Juan José Esparragoza, who is in his 50s, is considered one of Mexico's top drug lords not behind bars, overseeing the smuggling of cocaine and marijuana into the United States since 1993.

He has moved from behindthe-scenes operations chief for the Juárez cartel to its leader, Mexican and U.S. authorities say.

Esparragoza was on a list of wanted foreign drug lords announced by U.S. President George W. Bush in June, and a federal grand jury indictment issued in El Paso on Oct. 27 charges him with importing 14 tons of marijuana into U.S. territory.

The FBI is offering up to US5 million for his capture, and his mug shot will appear on billboards and newspaper advertisements in El Paso as well as other cities along the U.S.-Mexico border starting early this year.

?STRONG CONTACTS?

"His contacts are strong and they go back to the 1980s and even further," said Art Werge, spokesman for the FBI office in El Paso. "He's on top, one of the key leaders on a national scale of all the Mexican drug cartels."

Esparragoza is known as an alliance-builder whose close ties to cocaine producers in Colombia are said to have earned the respect of the leaders of other key Mexican smuggling syndicates. His nickname, "El Azul" or "Blue," apparently comes from his dark complexion.

Esparragoza was arrested in the western border city of Mexicali on drug charges in 1983, but released after three months for lack of evidence. Three years later, he was captured in Mexico City and served seven years behind bars, the federal minimum for a drug conviction.

From there, investigators say, Esparragoza became a legal adviser and top lieutenant to Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the longtime head of the Juárez cartel who earned the nickname "Lord of the Skies" because he paid Colombian suppliers up to US30 million per cocaine shipment, then used planes and helicopters to fly the drugs all over the United States, including directly into Manhattan.

Federal officials say botched plastic surgery killed Carrillo Fuentes in July 1997, and control of the gang fell to his brother, Vicente. Esparragoza helped manage the organization, overseeing most aspects of production and smuggling, according to investigators.

But Werge said the balance of power in the Juárez cartel began to shift from Vicente Carrillo Fuentes to Esparragoza in March. "Vicente Carrillo Fuentes is still out there. But he's more of a nominal head because he doesn't have the managerial skills and can't build the alliances," Werge said.

Mexican investigators say Esparragoza may be trying to muscle the Carrillo Fuentes family out of the Juárez group's key posts.

"He can fly to Colombia and have the contacts necessary to make deals happen," said Jorge Chabat, who researches drug trafficking for Mexico City's Center for Economic Research and Instruction. "The Colombians rely on Mexicans for the smuggling routes. El Azul is one of those they trust."

A Mexican army report prepared for the office of the top anti-narcotics prosecutor and leaked to Mexico City newspapers cited informants' testimony in reporting that Esparragoza had teamed with other two other drug lords to target Vicente Carrillo Fuentes and members of his family. The federal Attorney General's Office had no comment on the report.

On Sept. 11, Vicente's brother, Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, and his girlfriend were shot and killed in the parking lot of a movie theater.

The Juárez cartel is the only Mexican drug gang not hit hard by a string of top drug arrests, and some have suggested it is being protected by government officials, including authorities in Morelos state, which borders Mexico City.

The head of the investigative police of the central state of Morelos, José Agustín Montiel, and his key aide, Raúl Cortés, were fired this year for protecting smugglers with links to Esparragoza.