TWO TOP MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS NOW LED BY WOMEN, PROSECUTOR SAYS

Two of the most powerful Mexican drug cartels are now being led by women, a
leading drug investigator said.

Special prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos told the newspaper La
Jornada that the Arellano Felix cartel in the border town of Tijuana is
being led by Enedina Arellano Felix after the arrest of her brother
Benjamin and the death of sibling Ramon at the beginning of the year.

A similar change in leadership has occurred in a cartel in Colima after the
arrests of brothers Luis, Jesus and Adan Amezcua, the prosecutor said.

Vasconcelos added that the fight against drug crime in Mexico has become
more purposeful and efficient.

"Earlier, it was as if we were firing a shotgun into a field, but now we
are taking aimed, deadly shots," he told the paper.

His interview was published after President Vicente Fox gave his annual
state of the nation report, in which he noted advances in the war against
illegal drugs, including 14,000 arrests in the two years since he took office