San Diego

Federal prosecutors have broadened their drug charges against Rene Martin Verdugo, the jailed Mexican with alleged links to the killing of a U.S. drug agent last year. Prosecutors claim in a new indictment that a marijuana smuggling ring he led imported 59 tons of the drug into the United States in little more than a year.

A 41-count indictment, returned last week by a federal grand jury in San Diego and unsealed Monday, alleges that the ring flew more than $36 million worth of marijuana into this country from Mexico between November, 1983, and February, 1985.

Verdugo, charged in 23 counts of the indictment, has been jailed on drug charges in San Diego since late January, when he was abducted in San Felipe, Baja California, and driven to the U.S. frontier by six Mexicans who shoved him through a border fence into the hands of waiting American agents.

Federal sources have told The Times they believe that Verdugo was present during the torture last year of Enrique S. Camarena, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent kidnaped and slain in Guadalajara, Mexico. Verdugo has said he knows nothing about the Camarena case.

The new indictment includes charges against 39 defendants, 19 of whom have been arrested, according to U.S. Atty. Peter K. Nunez. Several of those still at large are believed to be in Mexico.