MEXICAN ALLIANCE DRIVES DRUG FLOW

Mexico - The heroin showing up in Dallas schools as "cheese" is the
end product of a dangerous new trafficking alliance that is funneling
increasing amounts of the drug through the El Paso-Juarez area en
route to new U.S. markets, law enforcement officials on both sides of
the border say. Although Mexico is a tiny global producer of heroin, it is
catching up to Colombia as the largest source for the U.S. market.
Mexican heroin also is being mixed with other drugs to create a
stronger and cheaper high - rapidly creating new users of a drug once
relegated to hard-core addicts, the officials say.

The result in Dallas is "cheese," a mixture of so-called "black tar"
heroin and crushed over-the-counter cold tablets. The product is
popular mostly among Hispanic students at northwest Dallas schools who
snort the concoction.

Dallas school officials first encountered the drug two years ago, and
it has nearly eclipsed marijuana as the most common drug found in
schools. So far, officials estimate at least four students have died
from overdosing on the heroin mixture, which federal authorities say
they can find nowhere else in the country. Some Dallas County suburbs
have reported they've also seen evidence the drug is creeping into
their communities. "The heroin coming into this area is through
Mexican drug organizations, with some coming from Colombia," said
James Capra, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's Dallas office. The supplier next door The growing
Mexican connection represents a new danger and increases the risks to
young people, experts say. Mexican heroin is cheap and readily
available and does not have to be transported from faraway places like
Colombia and Afghanistan.

"We're seeing a renewed flood of heroin coming through this border
area," said El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego. "But the stuff isn't
stopping in El Paso. It's heading to Chicago, New York City, with
stopovers in Dallas." Law enforcement officials are reporting a
dramatic increase in seizures of heroin along the entire U.S.-Mexico
border. Seizures in the El Paso-Juarez border region, for instance,
are on pace to shatter last year's figures. Experts say the surge in
heroin trafficking is a result of a bloody drug cartel reorganization
and a growing interest by Mexican traffickers - who have seen the use
of drugs like cocaine stagnate - to make heroin a larger part of the
business. The growing demand is fueled in part by new ways of
marketing heroin by drug dealers, including creating products like
cheese. Drug profits, in turn, are helping to finance the ongoing
cartel turf wars in Mexico, which killed more than 2,000 people in
2006 and nearly 600 already this year.

Law enforcement officials say that the drug-trafficking alliance is
working with U.S. gangs and employing new smuggling strategies,
including the use of bus lines popular with immigrants.

Smuggling via bus About a half-dozen such bus lines provide service
from El Paso to places such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and
Dallas. By using buses, smugglers avoid sophisticated detection
devices such as X-ray machines set up at international airports.

"The number of buses going in and out is simply overwhelming," said
Claudio "Tony" Morales, commander of special operations for the El
Paso County Sheriff's Department. "It's hard for dogs to detect the
heroin because there are so many buses, and usually dogs trained to
detect focus more on the luggage rather than the passenger."

The smuggling schemes include paying Mexican and U.S. gangs to ensure
passage of drugs across the border and hiring people such as students,
housewives and even grandparents to carry the heroin taped to their
bodies or inside their shoes or swallowed and carried inside their
stomachs, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities say.

"Smugglers are increasingly turning to teenagers, senior citizens.
We're seeing a lot more families, even grandmothers - people just
trying to blend in - being used as part of the cover," said Roger
Maier, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "Smugglers
will do anything or use anyone to get the job done."

Last year, sheriff's authorities confiscated 50.7 pounds of heroin in
the El Paso region, up from 4.4 pounds in 2005. Similarly, the El Paso
sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported an increase in
seizures from 11.1 pounds in 2005 to 34.5 pounds in 2006. In the first
three months of 2007, agents already have confiscated 21.8 pounds.

