Tijuana Cartel
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The Tijuana Cartel is a Mexican drug cartel from Tijuana, Baja California . It covers the northwestern part of Mexico and competes with two other major cartels: the Juárez Cartel of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua (center), and the Gulf Cartel (east). The Tijuana Cartel was featured battling the rival Juárez Cartel in the 2001 motion picture Traffic.
[edit] Organization
The Tijuana Cartel is also known as the Arellano Felix Organization (AFO), from the time that it became led by the family of Ramón Eduardo Arellano Félix. On September 18, 1997, Ramón Arellano Félix became the 451st person to be added by the FBI to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
The organization had a reputation for extreme violence. Ramón ordered a hit which resulted in the mass murder of 19 people in Ensenada, Baja California, on September 17, 1998. Ramón was eventually killed in a gun battle with police at Mazatlán, Sinaloa, on February 10, 2002.
The Arellano Félix family has seven brothers:
- Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix (born 24 October 1949)
- Benjamín Arellano Félix (born 3 December 1952)
- Carlos Arellano Félix (believed to be born 20 August 1955)
- Eduardo Arellano Félix (born 11 October 1956),
- Ramón Eduardo Arellano Félix (born 31 August 1964, shot and killed by police in 2002),
- Luis Fernando Arellano Félix (believed to be born 26 January 1966)
- Francisco Javier Arellano Félix (born 11 December 1969)
They also have four sisters. The family inherited the organization from their uncle Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo upon his incarceration.
[edit] Captures
On August 14, 2006, Francisco Javier Arellano Félix was apprehended by the United States Coast Guard off the coast of Baja California Sur. He is currently in a San Diego, California jail awaiting trial.
