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Felix Arrest Said Won't Affect Drug Cartel
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/17/ap/world/mainD8JI3...
Capture of suspected drug lord unlikely to be death blow for Tijuana cartel
Aug. 17, 2006
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
The capture of suspected drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix is unlikely to deal a death blow to the Tijuana cartel that bears his family name,
partly because his reputation had little to do with his leadership abilities, experts said.
Although U.S. authorities announced Wednesday that they had "taken the head off the snake" with the arrest of Arellano Felix aboard a boat off
Mexico's Pacific coast on Monday, the gang has effectively lost much of its influence over the years.
"For the war against drugs, this means nothing, since Francisco Javier was not an important part of the organization," said Jesus Blancornelas, a
Tijuana journalist who has chronicled the city's drug trade for decades and was wounded in a 1997 assassination attempt linked to the cartel.
"Francisco Javier was a sort of playboy," said Blancornelas. "He likes to spend money and enjoy his fame. He drives around in luxury cars."
Even the nickname of the 36-year-old suspect suggested his secondary status: "El Tigrillo," or "The Little Tiger."
Arellano Felix is more of a thug than a leader, others said.
"In the underworld, he was known as the enforcer. He was the violent hand, the one in charge of executions," said Victor Clark Alfaro, director of the
Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana.
At its bloody peak in the 1990s, the gang was led by brothers Ramon and Benjamin Arellano Felix. But Ramon died in a shootout in 2002, and Benjamin
was arrested the same year.
The Tijuana gang then began to weaken and is believed to have joined a loose alliance with Mexico's Gulf Cartel to protect their turf against an
onslaught by a rival bloc _ sometimes known as "the federation" _ led by Mexico's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
Although Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Card##as was arrested in 2003, Guzman had escaped from prison two years before, leaving President Vicente Fox with a
mixed record in collaring major drug lords.
"This is the first time in a few years that they have arrested one among the more famous (drug traffickers), but he isn't really a big-time
trafficker," Blancornelas said.
Experts say the real brains behind the cartel's operations may be a surprise: one of the men's four sisters, Enedina Arellano Felix, or possibly a
fourth brother _ among seven _ Francisco Eduardo.
Francisco Eduardo is still at large in Mexico, but U.S. officials say he is not considered "capable of leading the organization at this time."
The Arellano Felix cartel is believed to be responsible for massive drug tunnels discovered in January, the longest of which stretched 2,400 feet from
a warehouse near the Tijuana airport to a warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial district. More than 2 tons of marijuana was found in the
tunnel.
Still, Mexican analysts doubted the significance of Arellano Felix's arrest.
"It's not like the U.S. government says, that it has 'taken the head off the snake,'" said Jorge Fernandez Menendez, a writer for the newspaper
Excelsior. "This is unlikely to dramatically change the distribution of drugs in the United States."
Yet the impervious wall that surrounded the cartel in the 1990s appears to have been broken.
Jerry Speziale, a former investigator for a federal narcotics task force who spent much of the 1990s undercover in Central and South America, said the
Arellano Felix cartel was notoriously difficult to penetrate.
Speziale, now sheriff of Passaic County, N.J., recalled a meeting in the early 1990s in which DEA agents presented detailed charts of the cartels they
were investigating.
"Everyone has nice charts with lots of information," Speziale said. "The guy who was doing the Arellano Felix organization opens up a blank piece of
paper. He said, 'I'm working on the Arellano organization, but this is what I know about them.'"
The cartel's success came from the loyalty of its members and the ability to find a niche in the international drug market, Speziale said.
Colombian drug cartels would pay shipping charges to the Arellano Felix cartel as well as pass along 50 percent of their load. In exchange, the
Mexican cartel would set up and maintain airstrips to allow transportation of the wholesale drugs into Mexico, arrange for the drugs to cross into the
lucrative U.S. marketplace and establish a distribution network there, Speziale said.
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BajaNews
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Mexican prosecutors charge two policeman with protecting Arellano Felix gang
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20060819-1223-mexi...
By Ioan Grillo
August 19, 2006
MEXICO CITY ? Mexican prosecutors announced Saturday that they have charged two policemen with protecting the Arellano Felix drug trafficking gang,
whose alleged kingpin was nabbed this week by U.S. coastguards.
Officers Jorge Alberto Perez and Salvador Cebreros face organized crime charges and are also being investigated for involvement in the killing of four
of their colleagues, who were shot dead in July, the Federal Attorney General's Office said in a statement.
Both Perez and Cebreros work in the police department of Rosarito, about 25 km (15 miles) south of the Mexican border with San Diego.
?They received money from members of the Arellano Felix criminal organization in exchange for giving them protection,? it said in the statement.
Investigators say large numbers of Mexican police officers have worked to help the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix gang move tons of Colombian cocaine
and Mexican marijuana to the United States, but few have corrupt officials have been brought to justice.
U.S. coastguards captured Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, 36, when he was deep sea fishing in international waters Monday. On Friday, he was taken to
a court in San Diego and pleaded not guilty to racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances and
money laundering.
Known in Mexico as ?El Tigrillo? or ?The Little Tiger,? Arellano Felix is accused of leading 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.
The Arellano Felix gang emerged as a drug powerhouse in the 1980s in Tijuana but its influence has waned lately as a new generation of gangsters in a
cartel known as the Federacion have risen to prominence.
The State Department had offered $5 million (euro3.88 million) rewards for the capture of Francisco Javier, but it is unclear if anyone will receive
that money.
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