FBI seeks reputed drug trafficker

$2 million reward offered for Mexican man added to mostwanted list

By David LaGesse / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON Federal investigators offered a $2 million reward for the
capture of a prominent reputed Mexican drug trafficker and added him to
the FBI's mostwanted list Wednesday.

Ramon Eduardo Arellano Felix, 33, was targeted after prosecutors
recently won a sealed indictment against him on charges of importing
cocaine and marijuana into the United States, FBI Director Louis Freeh
said Wednesday.

Mr. Arellano Felix and four brothers run one of Mexico's largest drug
gangs out of Tijuana, Mr. Freeh said. It is "an organization notorious
for using extreme violence in furtherance of its massive illegal drug
operations," he said.

"We are signaling a new international effort to target this very
powerful drug cartel."

The Arellano Felix gang is headed by Benjamin, 43, and is said to
dominate the importing of cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines into
Southern California.

As the head of the cartel's security, Ramon Arellano Felix has ordered
numerous killings in Mexico and the United States, U.S. officials said.

"There are any number of chiefs of police, the heads of federal law
enforcement agencies in Mexico, or prosecutors, all of whom have been
assassinated," said U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Thomas
Constantine.

Mexican gangs also reportedly targeted U.S. law enforcement officials
this past summer, including drug czar Barry McCaffrey.

It's unclear whether increased threats against U.S. police are coming
from the Tijuana cartel in particular, said Treasury Undersecretary
Raymond Kelly.

"But judging from the geography that many of them have been in
Southern California it seems likely," he said.

The unusual reward is designed to tempt some of Mr. Arellano Felix's
lieutenants or other fringe people who might have information, Mr. Kelly
said.

"We're not necessarily talking about people at the top of the cartel.
But there are associates or fringe players."

"This is not chump change this is a significant amount of money," he
said.

Like a number of the large Mexican cartels, the Arellano Felix gang
appears to have operated for years with near impunity by bribing Mexican
police and judicial officials. The gang reportedly offered an $18
million bribe last year to a top Mexican general involved in the
counternarcotics effort.

"That gives you a sense of the wealth and the power of the violence of
these organizations, and the need for us to have tools to be able to go
after them," Mr. Constantine said.

But the Mexican government has recently established newly cleanedup
units that U.S. officials now trust, he said.

"There are very trusted elements of the authorities in Mexico that would
be able to carry out a strategy for arrest."

Mr. Freeh noted that the last Mexican drug gang leader was arrested
after being put on the FBI's Top Ten Wanted List. Mexican authorities
arrested Juan Garcia Abrego and expelled him to the United States, where
he now is serving a life prison term on drug charges.

The FBI director also used the news conference to push for new laws to
restrict data encryption technology changes opposed by many in
computerrelated businesses.

Officials have found evidence the Tijuana cartel, in particular,
increasingly uses hightech devices to elude monitoring by U.S. and
Mexican police, the U.S. officials said.

Over the past 18 months, "When they talk amongst each other in the
United States, they use encryption systems to try to defeat law
enforcement," Mr. Constantine said.

Also Wednesday, federal police in Mexico said they have arrested two
suspected members of the drug gang.

The federal attorney general's office said Luis Leon Hinojosa and Ramiro
Zuniga Cedillo were arrested on firearms charges Saturday as they left a
nightclub in Tijuana. They were arraigned on the charges on Wednesday.

In a news release, the agency said the two tried to frighten police into
releasing them by claiming to be members of the Arellano Felix gang.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.