U.S. INDICTS REPUTED LEADER OF MEXICAN DRUG-SMUGGLING ORGANIZATION

One of Mexico's leading drug-trafficking organizations, responsible for
smuggling tons of cocaine and marijuana into the United States, has been
crippled by a massive investigation that has yielded hundreds of arrests,
U.S. and Mexican authorities said yesterday.

In Washington, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and other U.S. law
enforcement officials announced the indictments of alleged Mexican drug
lord Ismael Zambada-Garcia and several of his top lieutenants. Authorities
in Mexico said they had arrested four key players in the organization,
although Zambada-Garcia and other senior leaders remain at large.

More than 240 people have been arrested in the United States and Mexico
over the past 19 months as part of the crackdown on Zambada-Garcia's group,
including more than 60 since Tuesday, officials in the two countries said.
The operation is expected to yield more than 350 arrests in the end,
officials said.

"Zambada's network has been hard hit, severely hit," Deputy Attorney
General Larry D. Thompson said in Washington. "From coast to coast, from
Los Angeles to New York, we have dismantled Zambada's cells operating in
the United States and severely disrupted the organization at its Mexico
base of operation."

U.S. law enforcement officials say that Zambada-Garcia has used long
experience in the drug trade and deep connections with Mexican law
enforcement and the military to emerge as one of that country's leading
smugglers over the past several years. Using airplanes, boats, trucks and
tunnels, the group allegedly transported drugs from Colombian suppliers
into the United States, generally through California and Arizona, officials
said.

Nearly 6 tons of cocaine, 12 tons of marijuana and more than $8 million in
drug money have been seized during the probe so far, authorities said.

Zambada-Garcia and his closest associates, including his son and other
relatives, have been long adept at evading law enforcement. U.S.
authorities are not even sure of his age, but he is believed to be in his
mid-fifties.

"He is something of an enigma," said Steve Comer of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's special operations division. "But we know he is one of the
primary movers of cocaine into the United States."

Comer and other U.S. officials said the indictments and arrests announced
yesterday were particularly gratifying because of historic links between
Zambada-Garcia's group and a notorious Mexican cartel that has been blamed
for the brutal 1985 torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

John P. Walters, director of the federal Office of National Drug Control
Policy, said "part of this is unfinished business, paying back the senior
people in part of this case who were involved" in that killing.