MEXICO MOVES TO SEND EX-GOVERNOR TO U.S. ON DRUG CHARGES

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico took the first steps on Thursday toward
extraditing the former governor of Quintana Roo to the United States,
where he is wanted in New York City on charges of drug trafficking,
money laundering and racketeering.

The extradition would continue a trend under President Felipe
Calderon, who has shipped 21 people accused as part of the drug
trade, including four high-level cartel leaders, to the United States
this year.

If a Mexican judge approves the extradition, the former governor,
Mario Villanueva Madrid, would become the highest-ranking former
elected official from Mexico to stand trial in the United States on
drug-trafficking charges. It would be a major break from the
longstanding tradition here of immunity for current and former politicians.

Mr. Villanueva is accused of taking millions of dollars in payoffs
from the Juarez cartel during the 1990s in return for helping it ship
about 200 tons of cocaine from South America through the Yucatan. He
is also accused of having ordered the state police to provide
protection to traffickers.

Law enforcement officials said bringing Mr. Villanueva to trial in
New York would be a major achievement, because he is thought to have
extensive knowledge of the cartel and might also provide evidence
about it in return for a reduced sentence.

Mr. Villanueva went underground in April 1999, just before his term
as governor ended and, with it, his immunity from prosecution. The
federal police here finally tracked him down and arrested him in May
2001 near Cancun, the resort in his home state. Since then, he has
been in a Mexican maximum security prison, serving time for a single
money-laundering conviction.

But around 1 a.m. on Thursday, he finished his sentence and walked
out of the Altiplano prison, just outside Mexico City. As his family
looked on, a dozen masked federal agents immediately seized him
again, this time at the request of the United States. Prosecutors
said he was being held pending an extradition hearing.

"They are kidnapping me! Help!" the former governor said as he was
seized, according to the newspaper El Universal.

According to two indictments in Manhattan Federal Court, the former
governor took millions of dollars from members of the Juarez cartel,
among them Alcides Ramon Magana, from 1994 to 1999. The indictments
say that the cartel paid Mr. Villanueva about $500,000 for each
shipment and that he laundered at least $11 million with the help of
an investment manager at Lehman Brothers in New York.

In return for the payoffs, the former governor let the cartel bring
at least 200 tons of cocaine into Cancun by boat, then store it until
it could be shipped north to the border town of Reynosa, where the
cartel smuggled it into the United States and hauled it to New York
and other cities, the indictments say.

State police officers escorted the shipments and worked as enforcers
for the traffickers, investigators said. "At that time in Cancun, the
police worked for the cartel," said one former law enforcement
official who worked on the case, but did not want to be named because
it could jeopardize his career. "There was just no question about it."

Mr. Villanueva's deep involvement with drug traffickers underscores
for many Mexicans the extent of official corruption in their country.
United States drug enforcement officials estimate that the three
major cartels bring more than $10 billion in cash into the country
from sales in American cities and have used that money to bribe
officials at all levels of government, from police officers to governors.

President Calderon has aggressively attacked the influence of
cartels, sending troops into towns and states where they had control
of local governments to re-establish order.

He has also begun extraditing more and more drug cartel leaders to
stand trial north of the Rio Grande, where they face stiffer
sentences and find it difficult to control their networks from
prison, as they do in Mexico. In January, the government sent 11
high-level drug traffickers to the United States in one night.

Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney's
office in Manhattan, declined to comment on the extradition request,
as did officials at the American Embassy here. A lawyer for Mr.
Villanueva, Horacio Garcia, confirmed that the United States had
requested the former governor's arrest in a diplomatic note but had
yet to present evidence against him.

President Calderon's aides said the Mexican government would go ahead
with the extradition as soon as a judge ruled it was warranted,
though they warned that the process could take weeks.