Gypsy Jan - 3-18-2013 at 04:07 PM
From The San Diego Union Tribune
By Sandra Dibble
TIJUANA - "Mexican soldiers on Friday arrested a suspected drug trafficker named Melvin Gutiérrez Quiroz who for years has been associated with the
Arellano Félix organization and San Diego's Barrio Logan gang, law enforcement sources said.
There was no official announcement of the detention, which took place Friday morning in Tijuana's well-to-do Colonia Juárez neighborhood, according to
U.S. and Mexican officials. Both spoke on condition of condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by their agencies to talk about the
detention.
The only sign of a significant arrest on Friday evening was the heavy military presence outside the federal attorney general's office in the city's
Río Zone.
Gutiérrez was one of 10 men listed in a 2009 DEA poster identifying a new generation of drug traffickers headed by Fernando Sánchez Arellano, a nephew
of the Arellano Félix brothers, who are now dead or behind bars.
A top Baja California law enforcement official would not confirm the arrest when questioned by reporters Friday. Abel Galván Gallardo, deputy attorney
general for organized crime, said that Gutiérrez came from Barrio Logan and had worked closely with the Arellano Félix group's former leaders.
"He's a big fish," the U.S. official said of Gutiérrez. The official said Gutiérrez is a U.S. citizen who goes by the nickname "Casper" because of his
light complexion. Gutiérrez first became linked with the Arellanos in the early 1990s, the official said. Gutiérrez served three years in prison from
1994 to 1997, then fled to Mexico and is currently wanted in the United States on a parole violation, the U.S. official said."