Mexican drug lord had heart attack after plastic surgery, U.S. says

By ANDREW DOWNIE
Copyright 1997 Special to the Chronicle

EL GUAMUCHILITO, Mexico While the body of Amado Carrillo
Fuentes did not appear for public viewing and Mexican officials
remained noncommittal, officials of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration said Sunday that Mexico's leading drug trafficker
is dead.

The agency said that Carrillo died of a heart attack after
undergoing eight hours of surgery to drastically alter his
appearance. The information was based on word from Mexican
officials and "sources close to the organization" lead by
Carrillo, a spokesman said.

"We can only hope that his death will provide U.S. and Mexican
authorities extra leverage to continue their pursuit of the
Carrillo Fuentes organization and the other remaining gangs
trafficking in illegal drugs," U.S. drug czar Barry R. McCaffrey
said.

But Mexican authorities said Sunday that they cannot confirm the
death until they run DNA tests on the body.

Many Mexicans here and elsewhere expressed doubts, saying the
clever Carrillo had hoodwinked the authorities. It would not be
the first time.

In July 1989, authorities in northern Mexico arrested a woman and
six men, one of them a scraggly bearded man who gave the name of
Amado Carrillo Fuentes. The men, according to internal documents
from Mexico's Federal Attorney General's Office, were taken to
Mexico City where antinarcotics agents took their fingerprints,
photographed them and recorded statements. Nothing more was heard
about the raid, or the woman, identified as Carrillo's wife,
Sonia Barragan.

Six weeks later, Mexico's then drug czar, Javier Coello Trejo,
announced that police in Guadalajara had that day arrested six
people, including Carrillo, whom he identified as the successor
to top drug lords who were jailed or dead. The officers were
searching for his wife, he said.

Why the authorities covered up his detention is one of the many
mysteries surrounding Carrillo's life. What went on during his
six weeks in custody has not been explained. The event, however,
set a pattern that has clouded the reality that enveloped the man
whose name became synonymous with drugs, daring and death.

Many people here in Carrillo's hometown believe that Mexico's
mostwanted man is still alive.

"I don't think he is dead," said a taxi driver who refused to
give his name. "They make this up, they disappear, they have
plastic surgery and come back as someone else. Nobody knows, they
run their business. They are quite happy."

Carrillo's life story has been a litany of incredible accounts.
One story tells how the nephew of nowjailed drug lord Ernesto
Fonseca began learning the narcotics trade at the marijuana
plantations of northern Mexico. Another relates how Carrillo got
out of jail after a judge inexplicably dropped drug charges
against him. Still, another recounts how he took over the Juarez
cartel and survived an assassination attempt.

And, in probably his most notorious escapade, he charmed the head
of Mexico's antidrug efforts, an army general, into protecting
him and going after his enemies.

The daring payed off and helped Carrillo dominate Mexico's
cocaine and heroin markets, U.S. and Mexican officials said.

"This is a man who, if he was offered the presidency, he'd turn
it down because he'd lose so much power," said Phil Jordan, a
former agent with the DEA.

According to a statement from the Federal Attorney General's
Office, Carrillo entered a Mexico City hospital last week under
the alias Antonio Flores Montes. There, he underwent an eight
hour plastic surgery and liposuction operation, the statement
said. He was found dead of a heart attack in his room early
Friday morning, the statement said.

Authorities here said it was in Mexico City where it was taken
for identification. The head of the funeral home here said
authorities found the paperwork to be incorrect, and flew it to
the capital, against the wishes of the family who wanted to bury
Carrillo in the chapel at the back of the family ranch alongside
his father, Vicente.

Carrillo's family mourned his death Sunday surrounded by floral
tributes, some said to have been sent by other drug lords.

But reporters who interviewed Carrillo's mother, Aurora Fuentes,
said she did not look like a grieving relative. Instead, Fuentes,
who has made repeated contradictory statements about her son,
added to the doubts over Carrillo's death.

She said Sunday that she has six children, although several
reports said Carrillo had as many as 11 siblings.

She said she has no pictures of her son, who, she claimed, left
home eight years ago to become a farmer in Guadalajara.

She also did not know where her son had died, who was with him at
the time or who called her with the news.

"Yes, yes, yes, it is him," she said when asked if the body was
that of her son. "I am his mother, I know what he looks like."

But many still have their doubts, despite what his mother or the
DEA or their Mexican counterparts say.

"The vagueness of the reports show that there will always be
doubts about whether Amado Carrillo Fuentes died or whether he
has a different personality," Jose Reveles, Mexico's leading
expert on drug trafficking, wrote in Sunday's El Financiero
newspaper. "The legend appears to have no end."

Andrew Downie is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City.