U.S. Targets Alleged Mexican Drug Kingpin

U.S. authorities offered a $2-million reward Thursday for the arrest of an alleged Mexican drug lord who is accused of detaining and nearly killing two American federal agents just south of the U.S. border.

The agents’ confrontation with Osiel Cardenas was one of the most dangerous in years for American anti-drug personnel working abroad, U.S. officials said. Authorities said Thursday that Cardenas had been indicted in a U.S. court on charges of drug-dealing and assaulting federal agents.

“We are sending a clear and strong message that no one can threaten or harm a federal agent with impunity,” said Donnie R. Marshall, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Officials announced the intensified hunt for Cardenas as they released the latest results of Operation Impunity II, part of a major investigation begun in 1996 into Mexican-led groups that smuggle tons of cocaine and marijuana over the Texas border.

U.S. agents on Thursday arrested more than 50 people in Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee and New York, Justice Department officials said at a news conference in Washington. Three Colombians who worked with Cardenas also were captured in Mexico, according to authorities here.

Cardenas has been a major target for U.S. authorities since Nov. 9, 1999, when he and his gunmen allegedly stopped an FBI and a DEA agent as they drove through downtown Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. U.S. officials say Cardenas’ gang prepared to shoot the agents but was persuaded to let them go.

U.S. and Mexican officials say that Cardenas, a former police officer also wanted on drug charges in Mexico, has been protected by corrupt Mexican law-enforcement officers.