Drug Lord Died After Plastic Surgery -- U.S. Agents Given A Look At The Body

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has confirmed that Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the leader of Mexico's most powerful drug cartel, died Friday after eight hours of plastic surgery to alter his appearance.

Mexican officials invited DEA agents to view the body and observe the identification procedures at the funeral home in Carrillo's home state of Sinaloa, DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine said in a telephone interview.

Constantine said that according to information from U.S. intelligence and Mexican officials, Carrillo and his organization had been under increasing pressure during the last six months, forcing the drug baron to live as a fugitive. Constantine said "fairly reliable sources" indicated Carrillo recently had flown to Russia, Cuba and South American countries "constantly looking for a safe haven."

Because of that, Constantine said, Carrillo's desire to undergo massive plastic surgery made sense.

Narcotics experts estimate about 70 percent of the cocaine used in the United States - a multibillion-dollar trade - comes through Mexico, and Mexican drug-trafficking organizations recently have begun to take over U.S. markets from Colombian competitors.

The Mexican attorney general's office said in a statement late Saturday night that a man had been admitted Thursday under the name of Antonio Flores Montes to the Santa Monica hospital, a small, private Mexico City clinic, for extensive plastic surgery on his face and liposuction of his body.

The patient underwent eight hours of surgery that ended at about 7 p.m. Thursday, then was moved to Room 407 in the hospital, according to the Mexican attorney general. Between 4 and 6 a.m. Friday, a doctor making rounds discovered the patient dead in his bed, the statement said.

By 10 a.m. on Friday, the body had been flown by chartered airplane to Sinaloa's capital, Culiacan. Officials of the Mexican attorney general's office visited the funeral home.

Mexican authorities later removed the body under heavy security after a vitriolic argument with family members, according to news reports from Culiacan.

Carrillo, 41, was known as the "Lord of the Skies" because he pioneered flying large shipments of cocaine from Colombia directly to the Mexican-U.S. border in large jets. While building his empire, he skillfully negotiated with Colombian cocaine cartels to take over an increasing share of the drug distribution within the United States.