06/02/2000

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration's newest weapon in the drug war is a financial blacklist of major foreign drug traffickers and their associates.

The U.S. assets of those on the drug kingpin list would be frozen in most cases. Americans would be barred from doing business with them.

The administration was required to present the list to Congress by Thursday under a law passed last year.

"If they [drug traffickers] are in the business for the money and you tie up the money, you hit them where it hurts the most," said Rep. Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

But civil libertarians are concerned that assets will be seized before foreign companies have a chance to defend themselves. Some companies fear they will be penalized for unwittingly doing business with traffickers.

And Mexico is wary of the new law, known as the Foreign Drug Kingpin Designation Act. In a statement, the Mexican foreign relations department expressed concerns about whether foreign companies in the United States will be given due process of law.

A senior administration official said that the first part of the list - the names of major drug traffickers - was being reviewed by President Clinton, who is traveling in Europe, and could be made public soon.

The other part, naming the traffickers' business associates, was being prepared by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, but it was unclear when it would be made public. Other names and businesses could be added later.

The list could contain names of suspects who have been publicly identified before, such as Alejandro Bernal Madrigal of Colombia, the Arellano Felix brothers in Mexico, Wei Hsueh-kang, a Chinese national, and former Myanmar warlord Khun Sa.