The Collapse of Mexico’s ‘Invincible’ Drug Cartel

TIJUANA —  He was the muscle for Mexico’s most feared drug cartel, and he was looking to use it. As revelers filled the streets of Mazatlan for its annual carnival, Ramon Arellano Felix cruised the beach strip like a shark, hunting for a rival.

Instead, he ended up the victim, killed in a shootout with police who had stopped his white Volkswagen for driving in the wrong lane. Officially, it was a chance confrontation: The officers opened fire after Ramon brandished a weapon and ran. But some think the police were gunning for the 37-year-old enforcer, possibly as proxies for Ismael Zambada, the rival drug boss whom Ramon was in town to kill.

Either way, the death of Ramon Arellano Felix on Feb. 10, followed by the capture of his brother Benjamin, 50, in Puebla on March 9, was stunning proof that the luck of the world’s most wanted drug traffickers had taken a wrong turn after a decade of seeming invincibility.

Throughout the 1990s, the Arellano Felix gang had maintained an iron grip on the smuggling of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines up the Tijuana-San Diego corridor. They had corrupted officials and police with millions of dollars in bribes and intimidated others with spectacular killings, of police chiefs, prosecutors and even children.

The demise of the brothers, literally or figuratively, made law enforcement officials happy and hopeful that the government of President Vicente Fox was finally delivering on its promise of a crackdown on drug trafficking.

But the victory over the Arellano Felixes has its dark side. Authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border predict a bloody struggle for dominance over this key piece of “narco-geography.” Challenges to their cartel will come from outside and within, said Michael G. Garland, former head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Mexico unit.

“You can expect a period of violence, first to settle vendettas and then as people try to position themselves to take over,” said Garland, who said he believes that the Arellano Felix organization has been “mortally wounded.”

Struggle Seen as Having Little Effect on Supply

The first victim apparently has already fallen. Rodolfo Carrillo Barragan, a law professor and attorney who represented the Arellano Felix clan in its dealings around Mexico, was found dead in the garage of his Tijuana condominium Monday night with a bullet wound to the head.

Typical of the wild speculation running rampant here, some theorize that he was killed by his own employers because he knew too much of the cartel’s inner workings. Others think he was hit by an outside gang trying to sow chaos amid the Arellano Felix ranks.

The oncoming struggle for cartel predominance will do little to impede the flow of drugs to the United States, experts agree, because consumer demand is still strong and the corrupt infrastructure that smugglers use remains in place.

Asked if the capture and death of the Arellano Felix brothers was a blow to drug trafficking, Arturo Guevara Valenzuela, the federal attorney general’s delegate in Baja California state, responded: “Let me answer that question with a question. Will the capture in any way affect demand for drugs in the United States? Doubtful.”

For years, while other traffickers were being jailed, the myth and mystery of the Arellano Felixes’ longevity and invincibility only grew.

But in reality, the sprawling family empire founded on corruption and violence was reeling even before the brothers’ downfall. Arrests of key lieutenants, increasing pressure from competing gangs angling for a piece of the Tijuana-San Diego turf and the rising heat from Fox’s newly reinforced anti-drug forces in Baja had boxed in the Arellanos.

Fox quietly moved 1,300 units of the Federal Preventive Police into Baja earlier this year--units that Baja observers say are actually army soldiers. State Atty. Gen. Antonio Martinez Luna said the presence of the units has made a huge difference in anti-drug enforcement.

Erroll Chavez, special agent in charge of the DEA’s San Diego office, also gave credit to the Mexican government. “There had been progress for the last five years, albeit a bit slow,” he said, “and it gave us reason to believe that President Fox would deliver on his promise.”

In the 1990s, Tijuana was the scene of immense carnage as the Arellano Felix cartel consolidated its grip on the Tijuana-to-Mexicali turf, or “plaza,” as the drug-smuggling corridor is referred to. The Arellanos ruthlessly attacked anyone who threatened their franchise.

They weren’t above killing children to make a statement, as shown by the massacre of three families in Ensenada in 1998 who investigators say were impinging on the Arellano Felix marijuana monopoly. J. Jesus Blancornelas, editor of Tijuana’s Zeta newspaper, barely survived an assassination attempt that killed a bodyguard in 1997. San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Greg Gross was also on the Arellano Felix hit list, said the DEA’s Chavez, prompting Gross’ employers to transfer him out of Mexico.

