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bancoduo
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The boat is registered to Tom Zeluff of Point Loma; says the world boating news from France.
[Edited on 8-18-2006 by bancoduo]
[Edited on 8-18-2006 by bancoduo]
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BajaNews
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Capture of drug lord: 'It doesn't get any better'
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060817-1415-bn17c...
By Angelica Martinez and Greg Gross
August 17, 2006
Associated Press
SAN DIEGO ? U.S. and Mexican authorities said Thursday the arrest of drug lord Javier Arellano Felix was a major coup that hit the Tijuana-based
cartel hard, but one that could lead to more violence.
Arrellano arrived Thursday morning in San Diego to face drug conspiracy charges a day after his arrest aboard a fishing boat off the Baja California
coast was announced.
Arellano was brought into San Diego Bay aboard a U.S. Coast Guard cutter just after 8 a.m. and taken to the Coast Guard base on Harbor Drive near the
Lindbergh Field escorted by federal authorities.
Security was heavy as U.S. Coast Guard cutter Petrel docked across from Lindbergh Field. A high-speed runabout from the Department of Homeland
Security, as well as several small Coast Guard craft armed with machine guns, stood by in San Diego Bay.
Arrellano was taken to San Diego's federal courthouse, again under heavy security, to begin his legal proceedings.
?In the world of drug law enforcement, it doesn't get any better,? said John S. Fernandes, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's San Diego office, said at a crowded news conference at the U.S. District Attorney's offices downtown
?This is huge. The opportunity to capture a drug lord the caliber of Javier Arellano Felix is a unique event.?
Fernandes said Arellano's capture signals ?the end of two decades of the most. . . powerful and violent drug-trafficking organization.?
Authorities, however, said they don't expect an immediate cease in drug trafficking or violence related to the cartel, on either side of the border.
?In drug trafficking we're not naive enough to think that drug trafficking is going to stop,? said FBI Daniel R. Dzwilewski, special agent in charge
of the FBI's local office.
Fernandes said violence will likely result as members of the organization and competing cartels fight for control of the lucrative drug trade.
Arrellano's long-awaited capture came Monday after a tip led authorities to international waters 15 nautical miles from La Paz, Mexico where Arellano
and 11 others, including three children, were aboard a deep-sea fishing boat.
Two of the seven other men aboard the boat were identified by U.S. officials as assassins for the cartel, Arturo ?El Nalgon? Villareal Heredia and
Marco ?El Catorro? Fernandez.
U.S. Coast Guard officers said they trained and prepared for the arrest, running through potential scenarios, before they stopped the fishing vessel
and arrested those onboard. The group gave little resistance, officials said.
One of the children aboard is believed to be Arellano's son, another his nephew, officials said. The relationship of the third child to the men on the
boat was not known. The children were being sent back to Mexico to be reunited with relatives.
Known as ?El Tigrillo,? or ?little tiger,? Arellano, 37, is one of seven leaders in the Arellano Felix organization named in a U.S. indictment
unsealed in San Diego in 2003.
The indictment charges Arellano and others with racketeering, conspiracy to import tons of marijuana and cocaine, and conspiracy to launder money.
Mexican authorities have also linked the cartel to the killings of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo of Guadalajara in 1993 and of Tijuana Police
Chief Federico Benitez in 1994.
DEA agents kept close watch on the Federal Building downtown as officials announced Arellano's arrest inside. They said his capture makes the drug
cartel a defunct organization.
For the better part of two decades, the Arellano drug cartel engaged in open drug trafficking, ?becoming rich by feeding off of the addiction of
others and wielding the power to murder, corruption, threats and violence,? U.S. Attorney Carol Lam said in the news conference.
Jose Luis Santiago Vasconselos, Mexico's deputy attorney general for organized crime, thanked U.S. authorities for their collaboration and said his
country's fight against drug trafficking will continue.
Speaking in Spanish, with an interpreter, Vasconselos said authorities will now focus their attention on corrupt police officers in Tijuana who are
suspected of helping the cartel conduct its operations.
He also said authorities will work to maintain peace in Tijuana, where countless homicides often involved individuals involved in drug-trafficking.
