U.S. CALLS FOR CAPTURE OF REPUTED DRUG LORD

Reward Of $5 Million Offered

MEXICO CITY . The United States on Thursday offered a reward of up to
$5 million for information leading to the capture of a reputed
Mexican drug cartel chieftain, whose group allegedly smuggles tons of
cocaine and marijuana north each year.

Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez has been charged in the United States
with 12 counts of drug trafficking and money-laundering and is also
wanted for assaulting a federal law enforcement officer, U.S.
Ambassador Tony Garza said in a U.S. Embassy statement.

"In addition to being an extremely dangerous
criminal, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez is the linchpin of a network
of drug dealers and murderers," he said.

He said Costilla Sanchez is thought to be the leader of the Gulf
Cartel, an organization responsible for the distribution of thousands
of pounds of cocaine and marijuana into Mexico and the United States yearly.

"Residents of our border communities will be significantly safer if
he is apprehended and bought to justice," Garza said.

Costilla Sanchez has been linked to the brutal killing of newspaper
columnist Francisco Arratia Saldierna, who was beaten to death in
Matamoros in August 2004. Arratia Saldierna's reports on drug
trafficking and organized crime might have prompted the attack.

The Gulf Cartel was thought to be headed by Osiel Cardenas until his
2003 capture after a shootout with police in Matamoros.

Mexican authorities think Cardenas has continued to run much of his
drug gang's operations from prison and may have formed an alliance
with another jailed kingpin, Benjamin Arellano Felix, who is accused
of heading the Tijuana-based smuggling syndicate that bears his family's name.

Both men are being held in the top-security La Palma prison west of
Mexico City.

But Thursday's announcement emphasized Costilla Sanchez's role as
chief of the cartel.

"We offer a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his
arrest," Garza said.

U.S. officials say that while Colombia remains the world's biggest
producer of cocaine, more than 90 percent of it enters the United
States through Mexico, and cartels based in this country are now the
most powerful in the world.

Investigators have blamed mounting violence along the U.S.-Mexico
border on a turf war between rival cartels over billion-dollar
smuggling routes into the United States.