MEXICAN ANTI-DRUG LEADERS SLAP U.S.

Cite failure to nab visiting traffickers

MEXICO CITY -- Top Mexican anti-drug officials turned the tables on their
visiting U.S. counterparts yesterday by criticizing their failure to
capture Mexican cocaine traffickers they say regularly visit the United
States.

White House drug policy director Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who bent over
backward to praise Mexico's progress in the drug fight during a three-day
visit that ended yesterday, instead got an earful from Attorney General
Jorge Madrazo.

"We are not very satisfied with the effort the United States has carried
out, just as they are not satisfied with our efforts," Madrazo told a news
conference.

Mexico's most wanted drug traffickers, the Tijuana-based Arellano Filix
brothers, visited Las Vegas, Colorado and San Diego between 1993 and 1994,
Madrazo said.

Top members of the Arellanos' gang captured by Mexican authorities also
said they spent time recently in San Diego, he added.

McCaffrey declined to comment on the claims and said it would be best if
U.S. law enforcement officials took up the issue instead.

A CNN camera and sound crew who attended the news conference was robbed at
gunpoint in the Foreign Ministry parking lot after leaving the event, CNN
employees said. Taken from the two-man crew were a van, sound and video
equipment and a cell phone, whose total value was more than $50,000.

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.