Arellano is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday afternoon. He faces life in prison if convicted of the charges in the 2003 indictment, but prosecutors
could add charges that could result in the death penalty.
[Edited on 8-18-2006 by BajaNews]
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Suspected drug kingpin pleads not guilty
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4125040.html
By ALLISON HOFFMAN
SAN DIEGO ? Suspected drug kingpin Francisco Javier Arellano Felix pleaded not guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges Thursday after arriving
on U.S. soil in a Coast Guard boat and being whisked to a downtown jail under heavy security.
Arellano Felix did not speak during the brief hearing. His court-appointed attorney, Leila Morgan, pleaded not guilty on his behalf to racketeering,
racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances, and money laundering.
Arellano Felix, 36, had been captured on a sport boat in international waters Monday along with seven other men, including Arturo Villarreal Heredia,
who U.S. authorities said was probably his second-in-command.
"There is no discernible leader left to fill the void" in the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel, said John Fernandes, special agent in charge of the
Drug Enforcement Administration's San Diego office. "I don't consider this organization disrupted. I consider this organization defunct."
The men arrived on a U.S. Coast Guard boat at the agency's harborside facility around 8:15 a.m. The group was escorted to a waiting motorcade of
police vehicles and unmarked Chevy Suburbans as snipers watched from atop a nearby hangar.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Leo S. Papas scheduled a bail hearing Monday for Arellano Felix. After the defendant left the courtroom, the seven others
entered and were ordered held as material witnesses.
Arellano Felix's son was among three children ages 5 to 11 who also were on the 43-foot yacht, said Carol Lam, the U.S. attorney in San Diego. One was
apparently a nephew, and the third child's identity was unclear.
The children were brought to the United States and will be returned to Mexico, Fernandes said at a news conference.
Coast Guard Rear Adm. Jody Breckinridge said that Mexican authorities did not participate in the arrest and that Arellano Felix showed little
resistance.
In Mexico, Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said Thursday that the arrest "totally devastated" the cartel. Some experts, however said it would
not mean much to the organization or to the larger fight against drug trafficking in Mexico.
Cabeza de Vaca also 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 was among 11 people charged in 2003 with 10 counts of conspiracy and racketeering. He is suspected of conspiring to assassinate Roman
Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo in 1993 at the airport in Guadalajara, U.S. officials said.
The indictment accuses Arellano Felix, 36, and others of moving tons of Colombian cocaine and Mexican marijuana to the United States along the
California-Mexico border. The Arellano Felix gang is believed to be responsible for large border drug tunnels discovered last January.
They are also accused of kidnapping, torturing and killing rivals and bribing Mexican officials. The indictment links Arellano Felix to a 1996 killing
in Coronado, Calif., near San Diego, and a 1992 shootout at a disco in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
The Arellano Felix gang emerged as a drug powerhouse in the 1980s in Tijuana, Mexico, across the border from San Diego, but its influence has waned
lately. It recently ceded control of Mexicali, an important drug corridor about 120 miles east of Tijuana, said John Kirby, a former federal
prosecutor in San Diego who worked on the 2003 indictment.
Kirby said Arellano Felix led the Tijuana clan almost by default in 2002 when the gang lost two of his older brothers: Benjamin, who was jailed, and
Ramon, who was killed.
Benjamin Arellano Felix has continued to issue orders from jail in Mexico, but his younger brother was the top lieutenant in the field, said Kirby.
The State Department had offered $5 million rewards for the capture of Francisco Javier or his brother Eduardo. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty
said there was no indication whether anyone would receive the award for Francisco Javier's capture.
Federal drug agents began preparing for the latest operation 14 months ago after learning that Arellano Felix was planning a fishing trip. The agents
enlisted the Coast Guard's help and were helped throughout by Mexican law enforcement officers.
Federal authorities learned of the fishing trip four months ago, said DEA spokesman Dan Simmons.
U.S. authorities identified others arrested on the boat as Marco Villanueva Fernandez, Edgar Omar Osorio, Luis Raul Jiminez Toledo, Francisco Javier
Mesa Castro, Ernesto Gonzales Fimbles and Jose Luis Betancourt Espinoza.
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BajaNews
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Alleged Mexican Drug Lord Pleads Not Guilty
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-felix18aug18,0,72353...
