By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, April 8, 1999; Page A21

MEXICO CITY, April 7 –– In one of the biggest narcotics corruption cases in Mexican history, authorities here ordered the arrest Tuesday night of a former state governor and more than 100 public officials and others on charges that they worked for the country's most powerful drug cartel.

Mexico's attorney general ordered the arrest of Mario Villanueva on allegations of drug trafficking and involvement in organized crime just 24 hours after his term ended as the governor of the southern state of Quintana Roo and 10 days after Villanueva apparently went into hiding.

Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar said the arrest order against the former governor is part of a wide-ranging investigation into the country's most powerful drug mafia, the Juarez cartel, which has been using Quintana Roo as its primary gateway for importing cocaine from Colombia.

Arrest warrants for involvement in drug trafficking also were issued against more than 100 others, including federal police and prosecutors working in Quintana Roo "who provided protection to narco-traffickers, often with the complicity of local officials," according to a lengthy statement issued by the attorney general's office. A spokesman for the office declined today to say whether any of the suspects had been taken into custody.

The announcement of the arrest warrants followed more than a year of intensive investigations by Mexican anti-drug agencies and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Villanueva, who was immune from criminal prosecution until the end of his gubernatorial term, was the highest-ranking elected official ever pursued by authorities for drug trafficking while still in office.

Mexican authorities have cited the investigation of Villanueva, a member of the country's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, as evidence that corruption is no longer going to be ignored by the party that has controlled Mexico for seven decades.

But Villanueva, 50, a member of the party's old guard who has engaged in open political warfare with Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, has charged that the drug investigation against him is a political vendetta. Zedillo is a major advocate of reform in the ruling party.

On Wednesday, Villanueva appeared in a videotape dated March 31 that was aired on the Mexican network Televisa, according to the Associated Press. Villanueva said he had been subjected to harassment by police in three cities March 27 until he gave officers the slip after leaving an airport in Merida. He did not reveal his whereabouts.

He appealed to Zedillo and Madrazo to halt what he described as "violations of the law" in the investigation of his activities.

Villanueva said prosecutors had "fabricated evidence, paid for testimony from some witnesses and pressured others" to build a case.

"Mr. President, I respectfully solicit your intervention," Villanueva said.

On Tuesday, the morning before the arrest order was announced and more than a week after Villanueva dropped from public view, he bought full-page advertisements in Mexico City's most prominent daily newspapers and declared: "I am not a criminal. I am being persecuted for strictly political reasons."

The Mexican news media has speculated that Villanueva has fled the country and may be in Panama or Cuba. Mexican authorities said they have solicited the assistance of Interpol and "other police agencies" in the hunt for Villanueva. Officials of the U.S. anti-drug agency, which has been investigating Villanueva and Juarez cartel operations in the Yucatan Peninsula, said they also are aiding in the search.

U.S. and Mexican authorities are investigating numerous bank accounts around the world held in the name of Villanueva, his associates or family members, including a Swiss bank account that reportedly contains $73 million.

Law enforcement agencies in Mexico and the United States are also investigating allegations that the Juarez cartel laundered millions of dollars through hotels, restaurants and other businesses in Quintana Roo's luxury resort of Cancun, one of Mexico's most popular destinations for American tourists.

Authorities have said Villanueva is being investigated for allegations that he received millions in payoffs from the cartel for letting it operate freely in his state. Villanueva has said that Mexican authorities also accuse him of using cocaine and permitting drug traffickers to use state-owned airplane hangars to transfer cocaine.

The U.S. and Mexican drug investigation also has focused on Ramon Alcides Magana, known as El Metro, who reportedly controls the Juarez cartel operations in the Yucatan Peninsula. The attorney general's office declined to comment on whether Alcides Magana is one of the alleged drug traffickers against whom arrest warrants have been issued in connection with the case. The attorney general's office, whose investigation of Villanueva and drug trafficking in Quintana Roo has been marred by allegations of sloppy police work and human rights abuses, spent much of its eight-page statement defending its probe. The attorney general denied charges that the investigation was motivated by politics or pressure from the United States.