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Accused Mexican Drug Cartel Leader Will Not Seek Bail In U.S.
http://www.10news.com/news/9713336/detail.html
August 21, 2006
SAN DIEGO -- The reputed leader of the Arellano-Felix drug cartel waived his right to a detention hearing Monday and will be held without bail pending
the resolution of his case, a judge ruled.
Javier Arellano-Felix was captured a week ago by U.S. federal drug agents and Coast Guard personnel while deep-sea fishing in international waters off
the coast of Cabo San Lucas, in Baja California.
Seven other men, included two suspected assassins, were also taken into custody and charged in San Diego federal court as material witnesses.
Charges were dismissed Monday against one of the seven, Luis Raul Jiminez-Toledo.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy told U.S. District Judge Larry Burns that Jiminez-Toledo would be sent back to Mexico by U.S. immigration
officials.
Arellano-Felix, 37, appeared in court in a bright orange jumpsuit and answered "si" when Burns asked him if he agreed to waive his detention hearing
and be held without bail during his case.
The defendant's court-appointed attorney, David Bartick, said he planned to file a motion for Burns to recuse himself from the case because the judge
once worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office, which is prosecuting the case.
Burns said he didn't have anything to do with the filing of charges against Arellano-Felix, but told Bartick to go ahead and file his motion.
A hearing was scheduled for Sept. 5.
Noting that prosecutors could file charges leading to the death penalty against his client, Bartick asked the judge to appoint a second attorney for
the defendant.
The judge said the request sounded reasonable, but delayed a ruling until at least Sept. 5.
Outside court, Bartick said he would consider filing a motion to move the case out of San Diego.
Arellano-Felix, known as "El Tigrillo" or "little tiger," and 11 other alleged high-ranking members of the Mexican cartel were indicted in federal
court in San Diego in July 2003 on charges of importing and distributing drugs into the United States.
Javier Arellano-Felix and his brothers, Benjamin and Eduardo, were charged in December 2003 with conducting an illegal enterprise through a pattern of
racketeering activity, conspiring to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana, and money laundering.
A fourth brother, Ramon Arellano-Felix, considered the cartel's enforcer, was killed in a shootout with police in 2002. Benjamin Arellano-Felix was
arrested a few weeks later.
Eduardo Arellano-Felix is still at large, authorities said.
Authorities say Francisco Javier Arellano-Felix took over the Tijuana cartel in 2002. The Arellano-Felix family has controlled the Mexican drug trade
since the late 1980s, authorities said.
The indictment also alleges that the Arellano-Felix Organization negotiated with Colombian cocaine traffickers to buy tons of cocaine, and then
arranged to have it smuggled into the United States.
The Arellano-Felix Organization recruited bodyguards and assassins who killed rival drug traffickers, informants and Mexican law enforcement and
military personnel, as well as members of the news media, the government alleges.
The indictment accuses the Arellano-Felix organization of carrying out 20 murders in the United States and Mexico.
Edgar Omar Osorio, Arturo Villareal-Heredia, Ernesto Gonzalez Fimbles and Jose Luis Betancourt-Espinoza had their detention hearings delayed until
next Monday.
Marco Villanueva-Fernandez will have his detention hearing on Sept. 5.
Burns ordered Javier Mesa-Castro held without bail.
Duffy told the judge that Mesa-Castro was a fisherman from La Paz, Mexico, who had been on other trips on the U.S.-flagged Dock Holiday.
The defendant made statements to authorities once the seized vessel was brought back to San Diego, the prosecutor said.
Mesa-Castro, 45, said the boat's owner was linked to the AFO and had ties to Javier Arellano-Felix, Duffy told the judge.
She said Mesa-Castro's testimony was material to the prosecution of Arellano-Felix.
Burns said he could set no conditions of release that would guarantee Mesa-Castro's appearance in court.
The judge said Mesa-Castro was likely to flee if released and said the defendant must be aware that the AFO doesn't like people testifying against it.
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BajaNews
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Feds May Seek Death Penalty For Accused Drug Lord
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_233173528.html
(AP) SAN DIEGO The federal government may seek the death penalty for the accused kingpin of one of Mexico?s oldest and most notorious drug cartels, a
prosecutor said Monday.
Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, 36, did not seek bail during his second court appearance in five days. He pleaded not guilty last week to
racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances and money laundering.
Laura Duffy, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the government may seek new charges against Arellano Felix that would allow for the death penalty or
life in prison if he is convicted. She did not elaborate on the possible charges at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Larry A. Burns.
Arellano Felix currently faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison under a 2003 indictment that accused him and others of moving tons of
Colombian cocaine and Mexican marijuana to the United States and involvement in a string of assassinations or plots, U.S. authorities said.
Last week, Mexican Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said Mexico would seek Arellano Felix?s extradition to Mexico, but perhaps not until he had
been tried and sentenced for crimes in the United States.
Arellano Felix, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and shackled at his wrists and ankles, gave one-word answers in Spanish to procedural questions at the
bail hearing Monday. He was captured by the U.S. Coast Guard last week off the coast of La Paz, Mexico, aboard the U.S.-registered sport boat Dock
Holiday.