By Richard Marosi
August 17, 2006
SAN DIEGO -- Authorities knew the alleged Mexican drug kingpin didn't like to give up without a fight. In 1994 when police tried to arrest Francisco
Javier Arellano Felix in Tijuana, Mexico, a federal police commander and four other people died in a shootout that led to his escape.
So on Tuesday, as a U.S. Coast Guard vessel edged up to a fishing boat off the coast of Baja California, about 30 heavily armed coast guardsmen
prepared for a potentially bloody encounter.
Instead, the alleged drug cartel leader let them board, and he and 10 others were escorted off the Dock Holiday without incident. On the two-day sail
to San Diego, Arellano Felix's son and nephew played video games while crew members kept a close watch on the stunned Arellano Felix.
"He was surprised," said John Fernandes, special agent in charge of the Drug and Enforcement Administration office in San Diego. "They went out
fishing, and they ended up being the fish."
Despite Arellano Felix's meek surrender, authorities weren't taking any chances when he arrived here Thursday morning. Sharpshooters stood by as a
police motorcade drove Arellano Felix, 36, from the port to the downtown federal detention facility.
At his afternoon arraignment, the gaunt-looking Arellano Felix -- still dressed in his orange flip-flops and checked green shorts -- grimly pressed
his lips and nodded when his court-appointed attorney entered a not guilty plea to charges of smuggling, murder and conspiracy.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Leo Papas scheduled a bail hearing for Monday.
According to the indictment, filed in 2003, Arellano Felix is a member of an organization that during its height in the late 1990s was believed to be
supplying nearly half the cocaine sold in the U.S. The cartel is blamed for scores of slayings of police officers, journalists and rivals, as well as
the accidental killing of Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posados Ocampo at the Guadalajara airport in 1993.
U.S. and Mexican authorities, whose joint investigations have at times been marred by mistrust, held a news conference in San Diego, where they
emphasized the close cooperation between the countries on the case.
Authorities, citing the ongoing investigation, released few details but said a key break in the 3-year manhunt came four months ago when Mexican
authorities shared information with DEA agents that Arellano Felix had bought a fishing boat.
Acting on a tip, U.S. authorities sent a Coast Guard vessel to intercept the boat in international waters off the tip of Baja California. Arellano
Felix was apparently on a fishing trip with three children, ages 5 to 11.
Among the seven men also aboard was Arturo Villarreal-Heredia, an alleged assassin for the Arellano Felix cartel. Mexico's attorney general, Daniel
Francisco Cabeza de Vaca, said that the men may have been heading for a meeting with other cartel members.
The guardsmen on the U.S. Coast Guard vessel had prepared for all possible scenarios, said Rear Admiral Jody Breckenridge, commander of the 11th Coast
Guard district in San Diego. But when they boarded, the men surrendered without incident.
There were no drugs or weapons found, she said. On the way back to San Diego, the men were not handcuffed. There are no holding cells in the vessel,
but the suspects were kept in a "controlled environment," Breckenridge said.
The children chatted with crew members and played video games, she said. They have been flown to Mexico City, where a social services agency will care
for them until family members claim custody.
Cabeza de Vaca, in an interview in Mexico City, said it appeared that Arellano Felix had had plastic surgery performed on his face to change his
appearance. He said the alleged drug kingpin traveled routinely to San Diego under a false identity, and that the boat excursion started in the U.S.
Authorities could only speculate why one of Mexico's most wanted men went down without a fight. Some said he didn't want to endanger the lives of the
children. Others said he may have grown tired of running and having a $5 million reward hanging over his head.
"Sometimes you're just relieved that it's over," said Dan Simmons, a DEA spokesman in San Diego. "I wonder if he said to himself, `What's the use?' "
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BajaNews
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Arrest of a suspected mastermind in Ortiz Franco murder
http://www.cpj.org/news/2006/americas/mexico17aug06na.html
New York, August 17, 2006?The Committee to Protect Journalists today urged Mexican authorities to investigate the suspected involvement of Arturo
Villarreal in the 2004 killing of a Tijuana newspaper editor. Villareal was picked up as part of a drug sweep by U.S. security services on August 14.
