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 and Navojoa, Sonora (center), and the Gulf Cartel (east). The cartel has been described as "one of the biggest and most violent criminal groups in Mexico".[1] The Tijuana Cartel was featured battling the rival Juárez Cartel in the 2001 motion picture Traffic.
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[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 18 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.
As part of their effort at collaboration, the Arellano-Felix Cartel (based in Tijuana, Mexico) and the Sonora Cartel (also known as the Caro-Quintero Cartel) formed what came to be known as the "Federation" in 1998.
The Arellano Félix family has seven brothers:
- Francisco Rafael Arellano Félix (born 24 October 1949)
- Benjamín Arellano Félix (born 3 December 1952) - Captured
- 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) - Deceased, Shot by Police in 2002
- Luis Fernando Arellano Félix (believed to be born 26 January 1966)
- Francisco Javier Arellano Félix (born 11 December 1969) - Captured
They also have four sisters. The family inherited the organization from their uncle Miguel Ángel Félix upon his incarceration.
[edit] Activities
After the death in 1997 of the Juárez Cartel's Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the Tijuana Cartel attempted to gain a foothold in Sonora.[1]
TIJUANA, Mexico April 26, 2008 - Fourteen Mexican drug gang members were killed and eight others were injured in a gun battle near the U.S. border on Saturday that was one of the bloodiest shootouts in Mexico's three-year-long narco-war.
Rival factions of the local Arellano Felix drug cartel in Tijuana on the Mexico-California border fought each other with rifles and machine guns in the early hours of the morning, police said.
[edit] Captures and trial
In October, 1997, a retired U.S. Air Force C-130A that was sold to the airline Aero Postal de Mexico was seized by Mexican federal officials, who alleged that the aircraft had been used to haul drugs for the cartel up from Central and South America, as well as around the Mexican interior. Investigators had linked the airline's owner, Jesus Villegas Covallos, to Ramón Arellano Félix.[1]
On August 14, 2006, Francisco Javier Arellano Félix was apprehended by the United States Coast Guard off the coast of Baja California Sur.
On September 17, 2007, Francisco Javier Arellano Félix pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in San Diego, California, to engaging in a criminal enterprise and conspiracy to launder money. Arellano-Felix pleaded guilty in a deal with the authorities after officials said they would not seek the death penalty. On November 5, 2007, Francisco Javier Arellano-Felix was sentenced to life in federal prison.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Steller, Tim (15 April 1998). Mexican drug runners may have used C-130 from Arizona. The Arizona Daily Star. Archived at California State University Northridge. Retrieved on 2007-09-26.