Along the Laredo corridor, which runs from Del Rio to Brownsville,
agents seized 190 pounds in 2006, up from 133 pounds in 2005, said
Rick Pauza, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in
Laredo. The number of pounds may appear small compared with seizures
of cocaine and marijuana, drug experts say. But heroin is a more
potent drug, and only a small amount of it is needed to produce deadly
doses of cheese. "Heroin is every bit like having a gun cocked to your
head," said Phil Jordan, former regional chief of the DEA in Dallas.
"The amounts are smaller but 10 times deadlier than any other drug."

For the past several years, the heroin market in the U.S. was
generally divided along the Mississippi River, according to the 2007
threat assessment report from the National Drug Intelligence Center, a
branch of the Justice Department.

"To the west of the Mississippi River, black tar heroin and, to a
lesser extent, brown powder heroin from Mexico were the primary types
available," the report says. "To the east of the Mississippi, white
powder heroin, primarily from Colombia, but also from Southwest and
Southeast Asia, was the primary type of heroin available. While users
in both markets historically have been reluctant to switch heroin
types, law enforcement reporting indicates that Mexican heroin is now
available in more markets east of the Mississippi than traditionally
has been the case."

"Historically, the Colombians were mass-producing heroin and Mexicans
buying it to redistribute in the United States," Mr. Jordan said.
"Now, the Mexicans have become the Colombians. Because of the price
involved and profit margins involved, they have basically taken over a
lot of the heroin market." Rivals turned partners What's especially
worrisome for law enforcement officials on both sides of the border is
the alliance formed between two former rivals: Vicente Carrillo
Fuentes, reputed head of the Juarez cartel, and Joaquin "el Chapo"
Guzman of the Sinaloa cartel. The two men are members of the so-called
Federation, a powerful alliance of drug cartels that includes alleged
leaders such as Ismael Zambada, the Beltran Leyva brothers and
powerful families from the state of Durango, authorities say. Mr.
Carrillo Fuentes and Mr. Guzman have had a rocky relationship,
authorities say. Even today, officials say, mistrust runs so deep that
the two men prefer communicating via teleconference.

"This new alliance will return the Juarez cartel as the most powerful
and most formidable enterprise in the history of drug smuggling," said
a senior U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of
anonymity. "You're combining two of the most brilliant criminal minds
in the drug-trafficking business. The result will likely lead to more
deadly drugs and new marketing schemes, like what you see in Dallas
with cheese."

What brought the two men together is control of a lucrative
transportation route that cuts through parts of the "Golden Triangle,"
a region known for its drug production in the Mexican states of
Sinaloa, Chihuahua and Durango, with easy access to Ciudad Juarez and
El Paso, Interstate 10 to Texas and California, and Interstate 25
north to Albuquerque and beyond. Ties to U.S. gangs The cartel
alliance is also relying on a growing number of both Mexican and U.S.
gang members, including members of the violent Barrio Azteca in El
Paso and Ciudad Juarez and members of the L-Street gang out of Los
Angeles, U.S. officials say.

Of the estimated 3,600 prisoners in Juarez's state prison, known as
Cereso, about 1,600 are Barrio Azteca gang members, said a senior
Mexican law enforcement official.

"This is no different than outsourcing," said Louis Barragan, a
supervisory special FBI agent and gang specialist. "Except these
cartels are outsourcing to criminal groups willing to do the grunt
work."

Gang members are also being trained as "skilled paramilitary members
to compete with the Zetas," who are drug enforcers of the rival Gulf
cartel with criminal ties to Dallas, said Mr. Morales of the El Paso
County sheriff's office. "The gangs are more disciplined, far more
skilled, deadly, and show a fierce allegiance to one another."

Dallas school investigators, working with the DEA and Dallas police
narcotics and gang officers, nabbed an alleged heroin dealer a month
ago operating in northwest Dallas. He is suspected of supplying heroin
to "mixers," teenagers who then make and sell cheese to their young
clients. Detectives say the adult dealer was caught with $14,000 worth
of black tar heroin, enough to make 43,000 hits of cheese that could
sell for more than $90,000 on the street. More arrests are expected.