GUNMEN IN MEXICAN BORDER CITY KILL BROTHER-IN-LAW OF SUSPECTED DRUG MONEY
LAUNDERER

MEXICALI, Mexico - Gunmen shot and killed a rancher whose brother-in-law
had suspected ties to Mexico's most-violent drug smuggling gang as he drove
his pickup down a crowded street in this sweltering border city,
authorities said Tuesday.

Witnesses told investigators that 51-year-old Manuel Sanchez was shot
several times in the head in broad daylight as he passed a government
building Monday.

Seconds later, a white sport-utility vehicle sped away from the scene,
witnesses said. It was discovered hours later, abandoned in another part of
the city, its floor and seats littered with bullet casings, said Diana
Escalante, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office in Baja
California, where Mexicali is located.

The suspected getaway vehicle was reported stolen recently in a suburb of
San Diego, California, Escalante said.

Sanchez owned a string of ranches outside Mexicali. He was the
brother-in-law of Jesus Lopez, a former official at the Mexicali office of
the state Ministry of Education who is suspected of moving narcotics and
drug money for the Arellano Felix gang, a smuggling syndicate that controls
drug corridors between Tijuana and San Diego.

During a crackdown on suspected Arellano Felix smugglers and associates in
Mexicali in February 2001, police raided Lopez's home and discovered more
than US$2 million in cash. Lopez disappeared when authorities went looking
to question him in connection with drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

Lopez was fired from the education ministry for missing work while on the
run, but was never charged with wrongdoing. In November, he resurfaced and
filed a wrongful-dismissal suit against the state education department.

Mexicali, 120 miles (190 kilometers) east of Tijuana on the border with
Calexico, California, has long been considered a hotbed of illegal drug
smuggling. Sanchez's slaying brought the number of shooting deaths here to
53 so far this year.