http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/browse/html97/altdrug_092497.html

U.S. to post reward for drug kingpin

by Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press

WASHINGTON U.S. officials are prepared to offer a $2 million reward
for Mexico's most violent drug kingpin and put him on the FBI's
mostwanted list, lawenforcement officials say.

Ramon Arellano Felix, 33, the head of security for a gang run by five
brothers, is charged with drug conspiracy in a sealed federal
indictment, those officials said yesterday, speaking on condition of
anonymity.

The charges may be made public today as the FBI adds him to its list
of 10 mostwanted fugitives.

The Arellano Felix gang, headed by Ramon's 43yearold brother,
Benjamin, controls the smuggling of tons of cocaine and marijuana
and large quantities of heroin and methamphetamine into California
from the area around Tijuana.

An FBIDrug Enforcement Administration task force in San Diego
believes the gang returns hundreds of millions of dollars in profits
each year to Mexico from its U.S. operations, which have expanded in
recent years into the Midwest and New York.

The $2 million reward to be posted by the State Department for the
capture and conviction of Ramon Arellano Felix is similar to rewards
posted for previous foreign suspects.

Such rewards are credited with attracting tips that helped U.S.
agents capture two major fugitives in Pakistan: Mir Aimal Kansi,
apprehended this summer on charges of gunning down CIA employees
outside the agency's headquarters, and Ramzi Yousef, arrested in
1995 on charges related to the World Trade Center bombing.

DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine told a Senate subcommittee last
March that Ramon Arellano Felix is the most violent of the brothers
in the gang, coordinates recruitment of its wellarmed guards and
commands its armed operations.

"Ramon Arellano's responsibilities consist of the planning of
murders of rival drug leaders and those Mexican lawenforcement
officials not on their payroll" and gang members who fall out of
favor, Constantine testified.

These enforcers often are hired from violent street gangs in Mexico
and the United States in the belief that gang members are
expendable, he added. Their assassinations are designed "to send a
message to those (traffickers) who attempt to utilize the
MexicaliTijuana corridor without paying the area transit tax
demanded by the Arellano Felix organization," Constantine said.

On Aug. 6, 1993, the U.S. Marshals Service issued an extradition
warrant in San Diego for Ramon Arellano Felix for alleged weapons
violations.

He also is wanted in Mexico for alleged complicity in the May 1993
assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, archbishop of
Guadalajara, and other charges. Constantine told the Senate the
Arellano Felix organization used MexicanAmericans from a San Diego
gang for the assassination at the Guadalajara airport, which he said
was aimed at rival trafficker Joaquin Guzman Loera and killed the
prelate by accident.

The DEA said in August the gang's security force, commanded by Ramon
Arellano Felix, also has been responsible for assassinating several
senior Mexican lawenforcement officials, including Ernesto Ibarra
Santes, head of the federal judicial police in Tijuana.