Seven other men aboard the yacht were arrested and taken to the United States last week, including Arturo Villarreal Heredia, whom U.S. authorities
said was a high-ranking figure in the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel. On Monday, Burns ordered the release of one, Luis Raul Jiminez Toledo, who
will be returned to Mexico. The other six, who have not been charged with any crime, are being held as material witnesses.
Burns rejected a request to release Francisco Javier Mesa Castro after the defendant?s attorney, Andrew Nietor, said his client was only a crew member
aboard the fishing boat.
The others ordered held were Cesar Niebla Lerma, Juan Pedro Romero Fiol, Edgar Omar Osorio and Jose Luis Betancourt Espinoza. Authorities had
previously identified Niebla Lerma as Marco Villanueva Fernandez and Romero Fiol as Ernesto Gonzales Fimbles.
John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego who worked on the 2003 indictment, said Arellano Felix took over field operations after his older
brother Benjamin was jailed in Mexico in 2002 and brother Ramon was killed that same year.
Another brother, Eduardo Ramon Arellano Felix, remains at large. According to Kirby, he has exited the day-to-day operation of the cartel.
?Javier was basically anointed to head things while Benjamin was in jail, and with that pipeline gone I don?t see that anyone else is there to take
his place or to head off inroads by other cartels who want to operate in Tijuana,? Kirby said.
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BajaNews
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U.S. Apprehends a Feared Drug Kingpin
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=16591
by Robert J. Caldwell
Aug 21, 2006
San Diego -- U.S. law enforcement called it Operation Shadow Game. Its target was Javier Arellano Felix, the latest boss of the ultra-violent,
Tijuana-based drug cartel that bears his family's name, the Arellano Felix Organization.
The hunters were a task force of federal agents led by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. government's front-line agency in the war against
the multibillion-dollar trafficking in illegal narcotics smuggled into the United States.
For two decades, the AFO has controlled the Tijuana Plaza, the lucrative drug smuggling corridor across the southwest U.S.-Mexico border. Through this
corridor flowed hundreds of tons of cocaine and marijuana bought by the AFO and smuggled -- in everything from duffel bags and hidden car panels to
tractor-trailer rigs -- across the border for resale in the U.S. market.
The profits reaped by the AFO, aka the Tijuana cartel, were enormous; billions of dollars over the years. The money paid for luxurious lifestyles for
the expansive Arellano Felix clan, for disguised investments all over Mexico, the United States and elsewhere, and to sustain a drug trafficking
empire that stretched from Tijuana north into the United States and south as far as Colombia, source of 80 percent of the world's cocaine.
To protect this illicit trade, the Arellano Felix Organization spent huge sums every month bribing Mexican law enforcement, government officials and
even the Mexican military to look the other way. Those who couldn't be bought were often killed by AFO enforcement teams; heavily armed assassins who
drove around Tijuana and other Baja California cities in convoys of armored SUVs equipped with sophisticated radios and other communications gear
tuned to Mexican police frequencies.
But despite their wealth, bribes, murders and fearsome reputation, the AFO's fortunes began declining in 2000. In March 2000, Mexican counternarcotics
police apprehended the AFO's reputed financial mastermind, Jesus "Chuy Labra" Labra Aviles in Tijuana. In May 2000, Mexican federal police captured
the AFO's operations director, Ismael "El Mayel" Higuera Guerrero, at a villa near Ensenada.
Then, in 2002, the roof fell in on the AFO. On Feb. 10, the cartel's feared enforcer and by all accounts its most sadistic killer, Ramon Arellano
Felix, was killed in a shootout with Mexican police in the resort coastal city of Mazatlan. One day short of a month later, Benjamin Arellano Felix,
the cartel's shrewd CEO, was captured while hiding in an upscale suburb of the city of Puebla in Mexico's interior by an elite para-military team of
Mexican federal police.
With Benjamin in custody, Ramon dead and a third brother, Francisco, in prison in Mexico since 1993, leadership of Mexico's most violent drug
trafficking cartel fell to Javier, then 33 years old.
U.S. law enforcement's concerted hunt for Javier Arellano Felix began in the summer of 2003. Previously sealed indictments, returned by a federal
grand jury for the Southern District of California, were unsealed and announced by the U.S. attorney in San Diego against the top leadership of the
AFO, including Javier Arellano Felix. The U.S. State Department offered a $5 million reward for information leading to Javier's apprehension.
Federal charges against Javier and the other AFO principals included drug trafficking, conspiracy, racketeering and money laundering.
The AFO's new boss was also wanted on drug trafficking charges in Mexico, where he was regarded as one of that nation's most sought-after fugitives.
By June 2004, U.S. law enforcement's search for Javier was on in earnest. Reportedly, he narrowly escaped capture by Mexican authorities in Tijuana on
several occasions.
To protect the vital secrets of intelligence sources and methods, U.S. law enforcement officials won't discuss the specifics of how Javier and his top
AFO associates were tracked in Mexico. But at some point, a link was discovered between Javier and a sport fishing boat. A carefully crafted plan
emerged to apprehend him if and when he ventured out on the boat, later identified as the Dock Holiday, a vessel registered in the United States.