Former DEA agent Garland testified to the brutality. “If you are late paying the Arellanos, you won’t get a nicely worded letter saying your 30 days were up,” he said. “But you might get a finger of your child in the mail.”

The Arellano Felixes established their violent pattern soon after arriving in Tijuana in the mid-1980s. They had learned violence at the feet of a master, their uncle Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, a gangster from Sinaloa state who, with Rafael Caro Quintero, was imprisoned for the 1985 torture-murder of DEA agent Enrique S. Camarena.

Before going to jail, Felix Gallardo divided up his smuggling domain geographically in hopes of avoiding a free-for-all. His nephews took over cigarettes and alcohol in Tijuana, expanding to marijuana and cocaine. The Arellano Felixes quickly perceived the importance of controlling the Tijuana-San Diego plaza, an ideal smuggling platform.

“Mules,” or drug couriers, could easily blend in among the tens of thousands of people who move daily across the border there. The crossing point is highly coveted: There are dense metropolitan areas on either side where smugglers can hide and where drugs can be stored in warehouses without attracting notice.

“If you’re going to cross 2 tons of cocaine, where would you rather cross it--San Ysidro or Del Rio, Texas, where you are hundreds of miles away from a transportation hub?” said Donald E. Robinson, special agent with the FBI in San Diego.

As former DEA agent Garland points out, the Arellano Felix cartel was typical of Mexican traffickers in that it never learned to cooperate with rivals, like Colombian cartels did, and vicious fighting broke out. The cartel insisted on a massive cut of any drugs that moved through its turf, which other mobsters resisted.

One especially recalcitrant trafficker was Ismael Zambada, who reportedly refused to pay $20 million to the Arellano Felix gang for the right to use the northern Baja corridor to smuggle drugs into the United States. Ramon was reportedly in Mazatlan in February to kill Zambada in revenge.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Gonzalo Curiel said there is also evidence that Zambada--who is believed to have been behind the killing of Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre in February 2000--was encroaching on the Arellano Felixes’ heroin traffic, another reason for Ramon to make his fatal trip to Mazatlan.

All the Trappings of a Multinational Firm

As it grew, the Arellano Felix organization took on the characteristics of a transnational corporation. Benjamin flew to Colombia, Peru and Panama to seal multi-ton drug deals worth $40 million each. They developed monopolies of not just cocaine but heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines.

Among the businesses that the U.S. Treasury Department alleges the gang has used to launder its cash is the Farmacia Vida chain, which also has served to secure the cartel primary ingredients for methamphetamines.

There were complicated logistics to work out, with most shipments of drugs in recent years arriving via boat either on the Pacific Coast of central Mexico or directly to Baja.

FBI agent Robinson said the preferred maritime logistics currently involve high-speed cigarette boats that bring drugs up to Mexico from Colombia. They’re refueled along the way by “logistical support vessels,” or, as Robinson described them, “floating gas stations.”

There was also the crucial task of corrupting U.S. immigration and customs agents to ensure that big shipments were waved across the border.

But that has been getting tougher to do, officials say. U.S. Atty. Patrick K. O’Toole, in charge of the San Diego-based Southern District of California, said “two or three” agents have been prosecuted per year since 1990, whereas virtually none were prosecuted in the 1980s.

In addition, the cartel suffered a major blow in March 2000 when Jesus “El Chuy” Labra, the financial mastermind of the cartel, was arrested. Then, in May 2000, Ismael Higuera Guerrero, the gang’s so-called chief operating officer, was captured in Ensenada.

As for Benjamin Arellano Felix, he may have been done in simply by solid police work. Authorities had gotten wind of regular courier deliveries of cash from Tijuana to Benjamin, who was hiding out in Puebla, east of Mexico City, and they simply tracked them, sources said. Also, one of Benjamin’s daughters suffers from a rare dermatological condition, and her treatment left leads for agents to pursue.

In a macabre twist, Benjamin also provided the proof that closed the case on his brother.

The body of the man shot to death in Mazatlan had been cremated, and the bloodstains on the victim’s shirt were the only evidence authorities had to go on for identification. This week, DNA tests using blood drawn from Benjamin confirmed what was widely believed: The dead man was indeed his brother.