U.S. seizes major drug-cartel leader

MEXICO CITY — U.S. authorities acting on a tip boarded a 43-foot fishing boat off the coast of Baja California this week and hooked a drug-trafficking kingpin, Francisco Javier Arellano Félix.

The Mexican fugitive is a reputed leader of the Arellano Félix organization, described by U.S. and Mexican law enforcement as the largest and most violent drug-trafficking organization operating in the Tijuana/Baja California area.

The Tijuana cartel is thought to be responsible for sophisticated tunnels dug under the California-Mexico border along the U.S. cities of San Diego and Otay Mesa.

"This guy happens to be ... one of the 45 most notorious, most wanted drug traffickers in the world," said Mike Braun, an assistant administrator with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Arellano Félix, 36, was arrested by Coast Guard officials and was being transported to San Diego, where he was expected to be arraigned under a 2003 indictment that charged him and 10 others in the organization with racketeering, conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and marijuana, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Brother Ramón, known as the enforcer of the cartel, was shot to death in February 2002 in the seaside resort city of Mazatlán. The alleged top leader, Benjamin, was arrested in Puebla weeks later.

After Ramón's death and the jailing of Benjamin, the Tijuana cartel transformed itself into a "narco-corporation" allegedly under the control of a sister, Enedina, an accountant, and Eduardo, a surgeon, according to Jesús Blancornelas, longtime editor of the Tijuana weekly newspaper Zeta.

Both prefer business tactics over the violence that has been the trademark of rivals like the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels.

Blancornelas, who nearly died in 1997 at the hands of the cartel, dismissed the characterization of Arellano Félix as the leader of the group.

"He's the playboy of the family. He is not the leader. He has never been the leader. He's a man who spends his time in discotheques having a good time," Blancornelas said.

Perhaps the more significant capture, Blancornelas said, is the reported arrest of another cartel operative, Arturo Villarreal, who apparently was with Arellano Félix. "His job was to receive the drugs and get them into the United States," Blancornelas said.

The cartel also is suspected in the 2004 slaying of Francisco Ortiz Franco, a co-editor of the Zeta. Francisco Javier was charged in Mexico in 1993 with conspiracy to murder in the assassination of Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Posadas Ocampo.

The State Department had placed $5 million bounties on the heads of Francisco Javier and his brother Eduardo.

Fearing an ensuing turf war, Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon — himself accused by the Mexican news media of ties to the cartel — asked Wednesday for Mexican federal police to be sent to maintain calm, the daily newspaper El Sol de Tijuana reported on its Web site.

Rivals include the Juarez Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel, run by fugitive Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán.

The arrest in international waters was significant because Mexico long has been reluctant to extradite alleged drug barons to the U.S. , although most face indictments here.

The Arellano Félix family inherited the organization from Miguel Ángel Félix-Gallardo after he was arrested in Mexico in 1989 for his complicity in the murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena.

According to extradition papers that the Mexican government submitted in San Diego, family members pay Mexican federal, state and local officials $1 million a week to move drugs across the border.