A Mexican prosecutor last year identified Villarreal, who is known by the nickname ?El Nalg?n,? as one of two masterminds in the June 22, 2004
shooting of Zeta editor Francisco Ortiz Franco.
?We are encouraged by the prospect of justice in the murder our colleague Francisco Ortiz Franco,? said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. ?We urge
U.S. and Mexican authorities to work together to ensure that Villarreal?s involvement in the Ortiz Franco murder is fully investigated.?
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty said yesterday that U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrested suspected members of the Tijuana
drug cartel controlled by the Arellano F?lix family. They were stopped in a fishing boat off Mexico?s Baja California peninsula.
Prosecutor Timothy Coughlin, Chief of the Narcotics Unit for the U.S. Attorney?s Office in San Diego, Calif., told CPJ that Villarreal was among those
arrested.
Villareal and suspected drug boss Francisco Javier Arellano F?lix were brought today to San Diego, the San Diego Union Tribune reported. The cartel
leader faces drug conspiracy and racketeering charges, the newspaper said.
Villarreal and Jorge Brice?o (known as ?El Cholo?) masterminded the Ortiz Franco murder, according to Mexican prosecutor Jos? Luis Vasconcelos, who
leads the organized crime division of the Mexican Attorney General?s office. The actual gunman, Jorge Eduardo Ronquillo Delgado, was killed by fellow
cartel members on October 2004, Vasconcelos told CPJ last year.
The Zeta editor was short in broad daylight in a quiet neighborhood near downtown Tijuana.
Mexican federal authorities, who took over the probe in August 2004, believe that Ortiz Franco was killed because of his work as a journalist, and
they consider stories he wrote about the Arellano F?lix drug cartel as the probable motive.
In September 2004, a CPJ delegation visited Tijuana to look into Ortiz Franco?s murder. With information gathered during the trip, CPJ published a
report in November that year titled ?Free-Fire Zone,? describing how feuds between rival drug cartels over lucrative drug smuggling routes have
endangered the lives of journalists, turning the Northern Mexican border into one of the most dangerous places for the practice of journalism in Latin
America.
CPJ?s investigation into the Ortiz Franco slaying is at: http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2004/tijuana/tijuana.html
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BajaNews
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| Quote: | Originally posted by bancoduo
The boat is registered to Tom Zeluff of Point Loma; says the world boating news from France.
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http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=15921
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Bob H
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This kingpin is kinda short, no?
The SAME boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It's about what you are made of NOT the circumstance.
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Cincodemayo
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The "Napoleon" syndrome. Kim Jong Ill and the Pres. of Iran...both have it.
Don\'t get mad...
Get EVEN.
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JESSE
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The first guy is not Arellano Felix, its probably an american who worked on the boat.
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BajaNomad
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Jesse,
I think that's him...
| Quote: | Originally posted by BajaNews
...At his afternoon arraignment, the gaunt-looking Arellano Felix -- still dressed in his orange flip-flops and checked green shorts...
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From the Houston Chronicle article, an artist's rendition from the court proceeding:
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
https://www.regionalinternet.com
Affordable Domain Name Registration/Management & cPanel Web Hosting - since 1999 |
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Cincodemayo
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This guy was a real dirtbag...wonder how many holdings he had as in homes and money stashed away. Here is a PBS profile on the scumbag.
A real Al Capone wannabe....actually he was there.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/etc/are...
Don\'t get mad...
Get EVEN.
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bajajudy
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Rumors are flying around here that this guy has a house in Rancho Leonero. Right on the beach, of course. Built about 2 years ago.
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bancoduo
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Dave
| Quote: | Originally posted by JESSE
The dogs might be nervous at Caliente. |
And their master.  |
Mayor
Rhon?  :moon:
[Edited on 8-18-2006 by BajaNomad]
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BajaNews
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Planning, persistence paid off
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20060818-9...
After 14-month operation, cartel leader is arraigned in S.D.
By Onell R. Soto
August 18, 2006
The arrest of the leader of the Arellano F?lix drug cartel this week was the result of intensive police work, international cooperation and more than
a year of planning, law enforcement officials said yesterday.
Francisco Javier Arellano F?lix pleaded not guilty to racketeering, conspiracy and other charges in San Diego federal court yesterday, hours after
coming off a Coast Guard cutter wearing a bulletproof vest and walking in flip-flops.
