COCAINE RING CRACKED; MEXICO LINK OUTLINED.

Byline: Christopher S. Wren The New York Times

Concealed inside the trunks, wheel wells and other crannies of hundreds of nondescript trucks and cars, the cocaine from Colombia rolls across the Mexican border and into Los Angeles, where it is repackaged for distribution to other illegal drug markets around the country.

The Mexican smugglers account for as much as 70 percent of the cocaine entering the United States, drug agency officials say, and take payment not in cash but in kind: a kilogram of cocaine for every kilo they deliver for the Colombian drug cartel based in Cali.

As a result, Mexican drug gangs are on the ascendancy as major traffickers who distribute and sell their share of the cocaine in the Southwest and as far east as Chicago.

In announcing the dismantling of one such network - with the arrests of dozens of people around the country and the seizure of $17 million in cash, 6 tons of cocaine and a half-ton of marijuana - Attorney General Janet Reno and other law enforcement officials Thursday provided some of the richest details so far about the mounting influence that Mexico's drug syndicates exert over trafficking in the United States.

``Most of the cocaine produced by the Colombian cartels is entering the United States through Mexico,'' Reno said. ``Mexican individuals are not only transporting the Colombian cocaine, but they have developed their own large-scale organizations to distribute the cocaine in the United States.''

She said the Mexican government shared the United States' concern ``about this very serious problem and is cooperating with us.''

But the Mexican government was not brought into the investigation described Thursday. It was led by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI and involved 10 other federal agencies and 42 state and local agencies.

Those arrested in Los Angeles included the alleged head of the Colombian traffickers, Mauricio Gutierrez, and the alleged leader of the Mexican couriers, Rafael Alapizco.

Some of the cocaine brought in for the Cali cartel by the Mexican smugglers identified in the investigation ended up being sold as crack on the streets of Washington Heights in Manhattan, officials said.

The investigation was described as one of ``seamless law enforcement'' in which federal agents cooperated with state and local police officers in nine states to move simultaneously against the entire network of traffickers, from the cell bosses in Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago to distributors and street crack dealers.

In all, 130 people have been arrested so far, 15 of them Thursday morning in Los Angeles, Chicago, El Paso, Houston and Midland, Texas.

``It's the most sophisticated and the most well coordinated effort that I've ever seen,'' said Carlo Boccia, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's office in New York, where the investigation began.

To gather evidence, investigators used more than 90 court-approved wiretaps on ordinary telephones, cellular phones and beepers used by drug traffickers from California to Florida and New York.

Theresa Van Vliet, the head of the Justice Department's narcotics section, said the Mexican government was not included because the case was ``a domestic investigation targeting the domestic operations'' of the Mexican and Colombian traffickers.

Another official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was a fear that corrupt police officers in Mexico would tip off the drug syndicates there.

In addition to the cocaine smuggled across the border, Mexico remains the primary foreign source for marijuana, and supplies most of the heroin consumed in the western United States. Most recently, Mexican traffickers have replaced American motorcycle gangs as suppliers of methamphetamine.

``You name the drug and they've got a piece of it,'' said a drug agent who has tracked the growing role played by Mexican drug gangs.

The Mexican drug connection is a sensitive matter for the administration because two months ago, President Clinton, over the objections of some advisers, exempted Mexico from an annual list of countries that were deemed not to have cooperated sufficiently in the international fight against narcotics.

Colombia was added to the list, which also includes Burma, Nigeria and Iran.

William Healy, another drug agency official, said the cocaine often was transported across the Mexican border in private cars, some of which made as many as 15 or 20 round trips a month to Los Angeles. The loads, which ranged from 33 pounds to more than 400 pounds, frequently were hidden behind electronically operated trap doors.