U.S. AGENTS ARREST ALLEGED MEXICAN DRUG LORD, 11 OTHERS

'Head Off the Snake': Cartel Said to Deal in Billions of Dollars

Los Angeles -- The U.S. Coast Guard and Drug Enforcement
Administration have arrested the kingpin of a Mexican drug cartel
blamed for 20 murders, the trafficking of billions of dollars of
cocaine and marijuana, and the construction of a high-tech,
half-mile-long narcotics tunnel that connected Tijuana with the
United States, authorities announced Wednesday.

Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, 36, was nabbed about 15 miles off
the coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula on Monday morning as
he and two of the cartel's alleged assassins were deep-sea fishing on
a U.S.-registered pleasure boat called the Dock Holiday, law
enforcement officials said.

"We've taken the head off the snake," Michael Braun, chief of
operations for the DEA, said at a news conference in Washington.
"This guy happens to be ... one of the 45 most-notorious, most-wanted
drug traffickers in the world."

Undercover Operation

Braun said DEA agents discovered Arellano Felix's plans to go
fishing, and the Coast Guard cutter Monsoon intercepted the 43-foot
boat in international waters, arresting Arellano Felix and 11 others,
including three juveniles. While declining to release details of
theaction, Braun characterized it as "part of a very long, very
complex undercover operation that was backstopped by highly technical
means and support."

For more than a decade, Arellano Felix's organization had "dominated
the Mexican drug trade and flooded our nation with literally ...
hundreds of tons of a variety of drugs," Braun said.

One brother, the gang's chief enforcer, Ramon Arellano Felix, was
killed by Mexican police in 2002. That same year, another brother,
Benjamin, considered the brains behind the organization, was jailed
in Mexico. A fourth brother, Eduardo, is not believed to be "capable
of leading the organization at this point in time," Braun said.

Since the 1980s, the cartel has recruited foot soldiers and wives
from some of the best families in the Mexican boomtown of Tijuana.
Family members first hit law enforcement's radar in the early 1980s,
when the Tijuana-based newsweekly Zeta identified Benjamin and Ramon
Arellano Felix in connection with a warehouse of marijuana guarded by
municipal police.

Cardinal Killed

U.S. authorities estimated that the cartel paid out millions of
dollars a year in bribes to local police in Mexico. Since then, the
cartel's notoriety has skyrocketed.

In May 1993, Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, the archbishop of
Guadalajara, was shot to death at the Guadalajara airport. Mexican
police blamed Ramon Arellano Felix, a bodybuilder and steroid user
known for his uncontrollable rages.

At the time, Mexican authorities speculated that Ramon mistook the
archbishop's car for that of a rival drug lord, Joaquin El Chapo
("Shorty") Guzman. Competition between the two drug empires and
another gang, the Federacion, is believed to have left scores of
people dead on both sides of the border and was a subplot in the film
"Traffic."

Francisco Javier Arellano Felix also was indicted in Mexico for the
archbishop's killing, and the United States slapped a $5 million
bounty on his head.

The brothers "killed their competitors. They didn't do what many
other smuggling operations do -- ignore the other guy. They killed
them," said John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego.

Other high-profile murders would follow, including the slayings of
eight senior prosecutors from Baja California in one year, along with
a Mexican federal prosecutor and a Mexican federal police commander.

Known as El Tigrillo, the Little Tiger, Javier Arellano Felix has
been arrested before. In March 1994, Mexican federal police detained
him in Tijuana, but his state police bodyguards opened fire and
spirited him to freedom, killing a federal police commander and four others.

Javier Arellano Felix will be arraigned on conspiracy and
racketeering charges in federal court in San Diego, officials said.
Two other people on the boat, Arturo Villareal Heredia and Marco
Fernandez, were detained as material witnesses before being formally
charged, the DEA said.

Though known widely for cocaine and for its drug tunnel, the cartel
recently had been focusing on marijuana and kidnappings, with a
twist. After receiving ransoms, the gang would usually kill the
victim, Kirby said.