Pubdate: 1-15-99
Source: Orange County Register (CA)
Copyright: 1999 The Orange County Register
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/
Contact:  Ricardo Sandoval

COURTS: MEXICO IS COOPERATING IN THE PROSECUTION OF A MAN BELIEVED TO
OPERATE THE WORLD'S BIGGEST METHAMPHAMINE RING.

Mexico City-The alleged chief of what's considered the world's biggest
methamphetamine trafficking network will be extradited to U.S. authorities -
the first time Mexico has ever agreed to send a major drug dealer to face
charges in the United States, Mexican officials announced Thursday.

Jose de Jesus Amezcua and his brothers Luis and Adan are believed to be the
force behind a major network of labs and couriers that in recent years has
been taking over the California-based business of making and selling
methamphetamine, a stimulant known on the street as "speed" or "crank."

In labs around Los Angeles and in rural Northern California, Amezcua
soldiers allegedly have been mixing chemicals smuggled from Mexico by
migrant workers. The cartel, officials said, then used migrant laborers to
carry the finished drug east to dealers, mostly in the Dallas area and in
North Carolina, where growing numbers of Mexican migrant workers have
settled in recent years.

"It's a shame that in this big group of very hard-working people, there are
a few wolves in sheep's clothing that are creating a significant public
health threat," said a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Another member of the family, Francisco Amezcia, was sentenced to 14 years
in prison after he was arrested in Iowa in 1997 along with a Fresno man and
pleaded guilty to charges that he was setting up a methamphetamine
distribution network in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Amezcua cartel, based in Guadalajara in western Mexico, is so dangerous
that U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno singled it out last fall in a demand
that Mexican authorities turn over drug dealers wanted north of the border.

The Amezcua brothers were arrested in June and cleared last fall of the
various drug and money-laundering charges in Mexico. But U.S. officials
requested that they be extradited to Los Angeles, where they have been
indicted on federal drug charges. Adan Amezcua, however, is jailed in a
state prison in Jalisco, where he is serving an 18-month sentence on a
firearms conviction.

Mexican government officials, however, said the transfer of Jesus Amezcua
might take awhile, because the accused trafficker has filed an appeal of an
extradition order that was signed last month but not made public until
Thursday.

Lawyers for Amezcua refused requests to speak with their client Thursday,
but in a rare interview, a Mexico City magazine quoted Amezcua last fall as
saying he was an innocent rancher, not a drug dealer.

"Damn Gringos," Amezcua said to the weekly Quehacer Politico - "On
Politics" - about his pending extradition. "When the gulf war started I went
to the U.S. and signed up for the Army to fight. But they rejected me, and
this is how they repay me for wanting to help them."

The deal for Amezcua comes just as the annual U.S. congressional debate over
Mexico's performance in the war on drugs heats up again. In March, President
Clinton is expected to send Congress a list of nations he believes are
cooperating in the fight against drugs. Congress will then vote on the list.

Failing to be certified could invite trade and aid sanctions, although the
only country to be hit so harshly thus far is Colombia.

Officials on either side of the border refused to link the Amezcua
extradition to the certification process, but in an interview this week, a
senior Mexican official said such cooperation is increasing between the
United States and Mexico.

In 1998, some 20 suspects were extradited between the two countries, more
than double the number in 1997, said a senior Mexican government official
who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Coincidentally on Thursday, U.S. authorities in San Diego arrested a banker
wanted on suspicion of orchestrating a multi-million-dollar bogus
bank-lending scheme in Mexico. Mexican authorities quickly filed an
extradition claim for Ramiro Silis Suarez.

"Mexico is changing greatly in the way we approach cooperation with our U.S.
counterparts," Juan Rebolledo, Mexico' s foreign minister for U.S. relations
and its point man on drug issues, said in an interview. "But what the U.S.
needs to understand is that we're not doing this for the U.S.' sake. We're
taking these actions because (drug criminals) are hurting Mexico and
Mexicans."

More cynical Mexican drug analysts say this has become an annual ritual,
pushed by a certification process that ignores the massive drug consumption
north of the border.

"It's good to get these people off the street, but it is sad to see that
Mexican officials are dancing to the tune of Americans," said Jose Luis
Astorga, a drug researcher in Mexico City.

- ---
MAP posted-by: Rolf Ernst