Pubdate: Mon, 01 Apr 2002
Source: International Herald-Tribune (France)
Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2002
Contact:  http://www.iht.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/212
Author: Tim Weiner The New York Times

MEXICO GAINS AGAINST THE DRUG LORDS

Traffickers, Fearing Extradition, Lead Authorities To Bosses

MEXICO CITY Outgunned and outspent, the Mexican government is nonetheless 
scoring striking victories against the drug cartels that have corrupted the 
country for two decades.

More than 20 of Mexico's most-wanted men have been arrested in recent 
months in an anti-crime wave without real precedent. The accused drug lords 
are reputed to have controlled billions of dollars in cocaine and paid 
bribes to thousands of police officers, prosecutors and judges.

The latest suspects to fall were Benjamin Arellano Felix, charged as the 
leader of the Tijuana drug cartel, on March 9, and Adan Medrano, known as 
the Gulf cartel's operations chief, last Wednesday.

What changed? A handful of traffickers became government informants, 
officials said. The information led to arrests, and some of those arrested 
turned into informants, leading to many more arrests.

"The quality of the intelligence has gone up," said Asa Hutchinson, chief 
of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "These building blocks of 
intelligence let us get to the highest-level traffickers."

A decision last year by the Mexican Supreme Court to allow the extradition 
of arrested suspects to the United States made some traffickers "so nervous 
that they are reaching out and trying to cut deals," a senior law 
enforcement official in Mexico said.

American trust in Mexican officials - a trust that did not exist two years 
ago - is deepening with each new arrest. The United States is channeling 
secret intelligence to Mexico without fearing that corrupt agents will sell 
it to traffickers.

Still, the quantity of drugs that reaches American streets from Mexico is 
undiminished. The traffickers shrug off seizures of multimillion- dollar 
cocaine shipments. They have "an unlimited ability to lose tons of dope and 
still make a profit," the senior law enforcement official in Mexico said.

But the arrests have had an effect in Mexico. The chiefs of the Tijuana and 
Sinaloa cartels are in prison. So are the two top lieutenants of the Gulf 
cartel and the operations chief of the Juarez cartel. All this has happened 
in the last 11 months.

"The trick is to take down the people," the senior law enforcement official 
in Mexico said. "It's one thing to lose your money, your property, your 
residence. It's another to lose your life or your freedom."
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