?It doesn't get any better,? said John Fernandes, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in San Diego, where
agents hatched the plan that led to the arrests.
The notorious Tijuana cartel is accused of moving tons of drugs, paying millions of dollars in bribes and killing scores of rivals and law enforcement
officials.
With Arellano behind bars, Mexican and U.S. officials said, his family's drug cartel was ?defunct? and chaos would ensue among those seeking to
control narcotics smuggling through Baja California.
Catching its leaders was a priority on both sides of the border.
?These kinds of operations take surveillance, surveillance, surveillance,? Fernandes said. ?That's boots on the ground, or in this case, boots on the
water.?
Arellano's top lieutenant, Arturo Villareal Heredia, and Marco Villanueva Fernandez, who the DEA says controlled operations along the
California-Mexico border, were among the 11 people aboard the 43-foot boat named Dock Holiday when armed Coast Guard officers approached it Monday in
international waters off Baja California Sur.
Agents have been looking for ways to arrest Arellano, 37, and other top cartel leaders for years.
About 14 months ago, they began ?Operation Shadow Game? in a concerted effort to find Arellano and his brother Eduardo, both of whom were indicted in
San Diego federal court in 2003.
They put out a $5 million reward for information that would lead to either brother's arrest.
In April, they learned the cartel leaders were planning to use the Dock Holiday, a well-appointed sport-fishing boat that had been purchased in the
United States.
Mexican officials said that information came about from interviewing some of the more than 120 members of the Arellano F?lix cartel they have arrested
in recent years.
After learning of the boat's existence, the DEA contacted the Coast Guard, which runs cutters along the Pacific coast of Mexico and Central America on
drug-interdiction missions, and came up with a variety of scenarios for a high-seas arrest of cartel leaders.
They planned for the possibility the Dock Holiday could have innocent family members aboard.
Agents were aware of the boat's movements. Fernandes wouldn't say how, but he hinted it wasn't from an informant seeking the $5 million.
?No one will be collecting that reward,? he said.
All the while, the DEA was working with Mexican officials on the operation.
?This yacht had made several trips as a test,? Daniel Francisco Cabeza de Vaca Hern?ndez, Mexico's attorney general, told a television interviewer
yesterday about the Arellano arrest. ?They became confident after about four trips, and that's when he started to operate on the yacht.?
On learning the boat was in international waters Monday, the DEA notified the Coast Guard. The Monsoon, a Navy ship on loan to the Coast Guard, sent a
detachment aboard the Dock Holiday to determine who was aboard.
Agents back in San Diego didn't know for sure whom they would find, Fernandes said.
Eight men and three boys ages 5 to 11 were on the U.S.-flagged Dock Holiday and posed no resistance when approached.
The Monsoon crew questioned the men, asking them for identification and taking their pictures, which they sent back to DEA agents in San Diego.
Although the men used false identities ? a common practice among drug traffickers ? the agents knew they had Arellano, Villareal and Villanueva in
custody, according to court filings made public yesterday.
Arellano and Villareal, described as No. 1 and No. 2 in the organization, eventually admitted their true names.
Of the other five men, only one was known to the DEA agents, although only by his nickname. Agents suspect the other men are using fake names.
But they must be important to the cartel, a DEA agent said, simply because the organization wouldn't let them get on a boat with Arellano if they
weren't.
Arellano probably wasn't just fishing off the coast when he was caught, said Cabeza de Vaca, the Mexican attorney general.
?We think that he was trying to extend his activities toward the south of the peninsula so it's probable that he was interviewing people,? he said.
The eight men and three boys were put aboard the Monsoon and a Coast Guard crew took over the Dock Holiday. The two vessels then started to San Diego
several hundred miles away and soon were joined by other Coast Guard cutters, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Jody Breckenridge said.
The Monsoon got to San Diego yesterday morning, and the prized party was taken off in a cordon of security as rooftop snipers looked on and then put
in government SUVs for a short trip down Harbor Drive to the federal courthouse.
