DEA STEPS UP HUNT FOR SLAYING SUSPECT

Bounty, Task Force Grow As Officers Chase Leads In Mexico To Solve Agent's
Ambush

MEXICO CITY - The way U.S. drug agents figure it, you can run, but you
can't hide forever, not even in Mexico, a traditional fugitives' paradise.

U.S. law officers are stepping up efforts to capture Agustin Vasquez
Mendoza, a laborer and sometime marijuana field worker accused of setting
up a fake drug deal in 1994 in which veteran DEA Special Agent Richard Fass
of Phoenix was killed.

Spy satellites are scanning Mr. Vasquez's home territory in the rugged
Mexican state of Michoacan. The size of the U.S.-based task force looking
for him has been tripled to 12. He has been added to the FBI's "Ten Most
Wanted" list. And the bounty for information leading to his capture has
been doubled to $200,000.

"You assault or murder a DEA agent, and we will pursue you no matter where,
no matter how long," said Mike Huerta, a Phoenix-based DEA agent who heads
the task force. "We'll even look for you in your own country."

The search hasn't been easy, even though Mr. Vasquez isn't exactly a
sophisticated globe-trotting criminal. Agents who have investigated him say
he can barely read or write, let alone make his own phone calls.

An FBI poster describes him as a 5-foot-3, 110-pound laborer who considers
himself a ladies' man. Mr. Vasquez, now 28, favors cowboy boots, pricey
slacks and gold chains. He has brown hair and a 3-inch scar on his right
forearm, and two of his front teeth are capped with silver.

"To find him, we're really going to have to go back to basics, to get
inside his mind," said a Drug Enforcement Administration official taking
part in the manhunt. "Using technology alone to catch him may not
necessarily work. It's like using an F-14 to chase a biplane. It's not
always an ideal situation."

Agent Fass, 37, was killed June 30, 1994, in Glendale, Ariz., while posing
as a methamphetamine buyer.

Left behind were his parents, his wife, Theresa, and four children.

"I can remember looking at his daughter's face during the memorial
service," said DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine, who still gets choked
up recalling the agent's funeral. "The look on that kid's face was one of
terror. She knew. Her father was gone."

Mr. Vasquez is accused of sending two men to kill Agent Fass so they could
steal the $160,000 he was carrying for the drug purchase. The two men and
an accomplice were quickly arrested and later convicted. Mr. Vasquez, who
was not at the scene, fled to Mexico.

Jailing Mr. Vasquez is a top priority, said Greg Williams, the DEA's chief
of operations.

"We're retracing our steps to make sure we've covered every potential lead,
and we're working with the Mexicans daily to try to locate Vasquez," he
said. "Traffickers and other individuals have to realize that if they harm
an agent, the agency's not going to rest until the suspects are brought to
justice."

Using high-tech surveillance, informants and other investigative tools, DEA
agents have come up with possible whereabouts for the suspect several
times. They relay the information to Mexican authorities who are
responsible for making any arrests in Mexico. But Mexican agents have come
up empty-handed.

Asked whether he's committed to capturing Mr. Vasquez, Mexico's top
anti-drug official nodded.

"Yes, we want to catch him and all the others suspected of breaking the
law", said Mariano Herran, head of Mexico's counternarcotics agency, the
Special Prosecuting Office for Crimes Against Health.

What makes the pursuit difficult, agents say, is that Mr. Vasquez is
thought to be holed up in an area of Michoacan state that is virtually
controlled by drug traffickers.

"A large-scale network of crooks there protects itself from law enforcement
and the military. People look out for each other," Agent Huerta said.

Large plots of poppy plants - used to make heroin - and marijuana are grown
in Michoacan. Traffickers in the state also operate sprawling
methamphetamine labs, DEA agents say.

Mr. Vasquez is thought to be hiding in the countryside near the town of
Apatzingan, DEA agents say. He was born nearby in a tiny settlement called
El Rancho Guayabo.

According to one U.S. law enforcement source, when Mr. Vasquez was a boy,
he saw his father shot to death by the husbands of two of his lovers.

"He had a rude upbringing," the source said. "He grew up in an area where
there's no respect for authority."

DEA agents say Mr. Vasquez has held jobs in the United States and Mexico
over the years.

"From all the intelligence we're getting, he's not really an upper-level
trafficker of any sort," Mr. Williams said. "He'll go up into the fields in
Michoacan and cultivate and cut marijuana. He comes into town just to buy
goods, then returns to the countryside."

Agent Fass came from a very different world, growing up in a working-class
Tucson neighborhood and dreaming of getting into law enforcement.

"When Richard talked about working at the DEA, we went along with it
because we saw how serious he was," said his mother, Rose Fass, who keeps
his childhood toys along with his awards, photos and badges in a display
case in her living room in Tucson.

"He was so interested in his job. He wanted to get all that junk - all
those drugs - off the streets."

Mr. Fass joined the agency in May 1987 and served in the United States,
South America and the Caribbean.

"He was a great guy, always smiling, always laughing," said Terry Parham, a
DEA agent who worked with Mr. Fass in Argentina in 1991. "But he was real
serious about his work. He's someone you'll always remember."

After seven years of dangerous undercover work, Agent Fass was promoted to
an administrative post in Monterrey, Mexico. His colleagues in Phoenix gave
him a farewell luncheon and wished him luck.

He insisted on carrying out a final assignment late that afternoon, going
undercover to buy 22 pounds of methamphetamines as part of a deal Mr.
Vasquez allegedly set up. He went into an auto repair shop just outside
Phoenix, and the deal quickly went sour.

Two men drew their guns, forced the agent and two informants to a back room
and shoved them to the ground to be executed.

"Richard realized he was in trouble. As a last resort, he did what he had
to, to try to survive. He pulled his gun and got off a round, injuring one
suspect," Mr. Huerta said. "The two informants were able to escape. I
credit Richard for saving their lives."

But one of the dealers returned fire, shooting off the agent's trigger
finger and knocking his gun from his hand. The dealer then shot Agent Fass
five times in the head and chest as he begged for his life.

The agent's mother said her one consolation is that her son died quickly -
within an hour - and wasn't brutally tortured like Enrique Camarena, a DEA
agent murdered in Mexico in 1985.

"It was bad enough," she said, "but it could have been worse."