MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) -- A Mexican drug cartel may have been the source
                  of nearly $1 million transferred to Peru's fugitive former spy chief Vladimir Montesinos
                  during the 1990s, a Mexican newspaper reported on Tuesday.

                  Reforma quoted Peruvian lawmaker Juan Velit as saying that Montesinos was under
                  investigation for the possible sale of narcotics from Peru to a still unidentified Mexican drug
                  cartel.

                  "Everything seems to indicate that (Montesinos) had a relationship with a
                  Mexican drug cartel ... The information that I know of is that he ultimately had a
                  relationship with various groups," Velit said.

                  Montesinos' vast network of corruption has rocked Peru for months and led to the
                  toppling of former President Alberto Fujimori in November. Fujimori fled to Japan
                  at the height of the corruption scandal.

                  Peru has offered $5 million for the capture of the still-at-large spy chief, who is wanted
                  on charges ranging from money laundering to corruption to ordering torture and death squads.

                  Velit told Reforma that a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official in
                  Peru told officials that illegal drugs seized in the Andean nation were allegedly slated
                  for transfer to Montesinos so he could sell it to a Mexican cartel, among other groups.

                  Officials from the Mexican attorney general's office (PGR), however, told
                  Reforma that the $980,000 Montesinos allegedly received from Mexico may be
                  linked to corruption, arms trafficking or blackmail -- but not drug trafficking.

                  The allegations of drug cartel ties follows a Reforma report on Monday that
                  Montesinos received $980,000 from a defunct Mexican company that may have
                  been linked to Peru's largest pension fund.

                     Copyright 2001 Reuters.