Pubdate: Thu, 13 Apr 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
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Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service
Note: Researcher Garance Burke contributed to this report.

THREE MEXICAN DRUG AGENTS FOUND SLAIN

MEXICO CITY, April 12 - Three Mexican law enforcement agents assigned to a 
Tijuana anti-drug unit were found slain Tuesday in a truck parked on a 
highway outside the northwestern border city, federal officials said today.

The slayings of the three, who police said had apparently been tortured 
before they were killed, were the latest in a recent wave of killings of 
Mexican law enforcement officials and others along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the past two months, Tijuana's police chief, a former head of the state 
police homicide division and one of the city's most prominent attorneys 
have been killed. On Sunday, the body of a Mexican newspaper reporter who 
had been covering drug-trafficking issues was dumped across the border in 
Texas. On Monday, four young men in Nuevo Laredo, just south of Laredo, 
Tex., were shot dead.

The border violence has continued to escalate despite a recent, heavily 
publicized pledge by President Ernesto Zedillo to boost law enforcement 
efforts along the border. Authorities refused to speculate on a motive for 
the killings of the three agents, who were members of a unit assigned to 
investigate drug cartels and organized crime along the Mexican border south 
of San Diego.

Mariano Herran Salvatti, director of Mexico's federal anti-drug agency - 
which oversees the Tijuana unit - said the men recently had been executing 
search warrants in connection with two notorious drug-trafficking 
organizations - including one run by the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix 
brothers, which is reputedly the country's most violent cartel.

Herran said he had few details on how the men were killed but disclosed 
that they had not been shot. Mexican drug-trafficking organizations almost 
invariably shoot their victims in the head execution-style or gun them down 
in a hail of bullets. Herran also declined to speculate on whether the 
recent killings in and around Tijuana - a border city of 1.5 million with 
one of the highest homicide rates in Mexico - are related.

"We are really saddened by this, and we are going to continue this fight 
with the same vigor," Herran said at a news conference today. "This is 
going to be a frontal battle against the Arellano Felix brothers."

The slain agents were identified as Oscar Pompa, 48; Jose Luis Patino, 47; 
and Capt. Rafael Torres, who was on loan to the unit from the state police 
agency. Officials said Pompa and Patino had been living in San Diego for 
"security reasons."

Neither Mexican nor U.S. law enforcement agencies have made serious headway 
in curtailing the criminal activities of the Arellano Felix family in 
recent years.

Researcher Garance Burke contributed to this report.
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