Mexican authorities turn focus to traffickers

March 16, 2002 Posted: 8:11 PM EST (0111 GMT)

MEXICO CITY, Mexico, (AP) -- After landing stunning blows to the most-feared drug gang in Mexico, authorities are turning their attention to once-overshadowed traffickers who may try to fill the void.

Many say it is still too early to count out remnants of the Arellano Felix organization despite the March 9 arrest of its alleged leader, Benjamin Arellano Felix, and the February 10 death of its enforcer, his brother Ramon.

Also, federal officials announced Thursday they had arrested Manuel Herrera Barraza, alias "El Tarzan," who allegedly was the principal smuggler of marijuana and cocaine into the western United States for the Arellano Felixes.

"I don't think that it is going to have a significant impact in terms of the volume of drugs that are brought to the United States," said Jorge Chabat, who has researched drug traffic for Mexico City's Center for Economic Research and Instruction.

The men most wanted today are sometimes second- or third-generation leaders rooted in a major cartel supposedly smashed with the 1980s arrests of Rafael Caro Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo.

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