If caught in international waters, Javier could be arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard acting on the Justice Department warrant issued for his arrest in
2003.
Now the trap was set. Operation Shadow Game was a waiting game.
Finally, on Monday morning, Aug. 14, Javier Arellano Felix made the mistake that would cost him his freedom. The Dock Holiday was in international
waters some 15 miles off the Baja port city of Cabo San Lucas. The DEA pulled the trigger, formally requesting that the Coast Guard interdict and
board the Dock Holiday.
A Coast Guard boarding team, including members of a specially trained counterterrorism, counternarcotics unit, promptly deployed from a pre-positioned
Coast Guard patrol ship, the Monsoon.
In minutes, the Coast Guard team boarded the 43-foot Doc Holiday. At first, Javier gave the alias under which he was traveling. The Coast Guard team
photographed Javier and others aboard the Dock Holiday and relayed the photographs to the DEA. When it became apparent that his true identity had been
discovered, Javier admitted who he was.
The eight adults and three children aboard the fishing boat included two other reputed AFO members, Arturo Villareal Heredia and Marco Fernandez. Law
enforcement sources describe Villareal as an operations lieutenant to Javier. Mexico's deputy attorney general for organized crime, Jose Luis Santiago
Vasconselos, calls Villareal and Fernandez "assassins."
For reasons of operational security, Javier's apprehension was kept secret while the Coast Guard was transporting him up the Baja coast toward San
Diego. The DEA, Justice Department and the Coast Guard announced their prize bust from Washington 48 hours after the event.
Javier was arraigned in U.S. District Court in San Diego on the 2003 indictment Thursday. Additional charges based on his activities since 2003 may be
filed later. The public defender lawyer temporarily assigned to represent him entered a plea of not guilty. If convicted on all 10 counts, he could be
sent to prison for life or receive a death sentence.
Either way, Javier Arellano Felix, now 37, is unlikely ever again to experience a single day as a free man.
Call it a down payment payback for decades of AFO crimes.
U.S. law enforcement sources estimate that the Arellano Felix Organization is responsible for many hundreds (500 or more is a figure one hears) of
murders, most in Mexico but some in the United States.
Among these, certain killings stand out as especially heinous.
A bungled AFO attempt to assassinate a rival drug trafficker at the Guadalajara, Mexico, airport in 1993 instead killed Mexico's Roman Catholic
cardinal, Juan Jesus Posdas Ocampo. The cardinal was riddled with bullets fired by AFO gunmen who mistook his car for that of their drug-trafficking
rival.
In 1998, an AFO enforcement team, reportedly high on cocaine and alcohol, slaughtered 19 members of three families, including five women and seven
children, at a rural compound in El Sauzal, south of Ensenada, Mexico. The massacre was said to be retaliation for an unpaid drug trafficking debt
owed to the AFO by the patriarch of one of the victim families.
In 2000, the AFO kidnapped a three-member team of counternarcotics investigators working in Tijuana for the Mexican attorney general's office. The
three men were savagely tortured. Their arms and legs were broken. Then they were killed by having their heads crushed flat in an industrial press.
Throughout this two-decade reign of terror, the AFO has acted as a criminal state within a state, defying both Mexico and the United States to stop
its drug trafficking and its murderous mayhem.
Now, finally, the AFO's days atop the hierarchy of Mexico's drug cartels may be numbered. With Benjamin and Francisco in prison in Mexico, Ramon dead
and Javier facing at least a life sentence in the United States, there may be no one left of sufficient stature to take their place.
Eduardo Arellano Felix, the remaining Arellano brother still at large, is described as a paranoid recluse. He, too, has a $5 million State Department
bounty on his head for information leading to his apprehension. It's widely believed that he is not up to the job of running a multibillion-dollar
drug cartel.
Other AFO lieutenants, notably the cunning Gustavo Rivera Martinez (aka "Gus Rivera," or "Chuck"), may try to seize control, or ally the Arellano's
battered organization with another major Mexican cartel.
"It's unlikely that there is a credible succession," says John Fernandes, special agent in charge of the DEA's San Diego Field Division.
Fernandes describes Javier Arellano Felix as a "top gun of drug trafficking" and his apprehension as "historic."
Michael Braun, the DEA's assistant operations director, describes Javier as "the head of the (AFO) snake."
Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to seek the extradition from Mexico of Benjamin Arellano Felix and the other imprisoned AFO principals wanted
for trial in the United States.
At long last, the lamentable saga of the Arellano Felix Organization may be drawing toward a long-awaited, if probably bloody, denouement. A criminal
syndicate that once supplied an estimated 40 percent of all cocaine consumed in the United States has now seen all but one of the Arellano brothers
taken down by Mexican or U.S. law enforcement.
Most of those who worked so long and so diligently, and sometimes at great personal risk, to accomplish this hard-won victory must remain unidentified
for reasons of security. Yet, it's no exaggeration to say that two nations are in their debt.
[Edited on 8-22-2006 by BajaNews]
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