NEW LIGHT ON KILLING OF DRUG LORD

Mexico City

The death of Mexico's No. 1 cocaine trafficker, slain by his own plastic
surgeons, was ordered by his own cartel because he had become a liability
to a thriving business, investigators said.

Casting new light on the slaying, Mexico's top drug fighter said in an
interview this week that investigators now believe that Amado Carrillo
Fuentes was killed because the manhunt for him hurt the cartel's business.

Investigators also theorize that the three doctors responsible for
Carrillo's death were tortured to death by his relatives in an attempt to
determine the mastermind behind the drug lord's slaying, top Mexican
anti-drug prosecutor Mariano Herran Salvatti told a reporter.

"We believe that it was an internal deal. Amado Carrillo wasn't killed by
outsiders but by people within his own organization," Herran Salvatti said.
"He was becoming uncomfortable for the organization."

The manhunt for the head of the Juarez cartel "was at such a level it put
in danger" drug trafficking deals, Herran Salvatti said.

Known as the "Lord of the Skies" for his pioneering use of huge passenger
jets to bring tons of cocaine to Mexico from Colombia, Carrillo was
Mexico's No. 1 cocaine trafficker at the time of his death.

After Carrillo's death July 4 following plastic surgery to change his
appearance, attention focused on other drug lords battling to move into his
old territory.

Several theories emerged in the media as to who was responsible, including
the possibility that Carrillo was killed by followers of Tijuana's Arellano
Felix brothers, who lead Mexico's most violent drug gang.

"Amado Carrillo began to lose his anonymity when he began to have more
girlfriends," Herran Salvatti said. "He went to restaurants a lot more, and
people began taking photographs of him."

Authorities believe that pressure led him to a Mexico City clinic for
plastic surgery to change his looks. But doctors at the clinic injected a
dose of the sleeping drug Dormicum that "they must have known would kill
him," Herran Salvatti said in November,

Investigators say Carrillo's relafives, led by his brother Vicente,
tortured and killed the doctors.

"The most accepted version is that the family killed them in revenge,"
Herran Salvatti said. "And that they may have been trying to investigate
themselves as to where tbe order (to kill Carrillo) had come from."

Four days after the doctors' bodies were found, prosecutors announced that
two of the three had faced formal charges for intentionally killing
Carrillo. The third doctor, though not charged, participated in the plastic
surgery.