartels, according to U.S. and
Mexican authorities. The brothers allegedly moved into methamphetamine in
the late 1980s and built up contacts with Asian and European suppliers to
obtain the chemicals needed to produce the drug.

Herran described the brothers' business as Mexico's fourth-largest drug
cartel, after the Juarez, Tijuana and Gulf cartels, which focus on cocaine
trafficking.

Authorities in Los Angeles announced in December that they had dismantled a
large methamphetamine ring that was allegedly supplied by the Amezcuas. The
17 suspects, who purportedly worked for a Southland family called the
Anguianos, were alleged to have set up three clandestine methamphetamine
labs in Acton, Maywood and Apple Valley in San Bernardino County that could
produce more than 600 pounds of drugs a day.

That effort formed part of Operation Meta, a campaign to combat the surging
methamphetamine trade across the United States.

Herran called the Amezcua arrests the largest blow to drug traffickers in
Mexico this year. Luis Amezcua was arrested in Guadalajara on Monday. Jesus
was picked up in Mexico City on Tuesday.

Copyright Los Angeles Times

Checked-by: Richard Lake