Now yet another arch-fiend—number fifteen—took center stage in the pantheon of ultimate cocaine kingpins.^[28]  While the world’s attention had been focused on either end of the Mexican border, this operation was apparently hard at work in the middle. Across the river from El Paso in Juarez, a sophisticated young entrepreneur named Amado Carrillo Fuentes was picking up the pieces of the Abrego and Sinaloa cartels and knitting them into a vast combine. In the cocaine trade as in any industry, the original rough-and-tumble adventurers are replaced by technocrats as the business matures, and Señor Carrillo was said to be a skilled mediator.  “He’s more like the Cali people,” said a U.S. lawman. “He tries to keep the heat away and not provoke acts of violence.”^[29]  But within his own organization, Carrillo reportedly ran a tight ship. When one of his loads was seized, they said he just killed everybody who knew anything about it and that way he was certain to get the informant. This kind of ruthless efficiency paid handsome dividends. By syndicating large shipments and assigning different smuggling tasks to different partners, he began to achieve economies of scale his predecessors never dreamed of.^[30] His stronghold in Juarez was peaceful, with gun battles rare, and car bombings unheard of. That quiet, according to U.S. officials, was the sound of business booming.^[31] His weekly gross was estimated at $200 million.^[32] But Amado Carrillo was more than willing to share.  By some accounts, he was laying as much as 60 percent of the proceeds on his close friends in government.^[33] Among his many thoughtful gestures was paying the rent on a lavish Mexico City apartment occupied by the nation’s drug czar, General Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo.^[34]

The U.S. Congress erupted at this news.  Since Gutierrez had complete access to the most sensitive intelligence, it was likely that the names of agents, witnesses, targets, watch lists, and operational plans were now in Carrillo’s hands.  But President Clinton chose to look at the bright side.  He praised the Mexican