Mexico Drug Cartels’ Power Growing, DEA Says : Smuggling: Official says woes of Colombian groups leave an opening. More pressure on southwestern U.S. border predicted<i> .</i>

Mexico’s sophisticated and influential drug cartels are poised to replace besieged Colombian organizations as the dominant traffickers of cocaine and other narcotics entering the United States, the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said Wednesday.

During a visit to the border by U.S. anti-drug officials, DEA chief Thomas Constantine said the Mexican cartels have risen from hired transporters of cocaine to world-class mafias that are expanding their control of the U.S.-based distribution market run by their Colombian partners.

Constantine said this emerging threat results partly from recent breakthroughs in Colombia, where once-untouchable drug lords and political figures have fallen in an investigation that has reached as high as the Colombian presidency.

“Unfortunately, this puts more pressure on the Southwest border, believe it or not,” Constantine said. “The Colombians had entered into an unholy alliance with the Mexican cartels. The Mexicans learned a great deal; their mafias are sophisticated. They are now equipped with a technology and a business sense . . . to be first-tier dealers in cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin.”

In an interview Wednesday, Constantine cautioned that no “systematic takeover” has occurred and that Colombian traffickers could still regroup. Continuing violence among Mexican gangsters shows a lack of the rigid structure that has enabled the Cali cartel to operate with maximum efficiency and minimum competitive bloodshed, he said.

More fundamental, Mexican groups have not moved into cocaine production, which now takes place in Colombia, though Constantine said they have the potential to establish direct links with source nations such as Peru and Bolivia.

“That’s not hard to do,” he said. “Six months from now, we will have a better picture.”

Colombia’s historic three-month campaign against the Cali cartel, Constantine said, is the equivalent of arresting the leadership of traditional U.S. organized crime in one fell swoop--and cranks up pressure on the Mexican government for action.

In comparison, the 9-month-old Administration of Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo has produced modest blows thus far. Police arrested one Mexican drug lord this year, but the kingpins of the three top mafias, based in the border states of Baja California, Chihuahua and Tamaulipas, remain at large and account for close to 70% of the cocaine smuggled into the United States.

Zedillo’s government has yet to strike against so-called “narco-politicians” and business magnates suspected of protecting and participating in the drug trade, some Mexican and U.S critics say.

Constantine said he believes that the Mexican government’s vows of reform are sincere. Crackdowns on organized crime and corruption will require the professionalization of law enforcement, he said.

Significantly, the Mexican military has taken a front-line role in drug enforcement because the armed forces have a reputation for integrity. Early Sunday in Tijuana, Mexican soldiers accompanied a special federal police unit on a raid of a seafood restaurant, arresting an accused killer and 13 other suspects after a shootout.

The soldiers and police, acting on information from Mexican military intelligence and the DEA, captured fugitive Gaston Ayala Beltran, a lieutenant in the Arellano cartel of Tijuana who is charged in the May murder of the attorney general of the state of Jalisco.

Responding Wednesday to insistent questions about corruption north of the border, U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin said an investigation continues into allegations by Mike Horner, a former inspector who rocked the Customs Service by accusing high-ranking officials of collusion with Mexican smugglers.

Bersin declined further comment. But Customs Commissioner George Weise announced a plan to toughen the much-criticized “line release” program that often waives inspections for selected importers. Inspectors and other critics assert that the program has helped traffickers infiltrate legitimate cargo companies and smuggle drugs through commercial crossings with virtual impunity.

Weise said his agency will close a loophole by requiring background investigations of all trucking companies and drivers involved in the program. Until now, Weise said, authorities only screened the importers who hire the trucking companies, which are especially vulnerable to infiltration. No further importers will be accepted into the program until Jan. 1, when the new background check system involving importers and Mexican police will be in place, Weise said.

Lee Brown, head of the White House’s National Office of Drug Control Policy, announced at the news conference that a six-month customs interdiction drive has increased seizures of cocaine by 10%, heroin by 74% and marijuana by 22% over last year.