There, Arellano, still dressed in flip-flops, plaid shorts and a faded orange shirt, appeared before federal Judge Leo S. Papas. A temporary lawyer
entered a not guilty plea on Arellano's behalf to racketeering and drug and money-laundering conspiracy charges. He faces decades in prison if
convicted.
The lawyer, Leila Morgan of Federal Defenders of San Diego Inc., told the judge that Arellano was unemployed and asked for a government-appointed
lawyer. The judge appointed Inge Brauer, a criminal defense lawyer with 30 years of experience, pending a hearing to determine if Arellano can afford
to pay his own lawyer.
Prosecutor Laura Duffy told the judge that Arellano is dangerous and would flee if allowed to go free, and the judge set a hearing for Monday to
determine whether to grant bail to him or the seven other men who are in custody.
In any case, immigration officials have put a deportation hold on all eight, meaning that they would go into their custody if they tried to post bail.
The boys ? one was Arellano's son, another his nephew, while the third's relationship wasn't spelled out ? were expected to be reunited with family
members soon.
Two of the boys are Mexican, one is a U.S. citizen.
Earlier yesterday, during a news conference, authorities said they don't expect an immediate halt in drug trafficking or violence related to the
cartel.
?We're not naive enough to think that drug trafficking is going to stop,? said FBI Daniel R. Dzwilewski, special agent in charge of the FBI's local
office.
Fernandes said violence will likely result as members of the organization and competing cartels fight for control of the lucrative drug trade.
For the better part of two decades, the Arellano drug cartel engaged in open drug trafficking, ?becoming rich by feeding off of the addiction of
others and wielding the power to murder, corruption, threats and violence,? U.S. Attorney Carol Lam said.
Jos? Luis Santiago Vasconselos, Mexico's deputy attorney general for organized crime, thanked U.S. authorities for their collaboration.
Vasconselos said Mexican authorities will now focus their attention on corrupt police officers in Tijuana who are suspected of helping the cartel
conduct its operations.
He also said authorities will work to maintain peace in Tijuana, where hundreds of homicides have involved people linked to drug trafficking.
Meanwhile, Arellano's brother Eduardo, who authorities say plays a diminished role in the cartel but who experts on the drug trade say is the real
power of the organization, remains at large.
?We're always looking for Eduardo,? the DEA's Fernandes said.
The $5 million reward is still available.
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BajaNews
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Mexico to request extradition of drug gang boss
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20060817-2258-crim...
REUTERS
August 17, 2006
MEXICO CITY ? Mexico will ask the United States to extradite Javier Arellano Felix, the Mexican drug cartel boss captured by U.S. agents this week,
the attorney general's office said Thursday.
Arellano Felix ? leader of one of Mexico's most feared cartels ? was arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard, along with 10 other people believed to be part
of his organization, on a ship off the coast of La Paz, Mexico.
?The Mexican authorities have the legal obligation, and we are already doing it, to request the extradition of Francisco Javier Arellano Feliz so he
also answers for crimes committed in our country,? Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said in a statement.
Arellano Felix, nicknamed ?El Tigrillo? (The Wildcat), is wanted in Mexico for murder, possession of illegal weapons and organized crime.
He was taken to San Diego this week to face U.S. charges of racketeering, conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana and conspiracy to
commit money laundering.
The Arellano Felix family gang was once Mexico's most powerful and feared drug cartel, running a vast smuggling operation out of the gritty border
city of Tijuana.
It lost some of its power in 2002, when its enforcer, Ramon Arellano Felix, was killed in a shootout with police and his brother, Benjamin, the gang's
mastermind, was arrested.
The family continued to do business, however, and cut deals with the Gulf cartel in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.
Mexico has intensified its war on drugs crime under President Vicente Fox. There has been a savage wave of killings along the U.S. border and in some
Pacific resorts as gangs battle for control of the multibillion dollar cocaine, marijuana and amphetamine trade.
Cabeza de Vaca said investigators were hunting for other cartel members in Tijuana and the nearby port of Ensenada, in the border state of Baja
California.
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Dave
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| Quote: | Originally posted by BajaNews
Cabeza de Vaca said investigators were hunting for other cartel members in Tijuana and the nearby port of Ensenada |
Maybe they should look at the stockyards. 
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BajaNews
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BajaNews
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BajaNews
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BajaNews
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