Extensive plastic surgery blamed for drug lord's death

One of Mexico's most powerful drug lords, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, died as a result of extensive plastic surgery intended to help him escape law enforcement, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Thomas Constantine said Sunday.

Constantine said his agents learned that Carrillo died early Friday morning at Santa Monica Hospital in Mexico City.The drug trafficker had checked in Thursday for a 9-to-10 hour plastic surgery, which Constantine described as "a desperate attempt to escape pursuing law enforcement."

Carrillo headed a drug cartel centered in Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas, that had emerged in the past year as the most powerful of four cartels operating along the Mexican side of the border and smuggling drugs into this country.

He was a major player in the distribution of cocaine in the United States, Constantine said.

"We can only hope that his death will provide U.S. and Mexican authorities extra leverage to continue their pursuit of the Carillo Fuentes organization and the other remaining gangs trafficking in illegal drugs," said Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.