Cartel’s ‘El Tigrillo’ caged at last
by The Associated Press on Aug. 17, 2006, under Nation/WorldAuthorities believe drug chief ordered many slayings
Federal agents arrested Mexican drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, a leader of a major violent gang agents said was responsible for digging elaborate tunnels, such as this one discovered in January, to smuggle drugs under the U.S. border.
SAN DIEGO – Francisco Javier Arellano Felix was the muscle behind one of Mexico’s oldest and most notorious drug cartels, a free spender who flaunted his wealth and ordered killings, observers said Wednesday after his capture.
“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, Baja California, the home of the Arellano Felix cartel.
“He was no financier, he was no businessman,” Alfaro said.
Arellano Felix, 36, also known as “El Tigrillo,” (the little tiger) was caught Monday by the Coast Guard aboard a U.S.-registered sport fishing boat off Mexico’s Baja California coast. The boat was being towed to San Diego, where he will be formally arrested.
Jesus Blancornelas, co-founder of the Zeta newspaper in Tijuana, said Arellano Felix was overshadowed by other family members in the cartel.
“Francisco Javier was a sort of playboy,” said Blancornelas, who has chronicled the Tijuana drug trade for decades. “He likes to spend money and enjoy his fame. He drives around in luxury cars.”
Arellano Felix is believed to have ordered killings but typically was not the triggerman, Blancornelas said.
Arellano Felix was charged in 2003 with 10 counts of conspiracy and racketeering. He allegedly conspired to assassinate Roman Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo in 1993 at the airport in Guadalajara, U.S. officials said.
“We’ve taken the head off the snake,” Michael Braun, chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said at a news conference in Washington.
The gang, however, is believed to have lost influence. 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 was jailed and Ramon was killed.
“He was the little brother thug,” Kirby said. “He did not handle finances as far as I’m aware. He was Benjamin’s and Ramon’s younger brother who was learning the business and ordering killings.”
Benjamin Arellano Felix continued to issue orders from jail in Mexico, but his younger brother was the top lieutenant in the field, said Kirby, who is now in private practice.
Francisco Javier Arellano Felix “was the guy holding it together,” Kirby said. “There are other people (in the cartel), but they will likely change sides, run away or get killed.”
Mexico’s top drug gangs are now believed to be the Juarez cartel, based in Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, and the Gulf cartel, based in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
Benjamin Arellano Felix has formed an alliance with Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, authorities said. Both are being held at the top-security La Palma prison, west of Mexico City.
Felix
